Slacking, Total Transparency and BTC vs. Fiat

Howdy and happy Friday y'all!

Below are five things that came across my desk phone this week that were fun to ponder...

1) Reid Hoffman (COO of PayPal, Founder of LinkedIn and now VC) produced this really fun 5 minute video of a rap battle between Hamilton and Satoshi (the still-to-this-day, unidentified creator of Bitcoin). It provides a unique way of thinking about the philosophical differences between fiat currency and cryptocurrency. Give it a listen!

2) The concept of the world being a simulation has been around for a while. Elon Musk famously talked about us being in a simulation. This NYT article argues that even if we are in a simulation, we shouldn't find out. Fascinating perspective.

3) Last week, at the beach on the gulf of Florida, I read The Circle. The concept of total transparency has its pros and cons, and frankly, I don't know that our society is far off from it. In any case, the book is super fun. If you prefer to read the overview instead of the book, here you go. And given the movie scored a dismal 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, I haven't allowed myself to watch it, as to taint the fun view I have of the story.

4) If you don't use Slack for work, you should. If you use Slack for work, you should probably use it less. :) Here are instructions to ensure you don't let Slack completely take over your life.

5) Speaking of optimizing phone usage... I continually search/revisit methods to optimize* (*use less) the way I spend time on my phone. Ryan Holiday wrote a great guide this week on the subject, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

Enjoy the weekend!

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Cheers,
Brendan J Short