Everything Sunday Digest

Hello and Happy Sunday.

We spend a lot of time in this space covering things like SPACs, rolling funds, Roam, and who dunked on who on Twitter because we love them — we think they’re important, and they’re fun to talk about. But the fact is that we are only able to immerse ourselves in what’s going on in tech because, in the U.S., we take for granted that we live in a functioning democracy. 

Unfortunately, that fact is not guaranteed.

There are 44 days until the presidential election in the U.S. — what is likely to be the most consequential election of our lifetimes. If you’re a reader in this country we humbly request that you register to vote:

With that out of the way, we’ll continue on with the Sunday digest in our usual lighthearted style — not because today we feel lighthearted, but because we can’t allow the tumult that surrounds us to seep into every space in our lives. That would be to give in to it.

Instead we choose to direct our energy towards advancing the ideals that animate us — and to reposting funny Twitter memes.

Enjoy!

What we published this week

We published 3 new articles totaling ~7,200 words, one podcast episode, and hosted one live conversation.

An invitation to Everything

We want to try an experiment: we want to welcome readers to Everything who want to see what it’s like to be part of our world, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

So for this week, we’re going to invite you in to try the Everything bundle for $1 for the first month. Think of it like a paid trial, so you can see what we’re all about. 

This Week’s Top Posts

(Ranked by the % of people who said the post was “amazing” in our feedback forms.)

1. ⚡️The Four Kinds of Side Hustles by Justin Mares in Superorganizers (2,329 words)
2. 📐How Chegg Grew Their Share Price 20x In Four Years by Adam Keesling in Napkin Math (2,248 words)
3. 🔮 Roam’s Road Ahead by Nathan Baschez in Divinations (2,619 words)
4. 💞#28 - Can Roam Justify the $200m Valuation? 🎧 by Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez in Talk Therapy (15 min) (Open thread)
5. 💝#10 - Blake Robbins on the Future of Media, Twitch, OnlyFans, and Creator Monetization by Li Jin and Nathan Baschez in Means of Creation (46 min)

Noted

Tidbits from our little corners of the world.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday night at 87. May her memory be for a blessing.

NEWS

Snowflake is 2020’s biggest IPO

Frank Slootman is a name you DO NOT want to have in middle school. But it looks like Sloot’s getting the last laugh here. And we are fired up.

Read a deep dive.

TikTok Lives Again; Kevin Systrom might be the next CEO

Trump signed off on a deal that will allow TikTok to continue U.S. operations, partially owned by Oracle and Walmart. We look forward to Gen Z’s introduction to enterprise databases at everyday low prices.

Meanwhile, Kevin Systrom might be the next CEO which would be delightful.

MORE THINGS HAPPENED

• We all started rating VCs.
• Apple released a bundle. (Nathan has a prediction.)
• Floodgate — the VC firm whose framework for new ideas inspired Nathan to write his post on Kernel Strategies — is taking its Stanford course on seed investing online, with a focus on Black and Latinx students and founders. There are no prerequisites, so don’t miss this chance to sign up.
• Opendoor is going public. (Here’s Byrne Hobart on why iBuying has endless opportunities for business model improvement)
• Two launches of note: Brief, the “inbox zero for news,” and Discovery Assist, a connection service for founders and potential customers.
• Substack is now driving discovery with Twitter, making it easier to find new people to read around these parts.
• Notion officially launched bi-directional linking.

• Happy belated Pub Day to Eric Jorgensen!

  ---

EAR CANDY

• Dan and Nathan went on A Media Operator to talk about paying writers, and the possibility of new verticals. If you want to know how the bundle works, listen here!
• So You Want to Launch a Newsletter: Tips From Writers on the a16z Podcast

YOUR WEEKLY WHIMSY

We’re tired of think pieces. That’s why we asked our friend (former entrepreneur turned writer) Amit Gupta to share a piece of his science fiction with you all this week. It’s called How Did It Feel to Be Eaten? and no, it is not about 2020.

Seriously, though, we could all use a little fiction given how the real world is going these days. You should read it:

🎵 SEND US YOUR WORK PLAYLIST! 🎵

We want to know what you’ve been listening to while working. Share your playlist with us and we’ll review it in an upcoming edition of the Sunday Digest!

🥇The Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold Award

Conor had some choice words for Notion CEO Ivan Zhao after they announced their backlinks feature.

https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1306722418786881536

🔥 BURN OF THE WEEK

Josh comes out swinging after the $SNOW IPO:

https://twitter.com/joshk/status/1306320220231999494?s=12

Gurley fires back:

https://twitter.com/bgurley/status/1306347206597775360?s=12

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

We had to:

https://twitter.com/adeets_22/status/1306284878858776576?s=20

We agree, full stop:

https://twitter.com/web/status/1305481852103405572?s=12

Too perfect:

https://twitter.com/venturetwins/status/1306326312953364480?s=12

In which we lovingly serve up a helping of our own warm and fuzzy confirmation bias:

https://twitter.com/shl/status/1306208279954038784?s=12

Don’t sleep on audio:

https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/1304910839057723394?s=12

👀👀👀:

https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1306384855098417154?s=12

Pretty hard to run a newsletter with this mindset but we’re hoping to try:

https://twitter.com/hipcityreg/status/1306252032391737344?s=12

🎵Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please build a monopoly if you can🎵 doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?

https://twitter.com/katiewav/status/1306726977727090688?s=12

Smile of the week:

https://twitter.com/lil_lopeep/status/1306291042644365312?s=12

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK

Some of the best feedback we received in our forms this week:

• “Love hearing about side hustle ideas and opportunities, especially ones you can start small" (on The Four Kinds of Side Hustles)
• “I loved that, as clearly a fan of Roam (and perhaps part of the #roamcult), you were still able to think about and articulate a balanced assessment of the challenges ahead of it. I'm not a huge fan of Conor or the hacky nature of Roam, but I use it, and I kind of wish they hadn't taken VC funding. Honestly it seems a little antithetical to their previously stated ethos anyway, although one could argue that getting big money might allow them to better achieve the big vision they have... We'll see.” (on the Roam’s Road Ahead.)
• “Give me the secret sauceeeeeee” (on The Four Kinds of Side Hustles)
• “I wanted to rate the Chegg post as Amazing but this form shows “rate First Steps to Buy A School Bus Company” Response: Fixed! (on How Chegg Grew Their Share Price 20x In Four Years)

Keep ‘em coming!

An invitation to Everything

We want to try an experiment: we want to welcome readers to Everything who want to see what it’s like to be part of our world, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

So for this week, we’re going to invite you in to try the Everything bundle for $1 for the first month. Think of it like a paid trial, so you can see what we’re all about. 

How did you feel about this week’s digest?

Amazing • Good • Meh • Bad

This post was written by Babe Howard. It was edited by Dan Shipper.