My notes

Thoughts

Short notes on what I watch and listen to, and what I make of it.

Read them as a feed

Keep Your Mouf and Do Da Fings

A contractor said it in a Vodacom lift around 2012 and it became our team slogan. It turns out to describe exactly what AI cannot do yet.

Entrepreneurship

On choosing a silver lining

I built the offer, handled every objection, and then he sighed and gave me the real reason. What I decided it meant is the only part I controlled.

Entrepreneurship

What Google, Meta and Amazon actually sell

Google spent most of its life taking over 90 percent of its money from one thing. Meta still does it. Amazon does it with atoms. One business, three companies.

The knife I did not need

I collected stamps for a month to earn a chef's knife so sharp I cut myself opening it. I never once asked whether I wanted a knife.

Every business has a golden goose

Every business sells a mix of things, and one of them pays far better than the rest. Change the mix and the same business makes a lot more money.

My wife makes the biltong. I make the koeksisters.

We moved to Canada in May. Today my wife made her first batch of biltong. The only South African thing I have managed here is koeksisters.

Give the AI the long letter

Pascal apologised for a long letter because he had no time to write a short one. With AI agents it is the other way round. Give them the long one.

The next car question

A salesman who outsold everyone four to one was below average for his first four years. He was turning down sales that would have cost him the next one.

Working out in jeans

Yesterday I did my ten minute workout in my jeans. I had always assumed the thing stopping me was discipline. It turns out it was laundry.

Give your thoughts space to wander

The kids' hamster ran on its wheel from 4 to 6 in the morning. I lay awake and found something I didn't know I was missing: time to think.

Some of the hard things about parenting

Noah asked if it is difficult having children. I thought hard about it and gave him two answers, and only afterwards noticed they move in opposite directions.

We are living in a reverse matrix

In the film, a person lives inside the machine. What is happening now is the other way round. The machines have come out here to live with us.

AI is a musical instrument

Jimmy Carr says AI is like a musical instrument. Anyone can sit down at a piano. It takes time, attention and practice to make a symphony.

Write it down, and it outlives you

Jimmy Carr tells a story about why we have all heard of Gregorian chants. I loved it, so I looked it up.

Twenty white t-shirts, and one deleted decision

I bought twenty identical white t-shirts so I would never have to choose again. A better system for making a decision is still a decision.