Dear Reader,
Here is the curated newsletter of the articles, books, and resources. I’ve read in the past week. Enjoy😊. Last issue. Note - I’ve renamed this from Weekly Nero to Nero’s Weekly.
Nero’s Pick - The Messy Reality Behind a Silicon Valley Unicorn – Over 19 months, a sociologist embedded himself in an early-stage VC- backed startup to study its organization and culture on its journey to become a “unicorn”. The startup with only 8 engineers, outsourced majority of its functions (including automation) to an army of 200 contractors in Philippines. The article’s conclusion is ironic - “The interdependence between generously compensated software engineers in San Francisco and low-cost contractors in the Philippines suggests that advances in software automation still rely not only on human labour, but also on global inequalities”.
Business
The Hard Part about Growth - Execution beats strategy every time – Ami Vora - Ex-VP Product & Design at WhatsApp, recommends focusing on execution over strategy because “if you have a good strategy but poor execution, you don’t win and worse, you don’t know why you didn’t win”. If you have a poor strategy but great execution and don’t win, you can update and iterate your strategy till you get it right. “I don’t just have one shot to create a perfect strategy — I have a shot every day to ship something, learn what works, and then update my principles to ship an even better product tomorrow”.
Technology & Product Management
The Cut - Instagram Co-founder Kevin Systrom on truth, scale, and influencers - In this insightful interview with Kevin Systrom, he goes behind the scenes on his experience building Instagram, one of the most culture-defining products of the past decade. The interview covers everything from Instagram’s rapid growth, selling to Facebook, to the product thinking behind ‘Stories’. “I remember signing the Pope up for Instagram and thinking, Wow. At the highest abstract level, what a magical thing that can happen, period. A couple guys can create something and, in a few years, shift the world in some meaningful way for an organization that’s been around forever”.
Africa
Efosa Ojomo - The great miscalculation–and exit–of multinationals in Africa… again - He explains how many multinationals allured by the Africa rising narrative, setup businesses in Africa, but by 2015 exited Africa, citing reasons such as limited infrastructure. The cycle repeats with investments in 2019, and exits again today. He argues that doing business in Africa is hard because of the stage of Africa’s development, requiring more investment compared to developed regions. “The average government expenditure per capita across Africa is approximately $500. These funds go toward servicing a country’s debt, building infrastructures, developing institutions.... In France, Norway, and the United States, government expenditure per capita is $24,000, $41,000, and $30,000 respectively”.
ESI Africa – Zambia – New 60MW solar plant commissioned in Zambia – The new 60MW solar plant is a follow up to the 34MW Kitwe solar project, by Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC). It would go towards diversifying Zambia’s energy mix from hydropower, and meeting the existing gap of 500MW.
Career Development
Think at London Business School - Transforming your midlife career: Top tips for success – Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, shares strategies for navigating a successful midlife career transition. She recommends having an explorer’s mindset, cultivating diverse networks, developing your own story and many more. Contemplating your career? this article is helpful especially if unclear on what you want to do next. It complements my thinking in The Career Frameworks that Changed my Life.
“Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight, you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.”
— How to do what you love, Paul Graham
There you have it.
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Thanks for reading and bye for now.
Nero
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