#3 What's Huang this week...

Tech layoffs, $100K dog walkers, and opposite thinking

In this week’s update:

  • What I read this week📚: Tech layoffs, ChatGPT, $100K Dog Walkers

  • What I watched this week📺: Tesla’s Chief Designer, How your phone listens to you

  • What I did this week👨‍💻: Signed up for new services

  • What I thought about this week🤔: Opposite thinking.

-Howard Huang

What I read this week

Roger Lee is behind two interesting websites

  1. Layoffs.fyi – tracking tech layoffs. Currently at a pace of laying off 2,500 per day in January. 🤯 Btw, if you’re ever affected, please reach out and I’ll do what I can to help.

  2. Comprehensive.io – tracking salary ranges of the top 1,000 tech companies.

Paid version of ChatGPT Pro is rolling out to select accounts. @chillzaza_ on twitter has it.

ChatGPT research says its is able to pass the bar exam, MBA operations exam, and medical license exam. Really needed this back when I was taking the SATs.

There’s only 375 people working at OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT). It really is amazing on how such a small company can be so disruptive.

Google’s making a better ChatGPT with their differentiating proposition being able to get facts right by citing sources in its responses.

Red Ventures is making MILLIONS of dollars of AI generated content and laying off writers. RIP copywriters, looks like it’s happening already.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, just squashed some hyped up things on GPT-4 that I was hoping for.

Want to make $100K? Become a dog walker. 

What I watched this week

Franz von Holzhausen interview on Ride the Lightning podcast. He is the Chief Designer of Tesla, Inc. and has been responsible for the design of all the Tesla cars including the Cybertruck. He has previously worked as a designer for General Motors (Pontiac Solstice) and Mazda (Kabura).

Your phone listens to you!—ever get that scary-good targeted ad? Yes, your phone is listening. Here’s a TikTok on how to stop it.

What I did this week

Signed up for Notion, planning on sharing organized brain idea dumps.

Signed up for Canva, never used it, thought I’d start. I still need a legit email header. So easy a marketer can do it! 😉

Signed up for Buffer, used it right when it came out. Re-visiting again to see how this free social media schedule manager can fit into my workflow.

What I thought about this week

Title of this newsletter - should it be “What’s Huang this week?” or What’s Huang last week?” Should I send on Monday? Friday? Or some other day. Let me know your thoughts.

Affiliate marketing – I may start including affiliate links for things I mention and use in this newsletter.

How to grow sale leads – if the answer isn’t “spend money on ads” or “more content.”

I’ve been using dashes (–) all wrong, you probably have too.

Opposite thinking – I often feel as if many chase after the ball whilst few consider where the ball is going. Marketers think they can out market the other marketers by outdoing their marketing (ball chasing). I think in order to stand out you have to do something unexpected/opposite (anticipation) .

Examples of ball chasing…⚽

  • Company XYZ writes professional content! I’ll write more and create “better” and smarter content!

  • Company XYZ is a gold sponsor at an event! I’ll spend more and create a bigger and “better” booth!

  • Company XYZ has an educational YouTube channel! I’ll hire more educators and have “better” videos on YouTube!

Examples of unexpectedness/opposite (anticipation)…🤯

  • Company XYZ writes professional content! I’ll write borderline inappropriate informal content in the form of a rap song.🎹

  • Company XYZ is a gold sponsor at an event! I’ll pay the cheapest sponsorship fee, hire a mime to hand out free bananas with a small brochure explaining about my company.🍌

  • Company XYZ has an educational YouTube channel! I’ll create outlandish entertaining magic tricks.🪄

Which method do you use to get people to remember?

Quote of the week

“If you spend too much time learning the 'tricks' of the trade, you may not learn the trade. There are no shortcuts. If you're working on finding a short cut, the easy way, you're not working hard enough on the fundamentals. You may get away with it for a spell, but there is no substitute for the basics. And the first basic is good, old fashioned hard work.”

– John Wooden

American basketball coach who is considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport, having led the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team to ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including a record seven in a row. I know nothing about sports, but his book is one of the best life lessons books I’ve read.

Stop by and say hi. Love to hear what you guys think about the newsletter. See ya next week!