meditation – Max's Two Cents

On Meditation

2019-07-202021-08-17meditation, personal developmentLeave a comment

I’ve been experimenting with and thinking about meditation in recent years and thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you.

What this post is not: it’s not another “you should meditate” article. Even though I’ve seen quite a few valuable benefits, my practice is still semi-regular. And l debate how much time I’m willing to spend on meditation, given the opportunity cost.

Instead, I’d like to share a few observations and invite you to share yours. If you have never meditated, some of these ideas might intrigue you and spark an interest in trying. And if you have experience with meditation, I’d love to compare notes!

Here are some realizations I had over time:

1. Our thoughts and emotions largely determine our destiny. And unlike other factors, they are not entirely outside of our control. Of course, they also define our subjective experience.

Monthly Newsletter: Issue 6

2018-10-092023-03-09AI, documentaries, economy, Facebook, marketing, meditation, personal development, startups, technology, TeslaLeave a comment

Hi, this is an issue of my monthly newsletter. I’ve picked a few interesting articles on technology, startups, growth, marketing and other topics for you.

I hope you enjoy the read with your morning cup of coffee. Let me know what you think! ~Max

Technology and Startups

Fake videos of real people — and how to spot them. (TED video)
The Cloud 100. The top private companies in cloud computing 2018.
Magic Leap One first look: worth the hype? Spoiler: not quite. (TechnologyReview)
The Impossible Job: Inside Facebook’s Struggle to Moderate Two Billion People. The struggle is real. (VICE)
Tesla, software and disruption. A deeper look at Tesla’s business strategy and future. Is Tesla going to completely disrupt the car industry? Or will the incumbents learn to build software faster than Tesla can learn to make cars at scale? (Ben Evans, a16z)
Everybody Dance Now. “Do as I do” motion transfer facilitated by machine learning: given a source video of a person dancing, that performance can be transferred to a novel (amateur) target after only a few minutes of the target subject performing standard moves. (3-min video)
WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton Gives The Inside Story On #DeleteFacebook And Why He Left $850 Million Behind. The story behind the conflict between WhatsApp founders and Facebook business strategy. Bonus: promising messaging apps that prioritize privacy, such as Signal and AnchorFree. (Forbes)

Growth and Marketing

Slack Copywriting: What They Say to 9.6 Million Pageviews Every Month. Sometimes talking about specific product features can be more effective than talking about customer benefits.
All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders. (a16z)

Monthly Newsletter: Issue 2

2018-01-302023-03-09AI, bitcoin, books, crypto, Facebook, growth, hiring, longevity, management, marketing, meditation, podcasts, science, startups, technology, Twitter3 Comments

This is an issue of my monthly newsletter. Main topics: technology, startups, business growth, and marketing. See other issues on my blog or subscribe. ~Max

Now, get a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Technology and Startups

The best products launched in 2017 by ProductHunt.
The list of 26 companies started by 1st or 2nd generation immigrants.
CES 2018 summary by Steven Sinofsky. Big trends: voice interfaces, home electronics, robots, cars, and AR/VR headsets.
AI and Deep Learning in 2017 – A Year in Review. A great summary of progress and links to online courses by UC Berkeley, Stanford, and others.
Amazon opened a store with no checkout lines (NYT). Customers are charged automatically, thanks to machine learning and hundreds of cameras.
Blockchain Governance: Programming Our Future by Fred Ehrsam. Setting up the right mechanisms for coordination and incentive structures can be critical for new blockchains.
Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble (NYT). All the hype and crypto speculation aside, blockchains hold a promise of a truly open and decentralized Internet – the way it was meant to be.
How an A.I. ‘Cat-and-Mouse Game’ Generates Believable Fake Photos (NYT). Generative adversarial networks at work. Getting AI to classify content is important but getting AI to create content is even more exciting.
Twitter’s investigation of Russian interference in the US election. Twitter removed Russian government-linked accounts and emailed 678K people in the US who followed, retweeted or liked a tweet from these accounts during the election period. I’m glad social media companies start to accept more responsibility for how their platforms are used and abused.
Facebook will show more content from friends and family and less content from publishers. Overall, it’s good that Tristan Harris’ “Time Well Spent” ideas are getting traction. I wonder what would happen if FB let users adjust defaults at any time by choosing % of content from friends vs. % of content from publishers; long-form vs. short-form; education vs. entertainment; text vs. video; new vs. old; from currently followed sources vs. discovery; as well as mute specific topics/keywords.

Growth and Marketing

Intercom on Marketing (ebook). A good intro to marketing and, in particular, product marketing that will be interesting to those who are relatively inexperienced.
How to Design Marketing Campaigns. Basics of marketing segmentation, messaging hierarchy, and campaign management – this article will be useful to those who’re new to marketing or looking for a refresher.
HubSpot’s Pricing Page Redesign → MQL Conversions 165%↑ & Free Sign-Ups 89%↑. How: research first – usability testing, internal feedback, and customer intelligence; then design based on insights and A/B test.
“What’s next in growth?” (video) talk by Andrew Chen who leads the rider growth at Uber. Andrew recommends you ignore “growth hacks” and focus on fundamentals that worked for decades. E.g. user referrals, shareable content, and using discounts to jumpstart demand for new products.

Book Notes: Waking Up by Sam Harris

2015-08-122021-07-29books, brain, cognition, cognitive science, meditation, mindfulness, neuroplasticity, neuroscience, notes, personal development, psychology, science, wisdomLeave a comment

I just wanted to share some excerpts from Waking Up by Sam Harris that I listened to a couple of months ago. It is a great book that covers so many topics: mindfulness, meditation, neuroscience, cognition, emotions and others. It is worth reading in its entirety and I am personally planning to re-read it. So here are some notes:

“Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world.”

“There is now little question that how one uses one’s attention, moment to moment, largely determines what kind of person one becomes. Our minds—and lives—are largely shaped by how we use them.”

“My mind begins to seem like a video game: I can either play it intelligently, learning more in each round, or I can be killed in the same spot by the same monster, again and again.”

“How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages—but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out.”