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David Perell Profile picture
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24 Jan, 5 tweets, 5 min read
I’m in Miami to see what all the hype is about, and South Beach is officially my favorite architectural neighborhood
“Why South Beach?”

South Beach has the highest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the world, which is by far my favorite architectural style.
What else I learned today:

• In the 1940s, buildings with 4+ stories had to have an elevator, so were are the nice ones.

• Old Art Deco has sharp, 90-degree corners. Late Art Deco is more rounded.

• Most of these Art Deco buildings housed rampant illegal gambling schemes.
While we’re talking about Miami, can we stop and marvel at these incredible photos that @vanschneider took?
South Beach has a neon vibe that I haven't seen in any other Art Deco architecture. You see it in the paint under the sunlight, but it comes alive under the night time lights

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More from @david_perell

David Perell Profile picture
24 Jan
The career path of a creator has three stages:

1) Discovery: Hone your craft and find the idea you want to be known for.

2) Income: Ditch the corporate world and become financially independent.

3) Equity: Get ownership in a business that’ll grow without your daily involvement.
The playbooks for the discovery and income phases have mostly been written: be prolific, attract an audience, and build a Personal Monopoly.

But right now, there are few paths towards generational wealth and escaping the day-to-day grind.

That’s where the attention is shifting.
Open questions:

1) When will the first creator IPO?

2) How can we normalize the “Chief Evangelist” role at companies so creators get equity in startups?

3) Can creators build generational wealth without managing a big team?

4) What are the leading causes of creator burnout?
Read 9 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
22 Jan
One of the best ways to improve your writing is to find a brilliant author who nobody knows about.

Read all their work, summarize it, build upon it, and you’ll have people saying “wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I’ve been reading Lewis Mumford who exemplifies these ideas perfectly.

He studied how technology transformed culture, with a focus on cities and machines. Though he was once influential, his ideas have been forgotten. And now, I’m going to translate them for the Internet age.
We should value originality, but not so much that we ignore the wisdom of those who came before us.

You do the world a great service when you synthesize the ideas of brilliant people who came before you. And when you write about their work, you find ways to build upon it too.
Read 7 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
20 Jan
The more effortless the writing looks, the more effort the writer actually put into the process
I call this the Paradox of Creativity: Your work is done when it looks so simple that the consumer thinks they could've done it, which means they won't appreciate how hard you worked.

I like how @jackbutcher illustrated it.
Elegance is the end result of hard work, not the starting point. Strive to make your work so invisible that the reader thinks they could have written what you published.

Read 4 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
18 Jan
Albert Einstein, on writing.

Two things stand out:

1) Focus on clarity: Make your ideas as understandable as possible, and don't worry about beauty.

2) Repeat yourself if you need to: Difficult concepts need to be repeated, but your ideas should always feel fresh to the reader
Einstein was talking about scientific writing, but it's a good counterweight to the verbose literary style most people learn in school.

In my own writing, I prize beauty. But I never focus on beauty until my essays are clear. Adding flair is the last thing I do before I publish.
Richard Hamming, one of the top scientists of the 20th century, said that good ideas aren't enough.

Everybody's busy, so writers must present their ideas well too. He said: "You have to sell it... If they don't stop and read it, you won't get credit."

(h/t @MarcRuby)
Read 4 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
1 Jan
Creatives have two kinds of working: open mode and closed mode.

Open mode: A state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas.

Closed mode: A state of focused work where you work towards a specific outcome.

Like breathing, you inhale in open mode and exhale in closed mode.
The problem with traditional productivity advice is that it doesn’t take open mode seriously. But that’s because closed mode is easier to define, and therefore, easier to write about.

Here’s how John Cleese of Monty Payton write about it.

(h/t @simonsarris)
A couple years ago, @michael_nielsen said to me: “Being distracted is underrated as a goal. Being productive is overrated as a goal. Almost all the best ideas come out of being distracted and unproductive.”

Open and closed mode is a good articulation of why that’s insightful.
Read 7 tweets
David Perell Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Online writers should serve three plates of ideas:

1) Samples: Quick ideas that grow your audience by giving people a taste of what you do.

2) Appetizers: Short articles that people can share and try out.

3) Main Course: Long-form essays that are the bedrock of your worldview.
Samples are like tweets. Make them small and publish all the time.

Appetizers should be fun and awaken the audience's appetite for your ideas.

Main courses should be unforgettable and of exceptional quality. They're the meat of your work, but people need time to get there.
Find a mix of samples, appetizers, and main courses that works for you.

As you do, you'll balance the consistency needed to grow an audience with the quality you need to deepen those relationships at scale.

Read 4 tweets

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