Originally by email on Thursday 11 May 2023

Things I’ve Been Writing About.

• 🚀 A Roadmap for Start-Ups, Projects, Products & Pivots. Each step of an entrepreneurial journey through to launch, covering problem-solving, sustainability, team-building and more.
• ⛓ Blockchain use in climate finance and climate tech creates great opportunities, but blockchain maxis overlook the fact that tech isn’t neutral and blockchain doesn’t suit every possible use case.
• 👮 “If you think regulation isn’t needed, you’re the reason it’s needed.” There are two principal functions of regulation – policing sin, and shifting markets to better serve society – but both can be painful, imperfect and are evermore complex.

Things I’ve Found Interesting.

• 🌱 ClimateTech infrastructure is vital, but scaling it will need new funding models. Traditional VCs don’t like capital-intensive businesses and infrastructure investors don’t like early stage risk. [Sifted (FT)]
• 📜 (As you’ll see below) I’m into the ancient Greeks at the moment and some concepts are due a comeback: let’s use our phronesis to achieve arete, and build eudaimonia. [ClassicalWisdom]
• 🤖 I have two reasons for always saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to ChatGPT, but even I think tipping self–service checkouts is an absurd artefact of our current age. [Wall Street Journal]

Things to Ask.

As my long-suffering colleagues know, I’m vocally sceptical when someone opens with “just a quick question…” because quick questions are rarely simple. Here are three ‘quick questions’ to ask if you want interesting answers:

• 💭 “Why did you choose to do it that way?” — Holding each other to account for our decision-making processes helps tip everyone in the direction of more thoroughly thought-through choices.
• 🧠 “Are you sure you’re asking me the right question?” — Answering people’s queries is not nearly as valuable as helping them conceptualise their problem (also it makes you more use than ChatGPT so you’re job’s safe for a while!).
• 🎲 “How much would you bet on that?” — While some people leap to certainty, others always doubt themselves and their ideas. Intuitive confidence is a poor determinant of the quality of an idea.  More here on how this mental model can calibrate confidence.

Things I’m Working On.

• 🫤 I’m collecting biases, mainly as I recognise them in myself. If I get to 30 of them (and I have the time to write them up!) I’ll post them daily during June.
• 🐍 I’m learning to code in Python, partly because I hit my limit playing with Artificial Intelligence LLMs without being able to code at least a little (more on my non-technical AI productivity hacks here) and partly because I’m doing it with my kids. With ChatGPT helping to write and debug code, there’s never been more you can bootstrap from a tiny amount of knowledge!
• 🏛 Oh, and I’m loving Mythos, Stephen Fry’s recounting of the foundational Greek myths. It’s another project with the kids and this alone qualifies me for the worst-parent-ever award; those gods were gnarly!