Eric's Newsletter -- November 2021

"You’re always asking people to extrapolate from a very limited data set into the future. And I would say that the fact that you’re doing that requires you to be very rigorous and honest with people." The New York Times recently asked me to weigh in on the issue of honesty in startups and why we're experiencing what feels like a wave of companies making up stories in pursuit of profit that will never arrive. The above is a snippet of my thoughts, which center on the idea that in a world where incentive and other systems have long been set up to reward short-term gains, the temptation to lie about something no one can actually check up on can be overpowering. I believe the work the startup movement needs to tackle as we move forward is realigning those structures to make honesty, equity, and dignity for everyone in a company and in society an integral part of how organizations are run. And I believe we're up to it, and on the path to a better future. The whole interview is here.In other news, I'm looking forward to speaking and hearing some great stories from others later this month at the Lean Startup Co.'s Virtual Summit: Enterprise Edition. I'll be delivering the kickoff keynote on Nov. 16 at 9am PT, sharing my experiences working with enterprises and answering questions about what it takes to get a large org to work lean. The summit runs for three half-days, each one with a keynote, a hands-on workshop, and two networking sessions. I hope you'll consider joining us if you're working on bringing Lean Startup principles to a big organization.A large number of announcements about open roles have come my way lately, so I'm including an expanded hiring section below and hope it will offer up ideas to anyone looking to change jobs. It's followed by a bit of recent coverage and some reads I've enjoyed lately.[Hiring]Panther, which runs automated global payroll and compliance for remote teams, is looking for a Global Finance Lead, General Counsel, a Customer Delight Manager and a number of other roles.Authoritive, a startup that collaborates with content creators and experts to build cutting-edge instructional products using instructional design, audio, video, and proprietary messaging technology, is hiring a Senior Learning Experience Designer, a Senior Growth Product Marketing Manager, and a Senior Sales Representative.Primer, an education platform that brings kids together to create projects and explore ideas they're passionate about, is looking for a Growth PM. They also have other open roles you can check out here.Safegraph creates places data sets for the US, UK, and Canada--including core location data, spatial hierarchy metadata, and place traffic data--that help organizations plan for growth. They're looking for Senior Director of Product Marketing.LTSE has a number of open roles including Head of Marketing and Head of SRE. You can see all of them here. [Conversations and Coverage] Mission-driven ventures are growing fast during the pandemicOne third of people are ‘physically pained’ throwing away good food- yet, they do so almost daily: Interview with OLIO’s Co-Founder, Tessa ClarkeBest Business Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read[Other Readings]Elite Biases Make Policy Biases"Even in a democracy, the ~90th percentile rich have the most influence, business interest groups have about half as much, and mass interest groups have about a third as much. We less rich folks only get what we want, to the extent we do, mainly because these elites mostly agree with us, and because we sometimes influence mass interest groups."Our Planet Is Heating Up. Why Are Climate Politics Still Frozen?"If you’re wedded to market solutions, you’ll insist that our failure to act arises simply from suboptimal legal rules and market conditions. Maybe all we need are a few technical adjustments in pricing or institutional design. But our paralysis didn’t arise from happenstance. Every decade that we delay comprehensive climate action is another decade that certain companies can profit from their stake in the world’s energy system. Activists and reporters have exposed well-funded and elaborate misinformation campaigns sponsored by these companies. The revelations haven’t made much difference."Wealth Creators"Rather than a story of disruption and discontinuity, the story of Silicon Valley can be told as one of family legacies. Rather than upjumped kids in hoodies upsetting the staid operations of capital, it’s wealth doing what it always does—attracting more wealth."The case for strong longtermism"Political discussions are normally centered around the here and now, focused on the latest scandal or the next election. When a pundit takes a “long-term” view, they talk about the next five or ten years. With the exceptions of climate change and nuclear waste, we essentially never think about how our actions today might influence civilisation hundreds or thousands of years hence. We believe that this neglect of the very long-run future is a serious mistake."Now, Put It Back!"We, as a society, have to make a call: Do we value expeditious removal more than the right to free expression? Because the only way to treat channel replacement as co-equal with channel deletion is to slow down deletions, by narrowing the grounds for deletion and increasing the evidence required for it."