20: Ukraine

Why Russia pulled out of its grain deal with Ukraine – and what that means for the global food system From 2019 to 2022, more than 122 million people were driven into hunger by a combination of the impacts of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine ........ The World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian agency, purchased 80% of its wheat from Ukraine. ........ But on July 17, 2023, it said it’s unwilling to stay in the deal unless its demands are met to ship more of its own food and fertilizer. Over the following two days, it attacked Odesa with drones and missiles in one of the largest sustained assaults on the port. Russia also said it would deem any ship in the Black Sea bound for a Ukrainian port to be a legitimate military target........ While Russia has extended the deal after previous threats, this time may be different. Russian strikes caused extensive damage to Odesa, which may severely limit Ukraine’s ability to export through the port in the future – deal or no deal.

WFH forces a global office rethink



Nurses fight for doctor title
Workers doubt they can retire: Poll One in five Americans doesn't think they will ever retire, while only half feel like they can save for the future, per a new Axios-Ipsos poll. Just over a third of people nearing "typical" retirement age — 55 and over — believe they'll be able to retire when they expected to. While most workers say they want to retire someday, "roughly half the workforce, we’re talking 50 plus million people, work for an employer that doesn’t offer a retirement plan," says a senior policy advisor at AARP. But good news for those who've managed to retire: 68% say they feel better than ever. .



Fed launches instant payments Nations including England, China, Sweden and India already have instant payments

20: Video

20: Emad Mostaque With Peter Diamandis

That's not true. There have been lots of companies that couldn't raise money at one point but ultimately succeeded.

In effect you're saying "investors have good judgement," and any founder knows how laughably false that is.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) July 20, 2023

This article was insightful in regards to job hunting and all. Its a long read, but if you have the time, read it: https://t.co/y9Ap55EPgm

— Obiagu (@iamCynthiaPeter) July 17, 2023

Instead of MVP, start with Minimum Viable Tests to increase chances of succeeding with your startup idea. https://t.co/5VVpJxoIFQ by @gaganbiyani

— Volodymyr Melnyk 🇺🇦 (@vamelnyk) July 15, 2023

How Instagram Co-founder Mike Krieger Took Its Engineering Org from 0 to 300 People At the time of the acquisition, he had just six generalist developers. ......... In just seven years, Krieger himself went from first-time manager to leading a multi-layered organization of specialized engineers, many of whom are the best in their fields. ........ how to gracefully transition from an early to a more mature technical team, how to introduce new tiers of management, and how to build an engine for unrelenting improvement and innovation. .......... “Have you heard that expression, ‘shaving the yak’?” Krieger says. “Sometimes programming means solving super complex technical problems. But a lot of times, you end up with a long string of tasks that are necessary to get where you’re going, i.e. ‘I need to get this iPhone app running on my device, which means I need to generate this provisioning profile, which means I need to set up for this account, and on and on.’ In the end, you’re shaving a yak to accomplish that original action — you’re so detached from it.” ............ An effective engineering generalist knows when to move on............ Put pride aside and keep your eye on your real goal. “The goal is not to set up Nagios or Munin. The goal is to ship software so that you can get people using it.” ......... In the early days of Instagram, Krieger and and his team recorded their action items in a rolling Google Doc, organized by themes. ........... “One of our themes was being the fastest photo-sharing app in the world. What are we working toward within that theme? Next, we wanted to make the photos look incredible, way beyond what you'd expect from a cell phone. What are we doing on that? Anything that didn't fit into those things went by the wayside. And you want engineers who are okay with that.” ............. The Google Doc was the perfect minimally viable product for tracking all tasks as a team — and making sure that every single one of them rolled up to one of the organization’s most important goals or priorities. It was broken up into days, and under days into themes. Uncompleted tasks under each theme were migrated to the next day. Highest priority tasks were labeled as such. That way, nothing got lost in the mix, it was easy for people to comment and ask questions, and their eyes were always fixed on what was next for the goals they needed to achieve.