This week's notable links
This is my regular digest of links and media I found notable over the last week. Did I miss something? Let me know!
HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION (leaked PDF)
[ Simon Willison ]
"Whether or not you enjoy MrBeast’s format of YouTube videos, this leaked onboarding document for new members of his production company is a compelling read."
It really is fascinating. It's also really badly written, which says a lot about the priorities MrBeast instills in his team. Simon points out that video is ingrained in the culture:
"Which is more important, that one person has a good mental grip of something or that their entire team of 10 people have a good mental grip on something? Obviously the team. And the easiest way to bring your team up to the same page is to freaken video everything and store it where they can constantly reference it. A lot of problems can be solved if we just video sets and ask for videos when ordering things. [...] Since we are on the topic of communication, written communication also does not constitute communication unless they confirm they read it."
MrBeast will be studied for decades to come: a piece of the culture that, like him or not, is genuinely new. This document is a key to understanding what he does.
[ Link ]
Open Call: Join the Open Social Incubator
[Media Economies Design Lab at University of Colorado Boulder]
"The Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder is launching a 5-month process of mentorship and peer-to-peer learning, empowering veteran community builders to adopt emerging open social networks."
This seems like a wonderful initiative for the right people, as well as for new social networks. The incubator covers a broad set of networks that include the fediverse, Matrix, Bluesky, and Nostr.
From the site:
"Participants will meet as a full group monthly and receive ongoing, 1:1 project-specific technical support as they seed and grow new communities using open social media tools of their choosing. Participation is fully remote and all sessions will be conducted in English. All participants should commit to making strides toward community-building in open social media by the end of the program. Completion of the full program, from November 2024 to April 2025, will be compensated with a stipend of $3,500 USD."
No prior experience is needed.
I love that the Media Economies Design Lab is doing this. I'm very curious to see the cohort as it emerges!
Apple Vision Pro’s Eye Tracking Exposed What People Type
"Today, a group of six computer scientists are revealing a new attack against Apple’s Vision Pro mixed reality headset where exposed eye-tracking data allowed them to decipher what people entered on the device’s virtual keyboard. The attack, dubbed GAZEploit and shared exclusively with WIRED, allowed the researchers to successfully reconstruct passwords, PINs, and messages people typed with their eyes."
Fascinating stuff. This attack doesn't work with a normal laptop or device because we tend to look at the screen as we type instead of the keys. But on the Apple Vision Pro, your gaze is your pointer. By tracking what you're paying attention to, attackers can understand exactly what you're typing, including sensitive information.
Apple has patched the problem, presumably by making its virtual avatars just a little bit more dead in the eyes. But as more eye-based interfaces roll out, more exploits will surely be discovered. As we reveal more of ourselves in virtual space, more of our secrets become apparent, too.
[ Link ]
How Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris and Walz is a masterpiece of persuasive prose: a songwriter’s practical lesson in written advocacy
[ David Allen Green at The Law and Policy Blog ]
"In essence: this endorsement is a masterpiece of practical written advocacy, and many law schools would do well to put it before their students."
This is a fascinating breakdown of Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris: not just the what of her endorsement, but the linguistic how. As David Allen Green says, it's worth studying.
It comes down to this:
"The most effective persuasion is often to lead the listener or reader to making their own decision – and to make them feel they are making their own decision."
Taylor Swift's endorsement really matters, and was clearly planned carefully. This wasn't a dashed-off Instagram description, and I'll certainly be learning from it.
[ Link ]
Big tech is painting itself as journalism’s savior. We should tread carefully.
[ Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos at NiemanLab ]
"To survive, journalism must continue to embrace technology. But doing so should never cost newsrooms their independence. News organizations should prioritise building direct relationships with their audience to reduce reliance on third-party platforms. They should also stay informed about evolving regulations, and actively participate in policy discussions shaping the future of the news-tech relationship."
Exactly.
There are good points made here about paying for news technology. My belief is that there's value in sharing resources between newsrooms. Building and supporting technology as a commons could help newsrooms further their goals while staying independent.
I see this as something like a consortium approach, although I see it being closer to a membership model like the W3C. Here, newsrooms can buy in at a manageable price according to their level and receive technology expertise (including advice, engineering, security resources, and so on). This shared model also prevents newsrooms from each developing the same commodity technology, which across the industry is a huge misuse of resources.
Clearly, too, a strong independent social web benefits both newsrooms and news consumers. A strong fediverse helps empower newsrooms to build direct relationships. Newsrooms should support this movement.
Regardless of the solution, it's good to see these topics being brought up in the news space. These represent the problems and the existential threats: now it's up to the industry to act.
[ Link ]
Going open-source as a VC-backed company
"Some people call our strategy "open-core" and that's technically right. Still, I'd rather say that we have two pieces of software: one that is open-source and another that is not. I think that's more honest because we're not trying to hide the fact that we're selling a non-open-source version of our software."
This is a pretty honest take on open sourcing a product in a VC-funded startup, which needs to maintain a certain level of valuation growth to justify its investment.
Someone in edtech once told me that if I held back any of a product I was building that they would tell their substantial network not to use it. I don't think that's fair: I'm not sure there's much to be gained by making features that are mostly used by wealthy companies free. This is particularly true when owning your licensing means you still retain optionality to provide a lower-cost or zero-cost license for certain organizations.
I also like this reason for open sourcing their core product:
"Finally, by going open-source we commoditize our competitors' core functionality. This means they now have to compete against us in terms of innovative features, performance, and price, all of which are usually not their strong suits, let's be honest."
When executed well, and used against high-priced enterprise software in particular, this approach deflates closed-source business models and can be a real competition lift. I like that Briefer is naming that.
The one piece I don’t agree with is this:
"Open-source helps us manage Briefer's roadmap along with our users because there will be more of them, and because they'll have access to the source code. That way, they can help us figure out where to go, and help us get there by implementing what they need."
My experience in open source is that it doesn't absolve you from needing to keep a tight hand on the product steering wheel. Your open source community can actually muddy the water here, because open source users aren't always the same thing as customers, and may need a different set of features or functionality. Maintaining a coherent product vision is harder in open source, not easier.
Still, this was a lovely post to read, and I appreciate the open thinking. It certainly made me want to check Briefer out.
[ Link ]
One Thing You Wish People Better Understood About Venture Capital
[ Hunter Walk ]
"I asked some investor friends to share, as the title suggests, one thing they wished people better understood about venture capital. There were no ground rules other than to specify that ‘people’ could be founders, politicians, LPs, etc and that it would be default attributed but anonymous if they desired."
Hunter Walk's ongoing series of inside perspectives from venture capital is brilliant: both nuanced and real. I didn't spend long as a mission-driven investor - two years - but many of these perspectives resonate.
I wish I'd read these before I started my investment journey: so much more of this job is about building funnels and ensuring that your portfolio has adequate opportunities for follow-on investment. You need to have a point of view / thesis on the future of technology and applicable markets, for sure, but there's much more on-the-ground sales work than is popularly discussed.
If you're raising money - or investing - they're worth checking out. It's an ongoing series, so I recommend just subscribing to Hunter's blog for more.
[ Link ]
Faster Filing With Tree View: A Step Forward for Large Writing Projects
[ iA ]
"In a text editor, chapters are files. Organizing your files is work, but in a large text body it’s essential work. Your book or thesis will grow from it and get stronger as you clarify the structure. With iA Writer 7.2, structuring large writing projects has become a lot easier."
In other words, my favorite text editor just got a big upgrade for anyone writing large projects (hey, that's me!).
I've long been an iA Writer superfan: all my blog posts are written in it, and I use it as the starting point for most meaningful documents. This new update brings it into direct competition with Ulysses, another markdown text editor I love. I've been using iA Writer for short-form writing and Ulysses for longer-form writing (I have a very large book draft in there right now). But now, potentially, I can do it all from one app.
What it doesn't seem to do - yet - is the kind of file re-ordering that Ulysses excels at, so I can move scenes and chapters around each other with ease. From this post, it sounds like that will come:
"Tree view is the first step toward a document outline. Tree view is the technical foundation for offering a more detailed view of the document structure. All we can say for now is that it will work very much like tree view, just inside the document."
It's all great work. This level of care and attention in a text editor really matters. I'm grateful that iA exists.
[ Link ]