Happy Saturday! Here are your 5 things from the mind of Miles for this week.
The Purpose of Technology: “If the proximate purpose of technology is to reduce scarcity, the ultimate purpose of technology is to eliminate mortality.” I’m struck by this quote from Balaji S. Srinivasan. Read more. (BTW, also intrigued by his newest Project 1729 to find talent globally.)
Longer Healthspans. And that got me to look into the life extension field again. I remember reading Transcend and Ending Aging when they came out but wasn’t sure how to engage. Diving back in with LifeSpan and the Longevity FAQ. You might be wondering about the ethics of longer healthspans. One of the intriguing themes I picked up on is defining aging as a disease (or a problem worth addressing). Then doctors can prescribe, payers will pay and governments fund more research.
Longer-Term Investing. And if we’re thinking longer term, how should that affect our investing? How long-term are investors focused today? Here’s an analysis showing the mismatch between the time horizon of savers and the financial products and public companies they own. What should we do to make companies focus more on the long-term?
Better Negotiation. One of the hallmarks of maturity is the ability to discuss rather than fighting. If you want to get better at negotiation, I highly recommend the book Getting More. The best book I’ve read on negotiation. Hired the author to train folks at our company after reading it. We used the system to settle a multimillion dollar lawsuit for example by trading items of unequal value. One of the fascinating things about the system is that you can get better outcomes if your negotiating partner also knows it.
Founders Pledge Bundle. When we started on our philanthropic journey, we had a series of discussions with other couples, setup a donor-advised fund, read bunch and got advice from experts. I wish we’d had something like Founders Pledge to put all that together for us in one package. Check out my interview of David Goldberg, founder/CEO of Founders Pledge, to learn more. Also, I’m thinking of running workshop for folks with a DAF who haven’t given in a while. If you’re looking to get your giving flowing, let me know.
Until next week,
Miles