What’s Next

by Jordan Gonen

What’s Nextby Jordan Gonen


by Jordan Gonen

Hi 👋 How was your weekend? There is a lot of great content in this week’s newsletter that should help you think more about what you want to do next.

Also, I just published this “guide to getting what you want professionally.

I’d appreciate your thoughts! If you like it, would be awesome if you could share it 🙂

8.21.2017

Articles to Read.

It’s Not Easy [very long read] from Oaktree Capital

*Really interesting take on investment strategy which can be applied to how you think about how you spend your time and what you choose to work on…*


Students at Most Colleges Don’t Pick Useless Majors on Fivethirtyeight:

Students attend college for different reasons. Those different goals affect where students go to college and what they do once they get there.

According to data from the federal Education Department, students at elite universities are more likely to pursue degrees in the humanities, arts and social sciences than students at less selective schools, who tend to choose majors that are more likely to lead to an immediate, well-paying job.


A Techie Made Apps to Randomize His Life:

He was employed by Google, surrounded by friends and had his routine nailed down. He woke to artisanal coffee, biked to work along the beautiful Embarcadero waterfront roadway, lunched on Google’s famed free food (“like four different kinds of kale” level) and — possibly the true mark of a successful millennial — got invited to many happy hours.

But something was missing.

As any computer developer would do, Max turned to technology to craft his way out — a series of randomization applications.


The Token Effect:

Cryptocurrencies and tokens are becoming increasingly popular.

Ethereum took the Bitcoin concept one step further. It is a decentralized network of millions of computers that execute code at the same time. Efficiency is compromised in favour of security. When someone wants to send a transaction, all the nodes execute it and update the ledger. Unlike Bitcoin, where the capabilities are really restricted for security purposes, these Ethereum nodes can execute almost any program. Its code is defined in smart contracts. A smart contract is a set of promises, specified in digital form, including protocols within which the parties perform on these promises4. One of the direct applications is the digitalization of complex financial instruments like derivatives.


The Next Wave of Computing:

1. We’ll see unbundling of data silos like Facebook and LinkedIn. The ownership of data and the associated power to monetize that data will flip over from large companies to users.

2. Cloud storage providers will get reduced to “dumb drives”, used to store encrypted data for users. It’d become hard for cloud storage providers to differentiate themselves from each other. In the new model, they all provide just a basic storage utility.

3. Publishing the source code for software will become almost a requirement for security reasons. Running closed-source “blackbox magic” software will be perceived as a security hazard.

What are your thoughts on this? Email me: hi@jordangonen.com


The Worst Internet in America :

Saguache County is a particular place. It’s still a bit cowboy-ish, though parts have an off-the-grid hippie feel. Its singularity of spirit means broadband can be a difficult sell to some.

“It’s kind of hard to carry a laptop when you’re on a horse.”

According to Pew, of the 13 percent of Americans who say they don’t use the internet, about a third — 34 percent — said that’s because they didn’t see its relevancy to their lives.


VR Is A Killer App for Blockchains:

When you drill down, blockchains are really a shared version of reality everyone agrees on. So whether it’s a fully immersive VR experience, augmented reality, or even Bitcoin or Ethereum in the physical world as a shared ledger for our “real world”, we’ll increasingly trust blockchains as our basis for reality. The lines between these virtual worlds and the “real world” will blur quickly. If someone builds a peer to peer lending app on top of a blockchain so that people can lend money from the US to Brazil, that exact same app is immediately available in every virtual world because it all runs on the same blockchain.


Why Everyone Should Write:

Everyone should write. You know why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of.


A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains, and a Bus to Get Her to Work by 7:15 AM

Sheila James starts her Monday, and the workweek, at 2:15 a.m. This might be normal for a baker or a morning radio host, but Ms. James is a standard American office worker.

More:
If You Lie Down With Dogs, You Come Up With Fleas
– Smartphones are an addiction 
From Dropout to Google to Rocketship: What Putting Yourself in Uncomfortable Situations Can Do
13 Ways to Strengthen the US Economy

Companies to Watch.

Product Hunt Upcoming — See products coming soon!

Donotpay — My friend’s bot that fights your parking tickets (and much much more)

AltspaceVR — Be There, Together (It’s Back!)

You made it to the end! Thanks for reading 👋

If you enjoyed, would really appreciate if you shared this link! 
Want to read more? I write daily, and tweet too!

My Update:

– Have been home for the last week, heading back to college this Thursday for my Junior Year!

– Still daily blogging (543 days in a row) — somehow became a “Top Writer” on Medium — sole product of persistence + luck there. Let me know if you’d like to write and I’ll help!

– If you were able to check out the guide I just published, hope you got some value out of it. Would love to hear what you think and would really appreciate if you could share with your friends or on linkedin.

— —

Thanks for reading, I really hope you learned something new

– Jordan
Personal Website

Tagged in Blockchain

By jordangonen on August 21, 2017.

Canonical link

Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.