I recently discovered a chart on top-earning Substack channels.
Really not sure what to do with this information but wow - the #1 channel (Letters from an American) makes almost 10x of the combined total of the bottom ten channels (from this top 27 list). Pareto principle in full glory?
Talking about numbers, the below video has some numbers that may stun you.
What’s even more stunning about the above video is the shere brilliance with which the important message of gun-violence consequence has been communicated. The story behind how the makers pulled this off, makes for an amazing read too.
Something else that makes for an amazing read this week is my co-founder Amrutash Misra’s brillianty articulated 4-part blog on…
The Startup Guide to Solve for Hiring
If you run a startup and are not sure you are following hiring best practices, you will disover many gems in Amrut’s advice.
While Amrut was busy writing that blog, I was going through marketing and advertising research papers and journals.
In a new episode of #CoreInsights, I share a new finding on what makes more sense to show in product ad: a user-face or just the hand holding the product? What do you think?
The above video blew up on my Linkedin recently. No idea why or how!
I will be honest, I did a little jump of joy on seeing so many people liking and commeting on it.
Talking about jumping and all that, I never knew that one single person - Fosbury - changed the way how everyone would do high jump after him! You will love the video below.
Nobody jumped like Fosbury did.
He won a gold in Olympics, by jumping in his unique style (which also gave him a science-led leverage - just see the video). And then, high-jump changed forever. Because every one started to jump just like him. Crazy story of the ‘Fosbury flop’.
Alright let’s move from innnovation in high-jump to innovation in tech…
Apple is seeking to patent a tech that can control headphone volume based on “attitude data,” - i.e. movement of our facial muscles and rotation of the head. Gimmicky or useful? What do you think?
Talking about gimmickiniess, here this out:
Snack - a new dating app - is allowing users (mostly Gen-Zs) to create and train avatars that can then chat with one another.
After chatting for a while, the avatars decide if the real people would be a good match or not. And only then do the humans need to chat/meet, if they choose to! Hmm…
Oh by the way, in another news from the dating-app world, the Chinese govt is trying to build its own dating app, aimed at solving the country’s dwindling population problem.
I will let my tech-news momentum go on a little longer. Also, let me get a little hard core now.
Electricy, rockets & drug development
Many of us may know / remember that as electricity moves along a wire, there is a loss of energy. Now, I recently found out that some US scientists have created - for the first time ever - a commercially accessible material that eliminates the loss of energy as electricity moves along a wire. (source: WSJ$)
So what? Well, this could lead to longer-lasting batteries, more-efficient power grids and even higher-speed trains to begin with.
More on science & tech - I recently found out about a very interesting use-case for a small rocket - to create medicines in space! Wow - who would have thought about that?
Talking about small rockets, just want to drop a 1 minuter I created few years ago on an IIT Madras incubated startup Agnikul, that has been working towards sending small rockets to space. You may like the cool insights narrated by the two co-founders.
Rockets fly. And so do owls.
I discovered an old video recently and mind was blown. What a creative way to observe just how slient an owl’s flight is (say compared to a piegon).
Now owls can fly as much as they want, but…
How far can a paper plane go?
300 ft is the new world record!
Alright, let me wrap up this newsletter with one last interesting thing that I’d like to share - it’s about the '5 types of imposters'.
I was reading an article in the Economist about the Imposter Syndrome. Found it useful, so made the video embedded above. You can also just read the article (could be behind paywall).
Arlight, that’s it for today. Keep doing more of what you like and less of what sucks away joy from your life. I will see you, when I see you. So much to learn. So much to share.