David Perell@david_perell
What if you built a company to maximize deep work?
That's what Sam Corcos did. He hasn't regularly checked the news since 2013 and his business is worth $300 million.
12 lessons on writing from the founder and CEO of Levels:
1. The average tech worker can't go more than six minutes without checking Slack. No wonder people struggle to write.
2. Evergreen tip for getting people to actually read your work: add value to the internet.
3. Collaboration is overrated. Smart people thinking deeply about something for a long time, and recording the conclusions via writing, is underrated.
4. Sam did an experiment where he stopped reading the news for a month. He took the time he used to spend reading the news and started reading books instead — he finished eight books that month.
5. Writing solves disagreements. If you don’t pin down your thoughts on paper, you can “discuss” forever without ever reaching clarity. But the conversation becomes much more productive once the goals, methods, and main assumptions are written down.
6. Just about everybody could benefit from more intentional, deep, strategic thought. Writing is how you unlock this mode.
7. Remote work fails without a few great writers on the team. Internal company communication will spiral into a game of telephone without good communicators.
8. Specific feedback is better delivered via writing while general comments are best shared over Loom (because the recipient can feel your vibe.) Pick the right medium; the wrong one will botch your message.
9. A writing culture is protection against the tyranny of the loudest voice. It gives space for quieter people with insight to speak up.
10. You’ll never be able to reflect and write, unless you intentionally carve out the time. “Things” will always turn up. Create non-negotiable writing hours and protect them.
11. Sam does one Think Week every quarter where he disconnects from his work to write deep strategy memos.
12. You need to detach from the hive mind before creative ideas turn up (and it is often via writing that the flimsy premises of the hive mind become obvious.)
I've shared the full conversation with @SamCorcos below. This one's a little different from most How I Write episodes because we went so deep on a single topic: business writing.
If you'd rather listen on Apple or Spotify, check out the reply tweets.
