The Swyx Mixtape

Brendan Eich was on the Lex Fridman podcast recently and gave some new perspective on what and why JavaScript borrowed from Java, and yet took from Scheme (his first love) - giving us the infamous Ja…

Examples from Mikael Cho, Khe Hy, and Howard Tayler:

Audio sources:

- Khe Hy on the Nathan Barry Podcast (22 mins in)
- Mikael Cho on the Creator Lab Podcast (1h24 mins in)
- Howard Taylor on the Writing…

Examples from: Justin Kan and Matt Arbesfeld

Audio clips:

- Justin Kan's origin story (26ish mins in)
- Matt Arbesfeld of LogRocket in Software Engineering Radio (19 mins in)
- Song: Shakira - Try Everyt…

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6A0jVDRymw

Here were the questions she sent me, though the audience asked a few others:

1. Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to…

Lady Gaga sang Million Reasons on the Howard Stern Show in 2016.

Audio Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av99SbpsNto&feature=youtu.be

Naval's old tweet featured 3 things: - "A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought - they must be earned."

Now he is adding a fourth: judgment - in picking experts a…

ARK ETFs have had a monster performance in the past few years, and core to their process is this obscure theory of General Purpose Technology.

They use it to identify technologies that have:

- steep c…

The original song is More Spell on You by Eddie John (1979).

Audio source is from Tracklib: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QwOpRh-IfI

Audio source: https://share.transistor.fm/s/5337aec0

Do you have a question you'd like me to address? Email me (sound files welcome!) swyx @ hey dot com!

Warmup questions:

- Do you have any pets at home? Why? If X were a person, what would he be?
- What would be your last meal on Earth? If you had to choose between two, which do you pick: pizza or ice-c…

Sources (both podcasts are fully transcripted)

- Serverless Properties with Johann Schleier-Smith: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2021/02/11/serverless-properties-with-johann-schleier-smith/
- Az…

If you're a fan of The Princess Bride, you can watch the star-studded 2020 Quibi home video remake here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1494&v=lR8pA_WV9QI&feature=youtu.be (cast guide: https://scree…

From Business Wars, which is very good for historical narratives..

Audio source: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/business-wars/est%C3%A9e-lauder-vs-lor%C3%A9al-do-or-zqlYDhenOJA/

More on Estée Lau…

In 2011, Beyoncé visited the child cancer ward at the National University Hospital in Singapore and performed three songs. Her ridiculous talent shines through here, and she looks even better on vide…

Maggie and swyx hosted a Clubhouse chat this weekend on Digital Gardens. Here are show notes for ongoing conversations so you can dig in further!

• Maggie’s garden: https://maggieappleton.com/ 
• Swyx’s ga…

Audio source with transcript: Jeremy Grantham on the Meb Faber Podcast

Read the full paper: (which is investment focused) The Race of Our Lives Revisited

Clip 1:

Clip Source:

- Jordan Harbinger Show: jack Schafer | Getting People to Reveal the Truth

An interesting idea I heard on the StackOverflow Podcast - locking open source code to contributions, and then having an open plugin ecosystem where people can do whatever they want.

- Sara Chipps and…

Today I feature a clip from Elon's recent Clubhouse interview, just after he bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin. It mostly just has a funny story, rather than anything insightful. But the action speaks v…