Snippets finally has a new name
Plus other announcements
Hello everybody! A long-awaited day has arrived: it’s time to retire the name Snippets.
Snippets served this newsletter faithfully for many years while at Social Capital and kindly extended its tour of duty for the last few months while we underwent a thorough search process. Snippets will retire with a full pension, and is looking forward to spending time with family. We wish them well.
I’m pleased to introduce our new name, coming your way every Sunday as always: Two Truths and a Take.
I’ve been thinking a while about what this newsletter’s brand really is, and what kind of name would be fitting to that sort of brand. I kept finding myself coming back to the line, “A brand is a promise, and a good brand is a promise kept.” The promise I make to you with this newsletter is that every week, I’m going to talk about some interesting things that are true, or at least that I believe are true; and I also promise to serve you up some pretty hot takes from time to time. You’re going to get both.
Most importantly, I promise you that sometimes it’s going to be hard to tell the difference. There will be times where we look back at what everyone was saying last month, or last year, or whenever, and realize that what we all believed were ordinary facts should actually have been labeled as hot takes; and what we all dismissed as hot takes turned out to be exactly right. The fun is in figuring out which is which.
So stay tuned for a new name in your inbox every Sunday, but the same great stuff.
Second: a couple months ago I did a fewInterview Issues while I was off with our newborn, and I really liked doing them. So they’re coming back! Starting in October, the plan’s to do approximately one a month, as supplemental bonus issues. I have some really great ones in the pipeline coming up and I won’t spoil them, but stay tuned for them in your inbox starting next month.
If you have somebody in mind who you think would make for a great interview, please nominate them! (There’s no "nomination process". Just send me an email letting me know why you think they’d be good.) These people don’t need to be big names necessarily; just people who are either up to something really interesting, or have something notable and unconventional to say.
Third: Not a real update but just a reminder that if you like Snippets, you should check out my long form book project that I’m writing week by week, Scarcity in the Software Century. It’s a book about two of the most important questions there are about today’s tech industry: How does software create new abundance? And how does software create new scarcity? Grateful to have a few hundred of you on board so far and if you’re interested, I’d love to have you as a a subscriber and supporter!
Fourth: Speaking of books, here’s some low-hanging fruit that someone suggested to me the other week: a book collection / anthology of newsletter issues. So, I’d love to hear from you if you think this is something you’d like to get. Starting with this year (Season one!), I’ll start doing this:
-Each year, I’m going to put together every newsletter issue that comes out for Snippets / Two Truths, and also add some notes and reflections looking back: what observations have turned out well, and which ones turned out really wrong? If I were writing this again, what might change? Any other interesting stories that have happened since then worth mentioning? I may also add in some other bonus content as well; stay tuned for that.
-I’ll sell them at close to cost; my goal’s not to make lots of money off of these, just to get them out to anyone who wants them in a way that’s sustainable. However, I’m less sure about what that cost ought to be: there’s a whole range of product quality this could be in terms of materials: how important are colour pictures? Hardcover backing? Paper quality? So I put up this Google Form survey: if you think you might be interested in getting one of these, please fill this out!
Google Forms: Newsletter Anthology feedback requested
Thanks everybody, and I hope you’re having a great start to fall. Looking forward to many more years of Two Truths and a Take, the newsletter formerly known as Snippets, landing in your inbox every Sunday!
Alex