Will's Weekly Roundup

Sept 25 - Oct 2

October 03, 2022

Will’s Weekly Roundup is a curation of ideas, articles, podcasts, business concepts, startups, startup ideas, facts, websites, quotes, Tweets, and TikToks delivered weekly to your inbox.

What I read this week…

  • How The Fast-Growing Social Media Platform BeReal Is Hacking Your Human Nature Through Behavioral Design Patterns (LINK)

  • Does The Education System Serve as a Persuasion Agent for Recommending ADHD Diagnosis and Medication Uptake? (LINK)

  • Musk’s Texts Reveal Inside Look at Twitter Deal’s Collapse (LINK)

  • AI for the Next Era (LINK)

  • The 11 Biggest Announcements at Amazon’s Hardware Launch Event (LINK)

What I listened to…

  • What We Can Learn About Global Interdependence From the Fact that not a Single Person Knows How to Make a Pencil (old episode: Freakonomics Ep #236 LINK)

  • How a Millionaire Spends $15k/year to Stay Fit (My First Million Ep. #336 - LINK)

  • “Big Tech Starts Making Cuts, Fed Incompetency, Global Debt, Russia/Ukraine & more” (All-In Podcast Ep. #98 - LINK)

  • “Controversial Business Lessons From Napoleon, Edison, & Hitler” (My First Million Ep. #339 - LINK)

What I Watched…

  • Figma just sold to Adobe for $20 billion. Here’s the founder’s original pitch (LINK)

My Startup Ideas from this Week

  • Audio Tunes AIProblem: choosing music is one of the hardest part of video editing.Solution: AI software that generates copyright-free original music based off the theme, rhythm, and mood of your video automatically. You no longer need to edit to the beat of a song; the song will adapt to the cuts of your video.

  • Chrome Extension TutorialsProblem: trying to learn new software online like Google Sheets is hard enough when you’re switching between a video tutorial window and the window of the thing you are trying to learn.Solution: tutorials build into browser extensions that walk you through the software by highlighting different components all within the original software window.

Concepts I’m Thinking About

  • Never Dial Down Your Goals - either quit the thing and move on, or focus harder on the goal. It forces you to not be mediocre.

  • Giggle-Step Method to Goal Setting - if you are having trouble starting progress towards a goal, take initial steps that are so small you should laugh that you are doing them.

  • Decentralized Employees - the blockchain technology of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) allows for a new generation of companies that have have no “employees” on paper, only “contractors.” Freelance individuals can get paid directly for their contributions, but are not employees because they are not on official company payrolls.

  • Get Fit Enjoyably - The best way to avoid losing motivation to exercise is to make the experience enjoyable. For cardio, don’t go for a run; play pick-up basketball (concept credit: My First Million Podcast - Ep.336).

  • What Financial Wealth Really Shows - great financial gains are the output of having done something meaningful.

Cool Startups I Found

  • Mojo - sports stock market where you can bet on athletes like stocks

  • 1M Robotics - making fully autonomous and modular micro fulfillment centers

  • Hebbia - search engine that shows you answers not links

  • CafeX - robotic coffee bar

  • Outpost - making space sustainable by delivering payloads to space and bringing them home again

  • Akili Interactive - developed the first doctor-prescribed video game treatment for kids with ADHD

  • Archer - making vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft

  • Avitbot - created the world's most advanced fully autonomous robot floor cleaner

  • Kapwing - building a real-time collaborative web-based video editing software

Cool Websites I Found

Quotes I Came Across

  • “The risk is not that you’re playing life too risky; it's that you’re playing life way too safe.”

  • “You will meet your standards, not your desires.”

  • “Fortunes are made in the down market and collected in the up market. - Jason Calacanis”

  • “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb

  • “The job of your dreams doesn’t always have an enticing annual salary.”

  • “The future is unknown, so let’s build the one we want.”

  • “Productivity is for people with no leverage. The correct way to optimize your schedule is to do less.”

  • "The most effective way to do it, is to do it." - Amelia Earhart

Facts I came Across

  • US boomers control 1/7 of all global wealth (Source)

  • 20% of children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed (Source)

Twitter & TikTok