David Perell
@david_perell
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"The Writing Guy" | Christian | Host: How I Write Podcast | I tweet about writing, AI, and creativity | My writing: https://t.co/SOE9HtxXdi
New York, NY
Joined January 2011
Why do we build such ugly stuff these days? Look around: buildings, benches, and doors increasingly feel rushed and disposable. Somewhere along the way, we traded beauty for efficiency and craft for convenience. And so, I've produced the film below. To make it, I’ve partnered
I’ve made a short film. Look at the things around you: doors, bins, staircases, furniture, railings, doorhandles, windows. Do you like how they look, or not? Modern design has become boring, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The word “beautiful” is overused. We don’t need
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genius teardown of the overall AI vibe from writers, via @david_perell AD: How would you categorize the overall vibe regarding AI from these “god-tier” writers that you interview? DP: Here’s the thing. You can’t take their word for it. What they say and what’s really going on
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"We think of aesthetics as superficial, but style is an external expression of a culture’s inner spirit. What we make is who we are."
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A friend made me a grand playlist of his favorite songs from the Western canon and every once in a while I’ll open it, flip through some songs, find one I like, make a radio station for the song, and see where it takes me.
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Seinfeld said that one of the worst sins a comedian can make is talking for too long. You can watch a comedian perform for 60 minutes and love him, but if he drones on for another 30 minutes after that, you’ll leave the theater thinking: “Eh, it was alright.” This principle
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The Buddhists posit that there are three different ways to know something. You can memorize it, you can understand it rationally and you can intuit it viscerally. I would posit that ninety percent of writing only gets the reader to memorization, and what would be memorized is at
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Jony Ive once said: "Who here would actually want to spend time in a conference room? I can’t think of a more soulless and depressing place.” In their heyday, Apple’s design team used to meet in a team member’s living room once per week. Looking back on it, I swear you can feel
I’ve made a short film. Look at the things around you: doors, bins, staircases, furniture, railings, doorhandles, windows. Do you like how they look, or not? Modern design has become boring, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The word “beautiful” is overused. We don’t need
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"The Paradox of Reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you'll forget the vast majority of what you read." — @david_perell
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If you're curious, here's the piece, which is still worth reading https://t.co/O7wZbEu7Mo
alexdanco.com
Water is weird. It’s absolutely vital to us as a human species and as a planet: we’re made of water, we consume a lot of water, and we can’t survive without water. It’s very precious to us. On the …
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Years ago, we were on a family road trip through rural Utah and when my Dad noticed I was being uncharacteristically quiet, he said, "What are you doing back there?" "I'm reading an article about the economics of water by this guy named Alex... Alex Danco." My Dad raised an
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“One way to measure the quality of a book: the number of thoughts you’ve never had before.” —@david_perell
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"We could make anything we want - but we don't" Modernists want to convince you that simplicity and Minimalism are the only way to go But this is a reminder that we CAN live in a world that emphasizes the importance of beauty
I’ve made a short film. Look at the things around you: doors, bins, staircases, furniture, railings, doorhandles, windows. Do you like how they look, or not? Modern design has become boring, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The word “beautiful” is overused. We don’t need
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I occasionally spend long days roaming around a city (Austin, Oakland, NYC) with David. Every time, we marvel over the delta between things made today and things made in the past. The lack of beauty in modernity is shocking. Faster, cheaper is not always better.
Why does our world look the way it does? For most of my life, I thought aesthetics were superfluous. I thought they were a kind of decoration layered on top of things that actually mattered. And so, I thought the quality of an object could be measured solely by how well it
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You can feel the way the spirit of an age is etched in its creations when you look at Art Deco. You can feel the buzz of the 1920s. The obsession with speed, power, might and height. The values of our culture are similarly reflected in the things we make today, and they show
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Why does our world look the way it does? For most of my life, I thought aesthetics were superfluous. I thought they were a kind of decoration layered on top of things that actually mattered. And so, I thought the quality of an object could be measured solely by how well it
I’ve made a short film. Look at the things around you: doors, bins, staircases, furniture, railings, doorhandles, windows. Do you like how they look, or not? Modern design has become boring, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The word “beautiful” is overused. We don’t need
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I like the biography of Ed Thorp because it highlights a less popular path to success than what is in fashion today. Ed leads a life of wonder in many different fields, stumbling into several monumental achievements along the way. He meets Buffett at 35 and invests in Berkshire,
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