Ways of Looking #2 (October '24)
In this issue: the best USB-C wired headphones, why it’s illegal to buy healthy lightbulbs in California, the secrets of startup PR, and more…
Welcome to Ways of Looking. Roughly every month, I send my friends a few things I’m enjoying — content, products, and experiments — and summaries of anything I’ve written recently.
About me: I’m a three-time founder (Eco, CoinList, Sidewire) based in Austin, TX. I’m currently spending time on: Eco, exploring the home health & environmental toxins space, supporting FreeWorld, hacking on a few products, and investing in and advising great companies and founders.
Check out my more regular writing and reply to this email anytime. Thanks for reading.
— Andy
What I’m enjoying
Product: instead of typical earbuds, I’ve been using Truthear Hexa in-ear monitors (IEMs) with a Moondrop FreeDSP cable. I think it’s the best option for USB-C wired headphones with a microphone. IEMs have come way down in price recently, and the sound quality is so much better than normal headphones.
There are cheaper options, too, like these. Or if you want non-IEM options, try the Tanchjim One earbuds.
Book: Who Is Michael Ovitz? by the man himself, Michael Ovitz. It has some incredible stories, even if at times it feels like the book itself is doing the tight image-management that Ovitz is (self-admittedly) known for.
Experiment: bringing a good lightbulb (incandescent or healthy LED) with me when I travel. It’s so nice to put a good bulb in the hotel lamp and not be blasted with sleep-disrupting blue light before I go to bed — especially while already thrown off by travel.
Article: Observer Theory, by Stephen Wolfram. Wolfram is always good for a hard-to-parse-the-details-but-makes-sense-if-you-squint breakdown of fundamental concepts.
App: Readwise Reader is by far my favorite read-it-later app. I mostly don’t use the spaced repetition features and instead just treat it as a repository for saved articles and a place to highlight them. It’s great. Same flow as all similar apps (just hit the browser extension button or share articles to it on your phone), but the interface is much better, with lots of thoughtful affordances.
What I’ve written
Startup PR, Part I: the rules of the game — nobody ever sits you down and explains the idiosyncratic rules of working with the media. What does “on background” mean? How do “embargoes” work? How can you best interact with journalists? This is the guide I wish I had earlier in my career.
Try just one fragrance-free month — among the most impactful health experiments I’ve ever tried.
It’s illegal to buy healthy lightbulbs in California — I’m not kidding. Give this a read to learn about some really broken regulation.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.
— Andy