Interesting de Tocqueville quote

So I’m reading Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. I wish I could say it was more entertaining and engaging than it is; perhaps I’m unused to his 19th century writing style, all long sentences with twists and u-turns.

This quote caught my eye:

In Europe, the criminal is an unfortunate who is fighting to hide from the agents of power; the population in a way helps in the struggle. In America, he is an enemy of the human species, and he has all of humanity against him.

This was pre-Civil War America, the America of 1835-1840. Things have changed.

Snowden, anyone?

What is a book worth?

George Packer writes a New Yorker-quality piece on Amazon’s changing, always-provocative role in book publishing.

It’s long but worth a thorough read and two.

The usual themes are there – that Amazon’s DNA is influenced by its online bookstore origins…that Bezos’s relentless customer focus creates some friends, many enemies and even many-er customers…that its forays in content (from literary magazines to trade publishing to the Kindle device), while ambitious, have seen mixed results. And finally, that the publishing establishment feels about Amazon what an alcoholic feels about a bottle of Johnny Walker black.

Jane Friedman, the former Random House and HarperCollins executive, who now runs a digital publisher called Open Road Integrated Media, told me, “If there wasn’t an Amazon today, there probably wouldn’t be a book business.” The senior editor who met Grandinetti said, “They’re our biggest customer, we want them to succeed. As I recover from being punched in the face by Amazon, I also worry: What if they are a bubble? What if the stock market suddenly says, ‘We want a profit’? You don’t want your father who abuses you physically to lose his job.”

Packer’s argument is that, while Amazon’s role in book publishing has been largely positive for customers (by making it better, faster and cheaper to buy books), it is what might be called a Pyrrhic victory. That Amazon won the book retail battle, but it may lose the publishing war and pull everyone down with it, especially those hard-working authors.

“Amazon has successfully fostered the idea that a book is a thing of minimal value,” Johnson said. “It’s a widget.”

It’s still early, but some new data shows that self-publishing is doing well for readers and authors. You can’t hold back the tides of change: of technology, of transparency, of individual empowerment. However, this sort of debate has been – and will continue to be – around for decades.

As for me? I’ve got a growing backlog of ebooks, blog posts, tweets and Quora threads to get to! :)

A thorough and entertaining piece. Read it here.

Disclaimer: I run Hyperink, an ebook publisher.

Recent interesting articles

1. Sarah Lacy on Kleiner Perkins [link] – high-performance is difficult to maintain in a hits-driven business…

2. French cafe charges more if you’re rude [link]

French Cafe

3. Desiderata by Max Ehrmann [link] – “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”

4. GQ profile on Avicii [link] – article makes him look a tad douche-y, but it’s hard to blame a 23 year-old who suddenly starts making $250K a night…

5. An entrepreneur’s observations on Brazil [link] – I loved, and miss, Rio’s beaches, fun-and-carefree attitude, the farofa…

6. Korean couple starves baby to death while playing online game…raising a virtual child [link] – this says something…I’m still figuring out what

7. pmarca on bitcoin [link] – I love when he wades into a controversial topic and lays the smack down…whether long-term right or wrong, always entertaining

8. Charles Stross on his first visit to Japan [link] – beautiful writing; it’s the closest someone’s come to articulating my stream of consciousness while visiting japan

9. Japanese man refuses to believe WWII is over, defends outpost on Philippines Island for 29 years [link] – a good reminder, and framework, to face life’s challenges

Here’s a full list of interesting reads and highlights (thanks to Postach.io!). Or you can view the original Ever-notebook.

Startup 101 Series: Updated links and what’s next

Just added ~20 new reads to the startup 101s (collections of great startup reads). Removed a few, too:

I’m also working on a simple ebook which will combine these 101s with some new material and an edited collection of my 1-Read-A-Day lessons (you can subscribe here; warning: it’s a lot of content :)

I’ve also started a new, related project — trying to iterate to something truly useful. So far, the feedback has been great. More on that soon. Still startup content, still about saving you time and finding you the best. I love Joe Wikert’s idea of the content concierge.

Would you pay for some combination of curation and summarization? I’d love to know!

“Doubt is our product” – fascinating memo on the tobacco industry’s PR strategy

I’m not sure how I stumbled upon this document but its contents were illuminating.

The document is a memo from Brown & Williamson, a then-subsidiary of British American Tobacco, reviewing the current state of the tobacco industry’s public relations and proposing next steps.

The Tobacco Institute has probably done a good job for us in the area of politics and as an industry we also seem to have done very well in turning out scientific information to counter the anti-smoking claims.

Yet, trends were moving against the industry:

We are restricted in terms of ability to sell — in colleges and in vending machines. Our products are branded with a warning label. Our ability to advertise has been attacked on all fronts and has consistently deteriorated.

But people want to smoke — and doubt gives them an easy excuse:

Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.

Even then — 40+ years ago — it was clear that “pro-cigarette science” was pseudo-science:

Unfortunately, we cannot take a position directly opposing the anti-cigarette forces and say that cigarettes are a contributor to good health. No information that we have supports such a claim.

So let’s focus on the arena of public opinion!

Finally, a series of studies are proposed to understand exactly which messages most effectively create anti-smoking sentiment, and then to find the best means “of anticipating and countering the release of misinformation.

Fascinating stuff. Here’s the original document, courtesy of UCSF.