$1 Billion Climate Bounty, Seinfeld's Calendar, & More
The Friday Five: Episode L
Welcome to the 979 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Wednesday. Join the 87,354 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.
Quick Announcement: Audience Building Course is back May 3-6!
It's a live cohort-based course designed to help you build a high-leverage audience. Results from prior cohorts were awesome—hundreds of thousands of new followers and subscribers and countless new monetization opportunities created.
50 spots remaining—you can grab your seat here.
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Air!
Air is the cheat code of marketing teams at both high-flying startups and massive enterprise businesses.
Products like Google Drive and Dropbox are fine for people who just need to store everything, but they fall terribly flat when it comes to creative collaboration and scalability on images and videos.
Air has built a solution—a platform that enables seamless collaboration across the entire content library of a business. Work happens directly in the visual asset (not in some janky spreadsheet linked to Dropbox or a side email). The end result? Businesses can 10x the power of their content to become storytelling machines.
Air is the “holy s*** why didn’t this already exist?!” solution for creative collaboration. Get a demo today by using the link below!
Today at a Glance:
Quote: A ship close to shore.
Framework: Seinfeld’s calendar.
Tweet: Chickens are getting massive.
Article: Carbon removal markets.
Podcast: Seinfeld on failures.
One Quote:
“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.” - Albert Einstein
It’s easy to play it safe—to stay close to shore.
But that’s not what YOU are built for.
One Framework:
The Seinfeld Calendar Framework
Jerry Seinfeld is a very inspiring figure to study for creatives and non-creatives alike.
He’s known for his tremendous creative consistency—but as he is quick to point out, it’s not some gift he was simply born with. It was—at least partially—engineered.
His method for developing creative consistency is simple:
Hang a huge calendar on the wall of his office.
Use a red marker to put an X over every day that he completed his daily writing habit.
Importantly, it wasn't about the writing being good or high quality—it was about the consistency of the daily practice.
With daily practice comes prowess.
I started using this framework to establish new habits or to drive improvement in existing areas of competency.
I call it my 30-for-30 plan:
Pick anything.
Commit to 30 minutes a day for 30 consecutive days.
Track with a calendar.
I find that 30 minutes per day is short enough to feel manageable—but 900 total minutes over a month builds a surprising level of competency.
Give it a shot!
One Tweet:
This thread is a crazy dive down a rabbit hole I didn’t know I wanted to go down (i.e. the best kind of rabbit hole). Lot to unpack here as it relates to “Big Food” and the lobbying groups that impact what we consume on a daily basis.
By the way, don’t challenge 2005 chicken to a fight. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
One Article:
We’ve Never Seen a Carbon-Removal Plan Like This Before
The big news here is that Stripe—the online payments giant—recently announced it is purchasing $925 million in carbon removal over the next 8 years.
Why is this a big deal?
Well, it sends a market signal to would-be entrepreneurs that there is demand for nascent and unbuilt carbon removal technology. The technology is mostly unbuilt, so the market signal is very important.
My “explain it like I’m 5” of the logic:
Stripe announces $925 million in carbon removal purchases.
Aspiring climate founders see a market for carbon removal. There are now buyers of their “product” if they build it, which was uncertain before.
Venture investors see a burgeoning market with significant growth potential. They back the aspiring founders with capital and resources.
Technology gets built to improve/solve climate crisis.
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s mostly it. Really interesting and worth following closely!
One Podcast:
Jerry Seinfeld—A Comedy Legend’s Systems, Routines, and Methods for Success
This episode of The Tim Ferris Show was incredible.
Jerry’s insights on the creative process were super interesting—creativity comes in bursts!—but it was his perspective on failure that left a lasting impression:
“If you could take your experiences and ask to trade them in, the last ones I would trade would be the failures. Those are the most valuable ones.”
Truer words have never been spoken. Failures shape you. Embrace them.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Where It Happens Podcast
From Community Manager to C-Suite | Jiho, Axie Infinity
Watch it on YouTube and listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Special thanks to our sponsors for providing us with the support to bring this episode to life.
This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. If you love high-quality meat and fish we can’t recommend them enough. We personally love their NY strips at the moment.
Right now they are offering free ground beef for life and $10 off your first order. But this offer only lasts until Saturday at 11:59 PM EST. Use the code ROOM at checkout and make sure to go to butcherbox.com/room to get the offer.
This episode is also brought to you by MarketerHire. MarketerHire provides on-demand access to pre-vetted, top-tier marketers who can freelance as much or as little as needed.
They’ve made it easy to hire great marketers. With pre-vetted talent and expert hand-matching, you can add a proven marketer to your team in less than a week.
Go to marketerhire.com to learn more.
Sahil’s Hiring Zone
Talent Collective
Excited to announce the launch of my new talent collective! Members of the collective will get exclusive access to opportunities at my favorite high-growth startups across the tech landscape.
Completely free for candidates. Use the link here to apply!
Companies can get exclusive access to these terrific candidates by buying a collective pass here.
Featured Opportunities
Gruntwork - Senior Software Engineer
Practice - Product Designer
Clipboard Health - Engineering Manager
DaoHq - Founding Solidity Developer
Artifact - Product Designer
Clay - Growth Manager
Assemble - Software Engineer
The full board with 20+ other roles can be found here!
Seriously, everyone...don't mess with 2005 chicken.