It’s Time to Leave San Francisco over on Medium, penned by Sunil Rajaraman

Two observations

1} He only considers moving to somewhere else in America

… the usual narrow mindedness that The Valley is famous for.

2} He concludes that he can’t do the move while his equity continues to vest.

.. because after-all - it is all about the money (my take, would welcome other conclusions).

But there is more … The tech world preaches that a lot of the #FOW is all about virtualization, working remotely, flexibly, not being geographically constrained, blah blah, blah …. but really - how many tech companies really practice what they preach … other than Manton and Micro.blog of course - but then he isn’t in Silicon Valley.

// @manton

This from Fast Company.

It makes for an interesting read that I haven’t picked up anywhere else. A search of the article reveals 106 mentions of ‘Casper’ (the mattress company).

About 90% of what I know about Casper comes from the podcasting adverts I hear as a result of listening to @gruber @jdalrymple and others podcasters. This piece reveals an interesting, dark and seedy underbelly to the mattress industry.

A ‘couple’ of eye catching quotes;

”Casper approached Hales and offered to resume the relationship, on terms considerably more favorable to Hales, if Hales would agree to state a more positive opinion of Casper’s mattress on Sleepopolis. Hales refused.”

”In July 2017, a subsidiary of JAKK Media LLC acquired Sleepopolis.com. Casper provided financial support to allow JAKK Media to acquire Sleepopolis.”

”From the first days of the site’s new management, that thorn in Casper’s side–Derek’s damning yellow box, pointing prospective buyers to competitors–disappeared from Sleepopolis’s Casper review. In its place there appeared a green box, with a coupon linking straight to Casper.”

”Casper had finally hammered out the last, most troublesome kink in the yawning purchase funnel that lured ever more traffic to its billion-dollar online storefront. The company could indeed claim, as it did on its site, to have “the internet’s favorite mattress.”

It got me to wondering how true it all is … and if so - how their position and what they are doing synch with our favorite podcasters own principles.

Would welcome thoughts - even better - knowledge.

This just in

… as an Englishman I obviously need to pay more attention. I did not know that I had a minister concerned about my loneliness. I will give her a call, it would be nice to talk to someone - and she does seem to be welcoming it …

… though I don’t quite qualify for her two categories ‘elderly’ and ‘younger’ …. yet again falling between the cracks!

As an Englishman, I definitely know this company, but never knew the backstory of the co-founder who now lives in The Bay Area. In a rented apartment. With no car, and a plastic watch.

The Irish Times has the whole story - it might not be what you are thinking!

Great to see my friend Mitchell Levy on The TedX Stage.

Just read Stowe Boyd on ‘Decisions’ (scroll down to the second article). An interesting read, to which I would add that one problem with assessing good-v-bad decisions, is that we justify retrospectively based on outcome.

We would never say that driving home drunk is a good decision, but the outcome of getting home with no incident reinforces the thought that one should do it again because there was no bad outcome. In fact if you consistently do it - the reinforcement just grows.

Strikes me that much management practice is based on this same kind of thinking.

This also relates in some ways to the work of Simon Wardley.

"I got through about three minutes of Phantom Thread. I put in a good solid three," Lawrence said after Maron asked if she had seen the film. "I couldn't. I'm sorry to anybody who loved that movie."

… yeah I think that is what I managed in total across all The Hunger Games movies … I know what you mean J!

The Full Story On Mashable

I only know Julian Summer Hayes through his writing here. This particular post came through the ether this morning … some quotes (my bold):

But **I can feel it: the slow creep of old age:** my neck hurts; my knees ache after a long walk; and my sleep is easily interrupted by at least one trip to the bathroom.

**I thought I’d be depressed with the onset of old age.** I’m not. If anything, it’s forcing me to live more thoughtfully, more connected to the true me and to appreciate what I’ve got — in all possible ways.

This year, I’ll be 51.

Just Rediscovered:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

If you listen to the news, it’s as if;

Longnow hadn’t existed for the past twenty years.

Jeff Bezos woke up yesterday and thought what we need is a 10,000 year clock.

The Bezos investment happened this week.

In fairness, Bezos credits people like Danny Hillis and Zander Rose … I just wish the media would - and get the story right.

Olive Oil directly from the fields.

For years I have listened to people as they gather around the ‘internet campfire’ discussing what/who makes the best hardware, software, service.

But is it really about the best hardware or software or infrastructure or stack or whatever else we want to call it? Surely, there can never be an absolute comparison, without understanding the rules of judgement? And those rules aren’t someone else’s. They are yours. You need to define what your needs are and the parameters against which you will judge before you can get to an answer of what is right for you.

It is about each of us defining what we want to do to improve ourselves, improve our efficiency, make life easier, more enjoyable … whatever we are wanting to achieve … and then choose what we want to use.

I happen to live in Apple land … but if a Surface tablet, an Android phone, a Chromebook works for you, I’m good. Trust me, even if you want to talk to Amazon’s Alexa through your Echo, your call. I am not in a position to judge whether you have the right tool, because you haven’t told me what you are trying to do and (just as importantly) what you are using at the moment.

BUT …. if you did … I can probably help.

As for the Homepod. Not got one. Yet. Probably will. Eventually. Not because I want to talk to Siri - I barely do that with my phone, but because I want to listen to great music with great sound. That’s what I want, and why Alexa won’t do it for me. Then again as a long time Sonos user, it might explain the Homepod procrastination!

People, Process THEN Technology.

Post Script

I have a related post about Microsoft Word in the works that relates.

Here