Feldman's Faves: October 30, 2023

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

In an effort to focus on the positive I will first and foremost take this opportunity to congratulate Maddie and Jay (and everyone that helped them) on an extremely successful United Way Campaign. We are so lucky to be in our position and it is always great having an opportunity to help others in our community.

Talking about communities, for those of you who are still hard core Pelotoners (is that a word?) this weekend was epic because it was the first time that Peloton offered a TWO HOUR ride, which was led by my all-time favourite instructor, Matt Wilpers. It was a great ride and a lot of fun. I am now lobbying him for more of these longer rides. I feel that he and I are really good friends (he may have a different view).

I know that many of you are continuing to work really hard (as seems to be the case every year at this time) and please know that it very much appreciated. So thank you.

Finally, in an act of shameless promotion for Shlomit (my wife) I wanted to make you are aware that she is participating through her studio, Nixto Studio (see her lovely art here – https://www.nixto.studio/ ) in the Toronto Art Crawl taking place on Saturday (November 4)– see details here (https://www.torontoartcrawl.com/ ). The entire event is a great opportunity to find great gifts for friends and family for the holidays.

No theme this week – just random topics of interest.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: A Novel By: Gabrielle Zevin – Bill Gates always makes excellent book recommendations and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is on point, as per usual. This book is ostensibly about the world of gaming – what it takes to design games, what’s involved in building a gaming company and the pressures and rewards that come with success in this field. Those at the top of their game (pun intended) are treated like rock stars. But like many rock stars, the protagonists from this book, Sam and Sadie, two childhood friends from California, started from humble beginnings and were a couple of really smart misfits that grew into formidable partners (at MIT/Harvard and then in business). I think this book hits home for Gates because the story of Sam and Sadie is very similar in many ways to his experience in creating and building Microsoft. As Gates notes, “Am I a gamer? For a long time, I would have said no because I don’t spend hundreds of hours going deep on one game. But when I was younger, I loved arcade games and got very good at Tetris. And in recent years, I have started playing a lot of online bridge and games like Spelling Bee and a bunch of the Wordle variants. The definition of a gamer is becoming a lot broader and more inclusive, and it might be fair to start calling me one. Either way, I don’t think you need to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy Gabrielle Zevin’s terrific novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It tells the story of Sam and Sadie, two friends who bond over Super Mario Bros. as kids and grow up to make video games together. Tomorrow was one of the biggest books of last year, and it’s easy to see why. Zevin is a great writer who makes you care deeply about her characters. Although there are plenty of video games mentioned in the book—Oregon Trail is a recurring theme—I’d describe it more as a story about partnership and collaboration. When Sam and Sadie are in college, they create a game called Ichigo that turns out to be a huge hit. Their company, Unfair Games, becomes successful, but the two start to butt heads. Sadie is upset that Sam got most of the credit for Ichigo. Sam is frustrated that Sadie cares more about creating art than about making their company viable. Zevin is such a good writer that she makes you sympathize equally with both of them. Female game developers often struggle to receive recognition, so Sadie’s position is understandable. But she also comes from a well-off family unlike Sam, who grew up poor and sees Unfair Games as his gateway to achieving financial stability for the first time. Most of the book is about how a creative partnership can be equal parts remarkable and complicated. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my relationship with Paul Allen while I was reading it. Sadie believes that “true collaborators in this life are rare.” I agree, and I was lucky to have one in Paul. An early chapter describing how Sam and Sadie worked until sunrise in a dingy apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could have just as easily been about Paul and me coming up with the idea for Microsoft. Like Sam and Sadie, we worked together every day for years. Paul’s vision and contributions to the company were absolutely critical to its success, and then he chose to move on. We had a great relationship, but not without some of the complexities that success brings. Zevin really captures what it feels like to start a company that takes off. It’s thrilling to know your vision is now real, but success brings a lot of new questions. Once you make money, do you still have something to prove? How does your relationship with your partner change once a lot more people get involved? How do you make the next idea as good as the last? You can’t help but wonder whether you would’ve been as successful if you started up at a different time. Sadie says, “If we’d been born a little bit earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to make our games so easily. Access to computers would have been harder… And if we’d been born a little bit later, there would have been even greater access to the internet and certain tools, but honestly, the games got so much more complicated; the industry got so professional. We couldn’t have done as much as we did on our own.” I know what she means: Paul and I were very lucky in terms of our timing with Microsoft. We got in when chips were just starting to become powerful but before other people had created established companies. Another part of the book that felt familiar to me was Sam and Sadie’s dynamic with Marx, a college friend who is an equal partner in their work. Marx isn’t a game designer like Sam and Sadie, but Ichigo and Unfair Games wouldn’t have happened without his production and business savvy. He’s also a charming, funny character who you can’t help but root for throughout the book. If Paul and I were Sam and Sadie, Steve Ballmer was our Marx. He didn’t write code, but the success of Microsoft was highly dependent on him. Like Marx, Steve made sure we hired the right people and had the tools we needed for the company to take off. The comparison isn’t perfect: We always appreciated Steve’s value, but in the book, Sam comes to resent Marx and downplays his contributions. (And of course Steve became Microsoft’s CEO, a position that Marx never reaches at Unfair Games.) But Zevin understands that dreamers alone can’t turn big ideas into reality—you need doers, too. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow resonated with me for personal reasons, but I think Zevin’s exploration of partnership and collaboration is worth reading no matter who you are. Even if you’re skeptical about reading a book about video games, the subject is a terrific metaphor for human connection. As Zevin writes, ‘To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. To play requires trust and love.’” This book is great. It introduces us to the world of gaming, to life at the Ivy Leagues, to the start-up world and to some really interesting and complex characters and relationships. Here’s a good review from The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/18/tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-by-gabrielle-zevin-review-when-game-boy-meets-game-girl

The McKinsey Podcast - Getting to the bottom of the teen mental health crisis – The Covid pandemic was difficult on everyone. It was especially difficult for young people who are wired to socialize and who were stuck in their rooms and, in many cases, on their phones. What a disaster, the long term ramifications of which we are just starting to understand. In this PODCAST, we look into this issue and how it will impact society going forward. Here is an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “The stakes are high when it comes to tackling the unprecedented mental health issues facing today’s teens. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, global editorial director Lucia Rahilly speaks with McKinsey partner and coleader of the McKinsey Health Institute Erica Coe and the founding president and medical director of the Child Mind Institute, Harold Koplewicz, about what the struggle means for society at large.” https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-mckinsey-podcast/id285260960?i=1000627063664

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation. And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon