Clash - Pete's Newsletter - Issue #34
Songs of the Year
Each year I curate my top 10 songs of the year. Fittingly, this year's list includes many of my favorite artists from the past decade.
Here they are (in no particular order). Full playlist below.
1) "Dylan Thomas" by Better Oblivion Community Center
2) "Colors" by Black Pumas
3) "Harmony Hall" by Vampire Weekend
4) "Walking on a String" by Matt Berninger and Phoebe Bridges
5) "No Bullets Spent" by Spoon
6) "Gloria" by The Lumineers
7) "Keys" by Strand of Oaks
8) "Calm Down" by Pete Yorn
9) "Gallipoli" by Beirut
10) "Rylan" by The National
Bonus track I missed in 2018: "Twin's Twist" by The Sidekicks
The Past
Two quick reads, both from partners at Union Square Ventures, sharing their perspective on the past decade.
Here are the big things that happened in tech, startups, business, and more in the decade..
The Future
Interesting tweet highlighting the divergence of generational wealth during the past 10 years.
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The most important story of last year, the protests in Hong Kong, have turned a new page. The fight is now happening within video games, with protestors and mainlanders facing off in the fictional city of Los Santos.
Players in Hong Kong realised they could dress up as protesters after a new update for the game was released earlier this month.
They spread the word on LIHKG - which has been called the Hong Kong version of social news site Reddit - and started organising violent expeditions.
Mainland players responded by showing up dressed as riot police with water cannon trucks.
The Hong Kong protests are being played out on Grand Theft Auto online.
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Following his post on the past decade, Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures shares some predications for the next. I don't agree with all of them, but that is not the point. It is interesting to think of the implications of #3
China will emerge as the world’s dominant global superpower leveraging its technical prowess and ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities (see #1). Conversely the US becomes increasingly internally focused and isolationist in its world view
I agree with this prediction and am curious how this will affect US emigration policies, which have been an afterthought since the country's founding. With technological increases and growing abundance, some estimates indicate there has been a 2X increase in emigration away from the U.S. over the past 10 years.
People overestimate what will happen in a year and underestimate what will happen in a decade.