P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #361
A week off
my story 🚀
Last week I alluded to a mind-boggling link that I held back. You’ll find it below under Big Ideas. The punchline is that thinking and memory aren’t limited to brain cells — we have much more to learn about the basics of life.
I spent some of my vacation down time reading the story of Leucadia Corporation, as told through its annual shareholder letters. In 1979, a couple former classmates managed to gain control, as Chairman & President respectively, of a small publicly traded trainwreck of a company that was technically worth negative $8 million. They took it through a complex restructuring to make its equity worth about $23 million in a year. Through 2012, they operated as an investment holding company that had grown to a net worth of over $6 billion, much of it in cash. Then, in a surprise move, they handed over the keys to the next CEO and President by acquiring the financial company those guys were already running, Jeffries, then leaving them in charge of the whole enterprise. Their final shareholder letter from 2012 offers a summary of their dealings. A collection of all the letters is available here. To hear it from their successors’ perspective, read this recently published letter on the 45th anniversary of the story’s beginning.
fun facts 🙌
A 20-question IQ test proxy? “The General Social Survey includes a WORDSUM vocabulary test component that is often used as a proxy measure for IQ. Want to see how well you can do? Try these 20 questions!” It’s basically a hundred year old test with a bunch of obscure (today, and also maybe a hundred years ago) words. I scored 8.5/10. The conversion to IQ score is missing, or maybe I’m not smart enough to find it. ~ learn more
Air Canada tried to disown its chatbot. “According to Air Canada, Moffatt never should have trusted the chatbot and the airline should not be liable for the chatbot's misleading information because Air Canada essentially argued that "the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions," a court order said.” Spoiler: they lost. ~ learn more
Cousins are dwindling in Canada. “Cousins take up an interesting space in many family dynamics — not quite siblings, not quite friends. Some people may grow up alongside their cousins and have a deep bond and others may rarely see them or speak to them at all. Yet experts agree the role can be an important one.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
Asset-light software businesses. “With all of these changes, nirvana is near: software as a variable cost business. No longer does a new software business need to default to developers, sales reps, or customer success managers to reliably generate cash flow at scale. Every cost is a choice, and founders can now choose to avoid the pitfalls and problems of the past.” ~ learn more
The downfall of modern podcasts. Here’s an explanation into the market forces that drive the modern podcast business model. ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Let me tell you a secret. “In the software industry, your team probably already has some software professionals with a variety of technical skills, and thus they know what to do with technical challenges. Which means that, as often as not, the problem is to do with people rather than technology, even it appears otherwise.” ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
Financial advice columnist writes about being scammed for $50k. Be careful out there! “Now I know this was all a scam — a cruel and violating one but painfully obvious in retrospect. Here’s what I can’t figure out: Why didn’t I just hang up and call 911? Why didn’t I text my husband, or my brother (a lawyer), or my best friend (also a lawyer), or my parents, or one of the many other people who would have helped me? Why did I hand over all that money — the contents of my savings account, strictly for emergencies — without a bigger fight?” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Supercharging CAR-T cells for cancer treatment. Before CAR-T therapy really picks up steam toward its full life-saving potential, society might see one or more major improvements in its cost or effectiveness. Here’s one: “Traditional CAR-T cells, while effective against liquid cancers, face challenges in solid tumors—the cells wear themselves out and ultimately failing to destroy the cancer fully. Professor Tang's research introduces CAR-T cells that excrete the IL-10 molecule, which is then ingested by the modified T cells. In other words, the cell has been engineered to produce its own medicine to keep healthy in the tumor's hostile environment.” ~ learn more
The promise of and problems with phages. “But for many people, phages aren’t some miraculous elixir. In 2022, researchers published the largest series of case studies of phage therapy for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections yet. Of the 20 people treated with phages, most with infections related to cystic fibrosis, 11 had a positive response to the therapy. However, only five managed to totally clear their infections. Another six had some partial response. The rest failed to respond or their results were inconclusive.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Purple Tomato seeds start shipping to home gardeners. It’s a bio-engineered plant that yields purple colored tomatoes with extra anti-oxidants. This newsletter first linked to a write-up about the company in September 2021, so it’s cool to see it start shipping. “Seeds are available at www.norfolkhealthyproduce.com. Packets of 10 high quality seeds cost $20, and are only available in the USA, where the biotechnology regulatory process has been completed with USDA, FDA and EPA.” ~ learn more
Seed catalog throws tantrum after listing GMO tomato by accident. This relates to the recently-approved Purple Tomato. “Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company had an intriguing offer in its 2024 catalog: a tomato seed it called Purple Galaxy. However, what the Missouri-based non-GMO seed supplier didn’t seem to realize is that the Purple Galaxy was very closely connected to the purple genetically engineered tomato variety created by Norfolk Healthy Produce. And, boy, was Baker Creek ticked off.” ~ learn more
teaching the kids 👩🏫
The future of land-grant universities. This article caught my eye in part because I went to such a university, and in part it’s an important question for our education system. “Land-grant universities got their start in 1862, when the federal government donated land to the states, facilitating the creation of these schools. The idea, as the Department of Agriculture puts it, was to help “working class citizens” secure “equal access to higher education with a focus on farming and mechanical skills.” These were the skills most in need at the time.” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
Thinking doesn’t just happen in the brain. In October 2022, I shared this link where Michael Levin showcased work from his lab on organ regeneration. He had figured out that all cells communicate electrically, which is how they know what and where to be when they grow up. He demonstrated it by cutting a planarian (flatworm) in two and causing it to regrow a second head instead of a tail—by changing the voltage. His lab has been busy. “It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells such as neurons—have the ability to store information and act on it. Now Levin has shown that the cells do so by using subtle changes in electric fields as a type of memory. These revelations have put the biologist at the vanguard of a new field called basal cognition.” One implication that crossed my mind: this reinforces the concept of carrying stressful memories in various body parts. ~ learn more
Drill baby drill (for geothermal energy). Fervo Energy, who are using fracking techniques to drill geothermal wells, is back in my news feed once more. This time they announced their latest well was delivered in 30% of the time and for half the cost of their first well. ~ learn more