Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#21

Post by jkkramer » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

3 that I always watch for:

- Lenny's newsletter. While lately it's become mostly about how to succeed as a PM in Big Tech, he occasionally covers juicy startup tactics. For example, "What is good retention?" was solid gold.

- Casey Newton's Platformer. Balanced and insightful coverage of breaking industry news

- Data Analysis Journal. Goes deep on many growth topics, with tons of real SQL code from an experienced practitioner, which is extremely hard to find.

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/ https://www.platformer.news/ https://dataanalysis.substack.com/

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#22

Post by 1MachineElf » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug: https://graymirror.substack.com/

Not because I agree with or idolize the guy, but simply because what he says tends to veer on the provocative side. Provocative, by definition, is interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#23

Post by giraffe_lady » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

blackbird spyplane mostly for the incredible prose.

luke o'neil's welcome to hell world also for the very good prose in a totally different style.

small bow is the best recovery-focused one I know of.

alec karakatsanis for justice system stuff; that thread about prison chess this morning made me wish y'all read this.

used to read ed zitron and he's still very good but honestly I already hate bosses & owners enough and the bullshit they're getting up to is rarely novel or surprising, just odious, so I've been dropping off.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#24

Post by nottorp » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:24 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #11

menotyou wrote: post #2

None

Related: I go out of my way not to receive articles in my inbox. I keep my bills (which do reach my inbox) in "interruptions" mode while my entertainment operates in "poll" mode.

Related: is this question marketing for substack hosted stuff? I mean, every article you click on is trying to cram a newsletter down your throat. Why mention substack specifically?

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#25

Post by crosen99 » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

Not substacks, but I start my mornings reading the TLDR and the TLDR AI newsletters. Lots of overlap with the sort of tech that HN covers. TLDR AI is very useful to keep your finger on the rapidly changing pulse in the world of ML.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#26

Post by maroonblazer » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

Lots of good suggestions here. One that's missing is I Might Be Wrong by Jeff Mauer[0]. All the content is free.

He's a former speechwriter at the EPA who did stand up comedy on the side, was discovered by one of the The Daily Show producers and got hired to write on John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight".

He's super-smart, super-funny, and walks just the right political line, at least for me. I.e. he finds things to criticize about both the left and the right.

He releases audio versions of his essays which are not to be skipped, even if you've already read the print piece, because he riffs on the material as he speaks.

[0]https://imightbewrong.substack.com/

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#27

Post by sdfghswe » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

I love this:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

Truly high quality writing.

Also, Matt Levine.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#28

Post by sdfghswe » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

xrendan wrote: post #20

The Diff [0] and Capital Gains [1][2] by Byrne Hobert are excellent. If you're interested in in-depth analysis of current events in finance, tech and other related musings. Capital Gains is more focused on ideas in finance and how to think about them. [0] https://www.thediff.co/ [1] (With referral code) https://capitalgains.thediff.co/subscribe?ref=zlPGzwicD7 [2] (Without referral code) https://capitalgains.thediff.c…

Ooo capital gains looks really good, thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#29

Post by photochemsyn » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

I really just use Google with Tools set to Verbatim, and search strings like, for example:

site:substack.com transformer LLM OpenAI

It's generally more productive to find a topic you're interested in and then collect a wide variety of articles on that topic from many different sources, rather than to follow any individual source. This isn't really what substack writers like, they want you to pay to follow them, and I guess if you can afford dozens of subscriptions it's a charitable thing to do.

Re: Ask HN: Which substacks do you read as soon as it hits your inbox?

#30

Post by nocoiner » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

eatonphil wrote: post #3

Do you mean newsletters in general or do you literally only mean substack? The only newsletter I read when it comes out is Matt Levine's, I think. Or maybe I only remember this one because it comes out daily and others come out weekly or monthly. (This also isn't because I have impeccable taste but because few of the people I'd like to follow even seem to have subscriptions so I get notified about their new posts via…

I came here to ask the same question and say this. I can’t believe that Money Stuff is free.