Wisereads Vol. 10 — The Anthology of Balaji, notes from Rockefeller to his son, and more
Last week, we shared a chapter from Scarcity Brain, Michael Easter’s new research-based guide to rewiring our craving mindsets. This week, we’re excited to share the entirety of The Anthology of Balaji by our good friend Eric Jorgenson.
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Most highlighted Articles of the week
Superlinear Returns
In his latest longform essay, the founder of Y Combinator Paul Graham discusses how ambition and curiosity can lead to exponential growth, creating new frontiers at pivotal thresholds. "Now the emperors of ideas can design bombs that defeat the emperors of territory."
The Essential Skills for Being Human
On the heels of his new book, How to Know a Person, bestselling author and columnist David Brooks explores how illuminators share the spotlight, highlighting how we're each a hero on our own journey. "The illuminators offer the privilege of witness. They take the anecdotes, rationalizations and episodes we tell and see us in a noble struggle. They see the way we’re navigating the dialectics of life — intimacy versus independence, control versus freedom — and understand that our current selves are just where we are right now on our long continuum of growth."
You’re not lacking creativity, you’re overwhelmed
If you're reading this, you're probably adept at balancing content overload with curation. But Jorge Medina suggests we might be skipping a crucial next step. "After learning to be selective, you need to learn to let go… Your brain will still be subject to FOMO (fear of missing out), so you’ll need to counter act regularly, and archive what’s not needed."
Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week
How to Learn Anything Fast with AI | Full Study Guide With ChatGPT
Whether you're a veteran prompt whisperer or you're trying ChatGPT for the first time, the tool can help you pick up new topics faster than ever. Tiff in Tech demonstrates her learning technique of leveraging ChatGPT's speech functionality with interview-style dialogues. "The ones that are really going to excel [will do so] by finding different ways to embrace AI to learn quickly. We cannot continue learning the same way we used to."
Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week
40 things Rockefeller wrote to his son
David Senra extracts wisdom from history's greatest entrepreneurs on his weekly Founders Podcast. This week's episode (a must-listen 👈) and corresponding tweet unearth gems from Rockefeller's letters to his son such as: "Our destiny is determined by our actions and not by our origins" and "Enthusiasm is a force multiplier to everything."
Most highlighted PDF of the week
Improving Image Generation with Better Captions
Until recently, text-to-image models would often ignore important parts of their instructions. In this new research paper, the OpenAI team reveals how they improved prompt following by training DALL-E 3 on LLM-generated rather human-generated captions. "Human authors who focus on simple descriptions… omit background details or common sense relationships portrayed in image… like the colors and sizes of objects in a scene."
Hand-picked book of the week
The Anthology of Balaji
The multi-faceted Balaji Srinivasan — investor, founder, engineer, author, and self-described 'id of technology' — is known for his irreverent, mindbending takes. But this wisdom has been scattered across tweets, essays, podcasts, and elsewhere. In newly-released The Anthology of Balaji, Eric Jorgenson guides us through Balaji's pivotal pieces on tech, truth, and building the future.
"To influence the direction of tech, pick up a keyboard or put capital at risk. You can build something. Those who won’t build will just preach. That keyboard is increasingly available to billions of people around the world. They have no illusions about the relative utility of preaching versus building."
Eric is graciously sharing his full ebook with the Readwise community. If you’d like to show your thanks, you can do so by following Eric on Twitter, buying a copy of the physical book, and retweeting Dan's giveaway of a signed edition.
Handpicked RSS feed of the week
Neuro Athletics by Louisa Nicola
In her Neuro Athletics newsletter, triathlete and neurophysiologist Louisa Nicola gives her no-nonsense takes on factors affecting peak performance. From The Silent Killer of Executive Success: "Many execs are holed up in boardrooms and offices, missing out on natural sunlight. Sun exposure is crucial for vitamin D synthesis, which, in turn, plays a role in testosterone production."