A simple mapping app where people who have lived in a city can quickly add hotel recommendations, local restaurants, things to do, and easily mark them as day activities, night activities, touristy, local, etc. You could then browse the app by choosing somebody you trust, and viewing their map.
A type of accommodation that existed in between hotels and hostels. I only need a bed and no hotel amenities, but I don’t need to share a room with 12 people.
A map showing the “feel” of different neighborhoods.
“Travel blog” software geared specifically for people maintaining a travel blog. Beautiful built in maps, photo gallery, itinerary.
Elizabeth and I were watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War as we weaved our way through the backcountry of Laos.
In 1973, Henry Kissinger negotiated the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, a peace treaty meant to end the war in SE Asia.
But after both sides signed the agreement, the bombs kept dropping. The violence continued. Even though Nixon heralded the agreement as a success, it may as well have been called the “Continuing War And Ignoring Peace” treaty.
Neither side really believed that peace had arrived. The name was merely chosen as a political weapon.
Other Congressional bills use the same marketing tactic of having a name that’s the opposite of the actual bill’s effect.
The USA PATRIOT Act is an obvious example. Mass surveillance is not very patriotic.
It reminds me of interstate motels. When you’re driving along, and you see a billboard for “Clean Rooms” and “Hot Showers,” it’s typically a clue that you’re in for cockroaches and wilting water pressure.
Marketing like this smells. The messaging seems to be over-compensating for a real weakness.
We were eating dinner at Viman in Vang Vieng. The owner is a German-born Thai expat living in Vang Vieng, Laos.
He was explaining how the woman who cooked our food had to pay the government every month a “Province Tax.” Since she was born in Vientiane, but now lived in Vang Vieng, she had to pay a “foreigner’s fee.”
“If you want less of something, tax it.”
What sort of implications could this policy have on the country?
Could the smart business people, engineers, and government officials decide to never move to the city centers?
Intellectual inefficiency is an obvious side effect. People aren’t going where they should go when they need to go there.
What are the second and third level ramifications, though?
By 2020, the Laos government has promised to bring electricity to all of its citizens. Based on the quality of the roads, it’s hard to believe they’ll pull it off.
It took me and Elizabeth 12 hours to go about 120km from Vang Vieng to Nong Kiaw.
A minivan from Vang Vieng to the Luang Prabang Northern Bus Station.
A “Local Bus” Tuk-Tuk from Luang Prabang to the “broken down bridge” we kept hearing about.
A 100-degree walk over the bridge.
A “private” minivan from the far side of the bridge to Nong Kiaw.
A short roadside stop for the driver to (using his belt) fix the dangling spare tire knocked out of place by a pothole.
Another roadside stop as we waited our turn to go around a washed-out riverside road.
There are mudslides everywhere which narrow the roads to one lane.
Potholes abound.
We passed a couple flipped big-rigs.
It’s remarkable that anything gets transported anywhere. They need Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Footnote: When we got to dinner, the power went out. Hammer and sickle.
Charlie Munger gave a talk at USC in 1994 about worldly wisdom. In it, he takes a contrarian (at least contrarian among the elite) view of Wal-mart:
You can say, “Is this a nice way to behave?” Well, capitalism is a pretty brutal place. But I personally think that the world is better for having Wal-Mart. I mean you can idealize small town life. But I’ve spent a fair amount of time in small towns. And let me tell you you shouldn’t get too idealistic about all those businesses he destroyed.
Plus, a lot of people who work at Wal-Mart are very high grade, bouncy people who are raising nice children. I have no feeling that an inferior culture destroyed a superior culture. I think that is nothing more than nostalgia and delusion.1
I agree with the sentiment. But expressing this opinion is difficult.
Louis C.K., meanwhile, illustrates Munger’s point - without using any big words - by wrapping the essence of Wal-mart into an illustration:
This is the bed where Elizabeth got three stitches put in her right hand. This bed’s in the Luang Prabang Regional Hospital ER.
When we woke up earlier that morning, we decided to go to the Kuang Si waterfall, just outside of Luang Prabang. It’s supposed to be a picturesque blue color, with gently flowing water and swimming pools.
There are three ways to get there: a shared minivan, a private tuk tuk, and by motorbike. We opted for the motorbike.
After getting our brand new Scoopy and filling it up with gas, we started to make our way to the falls. We didn’t make it far.
As we rounded a left turn, we lost balance of the bike. It’s hard to move two people in one direction, especially as novice motorbike riders. So while we were supposed to be going left, our bike toppled to the right.
At first, we thought we were okay. Then Elizabeth looked down and noticed her hand was bleeding.
The local Lao people came out with cleaning solution and gauze. She wrapped her hand, and a nice man told her to hop on his bike, he would take us to the hospital.
I followed in our now dent-up Scoopy.
About 1 hour, 200,000 kip ($23), and one bandaged hand later, we were back to square one. Still in Luang Prabang, with a bike, and without pictures of Kuang Si.
We did finally make it to the falls. We hiked around the top, which was a nice loop. But the minivan group we rode with left early, stranding us at the falls. Luckily another tuk tuk driver was nice enough to take us home.
The best leaders are direct. They trim conjunctions and four-syllable words from their sentences.
Conversely, those fluent in corporate-speak are so concerned with saying everything that they end up saying nothing.
I saw both of these snippets from different press releases within the last 24 hours:
“From a business standpoint, we can strengthen our investment in and development of our people, our most valuable asset, as we scale our operations globally. We’re well positioned to make the lives of digital workers better by elevating work to the outcomes that matter.” From the PagerDuty press release announcing their newest VC round.
“Kevin led the construction and development of our Gigafactory in Nevada, turning what was a pile of rocks in the Sierra Nevada mountains into a factory employing 12 thousand people with greater output than the entire rest of the world’s battery factories combined, in roughly three years. That is insanely badass.” From an email Elon Musk sent to all of Tesla this morning.
Elon paints you a clear picture. PagerDuty is stuck in the clouds.
Communicating concisely and with details is a skill that Bezos, Munger, Musk, and other fantastic leaders have clearly cultivated.
Cambodia is the most impressive country I can remember traveling to.
Just one and a half generations ago, the Cambodian people were suffering under the regressive communist government of Pol Pot. Within four years, Pol Pot’s regime systematically murdered nearly 3 million people. “Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake,” he said.
As if genocide wasn’t enough, his government sought to reset the economy to its “pure” state of farmers working the land.
He destroyed the textile machines, abolished the currency, torched buildings, and murdered anybody living in cities.
It’s hard to imagine how, forty years later, Cambodia is able to boast such beautiful architecture, cuisine, and infrastructure. There are cranes dotting the cities. Roads are newly paved. The markets are vibrant.
How have the people managed to remain so energetic, so positive, so able to forgive and move beyond the past?
In a Tuk Tuk en route to the “Killing Fields” outside of Phnom Penh
Markets are efficient thanks to the people who think they aren’t efficient.
It’s a paradox.
This simple tension is true in a lot of different domains.
When we think we’re providing a bad customer experience at Bottle, we start sending emails at 2am and start setting up phone calls with clients. We then get compliments on our service.
Henry Rollins was on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week. He told two stories.1
In the first, he was backstage with Ozzie Osbourne in Miami. Ozzie asked him, “Is anybody out there?” Henry replied, “Are you crazy? There’s 19,000 people out there!”
In a second story, he had the privilege of meeting George Carlin in a talk show green room. The night before, Rollins had performed at a theater that Carlin was performing at the following week. “Did they get your jokes?” Carlin asked Rollins. “Did the audience connect?”
These guys lived in fear that they weren’t any good anymore. They worried people would stop listening.
It’s like the efficient market hypothesis.
They were great because they never quite believed they were.
