👋 On time for your weekend: this year’s first round-up of stories at the intersection of #technology, #business, #design and #organisation that stood out.
This edition picks out the ideas that might matter in 2021 or did so in the year that was. Thank you for being a reader and here’s to a happier new year 🙏
📚 Reading
The Best Is Yet To Come:
Many people were stuck in “bullshit jobs” at bloated companies that they couldn’t or wouldn’t leave because of inertia or comfort or because too much of their identity was tied up in it. COVID was a reset. It made the decision for them, and freed them up to go start a company, do a job where they were truly valuable, or pursue a passion. It was hard, but ultimately good.
😽 An ode to eternal optimism—Not Boring
8 Themes For The Near Future (Of Tech):
Another round of “the roaring 20's” is ahead of us, where the pent-up desires from the pandemic will be unleashed in the form of fashion, travel, and culture-bending creative self-expression ... (After all, the last century’s Roaring 20’s also followed a pandemic, the 1918 Spanish Flu.) Our desire to fill the cultural void that has accumulated in us will result in a form of overcompensation that will make for an epic decade ahead.
😼 The best is yet to come—Scott Belsky
Notes on technology in the 2020s:
It all depends on execution. The underlying science is there. The engineers are willing. Even the funding is available in most cases. But, as a society, how much urgency do we feel? Our culture does not prioritize progress—it fights, destructively, for status. And our politics reflects our culture.
🙀 It's time to build, really—Eli Dourado
🎧 Listening
The Year in Tech News & Trends, Explained… In 16 Short Podcasts:
So, consider this list of top 16 episodes of 16 Minutes your curated summary of 2020 tech trends-in-the-news, explained. But also consider it your primer for understanding the future: where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going…
Sonal Chokshi—a16z
8 Essential Lessons For Success in 2021 – and Beyond:
Resolutions can be broken – but lessons are always there to relearn. [..] if 2021 is even half as unpredictable as 2020, you can expect any resolutions to fall quickly by the wayside. So what you're about to hear is [..] a sort of primer for the new year, full of lessons learned from the sometimes devastating – often inspiring – year we just put behind us.
Reid Hoffman—Master of Scale
Words of 2020! (and Metaphors, and Interfaces of the Year):
Now that these technical terms have entered the public sphere in a way that hadn't last year, do they become metaphors? So, if we have 'flatten the curve (of the virus)', does flatten the curve now become a metaphor for contexts other than the virus?
Gretchen McCulloch—a16z Podcast
📬 Suggestions?
Please, feel free to send tips and ideas for a next issue by replying to this email. Or, send them directly to hello@futuring-architectures.com 🙏