Siddhesh Recommends - January 2024

The best stuff I've listened to, watched, and read last month.

Feb 01, 2024

Siddhesh Recommends is a series in which I share the most memorable stuff I come across each month.

Each heading is a link. You can check out all previous recommendations here.

“There’s something powerful about allowing yourself to fully, obsessively love something that makes no sense. And it’s so contrary to how we’re told to live our lives. Identify and capture value! Go into the field where the best jobs are! Marry someone who is reliable! I’m not saying that’s bad advice—it’s good advice from many a perspective—but I also feel like I’ve stumbled into everything meaningful in my life when I was just like, hey, I’ll just give this a shot and it definitely won’t work.”

Heroes Suck: Here’s Why

“I find myself watching movies lately empathizing more with the villians.
The villians have a PLAN. They are focused, talented, skilled. They have something they’re actually trying to ACCOMPLISH.
The hero? The hero’s job is usually the same: to STOP them. To keep things the same.
Are there ANY adventure stories where the hero is actually trying to DO something?
Seriously. Star Wars– stop the Death Star. Every James Bond movie– STOP the billionaire villain’s plot. Superman– stop Lex Luthor. Harry Potter– stop Voldemort. etc.”

How do Open Source Companies even make money?

“Proprietary competitors have a feedback loop that they need to traverse: gather feedback from users, formulate plans based on feedback, develop new features or modify existing projects accordingly, deploy and repeat. But open source companies skip massive steps there and can iterate faster, because of how their users and developers are often the same person. This allows open source to innovate faster.”

Machi Koro