#071: Individual Groups Change History, Problems People Love Working On, Jeff Bezos' Final Amazon Letter

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This week, we will take a look at how small groups of people have consistently changed the course of history, what a stranded baby humpback whale can teach us about leadership, Jeff Bezos' final Amazon letter, and more.

Let's dive in:

"A handful of people can change history forever"

That quote from @sporadicalia has stuck with me this last week. It references an observation spor made from studying the Medici family. He expands by saying "I used to believe that history followed cycles/trends more than individuals. I no longer think so, indeed I believe the opposite to be true."

This tweet stemmed from another post made by Augustus Doricko, who mentioned the influence of the PayPal Mafia on tech and the modern American Empire. Whatever group of friends has the highest conviction and capability ends up winning everything.

He goes on to provide more examples of those who met at the Green Dragon Tavern during the American Revolution, the Medici family and their patronized artists sparking the Renaissance, Garibaldi and the Expedition of the Thousand uniting Italy, and Bell Labs.

Where are those hubs of innovation now? How can you become part of it? And what impact do you want to leave on the world when you're gone?

The Problems People Love Working On

​Visakan Veerasamy, affectionately known as "Visa" on Twitter circles, is one of the best observers of human nature. Visa recently came across a video of a stranded baby humpback, who was subsequently rescued by dozens of people on the beach.

His three-tweet response touches upon a universal truth about humans, and what types of problems we are most drawn to work on:

The Systems Behind Our Everyday Lives

Thomas Jefferson lived a life closer to the lives of people during the Iron Age than to ours. That sounds like an exaggerated statement, but it's literally true. Modern forms of steel and other metal alloys hadn't been invented. This is one of the most profound lines delivered in the excellent article, "We Live Like Royalty and Don't Know It" by Charles C. Mann.

Written for The New Atlantis magazine, this article explores the abundance we find ourselves living with in the modern world. It starts by Mann sitting at a wedding rehearsal dinner, thinking about Thomas Jefferson's ink. Sitting in opulence, the only thought that surfaced during this dinner was how Thomas Jefferson was one of the richest men in the new United States, but struggled to keep his pen ink from freezing during the winter.

Mann goes on to explore the idea of everyday systems, including water, food, energy, and public health. This short, 5 minute article is a perfect teaser to whats to come from Mann. He is working on a series of four articles explaining each of these systems and is appropriately calling the collection "How the System Works."

Mann starts by tackling humanity's greatest need and biggest system - food. Titled "Breakfast for Eight Billion", this article will surely whet your appetite for more.

Microsoft Creates New State of Matter

It was recently announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that they have created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a class of materials called "topoconductors". Their new chip, Majorana 1, is the first quantum computing chip of its kind.

The qubits created with topoconductors are faster, more reliable, and smaller. How much smaller? At 1/100th of a millimeter, this chip can fit into the palm of your hand, yet its capable of solving problems that all the computers on Earth today combined could not.

Here are just a few of the things that a million-quibit machine can help us answer:

• Solve the difficult chemistry question of why materials suffer corrosion or cracks. This could lead to self-healing materials that repair cracks in bridges or airplane parts, shattered phone screens or scratched car doors.
• Breaking down and cleaning up microplastics or tackling carbon pollution. Quantum computing could calculate the properties of such catalysts to break down pollutants into valuable byproducts or develop non-toxic alternatives in the first place.
• Enzymes, a kind of biological catalyst, could be harnessed more effectively in healthcare and agriculture, thanks to accurate calculations about their behavior that only quantum computing can provide. This could lead to breakthroughs helping to eradicate global hunger: boosting soil fertility to increase yields or promoting sustainable growth of foods in harsh climates.

The power of quantum computing combined with AI tools should allow us to design things right the first time - fundamentally saving engineers, scientists, and companies unfathomable time, money, and energy.

The Universe Wants You to be Typical

It made the rounds on Twitter last week but for good reason. Jeff Bezos' final letter to his Amazon employees was shared and viewed over 3.8M times across the platform.

In it, Bezos shares a passage from The Blind Watchmaker from Richard Dawkins. This prompts him to ask more questions, like:

• In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal?
• How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness?
• How much work does it take to keep alive the thing or things that make you special?

Things usually would be easier and take less energy if 'we were a little more normal', Bezos says. "The world wants you to be typical - in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don't let it happen".

One thing that may sound counterintuitive, is that 'being yourself' doesn't come easy or free. You have to put energy into it continuously.

Whenever the world tries to make you, your company, or anything else you care about more typical, make the extra effort to fight against being brought into the equilibrium of the outside environment.

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J.B.