Hey guys, I’m taking a break from article writing this week, but I do have a new podcast for you all to check out. I sat down with my friend Elliott and we discussed Fortnite’s business model. He dropped a lot of great insights and it’s definitely worth a listen. Anyway, I know I’ve been talking about Epic Games a lot. I promise I’ll have something for you next week that isn’t Fortnite-related. Happy Sunday y’all. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers...
Jun 20, 2021•25 min
A beginner-friendly conversation about what’s going on in the cryptocurrency space. Sorry for the minor audio issues throughout (Comcast sucks). If you liked this conversation, check out our full article about the cryptocurrency crash. Also, subscribe to our weekly newsletter on business and tech. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.com...
Jun 07, 2021•35 min
Nothing in this post should be considered financial advice and I am not telling you to buy any specific cryptocurrency. If you hate the idea of cryptocurrency, the last few weeks have probably been great for you. The price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and joke currencies like Dogecoin have all tanked. You might feel like you have the right to laugh at your friends who fell for the hype and tell them that the whole concept of crypto is stupid and it’s all just a Ponzi scheme by Internet nerds. Of course...
May 30, 2021•13 min
This is my conversation between me and my friend, Ben. He works in a front office for a professional sports team and he’s an incredibly smart dude. He breaks down the data revolution in sports and why Tobias Harris gets paid almost as much as Lebron James. If you like what you hear, subscribe to our weekly newsletter on tech and business. We write so that it’s actually something you’ll want to read, not some boring Boomer shit like Bloomberg. This is a public episode. If you would like to discus...
May 25, 2021•22 min
The day the NBA’s season was suspended because of COVID-19, my company’s CEO sent an email saying that all employees were to work from home indefinitely. It was a really sudden transition — one moment America felt completely normal. Next thing you know, we were in the biggest global crisis since World War II. Back then, people were still deluding themselves into thinking this pandemic thing was going to blow over in a month or two. My boss called me the next day to let me know that belief was bu...
May 02, 2021•14 min
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs for short. It got a lot of traction right off the bat. It’s one of the most-viewed articles in the history of this newsletter. Since then, NFTs have really moved into the mainstream, especially after the artist Beeple sold one of his artworks as an NFT for $69 million. Still, outside of the crypto community, most people seem to really hate the concept of NFTs. Here’s a Tweet that I saw the other day. It’s not just Twit...
Apr 18, 2021•19 min
Summary * One time in college, I told my housemate he should drop $10 on a Mario mobile game because “You’ve made stupider purchases than that.” * He used this same reasoning to make progressively stupider purchases until he realized that he needed to change his ways. * Smart people often make bad financial decisions when everyone around them is acting irrational. * The best example of this is the dotcom bubble, where investors stopped caring about fundamentals and started pouring money into pre...
Apr 11, 2021•11 min
I am not a financial advisor and I am not recommending you buy any specific stocks or cryptocurrencies. Here’s a summary in case you’re too lazy to read. Summary * Back in 2013, most “smart” people were dismissing Bitcoin as stupid. * Peter Thiel pointed out that successful startups are built on assumptions that sound stupid to most people. * Cryptocurrency is a great modern-day example of this. Even now, there a lot of people who think the whole thing’s a scam. * A great way to figure out wheth...
Apr 04, 2021•11 min
The dopamine hit of seeing a stimulus check hit your bank account hits almost as hard as the stress when you see it all disappear a day later. Anyway, here’s a summary of the article in case you don’t want to read. Summary * Banks have screwed over their customers many times in the past, but nobody really has another option to store their savings and borrow money. * Decentralized finance has the potential to be a great alternative because it cuts out the middleman with the help of blockchain-bas...
Mar 28, 2021•10 min
Apple’s M1X chips are coming soon. Here’s what that means for the world. If you liked this conversation, sign up for our weekly newsletter. We send one in-depth article on tech and business every Sunday. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.com
Mar 21, 2021•29 min
Peter Thiel is one of the world’s most interesting people. He’s a billionaire who co-founded PayPal and was one of Facebook’s first investors. He’s a gay man who made a speech supporting Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He’s also on a quest for immortality and it was once rumored that he was injecting himself with the blood of young people to stop the aging process. This man’s vibe is so out there that people literally thought he was some kind of Silicon Valley vampire, like if ...
Mar 14, 2021•10 min
We’re approaching the 1-year anniversary of the day the NBA got canceled because of COVID-19, which is the same day when people all over the country started taking the pandemic seriously. As we all know, it’s been an absolutely garbage year, so congratulations on making it through 12 months of quarantine without going insane. Anyway, one of the saddest parts of the past twelve months is how much small businesses have suffered. In my hometown of San Jose, one of the city’s largest Vietnamese mall...
Mar 07, 2021•10 min
Hey guys, if you don’t want to read, please check out the podcast above. It’s a discussion I had with my friend about NBA Top Shot and blockchain technology. We cover a lot of the same subjects that I wrote about in this article. You can listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify . I’ve been a basketball fan since 2007, when my favorite team, the Golden State Warriors, somehow pulled off an upset against the 1st seed Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the NBA playoffs (I’m just saying this so nobo...
Feb 28, 2021•23 min
Here’s a conversation I had with my buddy Karanbir Bains about Starlink. We also discuss Tesla purchasing Bitcoin and why SpaceX might want to spin off Starlink. If you liked this conversation, join our mailing list. We send one email every Sunday on tech and business. We write them for normal people - they aren’t in some weird Boomer corporate speak. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.c...
Feb 22, 2021•44 min
I was in high school when Steve Jobs died. Being in Silicon Valley, some of the people around me acted as if Jesus had just been crucified for the second time. But the feelings of sadness weren’t just limited to the techies. Even normal people seemed to recognize that something big had happened. Everyone had an iPod or an iPhone, and now the same guy who got on stage and introduced those products to the world was gone. Jeff Bezos stepping down from Amazon might just be as big of a deal as Steve ...
Feb 07, 2021•11 min
Right now, the whole world is focused on one company: GameStop. It makes sense why it’s grabbed the world’s attention. Everyone’s captivated when they see people on the Internet become millionaires overnight, somehow beating some of the world’s biggest hedge funds. It’s better than watching Luke Skywalker take down the Death Star. We haven’t seen this type of win for an underdog since a 12-year old Bow Wow pump-faked Vince Carter to beat the Toronto Raptors. GameStop has had a wild week and the ...
Jan 31, 2021•20 min
A while back, I visited a friend at his apartment. He didn’t really have much furniture and his apartment could have been cleaner, but he was really proud of one thing he did have. We had this conversation: Him: Hey, check it out man. I got a HomePod. Me: Oh, nice! Him: Nice? That’s what you’re going to say to the owner of a HomePod? There’s a reason why I wasn’t that impressed. In case you don’t know, a HomePod is Apple’s voice-activated home device. While I usually like Apple products, even I ...
Jan 24, 2021•10 min
One time in college, I spent lunch trying to convince my roommate that 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. If I’m remembering this correctly, he literally listened to one Joe Rogan podcast with Alex Jones and got into a weird social media rabbit hole after that. He was telling me that I had to admit there was a possibility the whole thing was a conspiracy, while also treating me like I was a sheep for not agreeing with him. To this day, I’m really not sure why he thought listening to one podcast and mayb...
Jan 17, 2021•11 min
About a week and a half ago, I took some days off work and went through all of The Mandalorian on Disney+ . Even though I grew up on Star Wars, I had low expectations because the sequel trilogy was incoherent garbage. I didn’t even bother to watch the last one, but I read the plot summary on Wikipedia and it seems like it makes 0 sense whatsoever. But The Mandalorian actually turned out to be the best show that I’ve watched in a long time. It was so good it actually made me get back into the Sta...
Jan 10, 2021•9 min
The year’s almost over, which means it’s a good time for you to reflect on everything that happened since January 1st. Because I’m not your therapist, we’re not going to reflect your friends or your relationships or any bullshit like that. Instead, we’re going to talk about how Big Tech has become more dominant than ever in 2020 - and what that means for the world. Big tech is more powerful than ever Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google already looked insanely powerful before COVID. Each one of t...
Dec 27, 2020•9 min
I first downloaded Robinhood back when I was in college and I told one of my friends that I wanted to get into investing. I’m not sure what inspired me to do that because back then I barely had any money and I barely knew anything about business. I’m pretty sure I was intending to YOLO all my money on Tesla stock as soon as I had some (I didn’t do this, but it would have been a good decision). Anyway, my friend told me that he knew about an app that was founded by two college kids that were sick...
Dec 20, 2020•12 min
For years, people across the political spectrum have called for a break-up of Big Tech. Those cries were mostly ignored, much like the advice everyone gave to you about your first girlfriend. But now, without anyone wasting money on a 6-hour Greyhound to see someone who doesn’t want them, it looks like this breakup might actually be happening. This week, the Attorneys General of 46 states plus Guam and the District of Columbia filed an antitrust suit against Facebook. The suit alleges that Faceb...
Dec 13, 2020•10 min
Disclaimer: Please do not make investment decisions based on these newsletters. Also here’s a summary if you’re too lazy to read. Summary * Right now, Palantir has become the favorite stock of r/wallstreetbets and is doing great. * The company is dedicated to working with government agencies to protect Western values around the world. * Activists think the company is evil for working with police departments and ICE. * Palantir CEO Alex Karp believes that policy decisions should be made by courts...
Dec 06, 2020•8 min
Disclaimer before we get started: I own stock in Facebook and Google. Also, this article turned out longer than usual. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, you can read the summary, or hear me read it out on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Summary * I listened to a Freakonomics podcast that talked about why digital ads might not be effective as people think. It was really misleading. * Ads from Facebook and Google provide better audience targeting than what existed in the past. * While big bra...
Nov 29, 2020•11 min
This is a podcast version of an article we previously wrote about Quibi. You can check out the original article here . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.com
Nov 26, 2020•10 min
Hey guys, I started recording a podcast version of these articles, in case you don’t want to read. You should be able to find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify . LinkedIn Stories and Fleets Earlier this week, Twitter released “Fleets”, temporary tweets that are only up for a day. It’s supposed to be Twitter’s response to Stories on Snapchat and Instagram (and it only came 7 years late). Just last month, LinkedIn introduced the same feature. People are understandably pretty annoyed by every social...
Nov 22, 2020•8 min
Check it out, guys. We got a podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sundayspecial.substack.com
Nov 18, 2020•53 sec
