The Great Contemplation, Permission to Be Excited, and More

Hello and happy Sunday!

We had a big week this week at Every:

• We published 5 original essays
• One of our articles, The Great Contemplation, was featured in Tim Ferris's newsletter 5 Bullet Friday
• We announced a new headliner for our conference Thesis: Eugene Wei
• We launched a new course called Mindful Values, an evidence-based approach to finding what's most important in your work life. Today is the last day for early-bird pricing! Register for a free info session here to lock it in.

Now, on to the articles!

The Great Contemplation

The Four Hour Workweek is 15 years old—and it's had a bigger impact on the way we think about our work lives than we might imagine. We think of it as a collection of life hacks—but really it's a philosophy book in disguise, exhorting us not to waste our lives.

That's what Paul Millerd argues in The Great Contemplation. He examines the Tim Ferris classic, and explains how it impacted his own life and writing.

Read

Permission to Be Excited About AI

Dan is excited about AI. There's only one problem: AI is The Current Thing. And he doesn't like that.

Usually, he's annoyed when something gets trendy. But this time he's leaning away from skepticism, and into his sense of curiosity. He unpacks why in this week's Chain of Thought essay.

Read

Advice for Building in AI

Nathan Baschez / Divinations

Everyone is building in AI right now, but how many people truly understand what they're doing?

Since we launched our AI-writing app Lex, Nathan has been hard at work figuring out how to build a compelling product in the space.

In this week's Divinations essay he unpacks common misunderstandings and misconceptions—so that you can learn how to ignore the hype and build value in AI.

Read

How Technology Giants Die

Evan Armstrong / Napkin Math

For nearly 100 years, there was no more important technology conglomerate than GE. 

Now, after nearly two decades of underperformance and decay, the conglomerate will be broken up into the only three remaining businesses of value: healthcare, aerospace, and energy. How did it come to this?

Evan breaks down GE's breakdown—and discusses how the same pattern might play out for today's tech giants.

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How to Set Achievable Goals

Pamela Hobart

We've been told to make our goals SMART—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.

But something is missing if we limit ourselves only to goals that can be measured. What if we want to become more generous, or patient, or calm?

Pamela Hobart examines why qualitative goals might actually be more useful than we think—and how to make them work for our brains.

Read

A Job You Might Be Interested In

Stainless—a Sequoia-backed developer tools company founded by former Stripe employees—is looking for a founding engineer.

Stainless exists to bring Stripe’s developer experience to every API. Our team has deep experience at Stripe where we worked on:

• The code-gen systems that power Stripe’s SDK
• Redesigned Stripe’s API docs
• Every component of Stripe’s API platform

We want to take everything we’ve learned about creating great developer experiences and bring it to every company, at the touch of a button.

If you want to work on a small team dedicated to doing the best work of their lives, get in touch:

Last call for Mindful Values!

If you're interested in taking our course, Mindful Values, an evidence-based approach to finding what's most important in your work life—now's the time!

Today is the last day for early-bird pricing! Register for a free info session here to lock it in.

That's all for this week!