Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. The Nanny

The recent “Help Wanted” ad seeking a “household manager/nanny” for a Menlo Park CEO has gone viral. It’s either a pitch-perfect parody that exceeds anything imagined by HBO’sSilicon Valley – or a piece of deeply revealing social commentary on modern elite life. Either way, savor the four pages of “requirements” for potential applicants:

• Correctly quantify how much fish to purchase for five people, for example, or how much chicken for 15 people

• Can ski at least at an intermediate level (preferred) and can take kids on ski vacations and manage everything (preferred)

• Strategically think through vacation options based on the developmental levels of the kids and the need for the mom to relax. Conduct research into domestic and global vacation options based on criteria, populate information into a simple Excel spreadsheet, recommend and book vacations, track vacation expenses in Excel including track vacation home deposits getting returned

Expert investigative reporting at Slate has tracked down the author of the ad. She suffers no embarrassment and believes “our society is broken.”

2. Christensen’s Most Important Decision

Clayton Christensen was probably the most influential thought leader of the internet age. His 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, established an entirely new framework for why successful companies fail – and introduced “disruption” into our vocabulary. But perhaps his greatest contributions were his ideas on leadership and work. Andreessen Horowitz remembersChristensen discussing why he always made good on his commitments:

It turns out that that decision is one of the most important decisions I ever made, because it turns out my whole life has been filled with an unending stream of extenuating circumstances. And if I had said ‘just this once’, the next time it occurred and the next time it’s easier and easier. And I decided it is easier to hold to our principles a 100% of our time, than it is 98% of the time.

Also worth revisiting is this 2012 profile in The New Yorker. 

3. To Die a Noble Death

Two decades ago, it seemed reasonable that one of the downsides of technology was exposed through the tearful laments about how Amazon would destroy the local independent bookstores. All those predictions about the death of the local bookshop turned out to be wrong. The editors at n+1 note that local bookstores have grown 40 percent over the last decade in the U.S. But, even more stunning is how, in the midst of a reading boom, Barnes and Noblepersistently found ways to fail:

Since at least the mid-2000s, B&N had been committed to making uniquely bad calls, only to ditch them halfway through implementation in favor of other, worse calls. The company spent $1 billion on the Nook, which never even became the RC Cola to the Kindle’s Coke, and approached its giant retail floor the way a toddler approaches a play mat — as a setting for endlessly regenerated chaos, greeted only with tears and dissatisfaction…Many of the chain’s bizarre business decisions could be attributed to B&N’s mercurial, on-again-off-again ruler Leonard Riggio, who claimed in 2018, “I don’t micromanage anything” — exactly what a micromanager would say.

4. You da Man!

The highest-attended Super Bowl in history barely reached 100,000 spectators. In 2018, more than 200,000 fans turned out at golf’s Phoenix Open on Saturday alone – and 720,000 came during the week that has established itself has professional golf’s cocktail of Mardi Gras and Caddyshack. Writing in VinePair, author Tim McKirdy says “Take that Augusta National!”

Officially billed as the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the tournament is better known among golf fans as the “Greatest Show on Grass.” The event eschews the sport’s rigid etiquette, with raucous crowds, a festival-like atmosphere, and extra-curricular activities that extend well into the night. Its annual attendance figures closer resemble music festivals than sporting events. The tournament is notorious for its spectators’ epic alcohol consumption.

5. This Business Will Fold

Most technology websites dish out maddingly evenhanded assessments of new devices, offering pro/con reviews that leave you uncertain about what to buy. That is decidedly not the approach that Ron Amadeo takes in his ArsTechnica review of Samsung’s folding phone:

I don't think the Galaxy Fold has any viability as a serious device anyone should consider purchasing. Should you buy a Galaxy Fold? NO! God no. Are you crazy?...The Galaxy Fold fails at everything it sets out to do. It's a bad smartphone and a bad tablet. The front screen is too small for phone duties like typing and reading. The interior screen is too small for tablet apps and split-screen apps, and it's the wrong aspect ratio for media. Since it doesn't even run in tablet mode, you get blown-up phone apps that often show less information than on a normal smartphone.

6. “Views Do Not Really Count”

The Atlantic’s George Packer received the award given in the name of the late culture critic Christopher Hitchens. In his acceptance speech, he offers a searing assessment of the cowardice in modern political writing, citing Hitchens’s dictum: It matters not what you think, but how you think. Packer continues: 

Last year I taught a journalism course at Yale. My students were talented and hardworking, but I kept running into a problem: They always wanted to write from a position of moral certainty. This was where they felt strongest and safest. I assigned them to read writers who demonstrated the power of inner conflict and moral weakness—Baldwin, Orwell, Naipaul, Didion. I told my students that good writing never comes from the display of virtue. But I could see that they were skeptical, as if I were encouraging them deliberately to botch a job interview. They were attracted to subjects about which they’d already made up their minds.

Websites Worth Reading

Popular Mechanics: New moon photos

HLG Analytics: High Lantern Group has data on biggest brand threats

Real Clear Politics: Best source for primary polls

Feeds We Follow

@SteveSI: Former Microsoft boss on the 10th anniversary of the iPad 

@Sapinker: Professor Steven Pinker’s collection of things to read 

@Beautiful_news: Each day, a new image of the news