After 3 years at the University of Miami, Sylvester Stallone dropped out of college, deciding to move to NYC to chase his acting dreams.
The interesting part?
Born with a partially paralyzed face & slurred speech, everyone thought he would fail.
Sylvester Stallone was homeless in 1975 and had $106 to his name.
Today, he's worth over $400M.
This is the wild story of how one negotiation changed his life forever and why betting on yourself is always the right move.
Time for a thread 👇👇👇
After 3 years at the University of Miami, Sylvester Stallone dropped out of college, deciding to move to NYC to chase his acting dreams.
The interesting part?
Born with a partially paralyzed face & slurred speech, everyone thought he would fail.
When he wasn't sleeping in the Port Authority Bus Terminal after being evicted, Stallone worked as a movie theater usher & cleaned lion cages at the zoo.
As if that wasn't bad enough, it got worse.
The pay?
Only $200.
Even worse?
Thin, hungry, and with no money to eat, Stallone sold his beloved dog "Butkus" for $40 in front of a 7-Eleven.
Until one event changed his life forever.
This is where it gets interesting…
Stallone spent the next 3 days writing, emerging from his apartment exhausted with a film script.
He called it "Rocky."
Next up?
A studio to produce it.
The only problem?
They wanted to buy it, removing Stallone from the starring role & replacing him with a more popular actor.
Demanding the film be made with him in the starring role, Stallone turned the offer down.
“It was really insane at the time ’cause I was broke”
The best part?
Stallone used $15,000 of the money to buy his dog back.
Even better?
Butkus was in the film :)
In the years since, it has become one of the most successful film franchises of all-time — making 8+ movies.
Today, Sylvester Stallone is worth more than $400M.
1. Take a risk
2. Bet on yourself
Sylvester Stallone followed both principles, going from homeless to a $400M net worth.
That's legendary.
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Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.
https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d
Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.
...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.
Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.
Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.
https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d
Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.
...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.
Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.
APIs in general are so powerful.
Best 5 public APIs you can use to build your next project:
1. Number Verification API
A RESTful JSON API for national and international phone number validation.
🔗 https://t.co/fzBmCMFdIj
2. OpenAI API
ChatGPT is an outstanding tool. Build your own API applications with OpenAI API.
🔗 https://t.co/TVnTciMpML
3. Currency Data API
Currency Data API provides a simple REST API with real-time and historical exchange rates for 168 world currencies
🔗 https://t.co/TRj35IUUec
4. Weather API
Real-Time & historical world weather data API.
Retrieve instant, accurate weather information for
any location in the world in lightweight JSON format.
🔗 https://t.co/DCY8kXqVIK
Best 5 public APIs you can use to build your next project:
1. Number Verification API
A RESTful JSON API for national and international phone number validation.
🔗 https://t.co/fzBmCMFdIj
2. OpenAI API
ChatGPT is an outstanding tool. Build your own API applications with OpenAI API.
🔗 https://t.co/TVnTciMpML
3. Currency Data API
Currency Data API provides a simple REST API with real-time and historical exchange rates for 168 world currencies
🔗 https://t.co/TRj35IUUec
4. Weather API
Real-Time & historical world weather data API.
Retrieve instant, accurate weather information for
any location in the world in lightweight JSON format.
🔗 https://t.co/DCY8kXqVIK
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1/ Some initial thoughts on personal moats:
Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.
As Andrew Chen noted:
3/ You don’t want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized
Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than
4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself — required an in-person artist.
After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.
5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.
In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.
Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
I'm increasingly interested in the idea of "personal moats" in the context of careers.
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
Moats should be:
- Hard to learn and hard to do (but perhaps easier for you)
- Skills that are rare and valuable
- Legible
- Compounding over time
- Unique to your own talents & interests https://t.co/bB3k1YcH5b
2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.
As Andrew Chen noted:
People talk about \u201cpassive income\u201d a lot but not about \u201cpassive social capital\u201d or \u201cpassive networking\u201d or \u201cpassive knowledge gaining\u201d but that\u2019s what you can architect if you have a thing and it grows over time without intensive constant effort to sustain it
— Andrew Chen (@andrewchen) November 22, 2018
3/ You don’t want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized
Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than
Things that look like moats but likely aren\u2019t or may fade:
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
- Proprietary networks
- Being something other than one of the best at any tournament style-game
- Many "awards"
- Twitter followers or general reach without "respect"
- Anything that depends on information asymmetry https://t.co/abjxesVIh9
4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself — required an in-person artist.
After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.
5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.
In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.
THREAD: 12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ
1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits – that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE
2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less. https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n
3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N ≈ 4 million)
(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)
4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.
For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have – much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3
5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)
1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits – that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE
2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less. https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n
3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N ≈ 4 million)
(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)
4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.
For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have – much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3
5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)
