Pandemic Chronicles

My blog posts while being in self-quarantine/isolation during the time of COVID-19 Pandemic

Block & Tackle: Job Cuts & the AI Narrative

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block (the company formerly known as Square), went on X (the company formerly known as Twitter, which he co-founded) and shared a lower-case employee memo, candidly outlining his decision to cut about 4,200 people, just over 40 percent of the company’s staff. The memo was in sharp contrast to the investor letter shared with shareholders, prompting John Gruber to quip on Daring Fireball, “That’s a telling sign about who he respects.”

Wall Street loves nothing more than job cuts. It loves them more than it loves vision. In my jaded eyes, the market wasn’t rewarding his AI narrative. It was rewarding the cut. Block stock surged 22 percent on the news. And frankly, no one is looking at Block for any AI vision.

Either way, the thrust of the memo was AI. In way too many words, what Jack was saying was that AI is here,

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Technology
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Goodbye, 2022. Hello, 2023.

It has become quite a habit now: at the end of the year, I look back and see how often I have tended to my digital homestead. In more prosaic terms, it translates to the total number of posts during the year. Over the past 12 months, I posted 128 times (129, if you include this post.)  I have to say — things aren’t as spiffy as they used to be. In 2021, I posted 164 times, while in 2020 (during the pandemic), I was posting pretty much every single day.  (307 posts, in total and resulted in this e-book, The Longest Year)

There are two ways to parse the 2022 data. My 2022 goal was to be respectful of the reader’s attention. I am glad that when I did write, I wrote about what felt important and not as “content filler.” Looking back, my posts around Twitter, Elon, and

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A Letter From Om
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TikTok, New York Times, Charlatans & the Nobel Prizes

I have been busy researching two long pieces, which have my mind going in many directions. I need to calm down and start writing. But up until then, enjoy these random bits I have accumulated on my blotter. They are bits of data, quotable quotes, and stuff worth reading. And just me thinking out loud. 

***

While Mark Zuckerberg fiddles in the metaverse, in the real world, his social platform burns. According to some Chinese media reports, ByteDance’s TikTok has surpassed 1 billion daily active users. Others in the billion-a-day club: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube. And WeChat. Just a reminder, TikTok’s global penetration rate is less than 20 percent. And it is also banned in India, one of the largest mobile markets.

Make what you may, the Chinese now own culture as well. 

***

Ben Smith (formerly of Politico, Buzzfeed & The New York Times) has launched his new

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Old Processes vs. New Behaviors

As the world around me has started to (pre-maturely regain normalcy), I have decided to deal with some of the to-do list items. The more I try to get things done, the more I realize that our “digital transition” is still in infancy, and any talk of a digital-first society is decidedly premature. 

Take, for example, medical care. Over the past few weeks, I have been grappling with some medical issues. I use UCSF for my core medical needs and have an excellent insurance plan. The medical provider uses an online portal to manage patient care and communications, but when it came to triaging my complications between three different specialists – the portal wasn’t much help. It took old-fashioned phone calls, voice mails, and phone calls – to finally resolve the matters and move forward. I will save you the details – because this isn’t a lament about the doctors. 

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A Letter From Om, Technology
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“The Great Resignation” is Clickbait

Paul Millerd, author of The Pathless Path, in an interview with Sara Campbell, points out:

This might surprise you but I think the framing of “The Great Resignation” is off. It seems like a successful media narrative that has helped generate clicks but doesn’t really get to the heart of what’s happening. The “great resignation” framing suggests there is a massive exit from employment happening. It’s not clear that’s the case…… Going deeper, however, I do there is a much more interesting shift happening. Before the pandemic when I talked to people about work, there was a lot of shame attached to the conversation. Previous generations resisted these conversations forcefully. Part of this was survival — there weren’t great alternatives to traditional employment. That’s no longer the case and people are starting to wake up to it.  

This is a great interview and worth reading. This comment really resonated with me, especially as I have started

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My Reading Picks
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The Newest Variant

A new variant of coronavirus is upon us. As is its wont, Omicron is more infectious and is spreading fast. While, in the past, the virus impacted only a handful of close friends and family, the recent spike has impacted quite many friends. A few of them are struggling, despite having been vaccinated. 

As I was researching the possible impact of the new variant, I couldn’t help but notice how difficult it was to find accurate, actionable information about Omicron and how to deal with it. Except for a handful of writers — Ed Yong of The Atlantic, for example –, one gets quickly sucked into a quagmire of hot takes and incremental information.

It leaves you even scratching your head, perhaps highlighting the problem we have in an Internet-centric information economy. Information is easy to produce, but intelligence remains in short supply. 

In the end, I ended up emailing

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Technology
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Ambition has failed us.

grayscale photography of people walking in train station
Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Ambition means different things to different people, but in the capitalist framework I am talking about, I think its defining feature is its linear trajectory. Think of all the highly driven and ambitious people you know working long after their basic needs are met: Are they ever “done” or satisfied with where they’ve ended up and ready to call it quits on achieving? Of course not. Ambition is an unquenchable thirst.

Since the Industrial Revolution launched a large subset of humanity into the illusion that we could conquer nature for our own purposes, linear ambition has been a kind of survival strategy. In recent decades, that’s certainly been true for privileged, knowledge-economy workers like me: We’re always trying to keep up in a world of work that seems to constantly get faster and expect more of us, leaving us too burned out and apathetic to deal with

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My Reading Picks
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September

As a man who has always had the wand'ring ways
Now I'm reaching back for yesterdays
'Til a long-forgotten love appears
And I find that I'm sighing softly as I near
September, the warm September of my years.

The September of My Years, Frank Sinatra

I love this song by Frank Sinatra – a reminder that even the very best of us can’t escape the tick-tock of time. We all eventually accumulate enough knowledge through the life lived to appreciate the days after summer. I, for one, love September — it is a gateway to the visual charms of Autumn. 

It points to cooling temperatures that are tempting enough to visit my parents: the holiday season, and hopefully a chance to take photos somewhere of snow-covered landscapes. Whether all this happens, this year remains to be seen. Lies are still costing lives. And America is hoarding toilet paper again! The

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Musings
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