Newsletter #4 - AI Tools, Weight-Loss Drugs, and Life Lessons

Happy Easter everyone,

I hope this newsletter finds you well and that you have had a good holiday weekend. Here in Sweden, we are entering spring and the sun has finally come back which is always welcome. Ever since getting back to school in the fall of 2023, the consistency of my writing has not been great, but I am hoping to change that going forward. So hopefully this is the start of more consistent posting by me once again!

Instead of telling you all about my life currently, I will try to share some interesting things I have found and enjoyed recently in the world of media. First up is a biography by Matthew McConaughey that I enjoyed, I also share one of my favorite podcast episodes of recent months about Novo Nordisk and a cool alternative to Google I have been playing around with. I hope you find it interesting!

PS If you are more interested in what I have going on in my life currently you can jump on over to my "Now"-page at oskareggert.com/now where I try to update you on what I am up to in life.

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey - Biography

I wrote a blog post with my summary and notes from the book Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It is a personal biography detailing McConaughey's path to becoming one of the most celebrated Hollywood actors, but also becoming a father and loving husband. The common theme throughout the book is to focus on the "Greenlights" in life, to keep moving forward and growing in the process. Below you will find a definition of Greenlights and a link to the full book notes if your interested.

Greenlights = "Mean go - advance, carry on, continue... In our lives, they are an affirmation of our way. They're approvals, support praise, gifts, gas on our fire, attaboys, and appetites."

Oskar's Book Notes on Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Novo Nordisk by AcquiredFM - Podcast about the Danish pharma giant behind Ozempic

AcquiredFM is one of my favorite podcasts and by far the one I most recommend to others (like in Newsletter #2). Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal are expert storytellers who share the unlikely and incredible stories behind different influential and huge companies of today. This episode is no different as they dive into the story of Novo Nordisk, currently most famous for the extremely popular diabetes drug Ozempic, and its weight loss-focused successor Wegovy. The episode explains how a company from the small country of Denmark came to be a dominant global player in semiglutides and diabetes drugs. If you have heard about Ozempic and its outsized impact on the Danish economy and want to learn the story of how we came here this is the podcast episode for you!

PS. Fair warning that the episode is almost 4 hours long. AcquiredFM episodes can be viewed more as short audiobooks than podcast episodes.

Perplexity.ai - Alternative search engine leveraging AI to answer queries similar to ChatGPT

Google has dominated search for the last decade and no other search engines have been able to truly challenge their dominance. This might be changing with the introduction of more powerful AI and new forms of search. One possible alternative to Google is the search engine Perplexity.ai that answers search queries using natural language predictive text. This results in a similar experience to asking ChatGPT but with the answers coming from the internet including links to the source material. The fact that sources are included allows for better fact-checking in my opinion. I view it kind of as googling something and then receiving a summary of the first four results, which is extremely beneficial in an era where Google has become incredibly crowded with ads. I recommend you to try it out here.

Runnin' Down a Dream by Bill Gurley - Inspirational lecture around career advice for university students

Bill Gurley is one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world. He has for a long time been a renowned investor at Benchmark Capital, one of the forefront VCs in Silicon Valley. The video below is from a talk he gave at his alma mater the University of Texas about how to build a successful career. Bill is an excellent writer and speaker who shares lessons from a few case studies. I find the talk highly insightful and come back to it every now and then. Originally I came across this video on James Clear's blog (author of Atomic Habits). If nothing else this talk will get you fired up to chase down whatever it is you want in life!

I hope you find something that interests you! If you do please let me know either by answering this email and replying to oskar.eggert98@gmail.com or in a different manner.

Have a great week!

Oskar Eggert