I recently started a blog on Substack. I don’t yet have a niche - I’m using it to explore my interests, improve my writing and learn in public. Here are a few more reasons.

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39. Commercial days

Love and money

Posted on March 17, 2022

Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. These days, to name a few, occupy an important place in the modern calendar - they give us an opportunity to pay attention to relationships with important people in our lives. Their histories are varied (some more innocent than others) but regardless of how... [Read More]

37. Inbox zero

How to save time and reduce stress

Posted on December 15, 2021

Emails take up a lot of time. According to an Adobe study, the average person spends 3.1 hours on email every single day. On top of the sheer time spent, there’s the mental strain of seeing unread emails pile up and the distractions they bring when arriving. [Read More]

34. Storytelling, some lessons

The skill that's never taught

Posted on November 17, 2021

Storytelling is the most underrated skill of our time. At any social gathering, no matter how large or small, anyone speaking is constantly fighting for the attention of others. They’re usually fighting with messages, emails, and notifications to keep people engaged. Storytelling is the most effective way to engage, teach... [Read More]

33. Friction

An easy way to make money

Posted on October 31, 2021

If you’ve read Paul Graham’s essays or listened to YC’s YouTube channel, you’re likely familiar with the ‘easy way’ to create a successful startup: build something people want and are therefore willing to pay for. It’s a simple idea: people will only part with their money if they’re exchanging it... [Read More]

32. Sunday

Raising $124m with a QR code

Posted on October 21, 2021

I previously wrote about Boom Supersonic, a startup pushing technology boundaries to make supersonic air travel safe and economical. This week’s post is about a different type of startup. [Read More]

31. Omar Kkhayyam and Edward FitzGerald

Exploring the Rubaiyat

Posted on October 7, 2021

This week’s post is something different - I’m sharing some of the earliest poetry I remember coming across: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam*. It’s a collection of four line poems (rubai*, or quatrain) translated by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. His translation is based on the poems of Omar Khayyam, the... [Read More]

30. Growth Hacking

Building and marketing in the 21st century

Posted on September 29, 2021

These are some notes form the book Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday. It’s a ‘marketing primer for the 21st century’, particularly for smaller initiatives (although the lessons can be used by established brands too). _It’s relevant to everyone - whether you’re raising money for charity, writing a blog, or... [Read More]

28. Invented languages

Creating more problems than they solve

Posted on August 28, 2021

Languages are hard to learn. You can use some of the tricks outlined in the previous post, but there’s no magic bullet when it comes to learning them - they’re ‘irrational, irregular, and uneconomical’1. For example, in English we say three dogs. There’s no need for dogs to have an... [Read More]

25. The Alphabet's Story

From logograms to an alphabet

Posted on July 31, 2021

Ever wondered why alphabets are so similar? Evidence suggests the alphabet was only invented once so all alphabets can be traced to a single source. To understand its history, we also have to understand other types of writing systems. Alphabets are just one type - many other writing systems exist... [Read More]

20. Boom

Will supersonic travel work this time?

Posted on June 13, 2021

One of my favourite childhood memories is going to Harare Airport one Friday afternoon to see the Concorde arrive in town. I forced my parents to make another relatively long drive to the airport so I could see it again; it was parked close to the edge of the airport... [Read More]

18. Why nuclear energy failed

A broken promise

Posted on May 26, 2021

The world needs more energy. Specifically, it needs more clean energy. Global electricity consumption has doubled over the last 30 years, and with an increased population and ambitious climate change goals, the world needs a source of cheap and clean energy, sooner rather than later. [Read More]

16. Adobe

The quiet transformation of a tech company

Posted on May 10, 2021

A few weeks ago I came across a graph of Adobe’s annual revenue and was really surprised to see their recent strong growth. Their share price has performed better than Amazon over the last five years (~400% vs ~350%). Perhaps I’ve been slightly out of the loop, but I hadn’t... [Read More]

10. Creating money

How money is made and destroyed by banks

Posted on March 25, 2021

In a previous post we saw that virtual money came before physical money. Since then the world has gone through periods dominated by either virtual money or physical money. We think we’re entering into a virtual money cycle with rise of cryptocurrencies, but this actually happened when nations abandoned the... [Read More]

9. Debt, Capitalism and Politics

Debt in the modern world

Posted on March 18, 2021

This is the second post summarising key ideas from the Radio 4 series Promises, Promises: A History of Debt. Debt and the Birth of Capitalism In a previous post we saw that debt is just a promise to pay a certain amount under certain conditions by a certain time. In... [Read More]

8. Hopin

Betting on a hybrid future

Posted on March 9, 2021

I recently came across Hopin and wanted to share some thoughts on what’s driving its rapid growth. What is Hopin? Hopin is a virtual events platform founded in 2019. It caters specifically to people hosting online events - e.g. conferences, cultural fairs, job fairs. It’s an end-to-end platform that helps... [Read More]

7. Debt and the Story of Money

Did cash or credit come first?

Posted on March 1, 2021

A few years ago Radio 4 hosted a series on debt: Promises, Promises: A History of Debt, by the anthropologist David Graeber (who’s also the author of Debt: The Last 5000 Years). The series traces debt’s history from before the advent of money, all the way to today. Here are... [Read More]

6. Bullshit

What is it?

Posted on February 15, 2021

“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.“ These are the opening sentences of the paper On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University. We all have a sense of what bullshit is,... [Read More]

5. A Process for Creativity

How to Generate Your Next 26 Ideas

Posted on February 4, 2021

The Need for Creativity Life is problem solving. Some problems have known solutions, but others don’t. In the last couple of posts (#3, #4) we saw how tradition shapes our thinking and encourages us to take the default path - to apply old solutions to new problems. Coming up with... [Read More]

2. Thinking on Paper

Some thoughts on writing

Posted on January 7, 2021

Information Overload A major challenge in our always-on world is maintaining clarity of thought; information is abundant and is coming towards us faster than we can process. It’s hard to digest even a small fraction of the news, research and blogs out there - let alone do anything useful with... [Read More]