David Perell @david_perell Twitter profile | Pikagi

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David Perell

@david_perell

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"The Writing Guy" | Jesus-Follower | I tweet about writing and creativity | My writing school: | My writing:

Austin, Texas

https://t.co/4s24zGborR

Joined January 2011

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@david_perell

David Perell

7 months

Spent two hours with Marc Andreessen, who gave me a masterclass on how to think, learn, read, research, and write. Here's what I learned: 1. Read, read, read... then read some more. 2. Many of your best ideas will emerge in fits of rage or frustration. Channel the fury. Smash…

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@david_perell

David Perell

2 years

What's causing all these logos to look the same?

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David Perell

2 years

An all-time exchange in Jerry Seinfeld’s interview with the Harvard Business Review

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David Perell

3 years

This video is a masterclass in psychology. The first person to do something always looks weird. People laugh. Then somebody else joins. Then the crowds come in and the person who started the whole thing goes from looking like a goon to looking like a genius.

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David Perell

3 years

Some paradoxes of modern life: 1. The paradox of reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you’ll forget the vast majority of what you read.

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David Perell

3 years

Read to collect the dots, write to connect them

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David Perell

2 years

The homogenization of tech logos.

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David Perell

2 years

The CIA once released a guide on how to sabotage an organization, and I can’t shake the feeling that we’re voluntarily implementing these tactics today

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David Perell

2 years

Something to factor into your answer: The homogenization doesn't end with logos. It's happening to phone booths, doorbells, street poles, and bookshelves too. (h/t @culturaltutor )

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David Perell

2 years

Two interesting responses: • "This is what happens when the creative dept is overrun by the marketing dept. Being data driven is the death of art." — @cfcreative_ • "All businesses are online now and sans serif is among the easiest font set to read online." — @CartuneNetwerk

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David Perell

1 year

Why do elite colleges pump students into the same five industries: law, medicine, tech, investing, and management consulting? For answers, let’s turn to the philosopher René Girard.

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David Perell

1 month

The Paradox of Reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you'll forget the vast majority of what you read.

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David Perell

2 years

My best guess comes down to two factors: software and the Internet. 1) Software: Designers are using the same tools, which exert the same unconscious forces on their creative process. 2) The Internet: Aesthetic diversity is bound to fall in such a hyper-connected world.

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David Perell

2 years

28 short pieces of life advice: 1. Block off 90 minutes in your calendar every morning to work on the most important thing. Wake up early if you need to. Don’t compromise.

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David Perell

1 year

Have a friend who speaks to his kids like adults. They developed an advanced vocabulary early on. Then they started kindergarten. At school, they were surrounded by kids with limited vocabularies and "baby talking" teachers. When their speech degraded, he started homeschooling.

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@david_perell

David Perell

4 years

Business writing 101. ∙ Shorten your sentences. ∙ Make your point fast. ∙ Shorten the introduction. ∙ Use simple words. ∙ Add graphs and statistics. ∙ No buzzwords. ∙ Use more periods, fewer commas. ∙ Write for skimming, not deep reading. ∙ Bold the main takeaways.

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David Perell

4 years

MEGA THREAD TIME Here are 50 ideas that shape my worldview. These are my guiding principles and the light of my intellectual life. All of them will help you think better, and I hope they inspire curiosity.

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David Perell

5 years

WeWork sells workspace, but gives away coffee. Starbucks sells coffee, but gives away workspace.

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David Perell

3 years

With Jeff Bezos stepping down as CEO, here’s a thread of the best things I’ve learned from him. 1. Be willing to change your mind. As Bezos famously said: "Anybody who doesn’t change their mind a lot is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in.”

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David Perell

4 years

These Amazon writing tips are fantastic. 👏

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David Perell

10 months

You can see something 10,000 times on your phone, but never understand it until you see it in person for the first time. That’s the lesson from the park bench scene in Good Will Hunting. Matt Damon is the arrogant, book-smart intellectual who’s seen little but read everything.…

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David Perell

2 years

Look at how Pepsi's logo has evolved. The brand identity has become flat, bland, sterile, timid and unimaginative. Maybe globalization is to blame. The more you scale, the more you need to appeal to different kinds of people, which sucks the personality out of what you're doing.

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David Perell

3 months

This story about Square shows the kind of scrappiness that helps you become a $41 billion company.

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David Perell

1 year

Buying a book should be a bundle. For one price, you get the physical copy, audiobook, notes, commentary from famous readers, links to further reading, a lecture series, and interviews with the author.

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David Perell

5 years

This is an incredible photo of San Francisco.

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David Perell

4 years

I stopped believing in college when the lectures I watched for free on YouTube were better than the ones I paid $40,000 a year for

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David Perell

3 years

Same structure: Rivers, blood vessels, tree roots, and tree branches

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@david_perell

David Perell

3 years

The paradox of reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you’ll forget the vast majority of what you read

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@david_perell

David Perell

3 months

J.P Morgan's private library is a shrine to knowledge that you rarely see these days.

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@david_perell

David Perell

3 months

The American Psychological Association once invited William James to give a talk on the first 50 years of psychology research. He simply said: “People by and large become what they think of themselves.” Then, he left.

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David Perell

2 years

Mr. Beast was so obsessed with YouTube that he talked growth strategy with friends on Skype every day for more than 1,000 days. By the end, everybody in the group had more than 1 million subscribers.

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@david_perell

David Perell

3 years

The American Psychological Association once invited William James to give a talk on the first 50 years of psychology research. He simply said: “People by and large become what they think of themselves.” Then, he left.

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@david_perell

David Perell

4 years

Bryson DeChambeau might be the most innovative athlete in the world right now. He just won his first major championship and is changing how golf is played at the highest levels. People call him "The Mad Scientist of Golf." Here's what you can learn from him. THREAD

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David Perell

6 months

Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, has a rule where he never says yes to anything on the spot. People-pleasing had him making too many commitments. He says something to the effect of: "Thanks for the invite. I don't say yes to anything on the spot, but…

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David Perell

3 years

Pixar's guide to storytelling

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David Perell

5 years

Best way to learn faster: Have a stake in the outcome. To learn about food, cook for friends. To learn about an idea, publish an article about it. To learn about stocks, invest in the stock market. Risk awakens our learning muscles like a splash of cold water.

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David Perell

2 years

Seinfeld has a bit about how people wear the same clothes in every movie about the future. (h/t @ChrisCuilla )

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David Perell

10 months

Ordering a coffee at a 5-star hotel so you can work in the lobby is one of the world’s great arbitrages. You can either pay $3 for a run-of the-mill Starbucks with rickety seating and janky Internet, or $6 for a soft leather couch, table service, and supersonic Wi-Fi speeds.

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David Perell

4 years

Cold emails are a great way to land a job. Here's what I've learned: ∙ Email the CEO directly. ∙ Show that you're unique. ∙ Be specific. ∙ Make a bold request. ∙ Have a clear call-to-action. ∙ Don't be humble. This isn't the time to be modest. Now... make magic happen.

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David Perell

4 years

Education is broken. Here is what the future of education will look like: 1. Teaching will become an extremely lucrative profession. Salaries will follow a power law. The best teachers will make millions of dollars per year and teach thousands of students per year.

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@david_perell

David Perell

9 months

One of my smartest friends only reads 3-5 books per year but rewrites every page in his own words as he goes through it. Then, he summarizes the entire book once he's done. He reads only the best books, but very carefully. This is the kind of reading we should be encouraging.

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@david_perell

David Perell

4 years

Officially obsessed with Oxford’s “Very Short Introduction” series. The books are generally well-written and don’t have any fluff, which is everything I want from non-fiction. Plus, they’re short enough to read in 2-3 nights. Highly recommend.

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David Perell

9 months

Have some friends whose careers are absolutely taking off, and the common theme among them is how they’ve surrendered to their nature. They’re done trying to be somebody they’re not.

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David Perell

4 years

My love of learning began once I stopped going to school

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David Perell

1 year

Sorting kids by age is a relatively new phenomenon. Kids were historically surrounded by younger and older peers. They taught the younger kids and looked up to the older ones. My hunch: Segmenting kids by age takes away mentorship and role models, which slows down learning.

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David Perell

5 years

I have an idea! Companies should onboard employees with an internal podcast. It would focus on: - Company history - How decisions are made - Industry 101 - How the company makes money - Long-term goals and company vision Fast, efficient, and fun for everybody.

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David Perell

4 years

Prediction: Somebody is going to make a fortune selling recyclable, easy-to-transport outdoor offices.

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David Perell

2 years

Have you seen these drawings? The style is called "Corporate Memphis" and it's everywhere now. It was originally designed for Facebook. The figures are flat, minimal, abstract, and geometric because they're non-representational, which makes them feel universal.

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David Perell

9 months

I fell into a pretty dark mental place earlier this year. At my absolute low, a dear friend called me to say: “I’m flying out to crash on your couch for the week. Whatever you need, the answer is yes.” One of the kindest things a friend has ever done for me. Will never forget it.

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David Perell

3 months

Remember this for whenever you design something.

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David Perell

2 years

Here's what the future of education looks like: 1. Teaching will become an extremely lucrative profession. Salaries will follow a power law. The best teachers will make millions of dollars per year and teach thousands of students every year. In fact, this is already happening.

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@david_perell

David Perell

2 years

Elon Musk was once asked: "How do you learn so fast?" He replied: "I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. It's important to view knowledge as a semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles before you get into the details."

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David Perell

2 years

How much of these homogenization trends come from trying to quantify beauty? Robert Pirsig argued that quality can't be defined because it transcends language when he wrote: “When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.”

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David Perell

2 years

The paradoxes of modern life. Here's my mini-essay.

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David Perell

4 years

One of the weirdest things about modern urbanism is that we build the opposite of what we like. We adore Europe’s narrow streets, but build skyscraper-lined cities with six-lane roads and sterile shopping malls, that are impossible to walk.

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David Perell

5 months

One of the simplest ways to improve your quality of life is to reduce how long it takes to have a difficult conversation once you know you need to have it.

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@david_perell

David Perell

5 months

I went from thinking the Bible was the most boring book ever to seeing the magic in it. Years ago, I realized that the Bible is the foundational book of Western civilization. If I was going to be an educated person, I needed to know what it said. Though I was motivated to learn…

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David Perell

2 years

As a society, it’s as if we’ve read too many blog posts about the 80/20 rule. When you strip away too much of the non-essential, you lose the kind of craftsmanship that endows an object with soul and makes life feel meaningful. Here's my essay on this.

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The Microwave Economy - David Perell

David explains how the American economy has prioritized cheap functionality over meaningful beauty and what that means for Americans. Read here.

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David Perell

1 year

Rick Rubin became a world-class music producer without knowing the first thing about music

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David Perell

2 years

We're stuck in a Never-Ending Now. Here's my mini-essay.

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David Perell

1 year

@SahilBloom Have always liked this poem

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David Perell

4 years

The smartest people I know are mostly self-educated.

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David Perell

2 years

@cfcreative_ @CartuneNetwerk Though we've never had so many options, we all trust the same curators to make buying decisions for us. Sometimes, it’s Wirecutter. Sometimes, it’s the mass-scale department stores that homogenize the world while advertising the illusion of choice. @SimonSarris explains it well.

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David Perell

2 years

Counterpoint: Many of the places we think are most beautiful are incredibly homogenous. Think of Paris and it's pretty Haussmann style apartment buildings that cover the entire city, simply because Napoleon III said so. The difference is how global these design trends are now.

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David Perell

2 years

Architecture follows a similar pattern. I keep seeing the same kinds of modern houses that look like they’ve been copied & pasted by a slapdash architect. Professional architects might call these homes “minimalist,” but I think they're just soulless copycats of each other.

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David Perell

7 months

Do the hard thing now. Decline the invite right when you receive it. Have the difficult conversation before the conflict begins to fester. Give somebody the feedback as soon as they start bothering you. Yes, patience is a virtue, but paralysis can crush you. Courage acts fast.

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David Perell

6 years

1/ I’ve collected tons of career advice. Here’s the best of the best. 👇 Thread 👇

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David Perell

3 years

The pain you feel when you write is actually the pain of clarifying your thinking

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David Perell

2 years

21 ideas from 2021:

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David Perell

2 years

Interviewer: How effective is humor as a leadership tool? Seinfeld: Being funny is one of the ultimate weapons a person can have in human society. It might even compete with being really good-looking.

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David Perell

4 years

If you want to improve your writing, start by becoming a better note-taker. Here are 10 ways to do that: 1. Save only the best notes: Don't hoard information. Save your top 5-10% of ideas only. That way, you can trust that everything in your note-taking system is high-quality.

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David Perell

3 years

Writing will humble you by making you see how flimsy and imprecise your thinking is all day

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David Perell

2 years

We're living in a commitment crisis:

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David Perell

4 years

There are two kinds of fame: 1) Kim Kardashian Fame: You're famous for being famous, so everybody knows who you are. 2) Charlie Munger Fame: A small number of people deeply respect how you think, but most people wouldn't stop if they saw you on the street. Choose Munger fame.

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David Perell

2 years

If you've ever wanted to build an online business, this thread is for you. Here are the principles of online marketing:

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David Perell

3 years

Being ahead of your time by a year will make you rich, but being ahead of your time by a decade will drive you insane

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David Perell

4 years

Facebook is for people in your past. Twitter is for people in your future.

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David Perell

2 years

If you ever need to delegate a task, do this: 1) Outline the vision. 2) Share resources. 3) Describe your definition of done.

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David Perell

3 years

For all the talk about progress, why are beautiful buildings like this so rare these days?

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@david_perell

David Perell

2 years

This is the best article I’ve seen about the logo phenomenon. “One reason for the sans serif logo trend is readability. Especially on mobile, but everywhere else as well: from huge billboards to tiny footer links at the bottom of mobile websites.”

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Why do so many brands change their logos and look like everyone else?

Tech and fashion logos are becoming increasingly similar, all of them using sans serif fonts. Why do they do that? And why it doesn't make sense.

www.velvetshark.com

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David Perell

3 years

Jeff Bezos has a saying: “Good intentions don’t work. Mechanisms do.” Long-term, you can’t solve problems by working more or trying harder. If you want persistent change, you have to fix the underlying system.

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David Perell

3 years

High performers are like surfers. Surfers spend most of their time paddling, but everybody talks about the epic wave they caught after hours of waiting in the cold. No matter what you do in life, if you’re good at what you do, you’re gonna spend a lot of time paddling.

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David Perell

10 months

@JeremyTate41 The German poet Heinrich Heine once visited the Amiens Cathedral where he realized why we don't build such buildings anymore: "In those days men had convictions, whereas we moderns only have opinions, and something more is needed than an opinion to build a Gothic cathedral.”

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David Perell

2 years

If you're feeling stuck in your professional life, start writing online. Here's how it can accelerate your career:

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David Perell

2 years

Why you should write in public:

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David Perell

5 years

My Favorite Reading Quotes 1. “The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.” — Descartes 2. “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami

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David Perell

3 years

My favorite thing that @TylerCowen has ever written

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David Perell

4 years

A shocking number of the best entrepreneurs I know ran illegal businesses when they were kids

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David Perell

3 years

What’s a book you love so much that you’ll instantly be friends with anybody who loves it too?

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David Perell

4 years

I've never seen such beautiful 3D maps

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David Perell

4 years

You should know about Brunello Cucinelli. He's the billionaire founder of a $450 million fashion brand. His company is valued at more than €1.6 billion, and it's fueled by his radical approach to business. This thread is a collection of the best things I've learned from him.

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David Perell

2 years

Writers aren't immune to these trends. It seems like every non-fiction book follows the same blueprint of simple words, short sentences, and research papers to justify every obvious intuition. And yeah, it's efficient, but where are the unhinged Hunter S. Thompsons of the world?

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David Perell

4 years

The creators of South Park share their favorite storytelling advice. Drive your story with words like “but” and “therefore” instead of “and then.”

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David Perell

2 years

People don't actually read. Here's my mini-essay.

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David Perell

4 years

This is my favorite Kobe Bryant story. May we carry the torch of his hustle, passion, and incredible work ethic. Rest in peace, Kobe.

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David Perell

2 months

Read to collect the dots, write to connect them

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David Perell

3 years

“I’m still learning” is a dangerous kind of procrastination because it feels so virtuous

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David Perell

2 years

Writing is easier when you have a routine. Here's how you can build one:

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David Perell

4 years

Yuval Harari sold 12 million copies of Sapiens without adding any original ideas. He presented the literature in a new way, and clarified it for normal people. Remember that next time you think you need to be 100% original.

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