Nuggies: Individualism over Social Networking
Thursday, December 17th, 2020
Welcome to the twenty-ninth edition of Nuggies, an email newsletter that aggregates articles and commentary on business, economics, startups, and more, in bite-sized nuggets sent right to your email weekly. Created by and for college students.
Our quote of the week comes from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
This Week’s Articles:
We’re Never Going Back to the 1950s, The Atlantic
This piece looks at the shifting realities of media and entertainment, especially post-COVID, and discusses where these shifts leave our culture. In recent years, our culture has shifted away from communal activities to events that are enjoyed individually, from in person gatherings to news to entertainment. This leaves us in hyper-individualized states that fragment our shared American reality. It’s a short read, but worth it for an interesting take on how COVID and individualism is shaping the American story.
Read it here
Everybody Hates Facebook, Not Boring
Not Boring is a popular business strategy newsletter, and this week they shared a bull case on Facebook, or, as they say, “the company we all love to hate”. This is an exhaustive take on Facebook’s long term vision and potential. Despite changing public opinion and threats from regulators, there still is a lot to be hopeful about. WhatsApp, for instance, a Facebook company and the world’s most popular chat app, hasn’t even been monetized yet. This is a great read for anyone interested in the stock market and why Facebook might have some room to run yet.
Read it here
Social Networking 2.0, Stratechery
In this piece, Ben Thompson defines social media 2.0 as social networks designed for the internet rather than digital version of your existing offline networks. For example, Facebook is a social network that allows you to connect with your existing friends (1.0) while TikTok is a social network that leverages content from users around the world to show you the most compelling feed possible (2.0). A key feature of 2.0 is that it also allows people to fragment their interests into different networks (in Thompson’s case, this is different networks for talking NBA v. tech or politics).
Read it here
Fast, Patrick Collison
Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison keeps a running list of remarkable achievements that happened very quickly. The catch is that many of them (especially physical infrastructure projects) happened before 1970. It’s a fun list to poke through and includes some theories for why we’re slowing down.
His most recent entry does provide significant encouragement: the Covid-19 vaccine.
Read it here
This Week’s Tweets:
This Week’s Wildcard (an extra, interesting nugget):
Here are the world’s top 15 most highly valued unicorn (valuation of $1B+) startups, broken down by country. One might note that China pops up on this list a lot.
This Week’s Question:
Should regulators take action against Facebook?
What are we listening to this week?:
Could it be anything else? This week we’re listening to the long awaited junior album in Kid Cudi’s “Man On The Moon” series. The wait was worth it. Cudi keeps his trademark masterful production and realism, while highlighting his evolution as an artist and man. He is able to beautifully explore ranges of feelings, themes, and emotions, without sacrificing a unifying message and sounds. Late-coming frontrunner for album of the year.
Thank you for reading! Nuggies is created by Thomas Pero and Spencer Koehl, two undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.
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