This is the newsletter formerly known as Snippets, which I wrote at Social Capital from 2015-2019, rebranded as Two Truths and a Take and now in its second season.
This is a newsletter about news, ideas, and long-term trends in the innovation economy that I think are interesting and not obvious. Sometimes I get predictions wrong, and sometimes I get them really right. Either way, I promise that you’ll find them interesting, and you’ll learn something.
Issues come out weekly, at 10 AM EST Sunday Morning. I cross-post every issue on my personal website, alexdanco.com, and you can read old posts there.
Here are a few posts I’ve written recently to give you a sample of what you’re in for:
Social Capital in Silicon Valley: How status and social standing became a critical part of the early-stage tech ecosystem. What is social capital, how to get it, how we use it, how it gets translated into real power and financial capital, and why “Social Fog of War” allows these ecosystems to scale to larger numbers of people without losing their magic. (January 23, 2019)
The Car Bundle: thinking about the economic bargain of car ownership, why SUVs are popular, and how kids and recreation are at the core of a “car bundle”, much like live sports anchor the cable bundle, that will keep car ownership afloat for a long time - even as on-demand transport options become better and cheaper. (Nov 26, 2019)
The Audio Revolution: going deep into some Marshall McLuhan territory with this post, why audio is such a “hot” medium, how hot and cool media influence the way our brain processes incoming information, how YouTube become the most important audio product of our time, why headphones played a real role in Donald Trump becoming president, and why I quit listening to podcasts. (October 17, 2019)
Cooking as a Service: food as a case study for how abundance works. We’re going through a multi-generational shift of outsourcing the act of cooking: eating more at restaurants (both upscale and fast food), eating a greater variety of food that’s prepared by someone else, and reorganizing our diet and our eating habits around “cooking as a service”. (May 9, 2019)