Good writing and graphics from 2023

The annual Jealousy List is, as always, stellar.

After an extended New Year's break. I'm back. Like many other newsletters I moved from Substack to Ghost, because, fuck Nazis. If you're reading this I assume the migration worked.

With that, some highlights I read and watched over the break.


Bloomberg Businessweek Jealousy List 2023

The annual Jealousy List is, as always, stellar. Getting through it took most of my reading time in January.

These are the stories so well executed by folks at other outlets that we wish we’d published them. Thanks for the inferiority complex, frenemies!

How to describe your business as an equation (Lenny's Newsletter)

I really like this. While it may not be possible to truly capture an entire business into a formula, I love how efficiently it cuts through a lot of noise.

Figuring out this equation forces you to think about the inputs that drive your business, the outputs you want to prioritize, and how these variables interact. It also gives you a map for understanding which metrics you need to track, what factors drive the growth of your business, and, most importantly, where you have the most leverage to drive an outsize amount of impact (and thus where to assign your precious people and resources).

If you had 100 interns what would you get them to do?

Benedict Evans' take is a great way to think about use cases for LLMs. His measured talk on AI is worth the watch.


💩 Cool shit

2023: The Year in Graphics – Similar to the Jealousy List, Bloomberg has an ode to data visualization.

The Odeuropa Smell Explorer – A fascinating site to search for and learn about smells that shaped European culture.

LLM Visualization – It feels late to be sharing a link about how LLMs work, but the detail in this one is worth it.

AI Agents Database – An incredible Google Sheet listing AI agents.

Featured GPTS – One more AI link. A handy tool to look up custom GPTs for ChatGPT.

Plantarium – Procedurally generate plants. It's a fascinating project.

Diagram Website – This might be one of my fav links I've ever shared. A Venn diagram of different types of unique sites and ideas on the web.


Venturing into cosmos. Intrigued about the prospect of space journeys? Share this with a friend.