I really admire Marc Lore as an entrepreneur. I had a chance to met and did some app growth brainstorm sessions with him/his team during the early days of Jet.com

His track record speaks itself sold Diapers.com to Amazon ($545M) then started Jet.com as Amazon Killer and sold it to Walmart ($3.3B- yes B stands for Billion easy to write hard to swallow:)

Now, he’s working on a couple of projects and I am super interested in those two of them.

Telosa: Marc is starting a community & foundation to start a world-class city to attract initially 50k residents (goal is 5m). This new is modeling much more a startup analogy to build together and share the benefits after the city got the traction. Technically they are going to buy very cheap land and build from scratch. Their goal is to create more equitable and sustainable future.

Wonder: Let’s say your favorite restaurant is in the NYC Downtown and you are living in the Palo Alto suburbs. There is no way to get them via food delivery apps. Even if they serve on those apps you get your food after 30 minutes cold & not appetizing. Imagine your favorite restaurants come to you via mobile restaurants. They built a platform and infrastructure to know which location has a demand for what kind of food/cuisine. Good for consumers. And great for restaurant owners/chefs who can save lots of money for investing land that might be not ROI+ near soon.

Already interested in both of them as a consumer and thought I or my friends can contribute some ways. Let’s see.

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Note: Yesterday, I thought why should I write more than one post on my blog daily if I feel to write. (I did already write 2 posts yesterday) My biggest hold is don’t want to send readers more than 1 email. So, I’ll keep sending you only 1 email. But, If you are curious and want to check out from time to time what I published and didn’t send you an email, you can find all of them at aykuts.blog

We are born to act.

We are dying for attention.

They should call us attention suckers instead of humans.

Our acting gets better while we are growing up. We watch/listen,/learn from others. Then we start to act like everybody.

We turn into a full-time actors.

Living others’ lives.

All predicted scenarios. Same cliches.

If we are actors by birth, at least we should act our own movies directed and written by ourselves.

This is a typical founder & inventor dilemma. Why my team doesn’t see what I see?

Because

You see things the rest of them don’t see, which is why you are a founder.

I didn’t say this Dan Pink said that. I agree with him. He is the author of the book ‘The Power of Regret”. A couple of days ago, I shared that book on the list that I’m reading. When I read a book, during that time I also try to listen to a podcast about that book especially if I can find an author of that book is talking. Youtube videos are fine too.

While he was talking with Derek Thompson’s Plain English podcast. (32:30) He was talking about why Americans can’t handle negative emotions that are the reason they don’t want to talk about their regrets or past negative experiences. This is something I have been thinking a pretty a long time. All my friends and family in the USA let’s say most of them somehow remind me of Disney movies. Either they are all in good circumstances and only expecting good things in their life or never heard/experienced bad things in their lives.

Bad experiences and regrets are great teachers. They scream to us to tell don’t do these things in the near future. If we say “No Regret” or don’t want to talk/think about them, there is no chance we can get better.

Yes, it is hard to make a big decision if you are not making those “big” decisions every day. 

Let’s start what’s a big decision? 

It’s hard to conclude a final and ultimate definition for everyone. Because your big is not everyone’s big. 

Buying a house is a big decision? 

-Yes, It is a big decision for someone who saved up money for a pretty long time and finally thinking of time to move on to his/her “dream house” after living so many years leasing places all over the place. That person is considering every single detail of that “dream house” and can’t settle for “a” house. 

-In the same context, buying a house is not a big decision for someone who is just looking for a place to park his savings and be alright any “a” house that fits his budget. For him, just like swiping up on Robinhood and executing a stock buying order. 

So, your big decision can be small for you in a couple of years or might even stay bigger. Who knows? 

Focus on your work.

Your contribution to your future self.

Keep shipping. Keep adding value.

Hypes are temporary. Don’t let them distract you.

I often meet people who ask how to study a topic, what school should they go to, and I say aren’t you old enough to just go learn stuff by yourself? Most researchers are terrible at explaining why their projects offer the world the best progress bang for their effort buck, but I have no problem offering such explanations.

Robin Hanson explained so well after figuring out “the liberty” of learning anything you want, you don’t need any “an” institution to teach you.

Learn at own your pace.

Read-Another great book from Seth Godin Mafia*- Ignore Everybody by Hugh Macleod. Hugh is a cartoonist and copywriter. He is sharing how he started his hobby project became a global one. The key is to stick to your original ideas without asking anybody’s approval and keep it a small and fun project. And run continuously without expectation if it turns a good one, that’s amazing.

Reading- Amp It Up by Frank Slootman. I like an operator business book writer who built a company or helped them to scale instead of business professors. Frank is sharing his last 25+ years very candidly + he is currently CEO/President of SnowFlake (Market Cap 80B+ today- last month $100B:)

Reading-The Power of Regret by Daniel H. Pink– I am more like no regret what happened to past that was necessary. But, hoping in this book can show me the power of regret. Overall its easy to read.

Read- Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz– History of marriage. Why people married back in time? what was the reason? Today how “love” replaced other reasons and turn to be the only reason to get married. Women’s role in the marriage from past to today.

Reading- Becoming Trader Joe by Joe Coulombe- Trader Joe’s My favorite place to go shop groceries. I like it more than Whole Foods. It’s super easy to find anything. Very organized and of good quality with reasonable prices. Also, you can find so many exotic products thanks to Trader Joe’s buying & curation team. The book is sharing a lot about the mission/culture of a company and most interestingly after the acquisition by Aldi Group what happened to TJ.

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Read- I rarely read cover-to-cover books. But if I have enough highlights and got the idea book, I selected it as a read. I go back maybe from time to time my highlights and still interesting in that book, I might revisit again.

*Seth Godin Mafia- People who got help from Seth for publishing or editing their books. Or might even be inspired by him. Never heard anyone use this term. I created:)

Everything for us. Life itself challenges us all the time and comes with bad and good things. There is no way we can escape from the inevitable end: death.

So, why are we still wasting our time with sorrow and regrets?

Stand up and defend yourselves