The Sunday Digest: Set your phasers to Cyberbits

Happy Sunday!

If you read us at all—or if you spend any time on HackerNews, for that matter—you're likely familiar with Fadeke Adegbuyi's Cybernaut.

Fadeke's trademark deep dives into internet subcultures, and what they can tell us about life beyond the web, are packed with funny barbs, unique conclusions, and an intense degree of can't-look-away readability. But that's not all she's working on: there's also Cyberbits, a weekly curation of the strangest, coolest, most fascinating things Fadeke finds in her online travels. It's one of our favorite recent additions to Every, and if you haven't been reading it as much as we have, it may well be time to start.

So enjoy catching up, and see you next weekend! 

What We Published

How to Go Pro as a Creator: The 6 steps that helped me build a $1MM+ platform

by John Gannon in Superorganizers (15-minute read)

When it comes to monetizing creations, you might be surprised to hear that John Gannon started out with little trace of a plan. In this Superorganizers guest post, John—who you may know from his VC Careers and Going VC communities, among other places—turns back the clock to examine how he monetized his work, from cohort-based education programs to a 20k-person email list, and countless other services. John's programs, products, services and companies have grossed over a million dollars in revenue—but that wasn't necessarily his goal at the beginning. For a clear, entertaining inside look at the six-step process John established by reflecting on his earlier work, look no further than Superorganizers this week.

The Secrets of GetRichQuickTok

by Fadeke Adegbuyi in Cybernaut (7-minute read)

In this latest set of Cyberbits, Fadeke takes an honest look at the wealth-influencing trend sweeping everyone's favorite social video giant. Get-rich-quick tips are seductive—especially when the influencers dispensing them are counting stacks of their money on camera. But when there's a sixty-second time limit, what gets left out? Fadeke has receipts for the blindspots—some possibly intentional—instilled by this brand of content, and she provides them here, in classically wry and incisive fashion.

150% APR? How are DeFi Yields so High?

by Nat Eliason in Almanack (7-minute read)

Those invested (ha) in the world of crypto have spent much of this year marveling at the ups and downs of different coins—and, for that matter, feeling skeptical when certain ones go sky-high. But what happens when a coin's uber-high yield isn't a scam? That's what Nat's here to answer for us. In this cohesive explainer, he explains "why all yield isn't created equal"—and where yield itself comes from.

Working Late is Lately Working

Talk Therapy with Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez (17-minute listen)

Dan and Nathan continue to discuss work and sleep habits in this week's episode, while mixing in a bit of personal history this time around. While exchanging experiences cohabitating while working late, they arrive at a simple but profound epiphany about how—and why—to prioritize based on your heart.

Community Calendar

What's going down in our Discord this week.

Thursday, July 1, 11am-1pm ET/8am – 10am PT: Community Working Session with Rachel Jepsen

In this weekly two-hour event, our cameras are on, our tunes are flowing, and we're getting things done together! Executive editor Rachel will open each session with a ten-minute writing exercise to get us all in a creative flow. Then, participants can share in the #fireside-chat channel what they're hoping to accomplish during the session. Finishing an essay? Getting started on a new project? Tell us what you're working on!

Want to be looped in on upcoming community events? Check out our Discord server!

What’s Going On

News you might have caught or missed.

• Are Black Creators Really on 'Strike' from TikTok?
• John McAfee found dead in Barcelona prison, authorities say
• Robinhood’s IPO Plans Slowed By SEC Review
• Hybrid work is coming to big tech. Its contractors might not be so lucky

What We’re Reading

Our favorite writing from beyond Every.

• Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away (Bloomberg)
• The Sky Thief (Rolling Stone)
• Knowing that games are propaganda doesn’t stop them from working (Real Life)
• How a Sharp-Eyed Scientist Became Biology’s Image Detective (The New Yorker)

Every on the Internet

When our writers make a splash outside the Every pool.

• Following Fadeke Adegbuyi's dive into the world of Study Web for Cybernaut, Vox's Beatrice Forman wrote about its work-centric cousin, #ProductivityTok. Fadeke received a well-deserved shoutout in the article for her exhaustively researched, deeply empathetic portrait of an online community that tells us a lot about a generation. If you haven't read it yet, get on that!
• While covering LA Tech week for The New York Times, Taylor Lorenz investigated the larger trend of tech workers and founders who took the pandemic as an opportunity to relocate to the non-Silicon west coast. And who better to ask than our own Nathan Baschez, whose take on the phenomenon was immortalized with a quote about why the LA tech world "isn't insular"?

Nathan Baschez@nbashaw

I love everything about this 😍

⁦@SoniaBaschez⁩ and I moved to LA when the pandemic started not knowing how long we’d be here.

Now we know ❤️

June 22nd 2021, 3:04pm EST

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