Betterment

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

What do you do regularly? Where do you show up, what do you publish? Who do you ask, and what do you answer to? What gets better because you persist? Are there systems you support or work to change…

“Feels So Good” and “Chuck E’s in Love” were megahits. They transformed the careers of their creators. But any fan of Mangione or Jones will tell you that it’s f…

Posted on Thursday 11 Dec 2025. 1,130 words, 7 links. By Matt Webb.

I had to use my backups, and it was scary, and I was unprepared. Here's what I'm changing.

Frozen pizza changed the game for many pizzerias. If you couldn’t offer something better than what I had in my freezer, what do I need you for? If the wedding photographer can’t deliver…

Nine strategies I use to read a book per week. No speed-reading required.

I quit podcasts for a month and discovered a new reality.

Interruptions, recovery time, and task size: three numbers that determine if you'll get real work done. Interactive visualizations show the math behind bad days.

The science of how AI chatbots captivate, entertain, and influence us

You have that slide rule in the back of the closet. Maybe it was from your college days. Maybe it was your Dad’s. Honestly. Do you know how to use it? Really? All the scales? That’s wha…

In 1973, experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton wrote a letter to MoMA that captures a paradox that still defines creative work today.  The Museum of Modern Art had offered the filmmaker a retrospective of his work. However he was also told there would be "no money included at all" and it

The Surprising Benefits of Giving Up: Ditching or adjusting goals in the face of adversity might often be the best thing for us.

If you want a masterclass in making the leap from content creator to business builder, look no further than Davon Moseley — aka Royale Eats.

Learn to recognize what matters most in your life. Avoid distractions and focus on what truly makes life meaningful.

Discuss on Hacker News, Twitter or Reddit. Also, consider hiring me! You might also enjoy AI will write your next compiler! I’m 51, and I started coding 37 years ago — writing BASIC on my lap during a 1.5-hour bus ride from Havana (where I went to school) back

You will always need to proofread and edit, re-write, re-read, re-edit, and proofread again. Then, read closely. Again. Writing is the evil twin of thinking. Reading is the doppelgänger of learning. Even with—ESPECIALLY with—newfangled technologies, by the time you are done, it's the same pro

theory concerning the ways individuals' perspectives and the power that such authority exerts

Which is worth more, Kind of Blue from Miles Davis, or the third Boston album? It depends on your taste. I hope we can agree, though, that the fact that Miles spent four days on his album and Tom s…

We live in an age of automation, globalization, and faceless systems. A world that often feels indifferent to the individual. In this vast machinery, care

Marshall Sahlins and others showed that early hunter gatherer societies generally didn’t work very hard. Two or three hours a day were spent gathering food, and the rest of the time was for s…

I use this system to view my days through the months without putting extra work

Every one of the pings, dings and clicks on this page gives me the hives. Run them in a quick sequence and I need to leave the room. They are our Pavlovian bells, designed to trigger us into action…

If someone hands you a deck, you can be sure there are 52 cards covering four suits. The universe is finite. The cards are the cards, and games work precisely for that reason. Every deck is the sam…

If you’ve been living in Europe for a while, one of the first things you notice when you get to the US is how much more processed the food is. The bread.

Back in 2012, as a young assistant professor, I traveled to Berkeley to attend a wedding. On the first morning after we arrived, my wife ... Read more

After World War II, a German officer reportedly said, the American Army succeeds in war because "war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a

I’m not sure this is the right word for it, but we certainly need one. Not ‘entrepreneurship’ which is a distinct skill. That term is usually reserved for people who start at zero…

There is a certain point in a programmer’s life where you realize the real enemy is not complexity, not deadlines. It is drift