P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #201

🙏 Thanks, as always, for reading P.S. You Should Know. I hope you enjoy this week’s issue. Please never by shy about reaching out!

What’s liquid breathing? I’ve been exploring the Clubhouse app this week and found myself in a room dedicated to space exploration. Someone mentioned liquid breathing. I hadn’t heard of it before. It’s as crazy as it sounds. “Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid (such as a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air.” | learn more

The faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ. Machine learning is at it again… “Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal–conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%).” | learn more

Physical attractiveness bias in the legal system. A painstaking analysis of 27 studies, neatly summarized with key takeaways up top. “When I started looking into this subject, I predicted a person’s physical attractiveness would only have minor advantages. I was wrong. In fact, I was so wrong, that in one study, the effects of physical attractiveness on judges were so influential, they fined unattractive criminals 304.88% higher than attractive criminals.” | learn more

Diamond hands and paper hands. I learned some new stock trader lingo this week. “The slang phrases paper hands and diamond hands are used to describe the risk appetite of other stock traders.” | learn more

A debate: what’s an accelerator without funding? I’m not much of a twitter user but sometimes that’s where the action is! Crain’s reported “Tech incubator 1871 is launching a 12-week virtual program to help Black entrepreneurs start and grow companies.” The catch? There’s no funding. Chicago VC Ezra Galston makes the point that an accelerator without funding, while well intentioned, does not help founders build. It’s certainly an interesting debate. I’ve met plenty of founders who I believe need advice way more than money. At the same time, I am certain a lack of early risk capital keeps talented would-be founders from pursuing startups. I’d love to hear your thoughts. | learn more

Podcasts and capital. “Thoughts on the podcast industry in 2021: investors are acting as if podcasting is bigger than it really is.” | learn more

The Presidents of Telegram. Heads of state are joining the privacy-focused messaging service. Most recently the presidents of Brazil and Turkey joined 8 other heads of state. Any guesses why?! Telegram founder Pavel Durov (yeah, name buddy!) writes, “We may be witnessing the largest digital migration in human history.” | learn more

Emerging roles in tech. Ann Bordetsky on Twitter: “What do you call someone who’s really great at stitching together modular tools like Airtable + Notion + Zap + Slack + …. to build quasi-products? Not a PM. Not a Marketer. Not Ops per se. What are we calling it?” | learn more

The paradox of abundance. “Information abundance, like all markets of abundance, is bad for the average person but great for a small number of people.” | learn more

How hard should I push myself? Much writing about stress focuses exclusively on the “fight or flight” stress response, and unfortunately that’s true for this article. Read this with the knowledge that stress is a necessary part of life and you are not well-served to avoid it at all costs. Instead, you can harness stress responses to drive your success! Pair with Takeaways: The Upside of Stress. | learn more

Compare hospital prices with an easy search. Turquoise Health: “Starting this year, all hospitals are required to list their prices for elective services. Whether you have insurance or plan to pay cash - find and compare prices below.” | learn more

The abiding threat of antibiotic resistance. “While we expect a single virus pandemic to pass relatively soon, the harm from antibiotic resistance could continue from decades past through decades future, worsening to a point where currently treatable bacterial infections could conceivably retake their place from cancer as the number one killer of humans.” | learn more

World-first biomarker test can predict depression and bipolar disorder. “Australian scientists have developed a world-first test claimed to accurately measure levels of a brain protein associated with depression and bipolar disorder. The test could offer doctors an objective diagnostic tool to assess patients.” | learn more

An ode to Birria Tacos. After reading this, I made it a point to find birria tacos the next day. Delicious! “How birria finally took off in one of America’s best taco cities. A global pandemic, misplaced goat shanks, and fat slabs of Texas brisket all helped this dish find its footing in Austin.” | learn more

Developments in the desert. There are two distinct stories here sharing the common ground of desert. First, donor nations have pledged $14 billion dollars for a ‘Green Wall’ to hold back the desertification of land on the edges of the Sahara. “The project covers a strip of land stretching 8,000 km from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Trees and grasslands will be planted, and projects launched to create sustainable ecosystems, supporters of the initiative say.” Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is planning THE LINE, a 170 km of car-free smart communities that run on 100% clean energy.

Interplanetary biomining. “We are not short of evidence that microbes can survive in space for extensive times. A favored way to find out is to carry out often multinational studies by placing sample organisms on the surface of the International Space Station.” | learn more

Ray Dalio on Bitcoin. The now-well-known investor offers reasoned criticisms of the Bitcoin bull case. He concludes: “That is why to me Bitcoin looks like a long-duration option on a highly unknown future that I could put an amount of money in that I wouldn’t mind losing about 80% of.” | learn more

♥ If you love P.S. You Should Know, consider joining fellow readers as a patron.

P.S. Here are some other ways you can contribute…

1️⃣ Share details about a project or problem you’re working on.

2️⃣ Introduce me to someone entrepreneurial (especially in Austin).

3️⃣ Spread the word about P.S. You Should Know…