Everything Sunday Digest

This week’s Everything Sunday Digest is sponsored by the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, the daily tech news podcast of record. Click here to subscribe, or just search “Techmeme Ride Home” in your podcast app of choice! As long-time fans of the show, we’re thrilled to have them as our first ever sponsor :)

Hello and Happy Sunday!

We launched something awesome, new, and important this week: Free Radicals.

It’s a collaboration with Sherrell Dorsey where we aim to celebrate those who embody leadership in this moment. Each edition features a conversation between Sherrell and a leader in tech focusing on equity, advancement and progress.

You can read the first article with venture capitalist Monique Woodard here:

Right now it’s a limited series, but we’d love to make this a full newsletter within Everything, so if you like it please let us know in the comments or the feedback form!

What we published this week

We published 4 new articles totaling ~7,800 words and two podcast episodes.

How to manage your subscription

You can subscribe and unsubscribe from individual newsletters inside of the bundle without affecting your overall subscription to what we write. If you want to turn on or off email notifications for a specific newsletter, you can manage your settings here. 

This Week’s Top Posts

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

1. ⚡️The CEO of No by Dan Shipper in Superorganizers (3,253 words)
2. 🦠 Monique Woodard’s Paradox by Sherrell Dorsey and Annaliese Griffin 4023 words
3. 💞#26 - A post-vacation catch up 🎧 by Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez in Talk Therapy (16 min)
4. 💞#27 - How can we give the Bundle digest its own identity? 🎧 by Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez in Talk Therapy (15 min)
5. 📐First Steps to Buy A School Bus Company 🔒 by Adam Keesling in Napkin Math (2,455 words)
6. ⚡️High-Output Project Management in Notion 🔒 by Dan Shipper in Superorganizers (200 words)
7. 🔮 What books should Divinations review? (Open Thread)

Have you been curious about Means of Creation our live talk show and newsletter on the passion economy with Li Jin and Nathan Baschez? Now you can watch our episodes on YouTube!

Check out a recent episode with Nathan Barry founder of email marketing platform ConvertKit:

Noted

Tidbits from our little corners of the world.

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A perfect halfway point between oddly beautiful and absolutely horrifying. Our hearts go out to the people affected and those who are fighting the fires. (PC Robert Birnbach)

We think Patrick Collison had the best response to the Blade Runner-style apocalypse befalling the Northwest right now. How do we get this guy elected to something?

https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1303772853712560128

Everything super fan Eddie Cohen braved the specter of Covid to get a mask-on lettuce chop in Manhattan. The things we do for that perfect side part. (PC Eddie Cohen)

NEWS

Roam raises money!

See more on Roam and other tech news from our sponsor, Techmeme Ride Home podcast at the bottom of this email.

In case you didn’t hear about it Roam raised a pile of money at a gigantic valuation.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a million nerds crying out in unison: NOTES MATTER. Huge congratulations to the team, we’re inspired by what you’ve made and we can’t wait to see what you do next.

Also, not for nothing, we’re seriously digging the 70s folk singer vibes oozing out of this company photo. To Conor in particular: we love what bi-directional linking has done for your hair. If the whole note-taking thing doesn’t work out for you, maybe consider starting a Peter, Paul and Mary tribute band called Conor and the Roamans.

In celebration, here’s a few articles we’ve written about Roam:

• ⚡️ The Notetaking Cold War by Dan Shipper
• 🔮 Why Roam is Cool by Nathan Baschez

• ⚡️ How to Build a Digital Zettelkasten by Adam Keesling

  ---

Our writers react

“This is the second company this week that I found really, really early but didn't invest in that raised at a 9-figure valuation.” (It’s true.)

“Holy f! That’s double Clubhouse.”

Nathan mentioned that the news reminded him of his favorite Emerson quote. (Worth your time.) He also pointed out Conor’s serious glow-up over the years.

“Excited to be writing detailed Roam breakdowns for years and years to come :)”

MORE THINGS HAPPENED

• Nathan was on The Outliers podcast!
• Notion quietly added backlinks
• Roam added spaced-repetition style flashcards as a feature
• Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, released a book: No Rules
• Fortnite is launching a concert series it hopes will become a tour stop for artists (Go deeper: read Divinations on this.)

SMART ARTICLES FROM GOOD PEOPLE

• Why books don’t work by Andy Matuschak
• Masa Madness by Packy McCormick
• Unity is Manifesting the Metaverse by Mario Gabriele (featuring our very own Adam Keesling)
• Marc Andreesen On Productivity, Scheduling, Reading Habits, Work, and More
• Bessemer’s Deal Memos

OLD BUT AWESOME

• Grilled Chicken, That Temperamental Star

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

We’re ready for the smackdown:

https://twitter.com/tferriss/status/1304521658758299657

Bull and bear cases for events in a COVID world:

https://twitter.com/brentbeshore/status/1303369703570771968?s=12

We are raising a rolling fund to invest in this:

https://twitter.com/aquariusacquah/status/1302420668265496577?s=12

DEMONSTRABLY a power move:

https://twitter.com/juliey4/status/1301958213860909056?s=12

When your AI starts reading too much Victor Hugo:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1303376024646889472?s=12

The more you know:

https://twitter.com/choire/status/1303335387163750400?s=12

This website is free:

https://twitter.com/rabois/status/1304098515191169025

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK

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

• “One of the best articles I've read in months. Andrew is so fascinating. This was a contrarian truth bomb that will drive some people crazy.” (on The CEO of No)
• “As crazy as it feels (just following the advice of a newsletter) I'm going to look into this opportunity.” (on First Steps to Buy a School Bus Company)
• “Ok there's so much I loved about this Sunday Digest, not sure where to begin. Loved the new format; loved the categories like 'smart articles from good people', 'old but fascinating', 'ear candy' (a fave), 'tweets we liked'…Wow what a great issue of the Sunday Digest” (on The Sunday Digest)
• “When will you be interviewing Travis Kalanick?” (on The CEO of No) (Hit us up big T!)
• “This is the kind of content I pay for.” (on The CEO of No)

Keep ‘em coming!

Not a member? You should consider becoming one:

More on Roam: Note-taking startup Roam Research raises $9m at a $200m valuation.

Sponsored by — and excerpted from — the Techmeme Ride Home podcast

Superorganizers fans will enjoy this one: Roam research, a note-taking startup focused on “networked thought” and known for its cult following, has raised a fairly massive round of new funding, as reported Friday by The Information.

Investors confirmed by The Information include: True Ventures, Lux Capital, the Collison brothers, Balaji Srinivasan, Tim Ferriss, Sarah Downey, Jeff Fagnan, Nikhil Basu-Trivedi, Josh Buckley, Brianne Kimmel, and Harry Stebbings.

Roam initially struggled to attract capital, and was rejected by Y Combinator five times. But now, investors’ minds have changed, The Information explains, “because of the success of Zoom and Slack, two cloud-based collaboration services that went public last year.”

For more on this story, and the rest of this week’s most important tech news, listen to the Techmeme Ride Home podcast!

(Also, for more of our stories about Roam, click here.)

About the Techmeme Ride Home podcast

When the New Yorker magazine asked Mark Zuckerberg how he gets his news he said the one news source he definitely follows is Techmeme. (Also, the New Yorker did not ask, but just so you know, Nathan Baschez also loves it.)

For more than two years and nearly 700 episodes, The Techmeme Ride Home has been Silicon Valley’s favorite tech news podcast. Click here to subscribe, or just search “Techmeme Ride Home” in your podcast app of choice!

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