issue # 15
the caregiving economy, david graeber, a brilliant pricing strategy
Welcome to the startupy newsletter, a laid back column about very serious ideas. Every week, we curate the hottest links from our universe and share them with you here.
Also, wait. What’s startupy? Startupy is where curious humans curate and interconnect the best of the Internet. We're on a mission to build a more human and nourishing Internet - we're currently in private beta.
If you're feeling the vibe, consider joining the membership to get unrestricted access to our collective intelligence engine and community.
MOOD
🪐 COOL THINGS CURATED IN OUR UNIVERSE
1. A brilliant pricing strategy…
Plus lots more insights on pricing here.
2. We love a good independent designer.
This week, we’re digging Abby Muir’s portfolio. She’s worked with some of our favorite startups, listed in her startupy page here.
3. On being creative…
We love this tweet by Emmett Shear, curated by Keely Adler.
4. If you need a weekend pick-me-up…
Prashanth Narayan curated and highlighted an amazing collection of speeches and talks that you may not have heard of. If you need a weekend pick-me-up, this is it.
5. Revisiting David Graeber’s insights on jobs, bureaucracies, and how society has sucked the soul out of our institutions:
The most profound legacy of the dominance of bureaucratic forms of organization over the last two hundred years is that it has made this intuitive division between rational, technical means and the ultimately irrational ends to which they are put seem like common sense.
We as a society have collectively decided it’s better to have millions of human beings spending years of their lives pretending to type into spreadsheets or preparing mind maps for PR meetings than freeing them to knit sweaters, play with their dogs, start a garage band, experiment with new recipes, or sit in cafés arguing about politics, and gossiping about their friends’ complex polyamorous love affairs.
6. A startup with the goal of helping people connect in ways that are friendly to their mental health
We’re intrigued by pre-launch startup Friendly Apps founded by longtime engineer and product designer Michael Sayman: “so many products today are designed with a focus on retention first, to the detriment of mental health. what if we changed that?”
✨ CURATOR SPOTLIGHT
Founder & CEO of Milo, going down the caregiving economy 🐇 🕳️
Find her Twitter | Website | Milo
Why is the caregiving economy interesting?
The work of the home and of our communities is work. Done with love and care. Often done by women but largely done by humans. And yet, this work has become increasingly fractured and siloed and grotesquely underpaid. For the past seven years I’ve been obsessed with the idea of building the “modern village” - of using digital building blocks to connect the humans around us, so that we can have richer, more supported experiences as parents and families and citizens. And yet, this work is chronically overlooked and underpaid. So I’ve gone on a mission to understand and map and untangle all the issues at hand and understand the role of technology to help. The human bits, the economy bits and the technical bits. This is a smattering of my deep deep dive into this rabbit hole but it’s a constantly evolving one. Of how we choose to build our lives with our loved ones, the work that goes into that, and the tools and tech we use to get it done.
A podcast worth listening to?
In short episodes, the host walks us through a poem and helps us understand the deeper meaning and symbolism.
Diving into the process of creating a song, with the artist as the guide is an incredibly intimate and insightful journey. It helps to see the art not as a monolith but as a result of thousands of decisions and deliberations.
Continuing in the theme of the “story behind the story” I love how Jerry is able to get to the heart of a founder’s journey. To dig into the bits that we all gloss over as a society but turn out to be the most instructive.
Things worth reading and watching?
We Need a New Economic Category
Anne-Marie first aimed a spotlight on the space with Why Women Still Cant Have It All and pushes the thinking on how we can truly value the work of women and the home.
Highly theoretical but a great thought experiment for how we can build digital structures to enable the building of public goods
Lightening the Mental Load That Holds Women Back
I found this study fascinating. It shows that even when tasks at home are divided up, women end up with the ones that are more urgent and frequent (eg. Meals, dishes) while men have ones that are more infrequent and can be done on their time. In other words, there is still a huge disparity in having control of one’s time.
Without Parental Leave I Might Be Dead
I love her razor sharp humor used as a tool to inform and drive change
When moms out-earn their husbands, they gain more housework
Shocking and yet, not so surprising. But a great framing to counter the idea that the lower earner should/does pick up more of the work at home
Newsletter: the examined family
Courtney is an incredibly gifted writer who can make you stop in your tracks to read her latest piece. She’s not afraid to dive into the most messy and painful of human spaces and explore them in raw, honest, open-ended ways.
Projects worth following?
Human problems need extra special consideration and the work this ex-IDEO group is doing is remarkable
Shedding light onto the chore gap via art and NFTs
On Instagram and a physical section the last Sunday of each month that I love doing with my kids.
Combining digital and IRL to create delightful learning and play
Exploring the creation of creative mechanisms to fund childcare
Thank you so much for being here, and for letting us be a part of your week! If you liked this installment, please tap the little heart at the top of this email.
And if you regularly enjoy these dispatches and would like to support our work, consider joining the startupy membership