Polymathic Audio No. 8: Derek Thompson

This episode of Polymathic Audio was made available to all 2PM readers. 2PM’s discussion with Derek Thompson was an important one and it’s worth your time. For RSS access, learn more about the Executive Membership. 

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction. Well-respected, Thompson is one of my most read journalists. His range extends from economics to anthropological. He’s authored pieces like A World Without Work: an exploration of the future of artificial intelligence and its impact on employment. He’s skilled at parsing through subjects ranging from technology, economic, political, and cultural. An award-winning writer and bestselling author, he’s also a prolific tweeter (@DKThomp) as well.

Thompson hosts The Atlantic’s latest podcast Crazy/Genius, which was nominated for an  iHeartMedia Best Podcast in its first year, and is a weekly contributor to “Here and Now,” the national afternoon news show on NPR. He is a regular guest on CBS, the BBC, and MSNBC, has appeared on Inc and Forbes’ “30 Under 30” round-up, as well as Time magazine’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds. [1]

In his latest deep dive at The Atlantic, Thompson covers a prescient topic. How will the pandemic effect retail? Here’s an amazing excerpt from his latest:

By obliterating the face-to-face economy, the coronavirus will return Americans to a blend of virtual commerce and home prep that is reminiscent of the late 19th century. In the 1890s, Sears, Roebuck delivered a bible of goods to the doorsteps of families who cooked at home. In the spring of 2020, Amazon and its ilk deliver an infinitude of stuff to the front steps and mailrooms of families who couldn’t dine out even if they wanted to. [2]

Our discussion was a spirited one. Thompson believes that the suburbs will grow as retail shutters and eCommerce adoption grows. I believe the opposite. I see a clear path to a stumbling suburban ecosystem where commercial real estate’s degradation drags down residential real estate prices. We also discussed over-retail and its influences.

From The Ballad of Victor Gruen:

Today, multiple malls and shopping centers exist for every small suburb in America, designed and constructed with no expectation to achieve sustainable demand. Meanwhile, America is accelerating into urbanization with our growing GDP as the wind at its back. Direct-to-consumer brands are developing, eCommerce has grown to nearly 18% of all retail sales, and urban town centers are popping up – each taking cues from Gruen’s original vision.

This is one of the most interesting conversations that you’ll hear on the juxtaposition of retail, eCommerce, and real estate.

Additional reading: The Connected Mall Thesis

AUDIO BY DEREK THOMPSON AND WEB SMITH 
CO-PRODUÇÃO DE VINCENZO LANDINO E WEB SMITH
EDITADO POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
ENGENHARIA POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
POLYMATHIC AUDIO É UM PRODUTO DA 2PM INC. 

Polymathic Audio No. 7: Sarah Frier

Instagram is one of the most relevant platforms in all of eCommerce industry. Brands depend on it, retailers advertise with it, influencers sell through it. Sarah Frier may be the new expert on the platform. Her deep research into the Facebook acquisition is incredibly informative.

Sarah Frier is a notable reporter on social media companies for Bloomberg News where she’s an expert on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and Twitter. Her work is featured in Businessweek and a Bloomberg Television. Prior to Bloomberg, she attended the University of North Carolina, where she studied journalism and edited for the university’s school paper. This is her first book. The New York Times cites the relevance of the book with:

A sequel to The Social Network. 

Here’s a summary of the book via Simon and Schuster:

In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released a photo-sharing app called Instagram, with one simple but irresistible feature: it would make anything you captured through your phone look more beautiful. The cofounders started to cultivate a community of photographers and artisans around the app, but it quickly went mainstream. In less than two years, it caught Facebook’s attention: Mark Zuckerberg bought the company for a historic $1 billion when Instagram was just 13 employees.

That might have been the end of a classic success story. But the cofounders stayed on, trying to maintain Instagram’s beauty, brand, and cachet, considering their app a separate company within the social networking giant. They urged their employees to make changes only when necessary, resisting Facebook’s grow-at-all-costs philosophy in favor of a strategy that highlighted creativity and celebrity. Just as Instagram was about to reach 1 billion users, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg—once supportive of the founders’ autonomy—began to feel threatened by Instagram’s success.

At its heart, No Filter is a human story, as Sarah Frier uncovers how the company’s decisions have fundamentally changed how we interact with the world around us. Frier draws on unprecedented exclusive access—from the founders of Instagram, as well as employees, executives, and competitors; Anna Wintour of Vogue; Kris Jenner of the Kardashian-Jenner empire; and a plethora of influencers, from fashionistas with millions of followers to owners of famous dogs worldwide—to show how Instagram has fundamentally changed the way we shop, eat, travel, and communicate, all while fighting to preserve the values which contributed to the company’s success. No Filter examines how Instagram’s dominance acts as lens into our society today, highlighting our fraught relationship with technology, our desire for perfection, and the battle within tech for its most valuable commodity: our attention.

The RSS feed can be found here.

AUDIO BY SARAH FRIER AND WEB SMITH 
CO-PRODUÇÃO DE VINCENZO LANDINO E WEB SMITH
EDITADO POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
ENGENHARIA POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
POLYMATHIC AUDIO É UM PRODUTO DA 2PM INC. 

Polymathic Audio No. 6: James Clear

James Clear’s Atomic Habits is on my book wall. But I’ll be honest, it was there long before I read it. Clear sent a copy in the early fall of 2018, weeks before the October release. At that point, I hadn’t known much about him. What I did know is that, like me, he is an Ohio guy. He’s an athlete. And he has insatiable curiosity. I should have read the book much sooner than I did. It took everyone else reading it for me to fully grasp how important his work is for professionals like you and me.

When I finished it in December 2019, it was just three days after I opened to page one. There was one paragraph that really caught my eyes. And from then on, I zoomed through. From page 34:

Brailsford had been hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. What made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a strategy that he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains,” which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Brailsford said, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.

This particular lesson was on the effects of compounding improvement, especially the infantismile ones. Clear’s life is made of these moments and so are ours. Like many of you, Clear values the pursuit of deep generalism and optimizing the abilities, influence, and opportunities that you possess.

But James doesn’t merely report the research of others. He tries out the concepts for himself as he experiments with building better habits as an entrepreneur, writer, and weightlifter. In the end, his talks end up being one-part storytelling, one-part academic research, and one-part personal experiment, forming a colorful blend of inspirational stories, academic science, and hard-earned wisdom. [1]

I am proud to have hosted him. Clear is a friend and I’d even call him a mentor. You will be better for listening to this one hour episode.

 

 

New: the RSS feed can be found here.

AUDIO BY JAMES CLEAR AND WEB SMITH 
CO-PRODUÇÃO DE VINCENZO LANDINO E WEB SMITH
EDITADO POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
ENGENHARIA POR VINCENZO LANDINO 
POLYMATHIC AUDIO É UM PRODUTO DA 2PM INC.