Welty's Words Reading List

My favorite content from this week

Author

Ethan Welty
July 31, 2023

Welcome Back!

If you haven’t yet, check out my piece on Americans and our PTO habits. Writing that one felt like a breakthrough for me, even though it may have been obvious in hindsight 😉

I’ve been pretty busy with work and life recently, which is motivating me to try a different form of content for this week’s newsletter. Below, you will find some of the articles/content I consumed this week that I found the most interesting. I hope something will catch your eye! Please feel free to share any content you think I would enjoy as well.

Enjoy!

-Welty

Articles

Those of you who know me well understand I consume probably a bit too much content. An outcome of this is that my reading is often all over the place. I’ve done my best to segment what I’ve read into core themes.

Global Context

Europeans Are Becoming Poorer. ‘Yes, We’re All Worse Off.’

There are some staggering charts in this that really show how Europe has stopped growing economically

www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-poorer-inflation-economy-255eb629

Germany Is No Longer Exceptional

I’ve been interested in Germany’s stagnation, and this article puts things into a great context

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/07/germany-national-identity-afd-party-political-instability/674786

US-Focused Think Pieces

America’s Corporate Tragedy

Highlighting the sad realities of some of the most difficult work in the country

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/american-consumer-boycotts-bud-light-target/674745

Opinion | The Redneck Army Refuses to Stay Buried

Some very important, and largely hidden, history at the core of a state dear to my heart

www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/opinion/culture/west-virginia-strike-coal-miner-history.html

Business Reading

The Real Mystery of Bud Light

An interesting business history piece about the rise before the fall of an iconic brand

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/rise-and-fall-bud-light-boycott/674752

BVP’s Twitch Investment Memo

One of my favorite products of all time, and it’s really interesting to see the analysis that went into BVPs investment many years ago

www.bvp.com/memos/twitch

How Allbirds Lost Its Way

Looks like I wasn’t crazy in thinking Allbirds hurt my feet too much to wear

www.wsj.com/articles/how-allbirds-lost-its-way-a44d5415

Sergey Brin Is Back in the Trenches at Google

Love this energy

www.wsj.com/articles/sergey-brin-google-ai-gemini-1b5aa41e?mod=tech_lead_pos6

Why Databricks Bought Mosaic and The Rapidly Decreasing Costs of AI

An interesting analysis into the cost changes in AI

unsupervisedlearning.substack.com/p/why-databricks-bought-mosaic-and

Work

Don’t fix their decisions. Help improve their decision-making instead.

My colleague Ben Chen wrote this awesome piece on how to effectively teach your direct reports decision making

heybenchen.com/dont-fix-their-decisions-help-improve-their-decision-making-instead

Podcasts

Business & Investing

Peter Fenton (Partner, Benchmark)

Peter’s approach to investing is one I deeply resonate with

open.spotify.com/episode/3iJpKBdyWS2k1TCZkQfEwX?si=1849d2230aa04dad

Josh Kushner - Building Thrive Capital - [Invest Like the Best, EP.337]

Always been curious about Thrive since they hire particularly young investors and are NYC based

open.spotify.com/episode/0SEcbog1iWyMIPtbQxQuYF?si=4552b0a322934ea4

20VC: Lessons from Dave Clark @ Flexport

I enjoy hearing perspectives from operators outside of the pure software industry. Dave seems like a great leader

open.spotify.com/episode/5puo07B1sw8zAASRyTB5PE?si=cee851cc276d41e2

Have additional thoughts? Connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn and let’s chat about it! Make sure to share with your friends too if you enjoyed.