đ Shameless plug to start: I was stoked to meet and chat with Sophie about the possibility (or not) to regulate our emotional attachment to fashion. [if you can't read the article, let me know and I can send it to you]
]]>If we donât pay enough attention to what we want and why we want it, we just tend to crave for whatâs next.
đ¶ââïžI canât agree enough with Patricia's title âsolved by walkingâ. Iâve personally always loved walking. Iâm currently in Berkeley, CA and Iâm very surprised by the low amount of people walking -especially in the hills. Below are Russel's words:
]]>In addition to physical exercise and my family fondness, walking remains important to me as an emblem of the sacredness of life. Humans think. Human feel. Humans move.
We encounter others in our walks. The world â nature, cities, streams, forests â unfolds underfoot. Walking remains a primary way we go beyond ourselves.
đȘĄ The first name of my very first company -back in 2010- was âMy Tailor is My Friendâ so this new section by Mathilde on The Objet Journal feels quite special. Clara Metayer is a Parisian tailor, founder of Sauve qui Peut and tailor-in-residence at Patine.
]]>Over time, I realised that I didnât want to sell new products. We already have so much. How about keeping those we have and love? This opened a brand new world! Mending is made of so many techniques. For one given challenge, there are a thousands solutions: visible -embroidery, patches,âŠ-, invisible - darning, or the art of recreating fabric literally, be it jeans or wool stitches,âŠ
đ€° This testimonial by Daniel is a must read: Looking for the Anti-Mimetic Doctors. The subtitle says it all: âRethinking Medical Interventions, and the Courage to Do Lessâ. On many aspects, it reminded me Mathilde's experience -and I know she might share it all soon on A Wander Woman.
]]>As doctors, we know full well that tracking the babyâs heart rate during labor has increased interventions but has not improved outcomes. In simpler terms, tracking the babyâs heart rate during labor has gotten more women induced or sliced open, but has not decreased stillbirths or postpartum deaths. Then why do we do it? Because itâs scary not to, thatâs why. And I speak from experience.
Yesterday I saw a post popped up in the Acquired slack's #parents channel. Marc basically asked: "has anyone started a vc-backed company while having very young kids or planning to? [...] how did timing it with a young family impact it [your company] longer term?".
This was my answer:
one thing i didnât expect when starting something new while becoming a parent [and i can speak on behalf of my wife too whoâs launched something new too while pregnant]: having young kids at home makes you so much more efficient. and iâm talking like 1,000x more efficient. period. both in terms of: (a) prioritizing what to work on [answering the simple question: what would seriously move the needle?] and (b) decreasing time between starting to work and being 100% focus/ deep in flow mode (procrastination just completely disappeared)
đ Iâve been touched by Rob's ode to manifestos in Manifestos are magic spells. I canât agree more with this typically:
The process of writing a manifesto, at its core, is the process of clarifying your desire. In a world that's constantly distracting us with digital noise and shiny objects, keeping us running on a mimetic treadmill of manufactured desires, getting clear about what you want, deep down, is a radical act. Exploring and articulating what matters most, then committing it to writing, is a bit like waking up to your own humanity after a deep slumber. It kicks off a journey of coming home to yourself.
Which is exactly why we wrote ours at Objet: "LE NEW CONSUMER".
đ Great article on The Hacking of Culture and the Creation of Socio-Technical Debt.
Like any well-designed operating system, culture is invisible to most people most of the time. Hidden in plain sight, we make use of it constantly without realizing it. As an operating system, culture forms the base infrastructure layer of societal interaction, facilitating communication, cooperation, and interrelations. Always evolving, culture is elastic: we build on it, remix it, and even break it.
That line made me think of New_ Public work and what they study/ fight for:
]]>As more and more spaces for meeting in real life close, we increasingly turn to digital platforms for connection to replace them. But these virtual spaces are optimized for shareholder returns, not public good.
Do I want my kids to be hurt? Of course no. Do I want them to be constantly afraid of everything in life and paralysed in face of every challenge? Hell no. We -society- have a problem in the way we let kids learn and experience life. As usual the challenge lies in finding the right balance. Every time I talk to my grand-ma it's like she's sure 'outside' is utterly dangerous. Worst, she's certain it's more hostile than during her youth. Unfortunately this feeling is widespread. But the victims are the kids. We don't let them roam outside and explore. What do we do instead? Give them a screen and off to the couch, which is way more tragic.
I don't have any solution, yet, except letting my own kids take risks. Every time we do this with Mathilde, we can feel the 'pressure' from others, parents and whatnot. So I wanted to present here a collection of personal anecdotes, as well as great pieces of writing and excerpts from other people.
I think I'll come back to this topic quite often here. Kids are the future. Period. The way we raise them has a profound impact on tomorrow's society.
]]>đĄ One of my observation following my latest US trip was: âIn both NYC and SF people were defining themselves and thought on a 'neighborhood-basis'.â Ava and Phil demonstrated this perfectly in their discussion about the importance of picking your neighborhood.
All this to say, my neighborhood choice has really affected my experience of San Francisco. So when I started chatting with Phil Levin, who founded Live Near Friends and Radish, a multigenerational compound in Oakland with 20 adults and six children living across 10 homes, and he mentioned that picking your neighborhood is more important than picking your city, everything clicked into place.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the differences between Europe and the US. I'm a European first -I grew up in France- but I've always felt strongly attracted by the US. It's been a love at first sight since my very first visit in Boston when I was 16 y/o. Since then I've been countless times and I got lucky enough to live in LA, California and a few years later in Boulder, Colorado. We now have a routine with Mathilde and the kids, we go back to the US altogether every year, home-swapping for the whole summer.
As an entrepreneur, I've experienced firsthand the biggest differences in terms of mindset between both places. But it is only now that I spend more time over there as a parent that I realise how impactful -for life- are all these differences. Many of them can be trace back to some of my observations following my last 2 weeks over there.
]]>â ïž Iâve already sent this post to a few friends last week. Henrik at his best: Don't sacrifice the wrong thing.
You donât have to do things others do, or have things they have, at the expense of the deeper things you want. You really donât. Almost everything is an option. You have full permission to ask yourself what really matters to youâwhatever that isâand then optimize for that in all hard tradeoffs of life.
Most people have a complicated relationship with money. Now, add one more person into the mix and... boom, enjoy the show. Money within couples tend to exacerbate many trends and behaviors. I'm building a life with Mathilde for more than 18 years -we've met when we were 17 years old- so we spent our fair amount of time dealing with the topic, taming it, ultimately mastering it according to who we are, what and how we want to build our family.
đŹ since I started tracking my screentime a long time ago, I know for a fact chat-based apps are taking more and more of my time. So when Sriram wrote about how group chats rule the world, I did agree with many of his thoughts.
Most of the interesting conversations in tech now happen in private group chats: Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, small invite-only Discord groups. Being part of the right group chat can feel like having a peek at the kitchen of a restaurant but instead of food, messy ideas and gossip fly about in real time, get mixed, remixed, discarded, polished before they show up in a prepared fashion in public.
Salons and groups have always existed but why the recent shift to private discourse?
đ«đ· if youâre in Paris -two interesting events are coming this week đ
on wednesday evening at 48 Collagen CafĂ© is Fashion Conversations dinner -more info and RSVP here. âThe Fashion Conversations think tank was created in 2019 to foster authentic relations among fashion professionals who are pushing the boundaries for our industry. The community includes founders and leaders discussing new models and solution-driven technology building the future of fashion.
on sunday for a brunch with 2 very special people, Jenni and Patricia. The topic couldnât be closer to my heart. I wish I could be there -more info and RSVP here. Patricia wrote about it here as well: a sense of place.
đȘ© the question asked by Emily on GQ was utterly interesting: why members-only clubs are everywhere right now? I think that one below could sum up everything:
And will the prospective members find sex, connection, and community all under the guise of private networking?
I spent a whole week in Lisbon, Portugal last month. I was with Mathilde and both our kids -we celebrated their 5 and 3 year-old birthdays over there- they were psyched. We stayed with very close friends who live in Lisbon for many, many years. We have a special connection with the city. We visited for the first time in 2016 and fell in love right away. We then decided to move permanently and settled during the summer of 2018. We finally left a bit more than 3 years later, at the end of 2021. Both our kids are born in the city. Our oldest used to go to a local kindergarten, his first words were in portuguese. We came back to Lisbon during the summer of 2022 and both our kids went to this kindergarten for 2 months. We enjoyed a unique relationship with our neighbours -local teachers and actors- and got lucky enough to call our neighborhood -Penha de França- home for a little while.
I've been a vocal advocate for Lisbon for a while. I remember enthusiastically attracting many people to the city. Unfortunately I grew disappointed. What I saw last month confirmed my fears. So in the spirit of my post following my latest US trip, below are a few observations in no particular order. Needless to add: all of the below is heavily biased, non-complete and subjective.
đŻ Some tenets of the âfriendship theory of everythingâ Ava highlighted really resonated:
You accept that in choosing who you spend time with you choose who you are.
Almost everyone whoâs unhappy is unhappy because they feel isolated. The best cure for isolation is a strong friend group. So much of happiness is having someone you can get a last-minute dinner with on a Monday night, or ask to water your plants while youâre gone for a week. The opposite of loneliness, as it were.
đȘ I got lucky enough to get a sneak preview on the draft of this post. Itay went through points truly close to my heart. It made me remember an old debate at home when I was a kid: if we should get an âall-in-oneâ TV-VHS combo or not -we decided we shouldnât. Designing for a single purpose.
I read The Post-Individual essay yesterday; written by the writer and entrepreneur Yancey Strickler -today behind Metalabel, before that behind Kickstarter. I highly recommend it. It goes back in history and the creation of the individualism. Here are the first 3 paragraphs:
On the internet we can be whoever we want to be. We can choose from any number of qualities, real or imagined, and express ourselves and live our lives from that point of view online.To go online is to become re-individualized â an individual in a whole new way and place. You still exist in the physical world, but you gain a new social existence that floats over-top of, around, inside of, and as a force within almost all other areas of life.
Because of the internet we donât need to define our identity based on where we physically live, who weâre born to, or what we look like, as has been the case in human history until now.
đȘđș Andreas post is a kinda perfect follow up for my US observations above: Dear Europe, please wake up â eu/acc. I share his feeling below:
Europe is special to me as I consider myself a proud European, but damn we need to talk.
I am equally extremely bull-ish on Europe and equally extremely bear-ish.
đŽ like Taylor, I bike everyday, under any weather -kids included- so taking this as an example for his comfort â happiness made me smile: Any sacrifice for comfort is a waste.
I spent 2 weeks in the US last month -first in NYC and then in SF. I've been surprised by a few things. In no particular order:
đ immigrants are everywhere. Like somewhere else you can meet them in low-status jobs but unlike somewhere else you also meet them at every other layer of the society -all the way to the top; and whatever that 'top' would mean exactly, you'll meet immigrants there. This is so empowering. I remember the story of a brown couple living in Paris for 15 years, they loved the city and their lives over there but when their kids were teenagers they realised that the only examples for them of people with the same color skin were in the kebab restaurants so they left. They now live in Boston. Their kids can still meet people with the same color skin in local restaurants of course, but also as researchers, big company manager, startup CEO, politicians, journalists, you name it.
When do I feel the happiest? I'm actually not sure 'happy' is the right word here. Maybe it's closer to 'feeling at peace', 'feeling complete', 'whole', a deep sense of 'calm and serenity'. I still choose 'happy' because there is a layer of joy, adrenaline sometimes, a genuine feeling of fulfillment.
Going back to the question itself, well, the straight-forward and instinctive answer is: playing with my kids, alone time with Mathilde, deep discussions with people -sometimes animated but not necessarily, building stuff -which might imply deep and animated talks with my co-founders, exploring outside, skateboarding, boxing, distraction-free reading -good coffee not optional. I could go on for hours. Typical example being: I hate running -the activity itself- but I would 100% put 'running with Mathilde' up there in the list of moments where I feel the happiest. I don't golf but again, I would 100% put all the mornings I spent with my grand-father 20 years ago on a golf court up there in the list. I'm not a foodie but again, well, you get the point.
âïž the title itself stopped me in my tracks: âgetting too good at the wrong thingâ. Nat is highlighting one of the big traps of modern lives. The opening sentence says it plainly:
I worry that some of the best writers of our generation are stuck making tweets and newsletters.
I worry of the same thing in entrepreneurship.
Many great interviews last week đ
đȘŽ between Brian -from Frontier- and David and Sarah from Terremoto, the Los Angelesâ and San Franciscoâbased landscape design firm. âA garden or landscape is a process, not a product.â
As far as I remember, I've always loved Jean-Michel Basquiat's work. Something from his world touched me deeply. The apparent chaos, the multiple layers of reading, the proliferation of messages, the raw material of the streets as his canvas -- all of these resonated deeply with me from a very young age. As a skateborder, all of this looked like my environment. I got his crown tattooed on my front arm.Â
đ§đŠ the title says it all and Mariana is delivering an extremely important read. Itâs not for parents only. Why children need risk, fear, and excitement in play.
What kids are dying from today are mainly car crashes and suicides, not playing outside unsupervised with friends. Parents are worrying about the wrong causes of injuries and harm. In fact, the very strategies that parents use to try to keep their children safe â driving them around, maximizing supervision, and minimizing freedom â are unintentionally increasing the likelihood of injuries and even death.
The solutions are both simple and hard. We know what children need to thrive. The three key ingredients necessary for thriving play environments are Time, Space, and Freedom.
đ There some extremely meaningful pieces of wisdom in this 40 life lessons I know at 40 by Mark Manson. #40: ITâS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE is quite powerful:
]]>A friend of mine once told me a story about his grandmother. He said that when her husband died, she was 62 and for the first time in her life, she began to take piano lessons.
For weeks, she practiced all day, every day.
At first, the family thought it was just a phase, a way for her to process her grief. But months went by and she continued to play every day.
People started to wonder if she was crazy or something was wrong with her. They told her to give it up, face reality. But she kept going.
By the time she was in her 90s, sheâd been playing piano every day for over 30 years, longer than most professional musicians have been alive. She had mastered all of the classicsâMozart, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi.
Everyone who heard her play swore that she must have been a concert pianist in her youth. No one believed her when she said that she took her first lesson in her 60s.
I love this story because it shows that even at an impractical old age, you still have more time left to learn something than most professionals at that thing have even been alive.
While 'Le Monde' [big french newspaper] was publishing a 'no kids zone' article two weeks ago, we were in Switzerland and discovered a whole kids playground inside their train. A proper family dream on wheels.
]]>Exploring the moon as an astronaut, diving into a jungle wilderness or experiencing the world of dinosaurs â there is no boredom during a train ride in Switzerland. All InterCity double-deck trains are equipped with a jungle style family coach marked âFAâ. Mid-upper deck, these offer a playground with fanciful jungle motives for children to play and frolic around as much as they please. Additionally, exciting board games such as âJungle Huntâ and âSnake Gameâ have been installed on the upper decks of family coaches. The playing pieces for those board games can be obtained from SBB restaurant/bistro.
đŒ HermÄs story is unique and Acquired did an awesome job to encapsulate it. Stewarded by one French family over six generations, HermĂšs sells the absolute pinnacle of the French luxury dream.
My own relationship with HermĂšs started very early since my momâs best friend when I was young [from my 5 to 12 year old] was working in the atelier near Lyon, France where they were making silk scarves.
]]>I spent last week in Zermatt with the kids, Mathilde and some friends. I'm lucky enough a close school friend of mine has a flat over there. This little swiss town is amazingly beautiful. Constantly dominated by the Matterhorn.
đ I almost cried reading this manifesto:Â the car will be unbundled. And - obviously - I canât agree more with the conclusion.
This manifesto is a call to use our superpower to make moving better.
Better by getting there happier, healthier and more in harmony.
In harmony with our environment and with each other.
đ Iâve followed Bobby for my time in LA more than a decade ago now. So reading him talking about the power of âenoughâ made me truly, genuinely, happy. Because yes, this is something we hope to spread more with Objet too.
]]>â Because we might all be status-seeking monkey anyway [as suggested by Eugene in Status as a Service] and because âat the same time, taste games are supposed to be human nature.â This post is definitely a must-read: Taste Games.
âïž Found out this wonderful manifesto lately:Â a call for friction in digital culture.
]]>With movement comes friction. The more we move and act, the more friction we encounter. The more friction there is, the more we engage and care. Friction drives our engagement. Friction, in this context, is neither synonymous with anger or conflict, nor is it malfunctioning technology. Friction is an essential ingredient that makes up our humanness and sparks human connection. Friction is thus a lively, intrinsic experience.
