Strands of Genius: London Happy Hour July 19th, CTA Pod, The Rich are Crazier, Automation of Work
Plus: we bought a house!
WRITING FROM | Nashville, TN
WORKING ON | house things, packing things, and getting ready for Abdulla's 80th birthday!
LOOKING AHEAD
July 10-27 | Worcester Park, UK
July 28-Aug ? | Sydney, AUS
Aug-Oct | APAC Adventures
Nov | Mexico
Dec | Mexico / Tennessee
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
Well helloooooo there! Hope you didn’t miss us too much! We didn’t *plan* to take two weeks off, but while we were in Portland we decided to buy a house in Tennessee, a couple hours outside of Nashville, close to Chattanooga!
We closed on June 21st, only 11 days after we got a Face Time tour, and then flew into Nashville and drove to see it for the first time in real life on June 27th. People typically say you shouldn’t buy things like houses before you’ve seen them in real life, but it’s the second house we’ve purchased sight unseen, and it worked well enough the first time that we decided we’d do it again! Plus, we hate following arbitrary rules ; )
The first property we bought was purely a financial investment play — We bought the Washington house in 2014, renovated it from afar, and we’ve never spent a single night there. But while the Tennessee house was also an investment, it was an investment in a different way — An investment in mental health, in community, in our own future, and in our own creativity.
We’d been talking about it for a year or so, but it wasn’t until March that we actually drove to the area we’d been thinking about and looked at a few houses. And from there, the story is similar to so many: We put what we thought was a compelling offer together, got outbid, and then didn’t see anything that was the right fit come on the market for a while. It was a frustrating time because so often our work success is based off our own effort, and no matter how much effort we put into the house hunting process, we simply couldn’t make houses appear on the market. But then this little ol’ house in Hixson, TN came on the market and even though we got outbid (again!), we had written a letter to the sellers and it turns out that they also thought the house would be a great fit for us, and ended up accepting our offer, even though it was lower. It turns out that there’s power in persuasion after all!
The first question everyone has asked is: So when is the move-in date?! Which cracks us up, because what the heck do we have to move in? We left NYC more than 10 years ago, and anything we saved from our apartment there has long since been given away. We have some clothes that we’ll take up in November/December, but the real project is now furnishing a house from scratch! (Please feel free to hit reply and tell us your favorite house things or hacks because we are truly clueless here!)
The second question we’ve been getting a lot is: Does this mean you’re done being nomads?! No, not at all!! When we talked about this purchase, we intentionally kept costs low. We didn’t want to have to trade one lifestyle for another, we just wanted a place that we could escape to, and one that would be available for our friends & family, too. We’ve got no plans to Airbnb it, but we do hope that we’ll be able to host friends & family. (This is where Faris interjects, “You’re all invited!”)
In true nomad fashion, we leave the USA tomorrow without a return ticket, but with plans to come back to the USA sometime in November. We’ve heard horror stories about couch delivery times, so we’re hoping if we get on it sooner rather than later, we’ll have a couch to sit on come November, ha! (If you love your couch, or any other house-based things, please tell us about it because again - we’re clueless!)
Between buying a house, and trying to set things up for success while we’ll be out of the country, it’s been busy and chaotic, but in the best way. In between seeing our house for the first time and hosting friends for the 4th of July, we also attended a family reunion of mine — with more than 300 attendees!!
100 years ago, Gran Susie bought a house in Beersheba Springs, TN for her 7 sons to enjoy for years to come. The 7 sons married and had kids and in some instances moved across the country, but came back together for this reunion and celebration. Because my family is so big, we even have numbers. My number is 1231, because (read from the right back to the left): I’m the 1st child, my mom was the 3rd, her mom was the 2nd, and her mom’s dad was the 1st of the 7 brothers. Just in the “1s” we’ve got around 70 of us, so it was magical and crazy and wonderful to meet so many of my extended family members, especially the 6s and 7s, and I left with my heart feeling especially full.
So here’s why we’re a day late and a dollar short: We got to our house for the first time and couldn’t get the internet connected (but we’ve got fiber now!) and that’s why we missed you two weeks ago. Last week, we were hosting friends in Nashville for the 4th of July, and soaking up time with people we won’t see until December. It wasn’t until Wednesday that we realized we had forgotten to send the Tuesday edition of our newsletter. What can we say? You get what you pay for ; )
But really, thanks for sticking with us, and hope that we’ll be able to host you in Tennessee one of these days. (Though maybe wait for the furniture to arrive, first!)
LONDON ALERT! ROOFTOP HAPPY HOUR JULY 19th ANYONE?
We are in UK for Faris dad’s 80th birthday! We have super limited time in the UK this year, and we weren’t planning on coming to London at all, but our dear friend Matt Northin suggested we do happy hours drinks on the rooftop of Mindshare:
Mindshare London Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge Rd, London SE1 9HS
We’ll be there from 6:30p-8:30p on Weds, July 19th, and if you want to join, you’ll have to RSVP by Sunday, July 16th as the list will go to the big fancy security people on Monday, July 17th. The space is beautiful, the drinks are affordable, and we’ll even put a little money behind the bar for the first drinks of the evening. (First come, first served.)
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Stephen & Mandy’s generosity and pool, the Adams Family, John Adams, the Beersheba Springs market, all our cousins and extended family, the big red barn dance, Virago, wasabi martinis, Rachel&Mike, Erin&Eric, Madison&Morgan&Ruggy, Alex&Collin, Josh&Elea, Costco (I was forever a hater, but now that we need to buy appliances, I’m a convert), cuddles with the niblings, Marion’s birthday, dinner with dad & Teresa, etc., & YOU.
:: THE LINKS ::
WE DID A CALL TO ACTION PODCAST!
“FOLLOWING EYEWITNESS REPORTS OF STOLEN GENIUS WE HURTLED DOWN THE HIGHWAY TO CATCH AD LAND’S OWN BONNIE AND CLYDE; IT’S ROSIE AND FARIS YAKOB.” That’s a lot of bold caps but it’s so fun. We had a great time chatting to Giles and hope you enjoy it too. We discussed “the low down on life on the run road, how Rosie earned $10,000 babysitting (she made her own fliers), ‘Ask Faris’, US vs UK education system, the lack of industry practitioners as professors, engineering moments of in-betweenness, K-shaped recovery, Blair Enns, charging for what you know (not what you do), entertainment as the cost of admission to someone’s brain, the key to creative effectiveness, and a whole lot more.” (CTA/GASP/Podcast Platforms)
THE RICH ARE CRAZIER
You must have noticed, being somewhat online, that there seems to be an oddly singular outcome to the trajectory of very different kinds of thinkers, when they become billionaires and then someone challenges their genius. When someone makes their name and absurd fortune on a contrarian bet, they seem especially susceptible to this. They begin to reject all accepted knowledge, again usually when they have been challenged or exposed for being wrong in some unrelated domain that their wealth is not derived from, and become reflexive contrarians. Not quite ‘shitposters’, who openly profess their lack of pov in their self-claimed title, but “reflexive contrarianism is, as the economist Adam Ozimek puts it, a “brain rotting drug.” Those who succumb to that drug “lose the ability to judge others they consider contrarian, become unable to tell good evidence from bad, a total unanchoring of belief that leads them to cling to low quality contrarian fads.” “Arguably, the craziest faction in U.S. politics right now isn’t red-hatted blue-collar guys in diners, it’s technology billionaires living in huge mansions and flying around on private jets. At one level it’s quite funny.” (NY Times Gift Link)
AI AND THE AUTOMATION OF WORK
Like many people we’re thinking about the implications of AI as it is and will be soon for the future of work. As a general principle, we feel good about “anything that can be automated will be automated” because of how technology and capitalism interact. Thus we believe leaning into maximally human qualities makes sense to future-proof one’s career. This piece by mega-analyst Benedict Evans looks at the history of automation of work and explains two important fallacies. “The Lump of Labour fallacy is the misconception that there is a fixed amount of work to be done, and that if some work is taken by a machine then there will be less work for people. But if it becomes cheaper to use a machine to make, say, a pair of shoes, then the shoes are cheaper, more people can buy shoes and they have more money to spend on other things besides, and we discover new things we need or want, and new jobs.” Then there is the Jevons Paradox. (Benedict Evans)
(Adfolk on a panel on the beach at Cannes……spot the mistake)
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:: MARIOREO ::
Simple, lovely. Also see the System 1 write up.
and this for Mission Impossible, which is similar but more Honda Cog about it.
:: OH AND… HERE’S THE HOUSE ::
If you’re in the APAC market and fancy collaborating with us, let us know! We’ll be in Australia at the end of July and are planning to hang out in the APAC region through October.
If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)