Tippets by Taps - Issue #130
A new week brings a new issue! As always, I hope this finds you and yours safe and healthy. This week we explore an unlikely but potentially life-saving partnership between Apple and Google, a startup founder’s guide to the crisis, Some Good News by John Krasinski, reading during self-isolation, and more. Enjoy!
Here’s How Apple and Google Plan to Track the Coronavirus Through Your Phone
These are crazy times we live in, where the unexpected is normal and all your pre-existing assumptions of what normal mean need to be thrown in the trash alongside all your food delivery boxes. The latest example? The two largest technology companies in the world, Apple and Google (sorry Microsoft…) are working together to track the spread of Covid-19.
The tech giants on Friday said they will release tools for software developers to create so-called contact-tracing apps that record when smartphones come into close contact with each other. Such apps could warn users if they were nearby someone later diagnosed as positive for Covid-19.
Not yet clear is who will build these apps for public-health authorities, who will also have to determine a process for logging positive tests. A self-reporting system would be open to widespread abuse. Will doctors log positive tests? How will they authenticate themselves within the app? There is also the risk of potential false positives if, for instance, Bluetooth registers a contact with someone on the other side of a window or wall.
Despite the uncertainty, including over what apps Apple and Google will approve, developers are moving forward.
Was anyone else amused that "Karen" was a character in the Google diagram?
The Founder's Field Guide for Navigating This Crisis — Advice from Recession-Era Leaders, Investors and CEOs Currently at the Helm
For my startup founder, operator, and employee readers, I highly recommend this set of resources from First Round Capital. It’s comprehensive, detailed, and can serve as a field guide for you as you navigate your company through these waters. From extending your runway and reducing burn to supporting your team, this guide tackles the tough questions startup leaders are asking right now.
'Hamilton' Cast Reunites For Emily Blunt, John Krasinski And One Lucky 9-Year-Old
John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are certainly in the category of ’couple goals’, and are certainly my answer to the question “If you had to invite a Hollywood couple to dinner, who would it be?” During COVID-19 the couple has started Some Good News, a ‘news show’ that highlights some of the amazing things that have happened during the week. Strap in for a 17-minute explosion of good-hearted joy, courtesy of the stars of A Quiet Place and the entire (socially distanced) original cast of Hamilton. It is well worth the watch, and will get your week started off in the best way. Oh, and if you’re looking for more fun content, check out this husband and wife duo spending their shelter in place engaged in an epic lip sync battle.
Zoom Surprise: Some Good News with John Krasinski Ep. 2
Quarantine Book Clubs Reminded Me to Read
Books are a tremendous escape from reality, their value further emphasized during self isolation and the seemingly never ending “Launch Meeting - Zoom” browser tabs. As this article illustrates, books, “precisely because they are so demanding of our attention, might be the best antidote for the psychological toll of a socially distanced life.”
Moreover, with an abundance of streaming options, why even pick up a book? But the coronavirus crisis has made it difficult, if not impossible, to relax. Most of the nation is quarantined indoors, upending daily routines. Time has become slippery, thick as quicksand, now that we’re unmoored from our usual frameworks.
To fill this void, those of us lucky enough to be inside have binged Tiger King, mastered sourdough, and scheduled Zoom happy hours. Several weeks into quarantine, some might crave an experience that requires more active participation, something that can consume us just as we can consume it. As watching a sitcom starts feeling too passive, we might turn more and more to reading, precisely because it is so demanding of our attention. Even if “A Literary Clinic” was intended as satire, it nonetheless belies a solid truth: Reading can be therapeutic. In fact, it might be the best antidote for the psychological toll of a socially distanced life.
I am currently in the middle of Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin (so far, a captivating read) and certainly find myself excited to get back to it. What are you reading? Please send recommendations my way!
Sheltering in Place with Montaigne
Speaking of reading, one essay that is worth your time is Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of Experience”. It is the last essay in the last book from the man who stands alone atop the essayist mountain.
…the French statesman and author had weathered numerous outbreaks of plague (in 1585, while he was mayor of Bordeaux, a third of the population perished), political uprisings, the death of five daughters, and an onslaught of physical ailments, from rotting teeth to debilitating kidney stones. “Of Experience” is about how to live when life itself comes under attack. Because life as we’ve known it is on hold at the moment, because sickness and confusion are everywhere, and because one of the things books are good for is reminding us that we aren’t alone in history or consciousness, reading “Of Experience” right now feels like an analogue to experience; not a cold study of a distant artist’s late style so much as wisdom lit for wary souls unresigned, as of yet, to world-weariness.
Quote I’m thinking about: “Ambition is an uncomfortable companion. He creates a discontent with present surroundings and achievements: he is never satisfied but always pressing forward.” - Lyndon Baines Johnson