Hey everyone,

It was an interesting week to say the least. I had a few great conversations and online interactions that spurred my thoughts for this week's newsletter. Hope at makes you think too, and hope you're staying safe.

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The Internet's Magic for Connection ✨

Even though I've grown up with connectivity for basically my whole life, I'm really appreciating certain aspects of the Internet recently. In particular, the web as a resource for learning and connecting with like-minded people. Here are a few examples:

Twitter

Last week, I wrote a thread about why I switched from Substack to ConvertKit for this newsletter and beyond. Some folks from ConvertKit saw the thread, and it led to me jumping on a call with their new VP of Product to discuss my experience and ways they can improve the product. The CEO even retweeted my thread! This was absolutely mind blowing, and definitely much more than I expected from a thread that I somewhat-hastily wrote on Sunday afternoon.

Online Learning

In December, I saw Joel Hooks, founder of egghead.io, tweet about an online school called Hyperlink. I was intrigued, so I checked it out and ended up enrolling in a course that finished last week - "GUIs Through Art History," in which we applied characteristics from movements in art history to designing webpages. This was a cohort-based live course, meaning we all got on a Zoom every Tuesday at 8:30PM and mostly worked through the material together in small groups. I thought it was a fun and much more interactive way of taking an online course, and I'm looking forward to the proliferation of such opportunities, which I think have been accelerated by the pandemic. I liked it so much, I even signed up for another course: "Language Construction Workshop," in which we'll build our own language. I'll report back with my thoughts.

Dating

Online dating is nothing new. Match.com launched in 1995 and Match Group (which also owns Tinder) did $2B in revenue last year. That said, I thought it was interesting that Bumble had its IPO this week and that its shares were up 70%. Bumble is notable for a key feature which allows the woman (in a heterosexual pair) to send the first message when there's a match. I think five years ago (when Bumble was founded) some would have said that online dating was played out, but Bumble was able to put a new spin on an existing idea.

Conversating

You may also have seen that the app Clubhouse has been getting a lot of hype lately. Currently invite-only, Clubhouse features audio chat rooms, in which you can drop in and hear famous people talk to one another about various topics. The rooms have themes, and you can join as a participant or audience member depending on the rules that have been set up. The app really took off when Elon Musk announced that he'd be joining a room to speak with Robinhood's CEO about the recent GameStop craze. In typical Musk fashion, he later invited Vladimir Putin to have a chat on Clubhouse, so we'll see where that goes.

My take with all of these ideas is that I think there's still a lot of room for the Internet to surprise us as a communication medium. I'm often tempted to think that we've seen all the innovative ideas already. I think people at every stage of technological growth have probably thought that. But if companies like Substack, Robinhood, Bumble, and Clubhouse have shown us anything, it's that there's yet untapped potential in our interconnected world.

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Pete's Picks ✅

1. What I'm Reading: I picked up Billion Dollar Whale on Audible after seeing some solid reviews. As you probably know by now, true crime is my weakness. True crime + finance is even more potent, and this book is delivering big time.
2. What I'm Watching: There's been a recent proliferation of professional runners starting YouTube channels. I find the life of pro running fascinating--they basically have one big workout per day and otherwise tend to get lots of massages and live in big houses all together. If this sounds interesting, I'd recommend Morgan McDonald, Tinman Elite, Allie Ostrander or The Athlete Special.
3. What I'm Listening To: Reply All is one of my favorite podcasts ever, and they've been putting out a series investigating the food magazine Bon Appetit. BA came to light last summer for being a discriminatory and toxic workplace, and this series goes pretty in depth in dissecting the history of BA and the famous test kitchen. I'm curious about the next episode, which will explore the role of BA's video content in the discrimination.

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This Week's Video 📹

How to Find Coding Portfolio Project Ideas

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Tweet of the Week 🐦

Usually I put my own tweets here, but this one was too good not to share. Great thread from a doctor who is taking content creation and leverage seriously:

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Little Luxury of the Week 😊

Rice Cooker

I bought my wife a rice cooker for her birthday, and there's no going back now. It's not "little" per se, but it's a game changer for getting perfect rice every time. Previously, we were having a problem with eating hard rice more often than one would like, so I'm glad to say adios to that particular issue.

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Have a great week,

Peter