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- The Sundy Collection - 16 July
Happy Sundy Folks,
Welcome back to The Sundy Collection.
A weekly newsletter hitting your inbox on a chilled Sunday afternoon. We’ll be sharing a few snippets from the week past.
There will be interesting bits of news from the tech, business and sports worlds. I’ll also share some interesting books, podcasts or Youtube videos we’ve selected for you from the week.
News Snippets
Are we seeing the last few years of business class?
As business class fares become increasingly expensive due to the pandemic, more and more passengers are turning to premium economy tickets to get the same amount of comfort for a fraction of the cost. With perks like 15cm more legroom, separate check-ins, priority boarding, enhanced menus, larger entertainment screens, and more, premium economy is proving to be a lucrative venture for airlines.
All this means is that the once semi-affordable premium economy will now just become an unaffordable premium economy. I’m still flying at the back - FML!
Google’s AI Health Chatbot Passes US Medical Exam
Google's AI-powered medical chatbot, Med-PaLM, has achieved a passing grade on the US Medical Licensing Examination. Although it still falls short of the results of human doctors, a new evaluation benchmark has been developed to reduce false information. Med-PaLM 2 has achieved 86.5% on the exam and is currently being tested at the Mayo Clinic research hospital for administrative tasks.
Finally a Ruling on XRP - Massive Win for Crypto
A federal judge ruled that the sale of the cryptocurrency XRP on public exchanges did not violate securities law, providing an early victory for Ripple in its legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC has argued that digital assets should be subject to the same strict regulations as traditional securities. However, the ruling may complicate the SEC's argument and offer defence opportunities for the crypto industry. The judge stated that Ripple did not break the law when selling XRP on public exchanges but found that the company violated securities law when selling to institutional investors. Ripple's chief legal officer celebrated the decision as a win for the broader crypto industry. It is important to note that this ruling does not guarantee victories in other crypto cases, and separate determinations will be made for each digital asset in ongoing lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance.
What I'm Learning This Week
Using Midjourney to create AI images and “art”. For those that haven’t dabbled in AI and more likely, for those that haven’t dabbled in AI generative images, this is a great one to check out. Midjourney is the leading platform to create AI images. Some of the artwork being created is spectacular. Midjourney though from a user experience perspective is a little challenging. They’ve chosen not to have a website but rather generate images through Discord (a Slack-style chat platform for the public. Created primarily for Web3). This makes using it challenging and a bit of a pain in the ass so I’ve been putting it off. This video tutorial is excellent.
Beats I’m Deep Working to
I am a big fan of long, melodic EDM (Electronic Dance Music) sets. SoundCloud is my drug of choice for such beats. I listen to these sometimes 2-3 hour sets while I am doing deep work. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried. This week’s link is a banger!
Audio Book I’m Listening to
Predictable Revenue - Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler
Predictable Revenue is a sales strategy book that outlines a systematic approach to generating consistent and scalable sales results. Ross shares his experiences at Salesforce.com, where he developed the "Cold Calling 2.0" methodology that helped the company achieve rapid growth. The book emphasises the importance of specialisation within sales teams, focusing on lead generation, prospecting, and closing deals.
I’ve read a bunch of these now since becoming a CEO and most are average at best. This book is easy to read and has many great takeaways and easy actions to implement.
I finished it and immediately bought a copy for my Director of Sales.
Twitter Thread I’m Retweeting/Bookmarked
New Tech I’m Exploring
Threads by Meta
It looks like Twitter and it acts like Twitter but it’s not Twitter!
Who needs a new social media distraction? Well, no one really but Zuck has decided the world needs a “nicer” version of Twitter.
So, in a very impressive amount of time, Meta’s team built Threads as a competitor to Twitter. I decided to play around for the past week and see what it was about. Personally, it seems like a slower, shittier version of Twitter.
For those that didn’t use Twitter much but loved Instagram, I can see this being a nice alternative. It’s “novel” to now be able to have links in your posts and replies. But, it really feels like a dumbed-down, less image-heavy version of Instagram. All the same creators just posting the same content here instead AS WELL AS Instagram.
Threads hit 30 million users within a few days which they announced with huge fanfare. I am not that impressed. Instagram has a little over 2.2 billion users. Meta made it really simple to transport your IG account to Threads. So, this 30 million they’re bragging about is just a tiny percentage of IG users who thought they’d try it out. They’re technically not “new” users.
Will it last? Most likely. Will Twitter lose users to Threads? Probably not a lot.
For now, they haven’t really done anything remarkable and I think the fad will wear off. Twitter users will stay there and Threads users will go back to Insta soon enough.
Zuck said he hopes Threads would be a nicer version of toxic Twitter. If that does stay the theme I wouldn’t be averse to staying on for a while.
Podcast I’m Walking to
Bobby Hundreds on Tim Ferriss Show
Bobby Hundreds is an artist, designer, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. He is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of the global streetwear brand The Hundreds, and the author of two books: This Is Not a T-Shirt and NFTs Are a Scam / NFTs Are the Future.
I had not heard of Bobby before this podcast but I am trying to learn more about brand-building and this seemed like a good pod. As usual, Tim asks great questions and the conversation and learnings are worth a listen.
Quote I’m Mulling Over
“If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.”
Anthony de Mello
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