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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      Funny things you notice when you write for a long time. Reading motives for essays are cyclical. Ten years ago people read mostly for “how” questions. Five years ago they read for “why” questions. Now they read for “what” questions. We’ll be back to “how” by 2024.

      3 replies 5 retweets 99 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      “How” is intelligence. You want to master difficult skills, challenge yourself. “Why” is curiosity. You want to know why things are the way they are, the meaning and significance behind the how. “What” is ontological doubt. You don’t know what you’re looking at.

      3 replies 2 retweets 43 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      My natural sweet spot is “what” with reasonable ability to cover the “why” beat and sucking at the “how”. My kind of writing felt very countercyclical 10 years ago. Now it feels kinda mainstream. If I were the ambitious type now would be the right time to double down on stuff.

      1 reply 0 retweets 16 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      Fortunately for those who are already sick of me, I’m not very ambitious.

      1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      Tim Ferris would probably not have been able to launch the kind of “how” based career he did today. The GFC years were a how-to boom because so many unprecedented tools were emerging simultaneously.

      2 replies 0 retweets 17 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      “Why” is a good question for insight porn and understanding a TINA world. When it seems like There Is No Alternative, it is useful to ask why things are the way they are. And good answers deliver a nice little dopamine hit of recognition relief. Ambiguity resolves into certainty.

      1 reply 2 retweets 12 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr May 31
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      “What” doesn’t deliver as much by way of aha insight porn payoff. It is a synthetic, constructionist question. There is no TINA way the world necessarily is, and many soft ways it could be. Satisfaction moves from analytical insight to synthetic success. You see what must be done

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    8. Tiago Forte‏ @fortelabs May 31
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      Replying to @vgr

      This is one of the most interesting ways I’ve seen of framing these cycles. I think I’m strongly how, why only on an instrumental level, and leave out the what so much that ppl often don’t know what I’m talking about. Probably why we’re good complements

      1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
    9. Tiago Forte‏ @fortelabs May 31
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      Replying to @fortelabs @vgr

      I feel a strong how wave coming on though, but not the usual how-to topics. Ppl went guidance on more multidimensional, synthetic endeavors that can’t be found watching a YouTube video. One reason online courses are doing so well

      1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
    10. Tiago Forte‏ @fortelabs May 31
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      Replying to @fortelabs @vgr

      But do you think we just cycle through those 3 in order or each phase shift is triggered by something?

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 1
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      Replying to @fortelabs

      I think it's driven by the business cycle and tech cycle together, so there's no simple causal factor. But all theories are kinda garbage during the great weirding, since so many much longer-term cycles are driving things besides business as usual.

      8:37 AM - 1 Jun 2020
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      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Tiago Forte‏ @fortelabs Jun 1
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          Replying to @vgr

          Interesting. One thing I’m really trying to figure out is which cycle the second brain concept is most relevant to. There cycles at multiple scales, but a book has to find the right one to be selling just as well 10 yes from now

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Jun 1
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          Replying to @fortelabs

          the way you're writing it, it's definitely a how book

          0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
        4. End of conversation

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