BC PERSONAL GROWTH

Paras Chopra
@paraschopra 4 years, 6 months ago 726 views

It’s a mistake to assume that open-minded people have weak opinions.

On the contrary, they are actually strongly opinionated because they actively seek evidence contrary to their beliefs which makes them converge on beliefs that are only updated if there’s compelling evidence.

More from Paras Chopra

Here’s me trying to make sense of the unprecedented 2020 bull rally of stock markets.

(A thread)

1/ The simple answer to why stock markets are up is always that there’s more demand for stocks than supply.

So the real question is: why is there more demand for stocks?

2/ Actually, what’s happening is what should happen.

Central banks across the world, especially the fed in the US, are providing cheap liquidity across the board to institutions.

With interest rates falling to 0% and below, bonds are no longer attractive.

3/ The central banks are injecting this extra liquidity to stimulate economic activity.

They’ve made risk-free investments such as bonds so unattractive that the only place for money to go is towards relatively risky investments which are stocks.

4/ More than anything else, what central banks want is inflation.

They want things to become pricey so wages grow, profits grow and people’s perception of recession goes away because you’re getting more money than last year.

Paras Chopra
@paraschopra

We may be alone in the 🌌 ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

(a thread on this bold conjecture)

🎉 It's also my 1st podcast episode https://t.co/7u2FskrhHi

1/ For my inaugural podcast episode, I interviewed @anderssandberg who is a senior research fellow at the @fhioxford.

I highly recommend listening to the entire episode. It's full of gems and insights.

But if you want key ideas, keep reading this

2/ Before we get to that, here's what we talk about in the hour-long conversation.

3/ Both history and science fiction shows us how the world can be dramatically different than what it is today.

4/ But exponential curves (like Moore's law) make it hard to predict the future because early on they look like linear

Paras Chopra
@paraschopra

1/ Here are my notes from @robertwrighter's book - Nonzero: the logic of human destiny. I enjoyed the book very much.

The basic premise of the book is that history has a direction which favors co-operation and non-zero sum games, and that causes an increase in complexity.

2/ Starting from the first replicating molecule which co-operated with an outer layer to form first proto-cell, evolutionary and cultural history is full of examples where two entities come together to survive and progress a lot more than they would have done individually.

3/ This co-operative entity fares much better than two individual entities because of specialization. If two entities are in the same boat - that they win together or lose together - then trust is implicit.

4/ In a non-zero sum game, trust causes entities to focus on what they do best.

For example, eukaryotic cells - the ones animals and plants have - emerged when two proto-cells merged, and one took the role of energy generator (mitochondria), the other specialized in protection.

5/ Some scientists believe that even nucleus in a cell is a result of an early cell merging with another cell.

So M&A is not a recent phenomena, entities have been merging because of common interests ever since life started.

Paras Chopra
@paraschopra

Recruit exceptional people by showing them a promised land.

a 🧵

1/ A recruitment strategy should be indistinguishable from a marketing strategy.

2/ Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time understanding the market, talking to customers & customizing marketing messages to customer segments.

However, they often fail to realize that recruiting people to work for you is no different from recruiting customers to use your product.

3/ It’s true that the key difference is that you’re asking for money from customers while you’re offering to pay money to prospective employees.

However, for exceptional people, money offered is a commodity because many other companies are offering them the same or higher money.

4/ Exceptional people never look for jobs; jobs look for them.

Paras Chopra
@paraschopra

Only two types of startups exist: technology-led and culture-led

(a short thread on this mental model)

🔥 It's also the 7th chapter of my book https://t.co/iLfMb0xhnD

1/ There are two ways an entrepreneur can fail:

a) launch a product that nobody desires;

b) launch a product that people desire but with no significant advantage over established competitors (hence give no strong reason for a customer to switch away).

2/ These two failure modes have their analogous success modes:

a) culture-led startup success where a new desire is discovered and fulfilled;

b) technology-led startup success where new technology is used to fulfill an existing desire.

3/ Let’s explore culture-led startups first.

They are the ones in which the entrepreneur is able to observe a pattern of new derivative desires that didn’t exist before.

Such trends are very hard to spot because initially they can be mistaken either as fads or insignificant.

4/ However, an entrepreneur who has good observation skills is able to connect the dots from diverse sources to grow his conviction about a cultural shift just when the market is

More from Personal growth

48 Laws Of Power Bot
@48_quotes

The credit for an invention or creation is as important, if not more important, than the invention itself.

You must secure the credit for yourself and keep others from stealing it away, or from piggybacking on your hard work.

48 Laws Of Power Bot
@48_quotes

[Great courtiers] are magnets of pleasure — people want to be around them because they know how to please, yet they neither fawn nor humiliate themselves.

48 Laws Of Power Bot
@48_quotes

When your own reputation is solid, use subtler tactics, such as satire and ridicule to weaken your opponent while making you out as a charming rogue.

Sahil Bloom
@SahilBloom

Razors are rules that simplify decisions.

THREAD: 20+ powerful razors (to help you cut through life’s noise):

The Steve Jobs Quality Razor

When building, take pride in carrying the quality all the way through.

Would you be proud for your work to be seen from every angle and perspective?

If not, keep working.

The ELI5 Razor

Complexity and jargon are often used to mask a lack of true understanding.

If you can’t explain it to a 5-year-old, you don’t really understand it.

If someone uses a lot of complexity and jargon to explain something to you, they probably don’t understand it.

Munger’s Rule of Opinions

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” - Charlie Munger

Opinions aren’t free. You have to work to earn the right to have them.

The Bezos Regret Minimization Framework

The goal is to minimize the number of regrets in life.

When faced with a difficult decision:
(1) Project yourself into the future
(2) Look back on the decision
(3) Ask "Will I regret not doing this?"
(4) Take action

The @JeffBezos Regret Minimization Framework is a simple yet powerful mental model for making important decisions and unlocking growth in your career, startup, business, relationships, or life.

A short thread on how it works and how it can change your life... pic.twitter.com/krtr2CarxW
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) February 24, 2021

48 Laws Of Power Bot
@48_quotes

To some people the notion of consciously playing power games — no matter how indirect — seems evil, asocial, a relic of the past.

They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in ways that have nothing to do with power.

MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

2. Sandu (三毒), Jiang Cheng’s sword, refers to the three poisons (triviṣa) in Buddhism; desire (kāma-taṇhā), delusion (bhava-taṇhā) and hatred (vibhava-taṇhā).

These 3 poisons represent the roots of craving (tanha) and are the cause of Dukkha (suffering, pain) and thus result in rebirth.

Interesting that MXTX used this name for one of the characters who suffers, arguably, the worst of these three emotions.

3. The Qian kun purse “乾坤袋 (qián kūn dài) – can be called “Heaven and Earth” Pouch. In Buddhism, Maitreya (मैत्रेय) owns this to store items. It was believed that there was a mythical space inside the bag that could absorb the world.” (TWX)

Raman Shalupau
@ksaitor

Maker movement is doing to startups what startups did to corporations.

Here is why 👇

Startups fixed the problem of innovation, that corporations lack.

In big, slow corporations, innovation is a RISK and distraction from the core $$$ profitable business.

Agile startups could launch, iterate fast and eventually stumble upon new growing market opportunities.

However,

When a startup reaches product-market-fit, it has to 🚀 "grow at all costs" and reach market dominance before some giant corporation can replicate their new product and distribute it to their existing giant customer base.

Startup's "growth at all costs" often means growth at the expense of charging customers $$$ money.

Hence, to be sustainable, startups have to constantly chase investor money.

Startup teams spend more time finding and pleasing investors, than finding and pleasing customers.

95% of startups die because they run out of (investor) money + no business model + crazy investor expectations.

Same way corporations die, when unable to adjust to new technology and market shifts.

Robin Berjon
@robinberjon

Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.

$Billy Bostickson \U0001f3f4\U0001f441&\U0001f441 \U0001f193$

Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 ...
@BillyBostickson

Keep dwelling on this:
Further Examination of the Motif near PRRA Reveals Close Structural Similarity to the SEB Superantigen as well as Sequence Similarities to Neurotoxins and a Viral SAg.

The insertion PRRA together with 7 sequentially preceding residues & succeeding R685 (conserved in β-CoVs) form a motif, Y674QTQTNSPRRAR685, homologous to those of neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) and Bungarus genera, as well as neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains

(20) (Fig. 2D). We further noticed that the same segment bears close similarity to the HIV-1 glycoprotein gp120 SAg motif F164 to V174.
https://t.co/EwwJOSa8RK

In (B), the segment S680PPRAR685 including the PRRA insert and highly conserved cleavage site *R685* is shown in van der Waals representation (black labels) and nearby CDR residues of the TCRVβ domain are labeled in blue/white
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa

Sequence Identity %
https://t.co/BsY8BAIzDa
Y674 - QTQTNSPRRA - R685
Similar to neurotoxins from Ophiophagus (cobra) & Bungarus genera & neurotoxin-like regions from three RABV strains
T678 - NSPRRA- R685
Superantigenic core, consistently aligned against bacterial or viral SAgs

Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5

Guruvayur Sri Krishna & Coconut with Horns.
#Krishnaleela
#Bhakthi
🕉
We’ve all grown up listening to stories of Shri Krishna. This one is a famous story of Shri Krishna in Guruvayur Temple, also called Dakshina Dwaraka.

There lived a villager who planted coconut saplings and had promised that he would offer the 'first coconut' from each of his coconut trees to "Guruvayurappan". When the trees started to yield coconuts, he collected the first coconut from all the trees in a sack 👇

and set forth to Guruvayur.

On the way he was stopped by a robber who asked all the items in the sack. The villager told the robber that the coconuts in the sack belonged to Guruvayurappan and so he was unable to hand it over.
@SriramKannan77 @Jayalko1

The robber with anger asked the villager "Is Guruvaurappan's coconut any different? Does it have horns ?".
Saying so the robber pulled the sack forcefully out of the villager's hand, and coconuts came out..👇

To their astonishment each and every coconut in the sack had horns! Even today, the coconut with horns are displayed in the temple for devotees to see.

Below Picture is not original, as we cannot take photos inside temple.
Hare Krishna
Guruvayurappa
🕉🕉🕉🕉🕉
Shubham

It’s a mistake to assume that open-minded people have weak opinions.On the contrary, they are actually strongly opinionated because they actively seek evidence contrary to their beliefs which makes them converge on beliefs that are only updated if there’s compelling evidence.

More from Paras Chopra

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It’s a mistake to assume that open-minded people have weak opinions.

On the contrary, they are actually strongly opinionated because they actively seek evidence contrary to their beliefs which makes them converge on beliefs that are only updated if there’s compelling evidence.