Five Links for May 2024

Every month, the five most mind-expanding links to read/watch/listen. If you find these interesting, please do share with your friends.

Here are five links worth reading…

Kinda nice by Damola Morenikeji
On the reality of “being nice” and why it's so much more difficult to be truly kind.

Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation by Adam Iscoe
An insider’s explanation of the “reservation ecosystem” and the secondary market for restaurant seats, or what happens when customers expect that “everything should be purchasable.” 

California is Losing Tech Jobs by Joseph Politano
Since the beginning of COVID, California added a sum total of only 6k jobs in the tech industry—compared to roughly 570k across the rest of the United States.

Bonus (Listen): Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen: Global Shipping and Logistics on World of DaaS Podcast
Global cargo shipping is super interesting and almost unbelievably complex.
listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube 

How the Atlantic Went From Broke to Profitable in Three Years by Alexandra Bruell
Some rare good business news from the media industry– how CEO (and former World of DaaS guest) Nick Thompson took The Atlantic from a $20 million deficit to profitability. 

What Makes Housing So Expensive? by Brian Potter
When we talk about reducing housing costs, we usually talk about land use and zoning. This is a useful primer on the actual material costs that go into building a home, and how they could be reduced. 

Bonus (Reality Check): What Are The Odds You Get Acquired Within 5 Years for a Good Price? Around 1%-1.5% by Jason Lemkin
Data on 3,067 startups founded in 2018. The takeaway: It’s the second 5 years where the real value starts to compound. Startups are a long game. 

Bonus (Space): NASA confirms origin of space junk that crashed through Florida home by Jess Weatherbed
How a piece of the ISS survived unintentional reentry and landed through the roof of a home in Naples, Florida home.  

More reading links at https://twitter.com/AurenReads 

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Tweet of the Month

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All the Books I read last month (not all are recommended):

• The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook (highly recommend)
  HT: Will Snellings

• Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier (highly recommend)
  HT: Rob Henderson

• Financial Shenanigans by Howard Schilit (recommend)
  HT: Will Snellings

• The Fund by Rob Copeland
  HT: anonymous

• Arbitrary Lines by M. Nolan Gray
  HT: Jerry Paffendorf

• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
  HT: Marc Andreessen

• From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks
  HT: Michael Southworth, Todd Greer

• One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch

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Recommended TV/movies: 

• McMafia

• Gangs of London

Graph of the Month:

When is the best time of year to have a birthday? (a graph)

Auren Hoffman is CEO of SafeGraph (geospatial data on physical places) and GP at Flex Capital ($200M Series A and B VC firm). Engage on Twitter: @auren

if you need entity matching for places and addresses, try Placekey.. Placekey helps with deduping, matching, syncing, and merging physical places.

and please share Five Links with your friends.