Welcome back to the 2nd edition of the Roundtable Weekly 👋 and Happy Mother’s day!
We received requests for some shorter options so we’ll look to include a few moving forward. For any longer recommendations, we’ll try to pull out the most important points we come across in case you just want the cliff notes. We appreciate the feedback so please keep it coming.
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Here’s what we found interesting this week:
📚 Roku, Match Group, and Tile Heat Up the Civil War in American Business
Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller)—April 26 | 5 min
With the highly anticipated Apple vs. Epic court case starting this past week, Matt Stoller shares a quick look at the negative sentiment building against big tech from elsewhere in the industry. This features two pieces of company-generated media: Epic’s infamous “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite” commercial released last summer, and Roku’s recent letter to shareholders taking public its rocky negotiations with Google over carrying YouTube TV. Each is clear evidence of the receptive audience these companies now know they will find in the general public.
Extra: If you’re interested in following the Apple v. Epic case, Recode did a short interview with John Gruber this week (first 30 mins—Spotify & Apple Podcasts).
—Mike
🎧 The True Story of the Minimum Wage Fight
Freakonomics Radio—April 29 | 46 min
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Topics like this always feel hard to form a strong opinion on given the competing narratives. Read one study and you'll find yourself leaning one way, then change your mind after reading another that concludes the total opposite. This episode brings a few perspectives from each side of the minimum wage argument and is a good opportunity to question your assumptions - this is a format I'd love to see more of on polarizing issues.
Extra: For more on social issues & politics, the New York Times & Serial Productions recently released a great new podcast on (pre-2020) allegations of election fraud in a rural North Carolina county: The Improvement Association.
—Mike
📺 Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO Social Capital, on Money as an Instrument of Change
Stanford Graduate School of Business—Nov 2017 | 56 min
Say what you might about Chamath (@chamath), but he has an incredible backstory. This is an old interview back in 2017 at Stanford GSB that I occasionally rewatch. If you're not familiar with him already, this is a good primer on his life story and how he thinks.
Quick life story: his family emigrated to Canada as refugees from Sri Lanka, where they were incredibly poor and his mom was the sole provider as a housekeeper. The family didn't have a car, so he’d use his paychecks from Burger King to pay for family bus passes.
Fast-forward, he started the first ever "growth team" at Facebook, and parlayed his windfall into, among other things, a minority ownership in the Golden State Warriors and his own investment shop, Social Capital. More recently, he's been in the news for bringing SPACs mainstream.
Extra: Chamath is also one of four hosts of the popular All-In Podcast, which if you're not listening to already, would highly recommend. Episode 30 on Biden’s capital gains tax is a good one (Spotify or Apple Podcasts).
–Thomas
🧵 Twitter Thread from Greg Isenberg
Just some thought-provoking questions to help you reflect as you prepare for the week. This one stuck out in particular to me:
—Thomas
Extra: Greg (@gregisenberg) also writes his own Substack newsletter, Late Checkout, where he dives deep into internet communities and community-based products. Check it out.
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See you next Sunday.