I have custom made the slickest personal budgeting and financial modeling spreadsheet.
I just upgraded it so that it uses a rolling average of my expenses for the last 3 months to project out my spending for future months. It auto-adjusts as it gets real data.
Update: Due to popular demand, here is a hollowed out version with fake numbers. Use at your own risk. Please share any feedback or ideas for improvement! https://docs.google.com/…/1lUQVL663f49Or0hFR0MNoj4Zqh…/edit…
What does this chart say to you? To me it says they have incredibly disciplined and effective control over their revenue levers and are using them to create a perfect narrative on the market.
Each quarter’s estimates are higher than the last - forming a great curve. And each actual earnings point is neatly just above expectation.
Impressive.
Which country/city in the world best aligns with my lifestyle and values?
A combination of...
- Strong entrepreneurship community
- Pragmatic but left-leaning politics
- Passion/value for nerdy things
- Abundance mentality and some hustle
- Great roads with generous speed limits
- Warm with great beaches
- Some centrality/access to world events/markets
- Not spinning off the rails culturally and politically
- People speak english
// Inspired by conversation with Pauly Ting
You get to decide...
- Is someone’s success confronting or inspiring?
- Is the hard work draining or fulfilling?
- Is the opportunity scary or exciting?
- Is it enough or is it just a stepping stone?
- Is it a risk or an opportunity?
- Is it tyranny of choice or freedom to choose?
How you frame the events and circumstances of your life determines how you experience them and whether they serve you or cripple you. In most cases (not always), you can frame something as happening to you, or for you. You can be a victim or a victor.
What kind of world do we live in when...
1. One inarticulate moment can sabotage 40 years of hard work and positive change
2. Misspeaking Is made morally equivalent to sustained/reoccurring physical violence
3. Due process is suspended for mob justice
4. No apologies are ever good enough
5. Pragmatism is seen as cowardly compromise or, worse, siding with the “enemy”
Life is about nuance and empathy. Pay attention.
Euphemisms for "Lies" are such a waste of time. Just adds confusion to the conversation.
- Untrue claims
- Misrepresented the truth
- False statements
- Blah blah
Just call them what they are. Lies.
Them: "All good things come to those who wait"
Me: "Good things come to those who have a vision and execute consistently and effectively"
My thoughts on #DeleteFacebook, Data Portability, Cambridge Analytica and much more... Thanks to Nik who encouraged me to say something on this.
Link to an article shared via Medium: “Do not #DeleteFacebook because of Cambridge Analytical”
The Robots of Dawn
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
The Cluetrain Manifesto
The Road Less Travelled
Conversations with God
How about you?
“Life is like a fart. Push hard enough and shit happens” - My 11 y/o cousin 🙂
Digging into Russia’s interference in the US election, Trump’s collusion with said interference, TOS violations of Cambridge Analytica, or the role of FB’s ads and news feed products in creating perverse incentives and outcomes in our lives - is all worthwhile.
However they’re all sideshows.
Trump is our fault.
All these other actors simply exploited fundamental flaws in our thinking and our society.
Money in politics, gerrymandering, failed education and healthcare systems, massive and growing economic disparity, tabloid journalism, glorification of celebrity, spineless leaders, pernicious voter ID laws, mass incarceration, an inactive liberal voter base that’s more interested in fighting amongst themselves than the true enemies of progressive society - on and on.
These are the real enemies and the true root causes. Everything else is basically just scapegoating.
In short: Trump didn’t win because of the Russians or Facebook. He won because of a decades long campaign against empathy, fairness and rational thinking in America.
"We're going to limit the data developers can have access to"
This is not good for Data Portability. Being a citizen of the web means you need to take some responsibility for who you share your data with.
Said another way: You can't blame the telephone company if you accept a scam deal over the phone.
Reminiscing about the amazing things that have happened to me in the last 15 years or so. So much gratitude to the people who’ve changed my trajectory along the way. Such amazing, surreal moments.
I was just thinking about some people who have directly and significantly changed the trajectory of my life for the better through their pivotal and timely advice and/or their above-and-beyond support.
Please forgive me if your name is missing; this is most definitely not an exhaustive list. Roughly in order of first meaningful impact.
Anton and Widad Joury
Todd Cope / Kerry Pynor / Tygh Field
Bill Hudak
Moral of the story?
1. No one achieves anything alone. Ask for help.
2. Pay close attention to those willing and able to help
3. Act when the opportunity is presented.
4. Always be grateful.
5. Pay it back.
6. Pay it forward.
Many of us strive, but few actually live a life of true consequence and impact at the level of Professor Hawking. And all this, of course, while having one of the most debilitating diseases one could possibly live with.
He will go down as one of the most consequential people in history.
Yet another tragedy for this bizarre period in history.
It was solid. Entertaining. But more than anything it made me appreciate the movie even more.
I think perhaps that Aladdin is the hardest of all the Disney movies to adapt for stage. It’s so magical and elaborate. It’s already more epically theatrical than any real theater production can match.
The music. The tight narrative structure. The setups and payoffs. Even slight tweaks can (and do) break what was a perfect formulation in the original movie.
There are also so many beautiful, thoughtful, nuanced performances in the movie. But of course the top prize has to go to Robin Williams.
Most of the time when celebrities pass, I feel a tinge of regret and move on. When Robin passed, I mourned for days. He was an utterly unique human being who brought so much laughter and deep feeling into the world. Into my world.
The intentionality and energy with which he played the Genie (again, brought into stark relief by seeing another actor try) is beautiful to behold. His range - from zany million miles a minute energy, to the sad but hopeful realization that all he wants is to be free - is almost heartbreaking.
Ultimately, I think, any attempt to recreate the story, the magic and the genie is inevitably destined to fall short and leave audiences wanting.
We'll see how the upcoming movie remake goes. I wish them luck.
I wish I’d seen the Lion King. I imagine it would be an easier story to adapt.
What a beautifully written cry for help. The difference between the commentator and the man (or woman) in the arena.
“Bitcoin will crash because of course it will. Bubbles burst. The real estate and athletics management people go home, and the believers remain, meeting up, planning new markets. It could take years, it could take a decade, but the blockchain freaks have a world in their heads, and they won’t rest until it’s real. That the rest of us live here, too, is the least of their concerns. Some of the things they’ll do will be magical, community-building, economically thrilling. Others may keep us up at night.
Still, I can’t help but look on in envy. Not for the believers’ possible wealth, because that will elude most. (Even in a distributed money platform, wealth has a way of finding only a few pockets.) I’m jealous that they’ll experience it all: the crash, the rejection, and then the slow rebuild as they learn the difference between toys and tools. They get to participate in the screaming edge of culture.”
Going back over my blog and doing some curation. Wow we shipped a LOT of product in 2.5 years at Uber Dev Platform. I haven't seen anything materially new since I left, sadly.
This thing is pretty cool. I'm curious if anyone can imagine any other significant uses for a web-based/embeddable IDE like this - even beyond education?
“The Enlightenment is working. Our ancestors replaced dogma, tradition and authority with reason, debate and institutions of truth-seeking. They replaced superstition and magic with science. And they shifted their values from the glory of the tribe, nation, race, class or faith toward universal human flourishing.”
Let’s hope we don’t materially reverse those gains. Hopefully what we’re seeing now is the last gasps of air by those who would have us go back to tribal, dogmatic thinking.
That being said, and although I’m usually an eternal optimist, I don’t have a lot of faith in the future right now. It feels like we’ve reached a tipping point where we may, in fact, quickly slide backwards.
This is particularly true where, at least in the US, the population has been steadily getting less educated, more misinformed and more hyper polarized. All amid failing or weakened institutions. This is not a blip. This is a decades long trend that will be difficult to reverse because it’s self-reinforcing.
The only thing that’s giving me hope for the US right now are the outspoken and surprisingly effective surviving victims of the Florida shooting.
Reminder:
Government is the thing we do together. It’s not us vs them. We have democratic institutions and elections so that anyone and everyone can be part of a shared project called governance.
America is the only western democracy (ha!) that has a plurality of people who view their own government as the potential enemy and uses that as a reason to arm its citizens in the name of “Freedom!”.
In the mean time, the same people that are fighting for guns are also fighting to protect a group of men undermining the principles and institutions of free and functional democracy.
