Hello lovely people,
I missed sending the issue last week as I was on vacation without access to the laptop.
Thank you for sharing your feedback after the last issue. I am contemplating on narrowing down the topics I cover but have not made a decision yet. Additionally, I am adding links for the readers who want to read more.
Here are this week's stories and recommendations:
Know your Worth - Zac Sweers, a developer at Slack, tweeted his Salary on Feb 14 intending to address Pay inequality. The #Knowyourworth was picked up by many folks in the tech community who came forward and shared their pay. Buffer, a social media company, was a pioneer in sharing wages of all their employees back in 2013. The topic of Pay equality is a lot more complicated than what people would want you to believe. However, you can do your research through sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn and also by talking candidly among your peers. The goal is to be aware of all the variables that affect the money you are paid and then negotiate on the variables that you control. Read this excellent thread for additional context.
Lambda & ISAs - The new age coding boot camps promising to change one's careers without asking for a penny are the latest rage in the US and across the world. One such entity is Lambda school, which has been making a lot of noise in the last year or so. Lambda is unique in the way they collect the fees from the students through Income Share Agreements (ISAs). Students who enrol in the courses don't have to pay anything upfront. Once they get their jobs, a percentage of their pay needs to be shared back to Lambda in a pre-fixed tenure. Sounds too good to be true? It turns out they have had their share of problems. Verge wrote a hit piece on Lambda, which in my opinion, was biased and not backed by facts. However, there was an additional piece written by New York Magazine's Intelligencer, which had some solid research. How did Lambda respond to the criticism? They announced the New ISA Financing Blueprint and $100M in New Financing.
Can Twitter Save Science? - I read this incredible essay on how postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) are leveraging Twitter to establish their brands in the scientific community to get into academia. If you are someone like me who does not know much about the world of academia, prepare to be amazed by this uber-cool essay. To summarise, the journals have an incredible business model where they get free work done by the community in exchange for publishing work of fellows who need to establish their credibility. Journals have created a vicious cycle through which they make $$ without actually doing anything! And they have buyers in University libraries who are compelled to stock these journals for the community to thrive. You got to read this piece to believe it.
Did you know?
There was a third founder of Apple–Ronald Wayne, who even designed Apple's first logo. Wayne sold his 10 per cent stake just two weeks after partnering with Jobs and Wozniak for only $800!
In addition to the stories above here are my three recommendations of the week:
Video
Harry and Meghan relinquished their royal family tag to live normal lives in the US. What are they giving up, and how does the royal family earn its money? Watch this insightful video to know more (Hint: Real Estate and lots of it).
Product
1SE is a mobile app that helps you save photos or videos per day and then stitches it into a video that helps you relive the year gone by. The app will help you remember the days and help you live them a little more.
Book
I picked up the Trillion-Dollar Coach by Alan Eagle, Eric Schmidt, and Jonathan Rosenberg. The book talks about Bill Campbell, who started his career as a football coach and then moved to silicon valley to work for Apple, Intuit, and other major tech companies. He was a coach to Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Sherryl Sandberg, and many more who's who of the tech world. The book is an attempt to disseminate his coaching philosophy to the larger world.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoy writing them! Please let me know if you want me to cover something else, add other sections, or any other feedback that you have for me! It would mean a world to me to get a response from you!
Until next week,
Adi Patil