We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely âE.O. Wilson
In this issue, Rob Hardy paints an internet that is essentially a living, constantly evolving organism, an ever-expanding collection of psychographic networks that reflects how we-humans go about meeting our needs.
Once you see the internet through this lens, it shows up everywhere. It's in the way communities form around open products; in what builds a cohesive team culture that endures in remote work; and also in what makes a company lose its innovation edge.
From niches to networks:
We humans are driven by a small handful of emotional and psychological needs. The needs to connect, belong, solve problems, find meaning, grow. The needs for security and status, for novelty and exploration.
[I] in our digitally-networked world, that process gets supercharged, resulting in an emergent phenomenon where people are always networking themselves together based on psychosocial drives. When we need or desire something, we start looking for nodes within existing digital networks that can satisfy what we're looking for. When we do that, we become part of that network ourselves.
Rob HardyâThe Ungated Creative | 7 minutes
The 1000x Developer:
If you make something more accessible, youâll get the entire gamete of things. Instagram made photography way more accessible, and you get a long tail of crappy photographs. But you also discover people who would never have become photographers.
Making things accessible gets you a lot more people involved, and the trade-off you are making is that you are going to get a lot of noise. But you are going to discover a ton that you wouldnât have discovered. Thatâs good for the world. With software engineering becoming more accessible because of AI I do think we are going to get a lot more developers. I think we are going to get way way way more developers.
Amjad Masadâa16z Podcast | 59 minutes
How to build human connections in an async workplace:
When people ask about building a cohesive team culture, creating camaraderie, and fostering human connections remotely, what they usually mean is âhow do you recreate the social interactions you get in an office?â
We tend to equate a strong team culture with a team that builds personal bonds outside of their work. Donât get me wrong: connecting with teammates on a personal level can be an important component of culture. But over my years at Doist, Iâve come to realize that team culture and human connection is primarily built by how you work together â not how you socialize together.
(Thatâs true for co-located teams too, but it becomes even more apparent when companies can no longer use a pool table and a well-stocked fridge as a stand-in for team culture.)
Chase WarringtonâAsync | 15 minutes
The maze is in the mouse:
One of Googleâs core values is ârespect each otherâ. Thereâs two ways to interpret this : Iâd hoped it would be to respect the unique strengths of each person and figure out how to get each person to maximize their potential and impact. Unfortunately, this runs into the general organizational lack of desire to change anything. âRespect each otherâ is translated into âfind a way to include and agree with every personâs opinionâ. In an inclusive culture (good âit doesnât withhold information and opportunity) with very distributed ownership (bad), you rapidly get to needing approval from many people before any decision can be made. If this were an algorithm, weâd call it âmost cautious winsâ and there is almost always someone who is cautious tending to should-do-nothing.
Praveen SeshadriâMedium | 15 minutes