1/16/24-Dunbar#️⃣Storytelling, Rick Rubin🎧a16z, Dave Chapelle🥋Master
Challenge old ideas, not to become more right, but in hopes of being less wrong. 🙏🏽
Welcome back. In a busy world we can be distracted with the trivial many things or we can focus on The Vital Few.
Something that I am thinking about
Dunbar’s Number (150) And Storytelling🖼️
Kevin Scott CTO of Microsoft MSFT 0.00%↑ in discussion with Lex Fridman.
Background: Dunbar's number is a concept proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar that suggests there is a limit to the number of stable social relationships a person can maintain. The commonly cited number is around 150 people. (See graphic above)
[The below has been lightly edited by me for clarity and emphasis.]
Lex- I mean you've led different sizes, mostly large group sizes of engineers. What does it take to lead such a large group into continue innovation, continue being highly productive and yet to develop all kinds of new ideas and yet maintain… like what does it take to lead such a large group of brilliant people?
Kevin- [..] just really important to have a clear mission.
That's not just some cute crap you say because you think you should have a mission, but something that clarifies for people where it is that you're headed together. I know it's probably a little bit too popular right now, but Yuval Harari book Sapiens one of the central ideas in his book is storytelling is the quintessential thing for coordinating the activities of large groups of people. Once you get past Dunbar's number and I've really seen that just managing Engineering teams, you can just brute force things when you're less than 120 to 150 folks. You can sort of know and trust and understand what the dynamics are between all the people. BUT past that, things just sort of start to catastrophically fail if you don't have some sort of set of shared goals that you're marching towards.
And so, even though it sounds touchy feely and you know, like a bunch of technical people will sort of balk at the idea that you need to have a clear mission.. very, very important, Right?
Lex- Right. Stories, that's how our society, that's the fabric that connects all of us is these powerful stories and for companies too, it works for everything.
Kevin- Even down to like, really think about our currency for instance is a story. Our constitution is a story. Our laws are a story. I mean, we believe very strongly in them and thank God we do. But they are, they're just abstract things, they're just words, if we don't believe in them, they're nothing.
Lex- And in some sense, those stories are platforms and, the kinds some of which Microsoft is creating, right? They have platforms in which we define the future.
When your group gets beyond 150 people you need to start storytelling in order to direct a shared sense of mission and identity. Without storytelling, dysfunction and system failure begins. Logos, mottos, vision statements. Welcome to human society.🫂
In the spirit of being a skeptical contrarian, which group are you a part of that has sold you a story to gain your allegiance? Should you reconsider the story and the group.🤔 Was the story ever true, is the story still true and is the group still worthy of your participation. Challenge old ideas, not to become more right, but in hopes of being less wrong. 🙏🏽
[If you are interested in more insights from Kevin Scott; in my 8/1/23 post I called out an excellent interview he hosted with Mira Murati, CTO at OpenAI. Mira previously worked deep in engineering at Tesla for 3 years.🤘🏽 here.]
Below is a link to the entire Lex Fridman podcast reference above if you are interested:
Investing, Companies, Market Past/Future
(I invest in Companies, not in stocks.)
Interesting companies that hosted earnings results or information sessions since my last edition that I reviewed-
Banking- BAC 0.00%↑ , JPM 0.00%↑ , WFC 0.00%↑ , C 0.00%↑
Housing- KBH 0.00%↑
(With data and charts it is not what you look at, it is what you see that matters.)
Number of US listed companies over time, and the median age of an IPO firm is 11 years.🤔
Bank of America consumer trends below thru 12/31/23.
The bank deposit visual below illustrates how well each bank was able to retain customer deposits starting from Q3 2019. JPM Chase and Bank of America are leaders.
Podcasts
🎧 Tetragrammaton -Rick Rubin interviews Marc Andreessen
Marc often speaks fast🏃🏽 and his sentences are packed full of insight and wisdom. Both Marc and Rick are working with talented people in their respective industries to create something new and valuable.🎆
I really enjoyed listening to Rick push back against some of Marc’s comments. Together Rick and Marc keep talking and they uncover more insight.🪄
Marc Andreessen is a prominent entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer best known for his key role in the development of the early internet. In the early 90s, Marc co-created Mosaic, a pioneering web browser, while a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In 1994, he founded Netscape, launching the popular Netscape Navigator browser. After selling Netscape to AOL in 1999 for $4.3 billion, Marc founded Opsware, selling it later for $1.6 billion. In 2009, he co-founded Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that has backed, among others, Airbnb, Facebook, Instagram, and SpaceX. Known for his insights into technology, Marc's early work significantly shaped the internet's growth, and his ongoing contributions continue to influence the tech industry.
Videos
How Wells & Aquifers Actually Work
14 Min Video- Water flows in the soil/rock below our feet. This video covers the basics of groundwater engineering, including:
how wells are built,
how injection wells work, and
how aquifers interact with surface water features. 🌟
Host Grady is a gifted civil engineer, and he always reminds me of my time in the heavy highway infrastructure industry.🙏🏽 Marvelous infrastructure is all around us. Enjoy. 👍🏾
Books and Articles since my last edition
(Books are like loading software on your brain. If I get bored of a book I quit and move on.)
The Electric Church by Jeff Somers Science Fiction. Dystopian and creatively written.
Facebook: The Inside Story by Steven Levy Business Biography. Based on hundreds of interviews from inside and outside Facebook, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world. This is not a simple story with an easy conclusion. META 0.00%↑ Mark Zuckerberg is brilliant💡and fanatical. This is rare and one of the special qualities that should not be underestimated. Fanatical can sometime manifest as maniacal. Mania. Maniac. Other leaders that have been described similarly as Brilliant Maniacs- Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon, Steve Jobs. They will work 100 hour weeks, sleep on the floor, and drive their staff to achieve things that were thought to be impossible. I have learned to either bet in favor of them, OR walk away. But, betting money against them is foolish.
Here is a link to many of the books I have read and my 1-5 star rating- Goodreads Books Read
Wild Card🃏
Dave Chapelle, Like Most People, Doesn’t Realize When He Has Mastered Something-
Why is that? One beginner starts a new pursuit (Comedy, Investing, Medicine, etc) at level zero. Another person has chopped the wood and carried the water for 5-10 years and is viewed as a master by the respective community. 🪵+🪣
I suspect in most cases if we were to ask this master with 10 years of hard earned experience if they view themselves as a master they would say something like “There is so much more that I need to learn. There are others with far more skill and experience. They are the masters and I am still a student.”
Small Spoiler Below. Dave Chappelle has been practicing comedy for ~35 years. He is Hugely funny and I am not funny, I don’t think I am spoiling much.
Dave Chappelle tells a story about giving the🔑keys of his safety deposit box to his wife telling her “If I were to die, You and the kids have everything you need in that safety deposit box.” His wife eventually discovers that the only thing in the box is a “Stupid” journal of Dave’s hand written jokes and ideas.🤔😑
Dave encourages his wife saying “If you tell those jokes exactly how they are written, you and the kids should be fine.”
When we have mastered a task it is simple to us and we often assume it is simple for others. We often fail to see our own stack of knowledge and experience built on years of mistakes. The young person (student) learns the rules, but the old person (master) KNOWS the exceptions.
I know of no path to mastery that does not go through years and years of chopping wood and carrying water.
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Disclaimer: All of my posts are for informational purposes only. I might own some of the companies discussed in these posts. This is NOT a recommendation to buy or sell securities discussed. Please do your own work before investing your money.
"His wife eventually discovers that the only thing in the box is a “Stupid” journal of Dave’s hand written jokes and ideas."
Ha!
Through my recent management classes, we actually talked about how teams/divisions of more than 150 people become less productive at a certain point. Large teams are more difficult to manage by leaders and it becomes harder to share one cohesive vision.