Letter #19: What we’re reading at Nuclei

I am fascinated by how living beings evolved across continents. How a few chance events managed to significantly change the course of our history.

For eg. Both the camel and horse evolved in North America and crossed into Eurasia along the Bering land bridge, but subsequently dying out in their birthplace.

Or if Britain were still linked to the continent by a land bridge, would the blitzkrieg also have defeated them? Would Britain have fallen to Napoleon or would Spanish forces have invaded in 1588 (without the need for an armada)? If Spanish would have invaded, would that have meant a non-starter for Imperial Britain? Would spanish then be the dominant language across the world?

Or why did Japan not become as big an imperial power as Britain, when geographical conditions of both the island nations were nearly identical.

This interesting article explores “How nature shaped the path of human history.” It’s a must read for history enthusiasts.

Recently Naval Ravikant wrote about 5 key skills required to succeed in life. Reading, writing, arithmetic, computer programming and persuasion. If you do these 5 things even moderately well and in a disciplined way, you’re set for life.

1. Don’t wait for a vacation to pick up a book. Start small and read for 5mins daily.
2. This is nice blog on why you should write.
3. Area of brain used to do math, is the same for developing analytical and decision-making skills. So developing this from an young age surely helps.
4. Future will be built by computer programmers. Be a part of it.
5. If you want to grow in life, learn to persuade.

You’ll have to persuade your girlfriend / boyfriend to marry you. Persuade your family to let you follow your dreams. Persuade your friends to leave their cushy jobs and join your startup. Persuade clients to trust you & your small company. Persuade your managers to give you more responsibilities. Persuade your employees to trust your vision!

… and most importantly, persuade yourself, again and again, to believe in yourself. So better learn to persuade :)

T-series is the most subscribed youtube channel at 118m and it was only 12m in Jul’16. Exponential!

This fascinating Bloomberg article covers it all. T-series’s growth, India’s music industry, the underworld connection, Gulshan kumar, RJio — “the catalyst”, India’s young population, competing with Netflix and shady PewDiePie.

Now there are prep centers coming up, which help merchants package their goods to meet the strict guidelines set for Amazon’s highly automated fulfillment centers.

It’s always good to know how small we are — The size of Space.

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