What We Published

This week's output: 7 articles and 2 podcasts.

You Probably Shouldn't Work at a Startup

by Evan Armstrong in Napkin Math

This week Evan goes wider, with an explainer that tackles a question more people should maybe be asking: does working at a venture-backed startup match up to the romanticized visions many have of doing so? The title may be a bit of a spoiler—but as always with Evan, the real story is more nuanced than you might think. Read on for why more startups could use actual business models, and why they're not all so bad, after all.

Read (16 minutes)

Why I Love Working at Startups

by Nathan Baschez in Divinations

After you've finished digesting Evan's hot take, direct your attention to Nathan's overnight (and exceedingly polite!) rebuttal. Pulling on a decade of work in and on various startups, Nathan illuminates the ways startup work can be useful—and the specific kinds of people it can be especially useful for. And if you stick around long enough, you'll get to read Evan's rebuttal to the rebuttal, printed therein.

Read (16 minutes)

Is The United States a Creator-Friendly Country?

by Li Jin, Nathan Baschez, and Yash Bagal in Means of Creation

US policies on taxation, healthcare, and retirement make pursuing work as a creator extremely risky, and the consequences of that risk enormous. In this week's Means of Creation Li and Nathan look at how the US could draw inspiration from European countries like Spain and France, which have established a more secure safety net for the aspiring middle class of creators, as well as incentives for creators and other artists. 

Read (10 minutes)

‘These are the things nobody ever talks about’

by Taylor Majewski in Glassy

Entrepreneur Hana Mohan has always developed startups to address specific needs she spots in different industries, from music sharing to customer support to her developer-geared notifications inbox MagicBell. But she's also spent the last few years writing and thinking about how the tech industry can better support trans people. Mohan, who herself transitioned while running a business, has clear ideas drawn from her experiences running companies and participating in Y Combinator as its first openly trans woman. As she tells Taylor here, denying structural issues and constraints only reinforces their presence—so founders have to confront them head-on.

Read (15 minutes)

Cyberbits #2: Longing for Internet Anonymity

by Fadeke Adegbuyi in Cybernaut

The sophomore installment of your new favorite curation of internet odds 'n ends looks back to the past—from one of the earliest online communities to a stunning photo series of real people and their online avatars. Between Fadeke's witty writing and impeccable taste in random-but-somehow-cohesive scraps, this series is definitely worth a follow.

Read (6 minutes)

Asset Allocation Autopilot: Earning 15%+ APYs in DeFi

by Nat Eliason in Almanack

After another...eventful week in crypto trading, Nat is here with a primer on Yearn, a decentralized finance software with a unique capability to maximize investors' crypto interest, without any of the hard, time-consuming work of monitoring rates. As with pretty much anything crypto related, Nat will be the first to tell you this isn't without risks, but if you're looking to dip your toe into interest optimization, this is the place to read up on how to do it right.

Read (10 minutes)

DeFriday #1: May Market Meltdown Madness

by Nat Eliason in Almanack

The crypto market melted down this week, and Nat has wrote an explainer on how each part of the market held up. The short story: for a crash of this size, the entire ecosystem performed remarkably well. Dive deep into DeFi with the first DeFriday!

Read (5 minutes)

#78 - We got to record an episode in person. What's next?

#79 - Is Nathan Unmanageable?

Talk Therapy with Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez

Your favorite cofounders ran across the therapeutic spectrum this week, from reminiscing on the good times and relishing their first episode recorded while physically together, to touching on the topic of responsibility zones, which are not always as clear as they should be. And yes, Dan had a dream about Nathan—but you may be surprised at how fantastical and real it was at once.

Listen to #78 (15 minutes) & #79 (18 minutes)

What’s Going On

News you might have caught or missed this week.

• Discovery and WarnerMedia merge, creating one of the largest U.S. media companies
• Ford’s Electric F-150 Pickup Aims to Be the Model T of E.V.s
• Robinhood's Big Gamble

What We’re Reading

Our favorite writing from beyond Every.

• The Endless Work of Trying to Win Yourself a New Life (The New Republic)
• The Anxiety of Influencers: Educating the TikTok Generation (Harper's)
• A New $260 Million Park Floats on the Hudson. It’s a Charmer. (The New York Times)
• Bitcoin Is a Lot Like the Art Market (Bloomberg)

Community Calendar

Events going on in the Every Discord.

• Monday, May 24 at 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST— 2 hour writing and focused work session hosted by Every Executive Editor Rachel Jepsen
• Tuesday, May 25 at 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST— Crypto Chat with Nat Eliason and Nathan Baschez
• Wednesday, May 26 at 2:30 PM EST / 11:30 AM PST — GTD Workshop with Khe He of RadReads

Tweet of the Week

We're extremely curious where you might locate us here...

Brie Wolfson@zebriez

Had too much fun and too much gin making this.

Do your thing, Twitter. Who’s missing? Who’d I get wrong?

May 20th 2021, 12:42pm EST

127 Retweets2k Likes

An Invitation to Every

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