# Weekly Thing #93 / Feb 16, 2019 - Issue: 93 - Published: February 16, 2019 - URL: https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/93/ - Summary: Billion-dollar company failure, blockchain and trust, Amazon acquires eero, Bob Costas out at NBC, one on ones, Big Four ARPUs. - Word count: 1130 - Domains: dtrace.org, medium.com, mondaynote.com, press.aboutamazon.com, svpg.com, www.espn.com, www.fastcompany.com, www.schneier.com --- I'm slowly creeping up on issue #100 of the Weekly Thing! Just 7 more and we'll hit that fun milestone! ๐ŸŽ‰ I've been contemplating some tweaks and refinements of this weekly cornucopia of content. I'd like to ask you, the most awesome reader ever, to take a moment for two things. I would love to hear any feedback you have! Iโ€™m all ears! ๐Ÿ‘‚ I've done less app and book stuff as of late. I think the different ways of showing links work well. But most importantly it would be great to know what you think. So, what's up? Reply to this email and let me know! ๐Ÿคฉ Also, I've been lucky to be joined by about 650 of the finest people on the Internet for the Weekly Thing. One of my favorite things, is seeing new people joining our little club. If you would take a moment to spread the word to a friend, colleague, relative, or anyone else that might like it that would be awesome! ๐Ÿ™Œ I think the easiest thing is to send them to https://weekly.thingelstad.com to see the archive and subscribe! ๐Ÿ‘ Cool? ๐Ÿ˜Ž I have this thought that 1,000 people would be really neat. Now I'll get back to ruminating on some of these evolutions, and meanwhile let's jump into things. ๐Ÿคœ๐Ÿค› PS: Iโ€™m happy to say goodbye to this double-cold ๐Ÿคง sequence that I had the misfortune to endure the last two weeks. ๐Ÿšซ I woke up on Thursday and finally felt like the parking brake wasn't on. ## Featured Links ๐Ÿ… ### [Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company](https://medium.com/@shl/reflecting-on-my-failure-to-build-a-billion-dollar-company-b0c31d7db0e7) Reflections from [the CEO and Founder of Gumroad](https://gumroad.com) on building the business and the significant ups and downs. He grounds back to delivering value. It seems obvious, but that is really what matters. ## My Weekly Photo ๐Ÿ“ท ![Fresh blanket of snow.](https://files.thingelstad.com/weekly-thing/93/cover.jpg) Fresh blanket of snow. Feb 10, 2019 at 4:58 PM Edina, MN ## Notable Links ๐Ÿ“Œ ### [Blockchain and Trust - Schneier on Security](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/02/blockchain_and_.html) Schneier is very savvy and smart, and this direct takedown of blockchain is to the point. I've gotten more comfortable with the idea that blockchain is a technology solution for trust, but Schneier's arguments for why that simply isn't true are strong. ๐Ÿ˜ณ ### [Amazon to Acquire eero to Help Customers Better Connect Smart Home Devices | Amazon.com, Inc. - Press Room](https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-acquire-eero-help-customers-better-connect-smart-home) I use eero devices at home. I always suspected that eero would be purchased by a bigger company. I didnโ€™t think it would be Amazon though. ### [Inside story of how legendary NFL broadcaster Bob Costas ended up excised from football and out at NBC -- ESPN](http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/25914913/inside-story-how-legendary-nfl-broadcaster-bob-costas-ended-excised-football-nbc-espn) I've always enjoyed Bob Costas. Iโ€™m not a huge sports person, but Costa's has a way of bringing stories together in a way that is very compelling. The reaction to him speaking out about brain injury issues in the NFL is at best dissapointing. ### [Coaching Tools - The One on One | Silicon Valley Product Group](https://svpg.com/coaching-tools-the-one-on-one/) This article is written referring to product management, but nearly all of it can be applied to any 1:1 context. This is a topic I keep wanting to investigate as it is not well defined in most companies. Just the statement here referring to 1:1's as a "coaching technique" is a compelling way to frame these sessions. ### [The Observation Deck ยป Reflecting on The Soul of a New Machine](http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2019/02/10/reflecting-on-the-soul-of-a-new-machine/) Reading [this, along with Jess Fraz's writeup](https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/new-golden-age-of-building-with-soul/) makes me want to go and [re-read Soul of a New Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine) again too! Itโ€™s a great book. ๐Ÿ“š ### [Bloomberg London: Workplace of the Future - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViOfbGTzKk) If you find buildings and architecture interesting this is an amazing look at the new Bloomberg London location. The first half was the most interesting to me covering the mechanics of the building. Amazing space. Thanks to [Nick](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-swenson-976b7337/) for the link. ### [The ARPUs of the Big Four Dwarf Everybody Else โ€“ Monday Note](https://mondaynote.com/the-arpus-of-the-big-four-dwarf-everybody-else-e5b02a579ed3) These ARPU numbers are amazing. For each dollar of digital ad growth between 2011โ€“2018, Google took $1.00, Facebook $3.70, while the NYT took only 32 cents. ๐Ÿ˜ฏ ### [Executive coach: 7 secrets to lasting career satisfaction](https://www.fastcompany.com/90296030/executive-coach-7-secrets-to-finding-lasting-career-satisfaction) These seem like worthwhile actions to make sure you are adjusting your trajectory in a thoughtful way. ## Give Back ๐ŸŽ https://letsencrypt.org [Let's Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org) is a free, automated, and open certificate authority, run for the publicโ€™s benefit. All connections to web servers should be encrypted! The biggest challenge with encrypting the web historically has been the cost and hassle of getting an SSL certificate. Let's Encrypt has changed that entirely by being a free certificate authority. Let's Encrypt is possibly one of the most important things to happen on the web in recent years. [Donate to Let's Encrypt today!](https://letsencrypt.org/donate/) ## Yet More Links ๐Ÿž - Brandi Carlile - The Joke [LIVE at the 61st GRAMMYs - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=KJqL1yIm9e0&app=desktop) We've been fans of Brandi Carlile for a while, and this performance at the Grammy's was amazing! ๐ŸŽถ - Letting neural networks be weird โ€” Candy Heart [messages written by a neural network](http://aiweirdness.com/post/170685749687/candy-heart-messages-written-by-a-neural-network) aiweirdness.com Good reminder for everyone preparing for machine learning to take over the world. Let's first figure out Valentine's sayings. ๐Ÿ˜ - Leave Me Alone - [Take back control of your inbox](https://leavemealone.xyz/) leavemealone.xyz Neat tool to specifically help you with unsubscribing from bulk mail. Sadly it only seems to work with Gmail at the moment. ๐Ÿ˜ด - [Python Itertools: For a faster and memory efficient code โ€“ Kanoki](https://kanoki.org/2019/02/08/python-itertools/) kanoki.org Slick examples of what you can do with Python's itertools. ๐Ÿ›  - [No thank you, Mr. Pecker โ€“ Jeff Bezos โ€“ Medium](https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f) Is "complexifier" a word? If not, I want it to be one. What a bunch of slime ball stuff. Glad Bezos didnโ€™t capitulate. - [National Park Typeface](https://nationalparktypeface.com/) nationalparktypeface.com I dig cool little font projects like this. ๐Ÿ‘ - [Video Game Controller Cufflinks by ElegantLocketShop (Etsy) โ€”Tools and Toys](http://toolsandtoys.net/video-game-controller-cufflinks-by-elegantlocketshop-etsy/) The first cuff links I would actually enjoy wearing! ๐ŸŽฎ ## Microposts ๐ŸŽˆ ### [Sunday @ 4:13 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/10/but-of-snow.html) Bit of snow out there. ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/4bf5489225.jpg) ### [Sunday @ 2:39 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/10/big-space-and.html) Big space, and a great respite from the cold and snowy winter. ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/83745e84e4.jpg) ### [Friday @ 11:05 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/08/watched-fyre-the.html) Watched FYRE: [The Greatest Party That Never Happened](https://www.netflix.com/title/81035279) tonight. I didnโ€™t follow this story when it happened. Unbelievable mess, fraud. ๐ŸŽฌ ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/81f78b0bff.jpg) ### [Friday @ 9:03 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/08/tesla-your-url.html) Tesla, your HTML encoding is showing. & ๐Ÿ˜ณ ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/7d4f650ad7.jpg) ### [Friday @ 8:53 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/08/started-reading-digital.html) [Started reading Digital Minimalism](http://calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/) by Cal Newport tonight. ๐Ÿ“š ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/fe671f6c7a.jpg) ### [Friday @ 6:45 PM](https://www.thingelstad.com/2019/02/08/checking-out-the.html) Checking out the [Life Time Sport at Winter Park](https://sport.lifetime.life/locations/mn-eden-prairie-winter-park.html) . Super cool pick-up soccer for the kids! โšฝ๏ธ ![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2019/a1d04dd700.jpg) ## Fortune ๐Ÿฅ  You've made it all the way to the end! ๐Ÿ‘ Here is your fortune for this week. You are standing on my toes. Thank you [for subscribing to the Weekly Thing](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/) !