#2 - Platform, Publisher or Aggregator
On Red Teams, Tips For Getting A Job in Lockdown, Future of Work and Managing Uncertainty
Hello,
Greetings from The Curious Cat.
Have you developed any new habit in this lockdown period?
As the world reopens, here is a weekly habit for you - this newsletter. It aims to filter out the noise and bring out the best ideas and perspectives, which are worthy of your time. Subscribe now for getting interesting reads in your email every Saturday morning.
In this week’s edition, we explore the following topics -
What Is Facebook
The relationship between social engineering and technology
COVID and the Future Of Work
Red Teams and their significance
Tips for getting a job in the lockdown
Preparing for a future you cannot predict
Lets dive in
What is Facebook
Photo : Mark Zuckerberg 2018 Keynote by Anthony Quintano used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
Facebook was in the news last week for making a public statement that people should be able to see what Donald Trump says, after Twitter masked one of his tweet behind a note saying it promotes violence. This brings us to the question - what is Facebook - a social media platform or a publisher. Facebook’s source of revenues are through advertisements by generating content like a media company but it does not own responsibility for the content. The content is like a decentralized system of independent publications produced for public consumption with no quality control.
As Michael Dougherty writes -
Facebook dynamically republishes information to individual users in ways that are truly novel and truly frightening when you consider the amount of personal data that informs this publication. And it is one of the most profitable companies in the world. It has contributed to the destruction of a valuable ecosystem of publications that embodied better judgment and more ethical behavior than Facebook. And so we should all welcome new thinking on it.
Read the article here
So what do you consider Facebook - a platform or a publisher ?
How Social Engineering Drives Technology
Samo Burja argues that new technology requires social engineering contrary to the popular belief of technology changing the society. He writes that society is an engineered system that changes more by deliberate planning. The technologies we integrate into society become the foundation on which future technologies are built. We accept or reject technology together as a society. Changing consumer behavior at scale through mass marketing was one of the greatest breakthroughs in social engineering to match newly available technology.
The acceptance or rejection of a technology isn’t just a matter of the whole society adopting it all at once. Rather, particular organizations first develop the technology and then undertake campaigns to alter society to accept it. Social factors constrain progress more than technical factors.
Read the article here
Do you think modern society has aided the growth of Facebook?
COVID, Hysteresis and The Future Of Work
The article argues that Covid has changed the future of work via four shocks: massive job losses, massive digital transformations, massive debt burdens, and massive costs of socially distanced office space. Hysteresis happens in systems where the level of some capital stock (human, physical, knowledge, social or organizational) alters marginal costs or benefits. Some have temporary effects and some have permanent effects.
The author concludes that rapid digital transformation will see service sector jobs competing with telemigrants working in the office remotely and software robots replacing particular office tasks. The jobs that survive competiton with telemigrants will be those that require face-to-face interaction and the jobs that survive competition from robots will be those that stress humanity’s great advantages.
Read the article here
The Importance Of Red Teams
You need to listen to alternative and opposing opinions on problems and solutions. As humans are victims of biases and unaware of it, contradicting our viewpoint is a good way to improve decision making. Red team refers to a person or a team that helps an organization - the blue team - to improve by taking an adversarial or alternative point of view.
Deliberately assigning a person to a red team, conducting a premortem, reading literature, consuming media related to good and bad critical thinking, participating in a journal club are some of the ways to incorporate red teaming in your decision making.
Devil’s advocate anyone?
Read the article here
6 Tips For Landing A Job In The Lockdown
Even in a tough labour market, there will be attrition and people leaving for other jobs. The following tips can prove useful -
Beat the automated application vetting systems by entering work tasks in the first bullet point under each job.
Assess your prospects by considering how your skills can benefit industries that have stayed open in the lockdown.
Speak to recruiters and ask for suggestions on improving your resume.
Use your resources to get information on what a company in your city is hiring for in the lockdown.
Network and speak to mutual acquaintances who can help.
Be persistent and don’t give up.
Read the article here
3 Ways To Prepare For A Future You Cannot Predict
Annie Duke mentions that the best strategic decision need not be always ‘right’. Choosing not to decide or “wait and see” is a decision in itself. As uncertainty is omniscient, she recommends a framework for making decisions under uncertainty -
Prioritize reversibility - Exploring options and decisions that have a low cost to quit or reverse. It need not be the right decision but having flexibility and agility helps as we update our knowledge when new and crucial information comes to light.
Exercise options in parallel - Placing bets on more than one future scenario through hedging and exercising multiple options helps in gathering information quickly and blunts the impact of any one option faring poorly.
Establish signposts - It is not enough to commit to an option that you can later change. It is important to create signposts in advance to pay attention whether to stay course, modify or change direction.
She concludes by saying that an understanding that no choice is a perfect prediction of the future helps in making great decisions under uncertainty.
Read the article here
Mental Model For The Week - The Matthew Principle
Advantage begets advantage leading to social, economic and cultural oligopolies. The richer you are, the easier it is for you to become more rich. People with more Twitter followers are likely to increase their following. The more recognition a scientist receives for a discovery, the more the same scientist will receive for future discoveries. Those who start with an advantage relative to others can retain that advantage over longer periods of time.
Facebook with more users is likely to get stronger with time and retain its competitive advantage. The key to disrupting Facebook therefore lies in reducing its users. The alternative and the feasibility, however, needs to be seen in time.
Book Recommendation For The Week - Alchemy By Rory Sutherland
In order to be brilliant, you need to explore and exploit the irrational side of human beings. As much as we would like to think we are rational and objective in our approach towards making decisions, the truth is that we are not.
There are countless insights and interesting anecdotes in the book which are applicable to many things in life.
You can have a look at some of the notes here.
You may buy the book here
Podcast Recommendation For The Week - Ben Thompson on Invest Like The Best
Ben Thompson is an influential blogger who runs the tech blog Stratechery.
In this podcast, Ben talks about the smiling curve, Spotify’s entry into the chaotic market of podcasts, smiling curve in the PC industry, platforms and aggregators, the streaming wars, Amazon vs Shopify and the future of media and publishing.
You may view some of the notes here.
If you are interested in understanding the business of technology, the trends and how to look at the tech world, then this is mandatory listening.
You may listen to the podcast here.
This gives you a new perspective on looking at Facebook as an aggregator that has a direct relationship with its users, zero marginal costs and lower customer acquisition costs over times.
We would like to leave you with the question - how do you see Facebook now?
Afterthought
I cannot predict the direction of the stock market over the short-term.
I cannot predict the magnitude of stock market moves.
I cannot predict when market moves are going to start or stop.
The stock market doesn’t always make sense nor does it have to.
The stock market has the ability to make everyone look foolish at times.
- Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense)
We consider you as a red team member.
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Have a nice weekend. We shall meet again next Saturday.
Take care and stay safe.
Regards,
Team Curious Cat