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notes from the book

The smartest people in the world use mental models to make intelligent decisions, avoid stupidity, and increase productivity. Let's take a look at how ...

There are two tragedies in life, Oscar Wilde once said: not getting what you want and getting everything you want. The last, he lamented, is much worse. I wanted to be a writer. I don’t know when that dream started, but for a very long time, I craved accomplishment in this creative calling that very few are lucky enough to make a living in, let alone find success in. Of course, like most people, I also fantasized about what it would be like to have money, or more specifically, to have lots of it. It’d be cool to be a little famous too, while I was at it. To be connected with or have influen...

Most people are not strategic. They are reactive.

As a creator, you need to actively bake the marketing into your product.

The late Harold Bloom, literary critic and professor, may well have been one of the most prolific readers of all time. Given that, Bloom was uniquely well positioned to answer the question of why we should read and how we should go about it.

After more than a decade of writing life-changing advice, I know when to move on. Here’s what else I learned

1/ After 10+ years of publishing professional writing at https://t.co/ddc2F89IIV, I have a couple opinions on how to get your stuff read — Andrew Chen (@andrewchen) July 26, 2017 Building your personal bat signal I want to cross-pollinate a tweetstorm on lessons I’ve learned from a decade of professional writing. In a way, it’s a followup […]

(I wrote this essay as the Foreword to the new edition of Seymour Papert’s classic book Mindstorms.)

What made Charles Darwin a great scientific thinker? He followed a golden rule of objectivity. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett and others use the same idea.

A few months ago, while dining at Veggie Grill (one of the new breed of Chipotle-class fast-casual restaurants), a phrase popped unbidden into my head: premium mediocre. The food, I opined to my wi…

"On disbelieving atrocities." Written by Arthur Koestler. Originally published on January 9th, 1944.

If someone you're emailing with is making typos and you're not, skipping capitals and you're not, responding to your long, well-written emails with short responses... then you're their bitch.

We’d all like life to be simpler. But we also don’t want to sacrifice our options and capabilities. Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity, a rule from design, explains why we can’t have both. Here’s how the law can help us create better products and services by rethinking simplicity.

The internet is a money printer for smart people willing to share their ideas online. It's created two unprecedented opportunities...

Measuring—and delivering—what consumers really want

Dave Chappelle has a new special about his old show that includes fundamental lessons about how the Internet has changed the content business.

Ten strategies and 49 examples of successful buzz making

A site packed with quality music theory articles, lessons in guitar technique, helpful advice and guitar instruction from professional musicians.

Learning to design is learning to see, an adventure that gets more and more captivating the further you go. A love letter to my profession.

If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts

Sometimes it means, “there isn’t enough money to pay for that.” Certainly, among the undeserved poor, this happens all the time. And for things like health care and education, tragic…

If you don’t give money its purpose, it will end up defining yours.

In his letters—the pre-digital medium for distant long-form conversation—Seneca instructs his friend Lucilius to find one thing each day that will fortify him against death, despair, fear, or adversity. Just one thing. One nugget. And that’s what most of Seneca’s letters to his friend are about. They have a quote in them. Or a little prescription. Or a story. But in each case, Seneca is explicit. Here’s your lesson for the day, he says. Here’s your one thing. Obviously that’s the logic behind the daily emails I write (Daily Stoic and Daily Dad) but it’s also the way I try to live. Every tim...

On new creator platforms, individuality is a feature, not a bug.

Our choices reflect and determine who we are.