Oversimplified: Issue 65

Practical A/B testing, the passion economy, and the art of doing nothing

Hey there 👋

Let’s get to the best links I found on the internet this week. If you’re enjoying the newsletter, share it with a friend! If this was forwarded to you, check out some previous issues and subscribe for future updates.

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📝 What I Wrote

A Practical Guide to A/B Testing

There's a pretty serious mismatch between what we learn about A/B testing in statistics textbooks vs. how it goes down in practice. This has some of the more memorable lessons learned in my career so far in it.

📚 What I Read

How the Passion Economy Will Disrupt Industries

This post from Li Jin was right down my alley. It starts with Clayton Christensen’s Disruption Theory and ends with plenty of examples to pull from. One of those examples is Substack, the platform that helps me get you this newsletter.

Debt: The First 5000 Years

I haven’t found anyone’s book summaries that I appreciate quite as much as Alex Danco’s yet. Some of the ideas laid out here changed how I think about money.

Chatting with Glue

How can we better design online conversations? There seems to be a universal agreement that endless, linear Slack threads aren’t the answer. I haven’t seen the question explored like this before. Also, pictures!

Uncertainty and Variation

We often conflate the concepts of uncertainty and variation. We treat them as synonyms rather than distinct concepts. The visualization here does a really nice job of explaining why that isn’t the case.

🔥 What I Found Interesting

Unreal Engine 5

This video has been making its rounds lately, but damn. The next generation of gaming is going to be fun to witness.

How Creativity Works

This comic is on point. All ideas are combinations of other ideas. If you want to have more good ideas, collect more ideas in general.

Meditation: The Art of Doing Nothing

Another thread from Naval Ravikant to bookmark. I’ve been meditating for around 4 years now. At some point, I have to try this 60-minutes for 60-days challenge.

🤔 Quote I'm Pondering

"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.” — Sam Harris

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Thanks for reading Oversimplified this week! Anything stand out? I’d love to hear about it. Reply to this email or tweet at me and let’s chat 😁

Until next time,

Conor