Max's Musings #3: Focusing on the 80/20, How to Win an Argument, and The Three C's of Twitter Growth

3 learnings, 1 conversation, 1 challenge on healthcare, company building, productivity, and life.

Sep 23, 2024

Welcome!

Each week, I share 3 learnings, 2 top conversations, and 1 challenge related to healthcare, company building, productivity, and life.

At the bottom you’ll find my ‘top finds’ for the week

3 LEARNINGS

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1. How can you achieve your 12-month goals in 3 months?

This is an important question to ask yourself!

For me, the answer was simple. It’s about focusing on the few things that really matter. The 80-20. And saying no to anything but the most important things.

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2. Win an argument with ‘you’re probably right’

Winning an argument isn't always winning.

Why? Because if you ‘win’, especially petty arguments, you can lose rapport with others. It’s a “Pyrrhic victory” – a victory where the cost to the victor isn’t worth the victory.

I now default to saying, “You’re probably right,” rather than arguing something trivial (extra important for me because I’m naturally so argumentative!)

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3: Reputation = the one thing you are known for

What do people think of when they think of your name?

This is your reputation.

People with the strongest reputations have the most consistent brands. They are known for typically one core thing.

That’s why you could tell me what someone like Barrack Obama or Trump or Thiel or Charlie Munger are known for.

2 CONVERSATIONS

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1. Private equity meets technology

I was chatting with a friend who’s joining Bain Capital in New York as a software engineer to help them with technology, not just for their SaaS companies, but also for their services companies.

I’ve become enthralled by this idea of ‘services as software’ and am impressed by the extent to which legacy firms are adapting to this.

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2: The Three C’s of Twitter

How do some people grow so quickly on twitter?

How can we simplify it as much as possible?

My co-founder put it neatly, in the three C’s:

Consistency – how often you post?
Clarity – how clear are the things you stand for? When something thinks of X, do they think of you?
Co-sign – who are you posting with? Who’s commenting? Who’s reposting?

1 CHALLENGE

I’ve been feeling more frustrated than normal.

Underneath frustration, is typically anger, which manifests as sensations in the body.

To address this, I’ve told four close friends to call me out when they notice I’m frustrated or angry.

The idea came from the articles Fear and Anger Give Bad Advice and How to Shift Out of Fear and Anger, which Tim Noaksmith pointed me towards.

TOP FINDS

Personal health: Just bought OcuForce Blue for my supplement stack for eye health, especially considering I spend most of my day staring at a screen.
PFAS everywhere: This article in The New York Times shines light on potentially high PFAS concentrations in meat, dairy, produce even if organic.
$500 billion: That’s the out-of-pocket cash pay spend by consumers each year in US healthcare. This is striking against the dogma that consumers don’t pay out of pocket. Great article by a16z here.