Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated from their children. I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them. And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.
And:
When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.
And:
The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.
I think this is the first time I've read this one closely since I've had children. At the very least, the first time since my youngest one was born. The grind of parenting is much more real to me now than when I've read this previously. I've described my life recently as a "5 on 3 power play where I'm the 3 and it doesn't reset when a goal is scored." It's good to have the reminder to keep some of my energy for my children and not to spend it all elsewhere.
“Become a deep expert in topics you’re passionate about and showcase that expertise publicly” wisdom from Dimitry Alperovitch via Jordan Schneider
The Law of Opposites by David Burns. Simple to state, difficult to live.
Things I learned
Coca Cola became cocaine free in 1929! Suddenly American history makes more sense. No wonder so much got built between 1880 and 1930. No wonder the market crashed! From the AP via Stan Veuger.
Musings
Like a lot of parents, we’re trying to teach our toddlers how to swim. For about a year, we did weekly lessons with my son and daughter and they improved, but ever so slightly. Then over winter break, they did much more intensive work, something like 10 lessons in 12 days. The improvement was dramatic, more than a year of weekly lessons. I wonder what other skills are like this? Language seems like it; immersion seems to outperform regular practice. Is things that require rewiring your brain? I wish I understood this better.
Waymo is now carrying 250,000 passengers/week in autonomous cars.
Transit agencies are falling behind on automation, which can improve service & save money. It's exciting to see DC's Metro taking a step forward in automating its existing lines. We need to be talking about autonomous buses, too.
I remember feeling a version of this when I was at my last job. I really loved my job, my boss, my colleagues. and it was hard to talk about it without sounding contrived, especially eg in a group setting where everyone's going around sharing horror stories. but it's the truth!!
This is 100% true of being a parent. My typical experience of being a father is 95% “I can’t believe I get to hangout with these three little people that I love” and 5% “I’m so tired I can’t see straight.” But it’s almost impossible to communicate the 95% to someone besides my wife or my parents. I don’t know why this is, but it’s true!
The 11 laws of show running
Very applicable to new product development.
Are you strong and secure enough in your talent and accomplishment to accept the possibility that other people - properly empowered by you - can actually enhance your genius... or will you cling to the idea that only you can be the source of that genius?
Also, things I learned: “a second definition of "nice" is also "precise and demanding careful attention.”
Manhattan, 1931. A city without skyscrapers, save for a handful in the Financial District and the brand new Empire State. A city of 3-5 story buildings.
Chris Ryan on The Press Box talking about the early blogosphere. Three things I loved about this:
Chris’s natural creative energy
What it was like for Chris when he didn’t know how his career would turn out
Chris’s blog gave Free Darko its name 🤯
Things Brian Potter has learned
Number 30 was my favorite:
Whenever there’s a major bridge incident in the US we hear stories about the US’s crumbling infrastructure, but the worst bridges in the US are steadily getting fixed. Between 1992 and 2023, the number of US bridges in critical condition declined by more than 70%.
An exploration on where the value from AI will come from that also starts to articulate specific bottlenecks that (currently) AI faces in improving R&D work. Somewhat related to my reaction to Situational Awareness, I suspect that more of these bottlenecks exist than people think. Coding might be a unique application for LLMs: relatively closed loop, fast feedback, lower diversity of tasks.
Self-importance, contempt, and arrogance is rewarded online. Virtue rarely is. In this way, technology is inverting many of the incentives for developing character.
Bias hacking for progress?
“Once you put that first stake in, they’ll never make you pull it up.” — Robert Moses, from The Power Broker.
I’ve seen this same dynamic in all sorts of projects. Creating the impression that it is happening unlocks funding that is unavailable before it has begun. It occurs to me that this is a way of hacking peoples sunk cost bias to get things done.
I’ve been hearing whispers in the parents-of-young-children circles about Chattanooga since we moved back to the Atlanta area 3 years ago.
We would discuss family friendly travel destinations and Chattanooga would come up, but I never really got it. What’s in Chattanooga?
They’d say things like “they’ve got the Chattanooga Choo Choo” or “there’s a great aquarium”. My children like a train and some fish as much as anyone’s, but I struggled to see what would make this worth the 2 hour drive.
This spring break, we finally went for it, and now I get it. It’s a beautiful, accessible city with a ton of options for things to do with children under 5. Not many of those things are unique to Chattanooga per se, but I’m not sure how much that matters at this stage.
The city itself
I have to say, I was surprised and more than a little bit charmed. The city itself is like a combination of Pittsburgh and Raleigh. The downtown urban core clearly came of age in the ~1880s to ~1920s and was formerly industrial. There’s a ridge above the city and a river that runs through it. It’s small. You could walk across it in an hour or two, even with a stroller.
The city is clearly prioritizing tourism. There’s a free electric bus that connects the city and makes it easy to get around (and for children the age mine are, it is an activity in an of itself). It’s clean and well marked. The aquarium and children’s museum are new and have a lot of local support. There’s a hint of Disney World about it, but it’s fun (to be fair, the North Shore neighborhood seemed a lot more vibrant, like people actually live there).
Things to do
The Chattanooga Choo Choo, a classic steam engine in the old train station that kids can climb up on and play in. Things I learned: Chattanooga’s claim to fame is that it connected the Northern and Southern railway systems in the 1880s.
There’s a great aquarium, at least as good as Atlanta or Monterrey Bay.
Great parks — Coolidge Park was my favorite. It’s got fountains and a carousel. It used to be that you could walk from the Riverfront (where the aquarium is) to the North Shore (where Coolidge Park is) but that’s currently closed for renovations.
Rock City is just outside of town. This is probably the most unique Chattanooga thing that we saw. It’s tough to describe, but worth it. Plenty to see and do — and an incredible view of the valley.
Children’s museum. Is it just me, or have these gotten way better since I was a kid? Basically everywhere I travel with my kids has one (Pittsburgh, Hendersonville, apparently Chattanooga). Do they actually exist year round or are they pop ups that get set up when I book a trip?
Musings
Walking through the beautiful old train station made me a little bit sad. It’s a gorgeous building that clearly isn’t being maintained. It’s an elegant building with a sense of place, but the big central corridor is just empty. It reminded me of Buenos Aires: all those beautiful buildings slowly falling into disrepair.
This sadness seeped into the rest of the trip. Chattanooga is clearly doing great. There’s a lot of investment in downtown. It’s safe and clean. Many of the restaurants and stores are obviously new. My family will definitely go back.
And yet, I couldn’t help but noticing a lot of empty storefronts. Not enough to detract from the experience and all well maintained. But one in four, in some places as many one in two are empty.
Observing this in the background of Liberation Day and all the discourse that followed had me wondering: how prosperous can a city be if it is only a tourist destination, rather than a place that people live and create?
