big ideas

Gates Foundation 2019 Goalkeepers report

Take the ~30 minutes to read this and you won’t regret it. Of particular interest is the report on India’s JAM policy mid-way through. “Examining Inequality: How geography and gender stack the deck for (or against) you.” | learn more

to your health

Why chess grandmasters lose weight playing chess

“You wouldn’t think that chess players, who sit for hours on end and extend their arms only from time to time, would struggle with weight loss. But they do. Inside the very real, very bizarre metabolic phenomenon gripping chess.” | learn more

better doing

Your life in weeks

This is an old post from Tim Urban at Wait But Why, and I don’t think I’ve shared it before. It’s an amazing reminder of how short life can be, and therefore a timely reminder to appreciate life now. | learn more

tech, startups, internet

Synthetic media, and why it will matter

Last year, betaworks had a discussion session about so-called Synthetic media, “… the term we use at betaworks to describe algorithmically created or modified media — the nefarious version of this are deepfakes.” The write-up is interesting, as is the […]

tech, startups, internet

What is a tech company?

Ben Thompson of Stratechery takes us on a tour of tech companies over the decades to build a framework to classify whether a company fits the description. His framework is a great one (IMHO). Then he applies it to WeWork […]