This edition is brought to you by Athyna

Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself. 

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Today’s edition:

Cheers,
Alex

P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.

Stories of Excellence

Person: Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist, has made a career out of challenging conventional wisdom and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Born in 1967, Thiel co-founded PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and was an early investor in Facebook.

Key Lessons from Peter Thiel:

• On contrarianism: "Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius."

• On innovation: "The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them."

• On thinking for yourself: "The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself."

• On secrets: "Every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside."

• On entrepreneurship: "Entrepreneurs are the only people who will work 80 hour weeks to avoid working 40 hour weeks."

Read More.

Company: Craiglist

Craigslist, the online classifieds giant, started as a simple email list by founder Craig Newmark in 1995. An early internet adopter, Newmark started sharing local events in San Francisco with friends. It grew by word-of-mouth. In 1996, Newmark registered craigslist.org - a blend of his name and "list". It expanded to other cities in 2000. CEO Jim Buckmaster joined in 2000 and still leads the company today. Craigslist has stayed true to its early minimalist design and focus on serving local communities. It makes money by charging for job postings in select cities. With over 20 billion page views per month, Craigslist remains one of the most visited websites in the world.

Key Lessons from Craigslist:

• On team size: "I can’t speak for others, but to me it looks like the Dunbar Number stuff is true. When any organization gets too big, at around 150 people, interpersonal stuff goes badly wrong. That is, not enough people know each other, people don’t trust others they don’t really know, and groups of people self-organize into cliques and factions."

• On listening: "Personally, it’d be more accurate to say that I was quite clueless, not just that I had a few misconceptions. I caused some of my own problems by not listening to people who were much smarter than me about law or communications."

Read More.

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Accelerants

High-performance tool

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The Minto Pyramid Principle is a communication framework developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey in the 1970's. The essence of this framework lies in structuring thoughts and presenting them in a pyramid format: start with the conclusion, followed by supporting arguments, and detailed data to back them up. "Ideas at any level in the pyramid must always be summaries of the ideas grouped below them," Minto emphasizes.

This structure has the effect of enhancing clarity and persuasiveness. By frontloading the main idea, you prime the audience to evaluate subsequent details through that lens. It prevents getting lost in minutiae before grasping the crux. Each supporting point is a stepping-stone that builds on the previous one, making complex information digestible.

Business leaders like Jeff Bezos have championed this method for its succinctness and logic. Bezos famously mandated communicating via narratively-structured memos rather than PowerPoint decks.

Next time you're structuring an argument or presentation, give it a shot—you'll be pleasantly surprised at its effectiveness.

A trend I’m watching

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Deep tech is getting easier to build. The tools and building blocks needed to create complex technologies like robotics, space tech, and biotech have advanced rapidly in recent years. What used to require massive teams and budgets is now achievable with a fraction of the resources.

Several factors are driving this shift. Core technologies have gotten "dramatically faster/smaller/cheaper" - think 10x cheaper solar panels and 2x more efficient batteries. A new generation of tech talent is eager to tackle hard problems. And a growing pool of investors and customers are hungry for innovative solutions.

Some companies that are capitalizing on the democratization of deep tech include:

• Anduril, a defense tech startup building AI-powered autonomous systems, which has been called the "SpaceX for defense".

• Relativity Space, which is using 3D printing and AI to radically simplify rocket manufacturing. Their goal is to enable humanity's industrial base on Mars.

• Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology pioneer that is making bioengineering more accessible. Ginkgo aims to be the "AWS of biotech", enabling startups to rapidly develop new bio-based products.

The biggest opportunities lie in reimagining large, stagnant industries. Construction, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation - these sectors are desperate for new approaches. But building deep tech is still hard. Long timelines and complex tech stacks remain challenges. Founders need patience, grit, and a knack for navigating uncharted territory. "Ideas that used to require 50 people, $50m, and 5 years might now be doable with 5 people, $5m, and 2 years."

Read More.

If you’re interested in more trends and business ideas, check out Capital Ideas—Faster Than Normal’s paid sister publication (Subscribe with one click).

Tactical reads

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> When you need to build culture
The Holloway Syllabus on Company Culture (Read it here)

> When reflecting on your investments
Writing down the rationale for investment decisions is a prerequisite for success. (Read it here)

> When you need to become a better listener
The Art of Becoming a Better Listener — Tactical Advice for the Startup Setting (Read it here)

> When thinking about AI
How I Think About AI Investing in 2024 (Read it here)

> When thinking about personal capital allocation
Where You Should Put Your Money (And When) (Read it here)

1 question

That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Have a wonderful rest of week, all.

Recommendation Zone

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Athyna is a service that quickly (<5 days!) finds remote employees across 150+ countries for you or your team. They cover roles from sales and marketing to creative and product, and have worked with companies like Facebook, Zoom, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Amazon.

If you’re in the market for talent, visit their website to explore options and cover all your hiring needs.

Why Faster Than Normal? Our mission is to be a friend to the ambitious, a mentor to the becoming, and a partner to the bold. We achieve this by sharing the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world's most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.

Faster Than Normal is a ‘state' of being’ rather than an outcome. Outlier performance requires continuous, compounded improvement. We’re your partner on this journey.

Send us your feedback and help us continuously improve our content and achieve our mission. We want to hear from you and respond to everyone.

Interested in reaching Founders, Operators, and Investors like you? To become a Faster Than Normal partner, apply here.