🔥 The Fireside #12

Welcome to the 1st Edition of the Fireside 2019.

The most recent personal news is that I’ve moved to Bristol, 🇬🇧UK and I LOVE it here. The city is incredibly creative (did anyone say Bansky?) and everyone is genuinely friendly and helpful. Let me know if you are around :)

New Article: “No, Facebook Is Not Listening To Your Conversations”. Though lots of people believe Facebook is spying on them, what is really happening has a much simpler explanation and is about how your mind and advertising work.

New article: “The Ultimate Spreadsheet to Manage You SaaS”. Over the years I’ve used several complicated tools to keep track of the most important metrics in my company but nothing beats the simplicity of a spreadsheet that takes 10 minutes once a month to update.

New Book: “Black Edge” by Sheelah Kolhatkar is an incredible account of the real story of SAC, the biggest and most important hedge fund in the world, from the beginning to the end when it was shut down for multiple charges of insider trading and other illegal activities. Reading the book felt like watching a thriller on TV with twists every other page. If you have ever wondered how an hedge fund actually works behind the scenes or if you just like a good story, this book is for you.

😎 How To Be Successful

[16 min] This is probably the best article on “success” I’ve ever read. If you only read 1 article this week make it this one. Though I don’t agree with every point Altman makes, I found this to be the best collection of advice on how to get the most out of your life.

🧠 Winning at the Great Game

[4 hours] Every so often you bump into someone that turns your view of the world upside down. In this podcast Adam Robbins, author, educator, chess Grand Master, hedge fund advisor and much more, shares powerful lessons on winning the game of life (plus the secret to learning everything). The podcast is VERY long (over 4 hours) and is split it two parts (1 & 2). My advice: put it on a lazy Sunday at home or listen to it over several days. Let it sink in.

💉 The Family That Built an Empire of Pain

[50 min] If you live in the US you’re very familiar with the opioid epidemic. Very little, however, has been said about the Sackler family, the company that has profited the most from this crisis. This article is a long account of who the Sackler family is and how they managed to create millions of addicts.

★ Other things from the interweb

(That may or may not make you look smart at dinner parties)

🇲🇽 The sicario

Fascinating interview with a Mexican cartel hitman: “In the eyes of the U.S. government, the Mexican drug industry is very organized, its cartels structured like corporations, perhaps with periodic meetings. But on the ground with the sicario, there is no structure.”

🤯 All Our Patent Are Belong To You

Speaking of visionary leaders, Elon Musk has decided to open source ALL Tesla patents. “Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.” Bravo.

🗣 Lera Boroditsky: How language shapes the way we think

[15 min] As a person who speaks three languages (Italian, English and Spanish) I’ve always been fascinated by the way little grammatical differences hugely shape the way we think about the world around us. In this TED talk, cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares many examples of how relatively small differences (e.g: using cardinal directions instead of left and right) lead to completely different skills and abilities.