1. I've been wanting to check out The Knowledge Project for a while, because I thought their mission statement - learning from the experts - is cool.
The interviewee in this episode is Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby. The conversation was sprinkled with little golden nuggets, some of my favourites being "The world feels unnecessarily ceremonial", "The most succinct way to communicate an idea is to focus on the action itself", "Choose opportunity, not loyalty", “If it’s not a hell yes, say no” and probably my favorite of them all - “Fun matters”. He talked about Awaken The Giant Within, a book he read when he was 18 or 19 years old that largely shaped his outlook towards life.
He talked about how his career as a musician for 15 years influenced his approach to problems and said that he considers musical thinkers some of the best thinkers. However, the most interesting part of the interview for me was when Derek was asked about his biggest mistake. Instead of reciting some disastrous career move he made, he immediately brought up a story of how he messed up in a relationship with a girl. It reinforced my belief that the secret to living with few to zero regrets lies in nurturing loving relationships and not accruing as much money and fame as possible. He directly addresses this towards the end of the episode, saying "All of the things that mean the most to me in life don't take any money."
2. The first picture I saw of this artist’s was an adorable drawing of Emma Chamberlain. I'm very glad I clicked to view her profile because it instantly became one of my favorite pages on Instagram, and I’m shocked that it only has 400-something followers. The aesthetic appeal is strong in this one.
3. This was a short interview with one of the founders of Yellowzine, Aisha Ayoade. Yellowzine is a voice for African, Caribbean, Asian and Hispanic artists in the UK. It shares their work, interviews them and even offers a training programme for young creatives from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Aisha was born and raised in Nigeria, a country that I have a very positive image of because my father always praises the people he met when he worked at a chemicals business there. At just 24 years old, Aisha also has a clothing brand! In this interview, she talks about the roller coaster that lockdown has been (“I’ve gone from being super motivated and learning to use new programs such as Premier Pro, Photoshop and InDesign etc., to spending days doing nothing and being riddled with guilt”) and offers valuable advice to anyone trying to enter the industry right now (“You should have a good grasp on how the world has changed from your perspective”).
4. This essay written by Vivek Kaul analyses the history, the current situation and predicts the future of the real estate sector in India. On the whole, what I absorbed from here is that it may be one of the most broken sectors in India.
There are many, many unoccupied houses. Prices don’t come down for a number of reasons, a couple of them being - The tax on real estate transactions forms a significant portion of a state government’s revenue collection, so they don’t want to decrease circle rates (minimum prices that are decided by governments). When companies borrow money for a real estate project, the collateral they give is the houses they have finished and not sold. If they cut the prices of these houses to sell them, the value of the collateral would fall.
Building houses will be tougher in the post-Covid world, as the wages for construction workers become bigger, and the inflow from western funders become smaller. It’s a big deal because if the real estate sector does well, a bunch of other sectors like painting do well too.
This essay argues that the solution to this is the government and banks looking beyond the short-term benefits they’re getting, and putting pressure on real estate companies to pay their debts - which I personally don't see happening in the near future.
