On take rate, career sampling, having pets and AI
Edition #046
Hey friends,
Happy Sunday, I hope you all had a great week!
This week I finished that work sprint I talked about last week and I'm looking forward to taking some down time to read and assess where I want to head next.
Over the next few weeks and months I will be experimenting with a range of emerging career and content opportunities as I find the next thing for me.
If you're interested in the future of work, creating content, self-development or entrepreneurship I'd love to jump on a call, you can setup one up here.
Here are this weeks finds:
I.
🚅 On high-speed career sampling
(Article)
⏳ This article from Nat Eliason takes an interesting view on finding your ideal career. He talks about how he has spent the last 8 months since stepping away from his role of CEO at Growth Machine sampling a range of careers at high speed.
In that time he has tested being a Youtuber, building commercial real estate and becoming a software developer before finally landing on building DeFi.
He says the goal isn't to "find your passion", instead it's to find a career that is a sufficiently lucrative infinite game you could keep playing indefinitely.
Rapidly testing careers is not about cycling through a bunch of jobs, instead, it's about doing permissionless work to see if you actually like it before committing to doing it for 2 - 20+ years.
I found this article particularly apt as I've been moving towards doing this over the last few months. If you're at a crossroads in your career consider high-speed career sampling.
II.
🎣 On take rate
(Article)
📌 This thread from Chris Dixon is fascinating, he concisely breaks down the transition from Web 2 to Web 3 through real world examples.
The webs core dynamic has been to shift value back to the end user. We use Amazon because it's cheaper and more convenient. AirBnB makes travel easier, Google instantly distributes information and media.
Jeff Bezos said that "Your margin is my opportunity". Amazon crushed competing companies by eating into their margins.
The next wave of companies will win out by competing with the companies who have the highest "take rate"
Take rate = how much value they take from their users and creators
Companies like Twitter, Tik Tok and Instagram currently take 100% of the value created by their creators. YouTube takes 45% and AirBnB currently takes less than 5% from their hosts.
The industries with the highest take rates are the ones ripe for disruption, which looks like a bad time to be a social media company but a great time to be a creator $$$$
III.
🐰 On having pets
(Article)
🐕 This metaphor from Derek Sivers is great. In typical fashion Derek makes a very interesting point in few words.
He draws comparisons between how side-projects are like pets, every new pet is brought into our life with good intentions but the more pets we have the less attention each pet receives.
"I sadly realized this was unfair. The situation was hurting them. No pet was thriving. No pet was getting the attention it deserved. The situation was also hurting me. Anyone who wanted to come into my life had to compete for my attention, or love all of my pets. I was scattered and unavailable."
IV.
🤖 On AI coding for you
(Tool)
💻 OpenAI unveiled an improved version of Codex this week, an AI system that turns natural language into code.
In the demonstration they show Codex building a game simply by typing in what you want it to do, on the right hand side you can then see the code written by Codex.
Like GPT -3, Codex is still in it's early stages but the things Open AI are building look incredibly exciting.
Check out Codex → (the video is at the bottom of the page)
One interesting idea
"Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one: men learn as they teach." - Seneca
End note
If you enjoyed this edition of the Sunday Filter then I’d love it if you could share it with a few friends. You can send them over here to sign up or share it on Twitter.
Have a great week!
- Stephen
p.p.s last shout to jump on the list for the newsletter I’m working on with Slow Growth