No #167 | February 16, 2025

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool newsletter.

Tonight is Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary special (I feel old 🤷‍♂️). For what it's worth, my favourite SNL sketch of all time is Chris Farley's instant coffee hidden camera commercial. His initial reaction gets me every time😂.

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 🏒Sidney Crosby
• 👪Family Day
• 😆February
• 😎Cool Links

🏒Sidney Crosby

The Four Nations Face-Off, a mini tournament that pits the best players from Canada, USA, Finland and Sweden, against each other is in full swing. Thankfully, Canadians and Americans have put their political differences aside to focus on hockey.... not!

The game last night between the USA and Canada didn't really go as planned, but if there's one thing I think everyone can agree upon is that Sidney Crosby is a pretty good hockey player and an even better human being. He also has a pretty good record when he's wearing the Team Canada jersey.

Below is one of the simplest examples of good leadership (source) .

There's no task beneath you.

👪Family Day

This weekend in British Columbia (Canada), we are celebrating Family Day.

Family Day is an annual celebration where we gather with our families around a giant bonfire and dance and sing along to Sister Sledge's We Are Family on repeat.

Ok that's not true (but it would be kinda fun no?).

There's been some interesting commentary recently about the usage of the word "family" in the workplace.

Here's author Adam Grant with his thoughts on the word "family":

​What do you think?
​

🤣February

Still right in the middle of February, but already feeling these vibes😆

😎Cool Links

😇Heaven's Reward Fallacy: A faulty expectation that sacrifice pays off. The Heaven’s Reward Fallacy is the irrational expectation that you MUST be rewarded for all your hard work and sacrifice. This fallacy (thinking mistake) leads to disappointment when the rewards don’t come. The disappointment or violation of expectations can lead to anger, frustration, and general bitterness.

🤯Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1950. A lot of info here!

🤔Why You Shouldn't Worry About AI Taking Jobs. Yet, for reasons I will explain below, I don’t think AI taking our jobs is something to worry about. Moreover, such fears are potentially dangerous, because they can lead to misguided policies that can slow economic growth. Doom remains a real concern, but “think of the jobs lost” remains an awful guide to policy, just as it always has. I present three reasons for this below, and then argue that even if I’m wrong, redistribution through the welfare state is a trivially easy solution to job loss, as well as a likely one, in a world where AI ends up having as large of an impact as many believe.

🤖32 Questions About AI. What happens to education? What happens to cities? What industries emerge around protecting and verifying human memory?

🌼White Lotus Season 3 starts tonight. Let's go!

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