☝️ Interesting Things by Alex Sharp

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☝️ Interesting Things #2 - January 15, 2021
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☝️ Interesting Things #2 - January 15, 2021

Bill Gates is America's largest farmer 👨‍🌾 + Toby, Commonstock, Gather, Spline, Astra, Alto.

Alex Sharp
Jan 15, 2021
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Welcome to ☝️ Interesting Things Issue #2. If you enjoy this, consider sharing or subscribing. Enjoy.

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⌨️ Products

  • Toby is a chrome extension to clean up and organize your browser tabs. 🎩 David McDonough.

  • Commonstock. Speaking of David…he is the founder of Commonstock, an investing-focused social network. Commonstock connects to your brokerages and surfaces powerful and interesting ideas around engagement linked to portfolio performance.

  • Gather.town lets you create 2d virtual spaces to audio/video chat with friends. This space is exploding at the moment. There are a lot of cool ideas here, and gather.town is decidedly non-professional, which is refreshing in a sea of Workplace Tools™. In the best possible way, it feels like a toy.

  • Spline is a Figma-esque tool for 3d design. People are making tremendously rad shit with it. 🎩 @jmj

  • Astra.finance is an API for moving money. Like a higher-level more targeted Plaid.

  • Alto is an alternative IRA that lets you invest in startups, private companies, real estate, crypto assets, and more. Here’s hoping they can make a dent in the $29 trillion dollar retirement asset cartel. 🎩 @danielpearson

📖 Reading

  • Howard Marks dropped a new 18-page heater “Something of Value”

  • Moderna is developing an mRNA-based HIV vaccine. Absolutely incredible.

  • What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #219 is packed with useful knowledge.

  • Bill Gates is America’s top farmland owner 👀 🎩 @mcarney

  • Ticketmaster willingly hacked and consequently killed it’s former rival Songkick and were fined a paltry $10 million. Hardly a disincentive.

  • Bumble files their S-1. IPO season continues 📈

🎙 Podcasts

  • Two great episodes of the All-In podcast this week, with discussion revolving around last week’s capital attacks, free speech issues and big tech, and much more.

🎥 Videos

  • The music video for Duck Sauce’s Mesmerize is mind-bending, hilarious and brilliant. It might also break your brain. How I even came to know about this is internet magic.

💡 Ideas

  • Creator Equity Platform (Kickstarter + Angellist for creators).
    Make it dead simple for creators to let their followers invest in them. Automate entity creation through Stripe Atlas, allowing followers to buy shares in creators. The creator entity could be scoped to specific activities (e.g. merch, podcast revenues, but not certain types of royalties). It could allow automated dividend payouts based on some criteria, automate bank account creation so the platform can track money in and money out, and what’s owed to investors. There are lots of complex .

  • I want a better podcast player. So does @adayeoyh. Especially because Breaker is shutting down today.

  • I want roam templates. Don’t make me think how I should take reading notes.

  • There’s a a privacy revolution quietly taking place in B2B SaaS, which means on prem is back baby!

🔥 Tweets

Thread of threads from Eric Torenberg

Twitter avatar for @eriktorenbergErik Torenberg @eriktorenberg
Here's a meta thread of some of my favorite twitter threads, updated edition 👇

April 15th 2020

120 Retweets854 Likes

Great thread from Justin Kan on general startup lessons

Twitter avatar for @justinkanJustin Kan @justinkan
Only work on things where you have intrinsic motivation. If you don’t, you’ll lose motivation when times are hard or your own goals change.

January 6th 2021

146 Retweets1,228 Likes

Baby alligators == Cute shit

Twitter avatar for @zuza_realatrophy wife 🎀 @zuza_real
mornin guys :)
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January 12th 2021

22 Likes

Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction”

Twitter avatar for @david_perellDavid Perell @david_perell
Officially obsessed with Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series. The books are generally well-written and don’t have any fluff, which is everything I want from non-fiction. Plus, they’re short enough to read in 2-3 nights. Highly recommend.
Image
Image

September 27th 2020

658 Retweets6,623 Likes

Pay it forward

Twitter avatar for @zachcoeliusZach Coelius @zachcoelius
The crazy simple secret to massive success in Silicon Valley is actually incredibly easy: Help People... That's it. If you do it, huge amounts of success (and wealth) will flow your way. But, it is a little tricky... Here are some secrets (a thread)

January 4th 2021

103 Retweets1,108 Likes

You read to the end! Preciate you! Consider sharing 🙏

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