Category: Notes

I’m a compulsive note taker – I love consolidating information and storing it for easy access later. My note-taking tool of choice is Roam Research. These notes are taken directly from my personal Roam database.

Roam Notes on “What the Pandemic Revealed”, By Brink Lindsey

  • "Author::" [[Brink Lindsey]]
  • "Source::" https://www.niskanencenter.org/what-the-pandemic-revealed/
  • "Recommended By::" [[Tyler Cowen]]
  • "Tags:: " #libertarian #[[COVID-19]] #politics #[[role of government]] #[[state capacity]]

  • Overview

  • [[Brink Lindsey]] discusses libertarianism in the context of [[COVID-19]]. While there was significant government failure in handling the crisis, Lindsey suggests that what we need is greater government capacity, not to cut government services. According to him, this is the only solution Libertarians have regarding government. They offer valuable points on the limits of government, but they do not provide insights on how to improve the quality of government.

  • Excerpts

  • On March 3, in response to reports that some Republican lawmakers favored free testing and treatments for [[COVID-19]], [[Derek Thompson]] of [[The Atlantic]] tweeted, “There are no [[libertarians]] in a pandemic.” The witticism bounced all over social media during the ensuing days and weeks – and with good reason, since the jab hit its target squarely on the nose.
  • When public safety is threatened, whether by war or disease, our dependence on [[Government]] becomes immediately and viscerally obvious.
  • In the first place, the fact that certain kinds of government action are necessary under the extraordinary conditions of a public health emergency – a fact freely acknowledged by many libertarians and partisans of small government – does not mean that expansive government across the board is a good idea in normal times. Further, in the emergency now upon us, overweening government has contributed significantly to the scale of the pandemic here in the United States. Effective responses to the outbreak have been badly hampered by inadequate supplies of test kits and equipment, and primary responsibility for this failure rests with the Food and Drug Administration and its heavy-handed regulatory approach. A key blunder was the decision in early February to allow only the [[CDC]] to produce and conduct tests; problems with the CDC’s initial test then led to weeks of disastrous delay. #[[FDA]]
  • Meanwhile, responding to the crisis has necessitated a string of regulatory waivers at the federal and state levels – to allow doctors and nurses to work out of state, to facilitate telemedicine, to expand the scope of work that non-M.D. health professionals can do, to allow restaurants and bars to sell alcohol to takeout customers, and more. The relevant rules have been put aside temporarily as obviously dysfunctional now – but perhaps that means at least some of them are dysfunctional, if less obviously, all the time? #[[regulation]] #[[deregulation]]
  • But if the pandemic has shown that a critical stance toward government is always needed in formulating and evaluating policy, it has demonstrated even more forcefully the limitations and shortcomings of libertarians’ exclusive focus on government excess. The gravest failures in the government response to the pandemic were sins of omission, not commission – not unnecessary and ill-advised interference with the private sector, but the inability to accomplish tasks for which only government is suited. Yes, at the outset of the crisis the [[FDA]] was disastrously over-restrictive in permitting labs to develop their own tests for the virus, but it is flatly risible to suggest that everything would have worked out fine if only government had gotten out of the way.
  • While the economic collapse was doubtless aggravated at the margins by forced business closures and stay-at-home orders, those interventions largely codified the public’s spontaneous response to the uncontrolled outbreak of a highly infectious and potentially fatal disease. It’s quite simply impossible to run a modern economy at anything near its potential level of output when people are afraid that going to work or going shopping might kill them or their loved ones.
  • [[Government excess]], in other words, was not the fundamental problem. On the contrary, a large and activist government was all that stood between us and mass privation and suffering on a mind-boggling scale. Only government can mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic – in the same way it responds to other shocks that lead to other, less drastic slumps – by acting as insurer of last resort, using its taxing, spending, borrowing, and money-creating powers to sustain household spending and keep businesses afloat until resumption of something approaching normal economic activity is possible.
  • In the current double crisis, what has been lacking is not restraints on government power. What has been lacking – shockingly, shamefully, tragically lacking – is the capacity to exercise government power effectively. #[[state capacity]]
  • As to how to close America’s deficit in [[state capacity]], a question with millions of lives in the balance, [[libertarianism]] has nothing to say. The libertarian project is devoted exclusively to stopping government from doing things it ought not to do; its only advice about how to improve government is “less.” When it comes to making government strong enough and capable enough to do the things it needs to do, libertarianism is silent.
  • As I’ve already argued, none of this means that libertarians are wrong about everything, or that [[libertarian]] ideas are worthless. But it does mean that skepticism about government, standing alone, is an insufficient foundation for good governance. The insights of libertarian thought – suspicion of centralized power, alertness to how even the best-intended government measures can still go horribly wrong, recognition of the enormous fertility of the marketplace’s decentralized, trial-and-error experimentation – are genuine and abiding. But they are not sufficient.
  • I say this as someone who discovered [[libertarian]] ideas in the 1970s. Back then, the intellectual orthodoxy tilted heavily in favor of top-down, technocratic management of economic life. [[Paul Samuelson]]’s bestselling [[economics]] textbook was still predicting that the [[Soviet Union]] would soon overtake us in [[GDP]].
  • The intellectual turn against markets had derived enormous momentum from events. The catastrophic collapse of the [[Great Depression]] had seriously discredited [[capitalism]], while the energetic experimentation of the [[New Deal]] showcased government activism favorably. Belief in the benevolence and effectiveness of American government, and the crucial importance of collective action for collective welfare, gained further strength from the experience of [[World War II]]. And the glittering economic performance of the postwar decades under the [[Big Government]]-[[Big Business]]-[[Big Labor]] triumvirate seemed to confirm that government management and economies of scale had permanently displaced upstart [[entrepreneurship]] and [[creative destruction]] as the primary engines of [[progress]].
  • But by the 1970s, events had turned. [[Stagflation]], the combination of soaring prices and slumping output, was afflicting the country despite the fact that its very existence was a baffling mystery to the reigning practitioners of macroeconomic “fine-tuning.” In cruel mockery of the noble goals and soaring rhetoric of the “War on Poverty,” a major expansion of anti-poverty programs had been followed by waves of urban riots, a soaring crime rate, and the catastrophic breakdown of intact families among African-Americans. The auto and steel industries, pillars of the economy and only recently world leaders in efficiency and innovation, were buckling under the competitive challenge of imports from [[Europe]] and [[Japan]]. Gas lines and periodic rationing suggested a grim future of ever more tightly binding “limits to growth.”
  • Against this backdrop, the rising movement of libertarian thought and free-market economics represented a much-needed corrective.

Roam Notes on Poitr Wozniak (Supermemo) Twenty Rules of Formulating Knowledge

  • "Author::" [[Poitr Wozniak]]
  • "Source::" https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20rules
  • "Recommended By::"
  • "Tags:: " #Flashcards #[[Spaced Repetition]] #[[flashcard design]] #Learning

  • Summary

  • The rules are listed in order from most important / common to least.
  • Rule 1: Do not learn if you do not understand. Trying to memorize things you don’t understand increase the time to learn and more importantly, reduces the value of the knowledge to nothing (e.g. memorizing a German history book when you don’t know German – you won’t know any of its history). #[[Flashcard Tip: Don’t add Things you Don’t Understand]]
  • Rule 2: Learn before you memorize. He recommends building an overall picture of the learned knowledge before memorizing. You’ll reduce learning time when the individual pieces fit a single coherent structure. So, read the chapter first, then add the cards. #[[Flashcard Tip: Learn Before you Memorize]]
    • Notes: Why can’t you learn with [[Flashcards]] alone? Perhaps this is efficient if presented in the proper order. Also, perhaps the cards need to change when first learning when compared to committing to long-term memory. If so, how do they change? In other words, how are "questions for learning" different than "questions for retention"? #[[Personal Ideas]]
  • Rule 3: Build upon the basics. Start simple, and build from there. Don’t hesitate to memorize basic, obvious things. The cost of memorizing them is small, because they’re easy to answer. "usually you spend 50% of your time repeating just 3-5% of the learned material" source #[[Flashcard Tip: Build Upon the Basics]]
    • Notes: The basics provide [[scaffolding]] that you can build upon. This reminds me of the [[80-20 rule]], where a big chunk of your time is spent on a small number of [[flashcards]]. #[[Flashcard Tip: Track Down and Eliminate Your Problem Cards]].
  • Rule 4: Stick to the minimum information principle. Formulate knowledge as simply as possible. Simple is easy to remember, and having a complex answer means there is more to remember – a larger number of simpler cards covering the same knowledge lets you review each sub-component at its own appropriate pace. #[[Minimum Information Principle]] #[[Flashcard Tip: Follow the Minimum Information Principle]]
  • Rule 5: Cloze deletion is easy and effective. #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Cloze Deletion]]
  • Rule 6: Use imagery. Our brains are wired for them. They usually take more time to create though compared to a basic verbal card, so weigh the benefits. #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Images]]
  • Rule 7: Use mnemonic techniques. He makes an interesting point that these do not solve the problem of forgetting, since the bottleneck is long-lasting and useful memory, not quickly memorizing knowledge. For that, you need #[[Spaced Repetition]]. "Experience shows that with a dose of training you will need to consciously apply mnemonic techniques in only 1-5% of your items". #[[Flashcard Tip: Save Mnemonics for Difficult Cards]] #mnemonics
  • Rule 8: Graphic deletion is as good as cloze deletion. #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Image Occlusion]]
  • Rule 9: Avoid sets. Sets are unordered collections of objects. Very difficult to memorize. If you must, use [[enumerations]] instead, which are ordered in some way. #sets #[[Flashcard Tip: Avoid sets]]
  • Rule 10: Avoid enumerations #enumerations #[[Flashcard Tip: Avoid Enumerations]]
    • He includes a nice method for [[memorizing text]] such as [[poems]] or [[prayers]], without using [[cloze deletion]]
  • Rule 11: Combat interference: #[[memory interference]] #[[Flashcard Tip: Combat Interference]]
    • Learning similar things tends to make you confuse them. [[memory interference]] – "knowledge of one item tends to make it harder to remember another item".
    • "**Interference is probably the single greatest cause of forgetting in collections of an experienced user of **[[SuperMemo]]."
    • The only strategy to work against this is detect and eliminate. It’s hard to know you’ll face interference at card creation time.
  • Rule 12: Optimize wording #[[Flashcard Tip: Optimize Wording]]
    • Shave down the number of words you use. Make your cards as clear and concise as possible. Focus on the piece of information that is important.
  • Rule 13: Refer to other memories #[[Flashcard Tip: Refer to Other Memories]]
    • When you add a new card, try incorporating things you’ve learned from other cards.
  • Rule 14: Personalize and provide examples: #[[Flashcard Tip: Personalize and Provide Examples]]
    • Link your cards to your personal life.
  • Rule 15: Rely on emotional states: #[[Flashcard Tip: Rely on Emotional States]]
    • We remember things better that are vivid or shocking.
  • Rule 16: Context cues simplify wording: #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Context Cues]]
    • They often reduce the number of words you need
  • Rule 17: Redundancy does not contradict minimum information principle #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Redundancy]]
    • Redundancy – more information than needed or duplicate information.
    • It can be good, and minimum information principle does not mean minimum number of characters in your deck.
  • Rule 18: Provide source: #[[Flashcard Tip: Provide Sources]]
  • Rule 19: Provide date stamping: #[[Flashcard Tip: Use Date Stamps]]
    • Particularly for knowledge that changes over time and can become obsolete.
  • Rule 20: Prioritize: #[[Flashcard Tip: Prioritize]]
    • There is way more knowledge in the world than you’ll be able to absorb and remember long-term.
    • Focus on adding knowledge that is most relevant and important to you.

Roam Notes on Atlantic Interview with Tyler Cowen “The Regulatory State is Failing Us”

  • "Author::" [[Conor Friedersdorf]] interview with [[Tyler Cowen]]
  • "Source::" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/the-regulatory-state-is-failing-us/612220/
  • "Recommended By::"
  • "Tags:: " #[[COVID-19]] #[[regulation]] #[[state capacity]]

  • Summary Notes

  • [[Conor Friedersdorf]] interview with [[Tyler Cowen]] discussing failures of [[the regulatory state]], particularly in the context of [[COVID-19]]. They discuss what has gone wrong and some potential solutions.

  • Excerpts

  • “[[Our regulatory state is failing us]],” he has repeatedly warned on his blog, [[Marginal Revolution]]
  • He fleshed out his concerns and desired reforms in an interview conducted over email.
  • As for the South Korean government, once the coronavirus arrived in their country, the government sat down with the private sector, figured out what needed to be done, and started doing it right away, including very aggressive procurement of PPE and testing. I think there are at least three differences that partly account for this difference in response. First, the South Korean state has very recent experience building lots of quality infrastructure. Second, SARS was a very real risk in South Korea, which boosted their readiness and also response capabilities. Third, South Koreans are used to the idea of [[existential risk]], given their history and neighbors, and they do not regard themselves as invulnerable. #[[South Korea]]
  • I do not view the administrative state as extra-constitutional. That said, it has become far too inflexible, and not sufficiently focused on [[outcomes]] #[[state capacity]]
  • Friedersdorf: If you could change one thing about the culture of America’s [[Bureaucracy]], what would it be?
  • Cowen: [[regulation]] should be more goal-oriented, and less prescriptive in terms of the details. It should be easier to exercise judgment to meet particular worthy ends, rather than being hamstrung by restrictions and details. Regulation should recognize that emergency situations will come along when very fast action will be needed. Our current regulatory state is not built around those ideas, and its culture is accordingly complacent, and compliance- and process-oriented rather than success-oriented. These days, the American public sector just isn’t very good at getting things done.
  • Cowen: So much needs to be done. First, we need far more data on the scope of regulation, what it does and doesn’t do, and its costs.
  • Cowen: [[Statnews.com]] is a very good source for covering [[the regulatory state]] during [[COVID-19]].
  • Friedersdorf: [[Libertarians]] and small-government [[conservatives]] are highly skeptical of [[the regulatory state]]. What do they get wrong?
    • Cowen: Very often, the alternative to [[regulation]] is ex post facto reliance on the courts and juries to redress wrongs. Of course, the judiciary and its components are further instruments of governments, and they have their own flaws. There is no particular reason, from, say, a [[libertarian]] point of view, to expect such miracles from the courts. Very often, I would rather take my chances with the [[regulators]].
    • Also, let’s not forget the cases where the regulators are flat-out right. Take herbal medicines, penis enlargers, or [[vaccines]]. In those cases, the [[regulators]] are essentially correct, and there is a substantial segment of the population that is flat-out wrong on those issues, and sometimes they are wrong in dangerous ways.

Excerpts from “The Use of Flashcards in an Introduction to Psychology Class”

Excerpts

  • Abstract: Four hundred fifteen undergraduate students in an Introduction to Psychology course voluntarily reported their use of [[Flashcards]] on three exams as well as answered other questions dealing with flashcard use (e.g., when did a student first use flashcards). Almost 70% of the class used flashcards to study for one or more exams. Students who used flashcards for all three exams had significantly higher exam scores overall than those students who did not use flashcards at all or only used flashcards on one or two exams. These results are discussed in terms of [[retrieval]] practice, a specific component of using flashcards.
  • Despite their apparent prevalence and impressive claims regarding their effectiveness, there appear to be no published studies examining whether flashcard use increases students’ exam performance in a naturalistic context.
    • Researchers have investigated flashcard effectiveness in laboratory settings.
  • A [[crib sheet]] (or cheat sheet) is an index card that contains ‘‘brief written notes’’ for a class and that a student can use during an exam (Dickson & Miller, 2005).
    • some research on crib sheets may pertain to how [[Flashcards]] influence exam performance. Studies have shown that merely creating crib sheets does not aid in student learning because students depend on being able to use the crib sheets during an exam and may not actually learn the exam material (Dickson & Bauer, 2008; Funk & Dickson, 2011). Yet, Funk and Dickson (2011) found that when students created crib sheets but did not expect to use them during an exam, they performed better on that exam than on another exam for which they expected to use their crib sheets. The former condition may be similar to creating flashcards in that students generate and use flashcards with the clear understanding that these cards will not be used during the exam. #[[How Much Does Flashcard Creation Aid Learning?]] #[[Blog Post: How Much Does Flashcard Creation Aid Learning?]]
  • [[Descriptive Statistics About Flashcard Use]]
    • Overall, 69.9% of the class used flashcards for at least one of the three exams; 65.5% used written flashcards, 3.9% used computer flashcards, and 0.5% used both self-generated and [[computer flashcards]]. Also, 55.2% of the class used flashcards (either written or computer) to study for two of the three exams and 34.9% used flashcards to study for all exams.
    • The results showed that flashcards were also used in other classes: 48% used only written flashcards in other classes, 2% used only [[computer flashcards]] in other classes, and 6.5% used written and computer flashcards in other classes. About half of students (49%) who used flashcards in the present Psychology course used them in other courses. Only about a quarter of students (23%) did not use flashcards in any class. Finally, only a small percentage of students (7%) did not use flashcards in Introduction to Psychology, but used flashcards in other courses
  • In our study, students primarily used self-generated [[Flashcards]]. In fact, so few students used [[computer flashcards]] that analyses could not be conducted comparing the two types of flashcards.
  • it is likely that the proliferation of smaller computers and electronic devices (e.g., iPads) will lead to an increase in [[computer flashcard]] use in the years ahead.
  • Flashcard use should be examined in greater detail by investigating the composition of the flashcards that are generated (i.e., what is on each card), how students actually use the cards (e.g., how often do the students test themselves, how long do students spend generating and using flashcards), whether other study techniques are used in conjunction with flashcards, and how the nature of the materials to be studied impacts flashcard use. #[[Gaps in Flashcard Research]]
  • three important [[methodological limitations]] that should be noted
    • there is the possibility that students may have exaggerated or misremembered information about flashcard use
    • the survey was only conducted with a single Psychology class
    • the present study did not include information that might differentiate flashcard users and nonusers #[[selection bias]]

Notes on Balaji Srinivasan Interview: Technology Will Lead to a Borderless World

Overview: [[Balaji Srinivasan]] does a wide ranging interview with [[Nick Gillespie]] from [[Reason Magazine]] discussing his ideas around #Voice and #Exit, the relationship between technology and the logic of violence, his intellectual heroes, among other topics.

1:45 At least two responses you can make when encountering ossified systems that you don’t like:

  • [[Voice]]: Expressing dissatisfaction (e.g. democracy, revolution)
  • [[Exit]]: Recognizing you won’t be able to change the system, so you leave and start something new.

All progress takes this form: you build something up, and once you get to a certain scale it becomes ossified. At that point, people start to [[Exit]] to go build something better. #progress #innovation

4:35 Technology is reducing the barrier to [[Exit]]. Two ways it does this:

  • Cloud dimension: Because of the cloud, you can earn from anywhere, collaborate from anywhere. Eventually, [[Balaji Srinivasan]] believes this will be taken further using [[cryptocurrency]] and [[VR]].
  • Mobile: Geography becomes less important. Increasingly, you live in an apartment complex and wouldn’t recognize anyone, but you have hour long conversations with people thousands of miles away.

7:30 [[Bitcoin]] and other [[cryptocurrency]] lets you transfer funds without an intermediary. This is a huge win for small payments across borders, which would otherwise have not been feasible due to very high transaction costs.

9:00 [[Silicon Valley]] benefited from having a lot of people close together to create an innovative environment. Can you achieve that same effect virtually?

12:30 Talks about the book “The Sovereign Individual” #[[Book: The Sovereign Individual]]. It’s like the book of prophesies. It’s written in 1999 and many sentences seem like they’re ripped from last week’s headlines and many have yet to happen. Most books you can summarize into a sentence, but this book is the opposite. You take a sentence and you can expand it into a whole book. #[[To Read]]The book talks about how changes in [[technology]] change the logic of [[violence]]. What happens when you can’t see someone’s money? Good things and bad things. Good things: everything becomes voluntary and you can keep money you create. Bad things: it’s hard to track down robbers if they manage to steal some cash. So, more petty crimes. But fewer wars (government’s can’t seize funds).

19:45 Talks about his experience being considered by [[Donald Trump]] as a candidate for the head of the [[FDA]] and what he would have done if he was appointed.

21:30 When nations are on the rise, people are often more willing to take substantial risks to make [[progress]]. If you look at the [[history]] of [[aviation]], [[automobiles]], [[railroads]] a lot of people died. History of [[chemistry]] – the CRC handbook of chemistry and physics from a long time ago has a lot of tastes and smells for new compounds, because people would actually taste and smell new compounds! Wouldn’t want to be the guy that did this for cyanide.

23:45 [[Balaji Srinivasan]]’s intellectual and business heroes. He calls himself a pragmatist and technologist. Avoids political labels, because that can maximize your coalition to build something new.

  • [[Srinivasa Ramanujan]] (mathematician) is one of his intellectual heroes. He would like to build things to identify talent like that, giving them opportunity to rise.
  • [[Lee Kuan Yew]] – a founding father of [[Singapore]]. He wrote a lot and gave many interviews. He had a great book “From Third World To First” #[[To Read]]. His work, and [[Singapore]] generally, defies traditional “left” and “right” political boundaries. This influenced his thought on finding pragmatic best outcomes and not just going down partisan routes. #politics #ideology

30:00 Advice for his young son in this new world: “probably want him to go Satoshi”. You can’t discriminate against Satoshi – competes completely on the basis of ideas. Also, mobs can’t take him down and ruin his reputation by attacking other aspects of their life. #[[Satoshi Nakamoto]] #pseudonymity #Parenting

Notes on The Pseudonymous Economy – Balaji Srinivasan

  • {{[[youtube]]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dur918GqDIw&list=WL&index=133&t=0s}}
  • Author:: [[Balaji Srinivasan]]
  • Source:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dur918GqDIw&list=WL&index=133&t=0s
  • Reading Status:: [[complete]]
  • Review Status:: [[complete]]
  • Roam Notes URL:: link
  • Blog Notes URL:: link
  • Anki Tag:: srinivasan_the_pseudonymous_economy
  • Anki Deck Link:: link
  • Tags:: #anonymity #pseudonymity #reputation #[[social media]] #decentralization #privacy #shared
  • Overview: [[Balaji Srinivasan]] looks at [[pseudonymity]], why have a pseudonymous economy, how might it work, and how could we build it.
  • [[pseudonymity]] is not [[anonymity]]. pseudonymity is not giving your real name, but you maintain it over time and develop a reputation on it. It provides [[accountability]], but it’s also a shield against character assassination. #Ankified
  • [[pseudonymity]] is a continuum, not binary. They are widely used today, including by people high up in government.
  • 4:00 The big next step is not just pseudononymous communication, but pseudonomyous transaction.
    • Drivers of increased use of pseudonyms: technological support, employment law (don’t want to be discriminated against), social media mobs.
  • 5:30 Pseudonymity provides not just freedom of speech, but freedom after speech. Opponents have to attack your idea, they can’t attack you.
    • Negative press is an attack on your social network.
    • Your bank account is your stored wealth, your real name is your stored reputation. Only you can debit your bank account, but anyone can debit your reputation.
  • 9:20 A possibility is separating your earning, speaking, and real names. Use your real name on official forums like social security numbers. When speaking use a pseudonym. To earn (this is the new part) – earn under a pseudonym, with a professional identity and you speak about things relevant to that identity.
    • You might have many different speaking names, many different earning names.
  • 10:20 **We can already move wealth to a pseudonym, can we move reputation too? **Right now, you can only have 100% of followers and write under your existing name, or 0% of followers starting completely fresh with a new pseudonym. #Ideas #[[startup ideas]]
    • What if we transfer attestations rather than everything (i.e. the entire list of followers)? For example, build a new pseudonym platform that confirms that you’re verified (blue check) but nothing else. You can have multiple attestations (e.g. followed by @jack).
    • 17:00 But how do you ensure people will follow? [[Balaji Srinivasan]] calls this "[[autofollow]]". People would be on a network like this to follow pseudonymous accounts – they will autofollow anyone with over 100k followers, anyone followed by @jack, etc. You then automatically get followers.
    • An application like this would essentially allow you to move along a reputation-anonymity continuum, trading off a small amount of anonymity for higher reputation.

Notes on Why You Should Become Internet Famous, by Patrick McKenzie and David Perell

  • Overview: [[David Perrell]] and [[Patrick MacKenzie]] discuss various topics related to writing and promoting yourself online.
  • 4:45 You should think about how your writing is framed online if you are looking for it to be used to promote your commercial work. “Blogging” has a poor brand within many high status employers, whereas “memos” and “essays” do not. Try to categorize your writing as these things rather than a blog post. These small changes can make a big difference. Don’t call it a “blog”, don’t put a date on it if it’s not stuff that will decay in importance in 48 hours, choose to write about things that will stay relevant, etc. #blogging #promotion #Portfolio
  • 9:00 Try to create a tighter brand for your writing. Find a niche and try to focus on that, although experimenting isn’t that bad an idea, at least at first. Good to also think about your interests that happen to be booming in the economy (for example, [[Patrick MacKenzie]] focused on the intersection of [[marketing]] and [[engineering]]). #branding #niche
  • 13:00 Even if absolutely no-one reads your essay, it’s still worth writing it because it produces an asset you can use. For example, you could use it as a proof of work to a future employer and that would make it a tremendous ROI. Don’t feel like you have to have a big audience before [[writing]].
  • 15:00 find where people you are writing for hang out. Hang out there, and gradually inject your stuff in there. Gradually, and in an authentic way, introduce your thoughts into people’s with large following’s posts. Some people don’t get annoyed by this – some people with large followings actively signal boost.
  • 23:40 Benefits of long-form [[writing]]. A lot of the common advice about writing short-form on the internet comes from people with certain incentives for following that model (e.g. [[BuzzFeed]]). You really need to understand your personal [[goals]] and what the incentive structure are for achieving that goal.
  • 28:30 As soon as you put something on a dashboard, people start to change their behaviour based on what’s on that dashboard. So – be careful of what you put on [[dashboards]]. #KPIs #metrics
  • 30:00 Discusses the so-called “death of blogs”. [[Patrick MacKenzie]] points out that people that wrote blogs back in 2010 are still around, but now they have moved on to incredible titles, like CEO or Senior Staff Engineer at Google. As a result, they no longer blog or call themselves bloggers. #blogging
  • 37:20 [[Patrick MacKenzie]] is a fan of [[Ramit Sethi]], he is one of his favourite marketers and knows how to do the internet well.
  • 38:00 Discussion of recommendations for email lists. Email is something you can own – it’s difficult to take that away from you. There’s also something powerful that someone put up their hand and said “yes, I want to hear, in my inbox, what you are talking about”. It’s also less “risky”, since no-one forwards a newsletter for someone else to dunk on it (unlike what happens on Twitter). #[[Email Lists]] #Independence #control
  • 43:00 What makes an idea worth publishing?
  • 47:00 What do the best marketers miss?
  • 49:00 Culture of [[Stripe]] and how they maintain a high level of craft. Are [[craft]] and [[metrics]] somehow opposed or a different language? Incentives matter – if you incentivize shipping the best version of something, that’s what you get. If you incentivize always meeting deadlines, that’s what you get. #incentives
  • 54:35 What does making writing at [[Stripe]] do for the company? 99% of their word count is internal. Some companies in hyper [[Growth]] mode are doubling their number of employees each year. As long as that continues, over half of your staff have less than 1 year experience with the company. Big problem is spinning people up to speed and getting them into the culture – “[[democracy of the dead]]” – people who were there before can have tremendous impact by producing highly leveraged artifacts, like written documents. Writing helps transfer knowledge #[[Corporate Knowledge]] #[[Organizational Memory]] #leverage
  • 1:00:00 When should you go to market after building an audience? [[Writing]] and developing an audience first before developing software is valuable because you build a list of people ready to buy. You also learn more about how to build a great product by writing deeply about it. The MVP for sellable word products is much lower bar than [[MVP]] for software. #[[Audience Building]]
  • 1:07:30 What is a small software business that you admire? How do they use online writing and content to grow and validate the business? There are tens of thousands of profitable, successful software / SAS business that you’ve never heard of. It will be boring, very successful, and will be sold, and hardly anyone that isn’t a customer or an employee will be aware of it. E.g. Moraware which provides software for kitchen counter installation companies.
  • 1:14:00 What is the 1 thing you think the [[US]] should import from Japanese [[culture]]? [[Earnestness]] and [[optimism]] of ones [[work]]. A non-ironic embrace of loving what you do. There’s a lot of [[cynicism]] in the US. “Choose to do what you love” is bad advice. Better advice is “Learn to love what you do”. #Japan #happiness
  • 1:18:30 How did you go from being a kid with “I want to be a baseball player” type interests to who you are now – an expert in niche SAS? People underestimate the ability they have to change, particularly the way they think. [[Stripe]] hires for people that are ambitious and optimist. Hanging around people like that makes you more ambitious and optimistic! #Ambition #optimism
  • 1:23:00 The amount of luck you have in life is how much value you create times how many people you tell about it. Explain what you mean by that. It’s a mistake to think that if you just do great work, you’ll be recognized for that. It’s a key professional skill and you should probably get good at it. #luck #marketing

Notes on Anthony Pompliano & David Perell: Growing Your Audience

  • Author:: [[David Perell]] and [[Anthony Pompliano]]
  • Reading Status:: [[complete]]
  • Review Status:: [[complete]]
  • Source:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDefPe9AhHQ&feature=youtu.be
  • Roam Notes URL:: link
  • Anki Tag:: pompliano_perell_growing_your_audience
  • Anki Deck Link:: link
  • Blog Notes URL:: link
  • Tags:: #Growth #[[Audience Building]] #virality #shared
  • {{[[youtube]]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDefPe9AhHQ&feature=youtu.be}}

  • Overview

    • [[Anthony Pompliano]] and [[David Perell]] discuss [[Anthony Pompliano]]’s strategy for how he built his following online.

  • Notes

    • 1:34 presentation starts, [[Anthony Pompliano]] introduces himself.
    • 2:18 shows his results from building his online presence – 3 people built it, 60 million impressions per month.
    • 3:00 Main components of his stack: [[The Pomp Podcast]], [[The Pomp Letter]] (letter every weekday), [[Lunch Money]] (YouTube daily show). All of this is driven by [[Twitter]]. "Everything starts and ends with Twitter" – it’s a traffic engine for every other product and platform. #Ankified
    • 6:42 "Audience is the new currency". "Those who build the audience have the power."
    • 8:30 It’s hard to build an audience. You want to ask yourself what the value you want to create, what does the end result look like, and do you have the time / energy / dedication to attempt this? Comes down to man hours and time.
    • 6 Principles for growing your audience #Ankified
      • Persistence is the most important thing (9:40). It takes time, and audience building starts slow. True for everyone, even those with huge followings. #persistence
      • Productize yourself (11:25). Every hour is something you can dedicate to a different product. Break up your day and optimize every hour – "how am I dedicating time to production of an asset that can be monetized later on?" What is your "[[Return on Attention]]"? #production #Productivity
      • Focus on one platform at a time (17:00). Benefits: 1) [[focus]] (how can I win on this platform and how can I be successful?) 2) if you grow the first platform it helps you build the second one, because you push people from your first platform to your new platforms. The big [[social media]] managers and influencers will often advise to do a whole bunch of platforms at once. When you don’t have the resources of [[Gary Vanyrchuk]] (had 15 people working for him on a holiday!) then it’s way better to focus on one platform and get good at that.
      • More content is better than less (22:25). [[Anthony Pompliano]] started out just Tweeting articles and pulling out the most relevant tidbit and just tweeting that, because he was unconfident and didn’t know what to Tweet about. People don’t listen to all your stuff. It’s like Netflix, give as much as possible and give the audience choice. More content means more people being interested in your content which means more followers. #[[idea generation]] #[[growth hacking]] #Twitter
      • Create once, publish 5 times (26:00). E.g. podcasts – publish as audio, publish as video, take cuts out of it and publish interviews, tweet out links to videos. That is a mechanism that should always exist try to do this as much as possible. Streamline thought creation process and expand how you can use that content to a bunch of platforms. It helps to have a set process and organization – "when we record a podcast, then we do x, y, z". #marketing #leverage #Strategy
      • You owe the audience everything (29:15). [[Anthony Pompliano]] spends a ton of time going through comments and responding. Often fairly safe, canned responses and emojis. Occasionally, you give a detailed thoughtful response. This gets the audience to become emotionally involved, and feel like they are involved and important. Not scalable, so he’s now at the point where he can’t respond to everything. The audience is why you can monetize, it’s the reason why you’re here. #engagement
    • Actionable Ideas: [[Twitter]] (37:21) #Growth #[[Audience Building]]
      • Create 10+ tweets per day
      • Use spacing and punctuation – make it easier to read
      • Lists increase [[virality]] – super clear, digestible.
      • Links hurt [[virality]] – links are the exact oppostite, you have to click the link to get the information. Also, Twitter doesn’t want users to leave their platform. Put the content first and then the link later. Rather than sharing, actually talk about the top things you took away from the article and summarize things.
      • Hijack viral tweets / large accounts. [[Anthony Pompliano]] would put up alerts for big accounts like [[Donald Trump]] and he would race to respond as fast as possible. He would do something to get a lot of engagement, audience looks and checks out his profile. The big accounts are doing your marketing for you.
      • Reply to everyone
      • DMs are the real [[Linkedin]]. People are responsive, and there’s very few people on Twitter that have someone else running their account for them.
      • Set up your profile up for success. Where do you want people to go? Put the link in your profile. Write it out so people know the kind of content they’ll get. You can get tons of traffic on your profile if your tweeting gets lots of impressions.
      • A good gif is worth 1,000 favourites.
    • Actionable Ideas: [[Email Lists]] (43:25)
      • Set a consistent schedule & don’t miss. People subscribe expecting something, so don’t miss. If you do a paid list like [[Substack]], focus on getting free people then converting them to paid, don’t focus on getting people immediately to paying. Most people want to window shop. You have to ease them in.
      • **Build your free list **- give more than you extract. You are in their inbox, so you better be sure you’re providing value.
      • Don’t be afraid to ask people to subscribe, whether it’s other social platforms or to your paid list. Know what you’re worth.
      • Find like-minded audiences & do link swaps. Figure out how to work with the people in those audiences. "If you like X, you’ll definitely like this thing Y I’m doing"
      • Identify "inflection points" and promote them in advance. Sometimes you know you’re going to be putting out something good. Rather than waiting until you publish, promote in advance: "on Monday, I’m writing something about X, if you want to read it, subscribe". After you publish it, say "I wrote something about X, if you want to read it, subscribe so you get more like this".
      • Use email as a distribution point for all content. In the bottom of the email, put links to all your other things – podcast episode of the day, sponsors. Just use a template and fill it in. Passive links pay off
      • Upsell, Upsell, Upsell.
    • Actionable Ideas: [[YouTube]] (48:13)
      • Use the banner to explain what you cover and how often.
      • Don’t be afraid to ask people to subscribe.
      • Create more videos.
      • Optimize the video title, description, and thumbnail for SEO. [[YouTube]] is the second biggest search engine in the world. Look in [[Google Trends]] to see what people are searching for.
      • **Use the description for passive links **(link to all your other social platforms). Use that distribution you already have.
      • Pin the comment to top of comments with top link. Single best thing to do on YouTube if you want to promote other things. E.g. "pomp writes a daily letter to these kinds of people, here’s the link". Whatever you’re optimizing for, pin it at the top of the comment.
      • Create an outro with each video. That 15-20 second outtro can just be a pre-recorded clip and you just drop it in.
      • Use search trends to your advantage
      • Leverage guests with large audiences
    • Actionable Ideas: [[Podcasts]] (55:05)
      • Set a frequency and don’t miss an episode
      • Target guests with large audiences
      • Authors with new books are always looking to promote their work
      • Record via Zoom to get audio and video
      • Good microphone and good lighting is important
      • Use micro content to promote individual episodes
      • Transcripts and show notes for SEO
    • "If you’re going to try this, make sure you are ready to dedicate hours a day for a decade". Just trying it sometimes or just doing one day a week – you will get frustrated, won’t build an audience. #persistence
    • Businesses of the future will build the customer base first and then build the product. When you write and build an audience you get feedback about what they want. As a result when you launch a product, you don’t have to pay for any advertising. #Strategy