This is very cool. I'd love them to open source everything they could to help kickstart as many people as possible to open such libraries in their own cities/ neighborhood/ area. This is much needed.

I think the main difficulties here will be social, and a story of how this all started and the cultural, legal, and operational barriers they've overcome would be a valuable contribution. I am reminded of pg's advice to "do things that don't scale".

follow the money. as long as the incentives are to make us buy this product, or that one, this will inherently be biased at some point. I've yet to see a recs website truly aligned with our long-term satisfaction. A few subreddits might be the exception here; but Reddit's model itself causes other type of challenges long-term. we're currently trying with https://objet.cc

we can learn to be though.

That would be a waste and a shame. We should be satisfied with certain things like stable and equitable sharing of limited resources. Other things define being human in that we need to have pursuits, learn, build. A society without those is losing to machines by becoming them.

I love that you titled this 'the soul of' -- I could have done the same with my old leather jacket [https://objet.cc/kev/cuir-serie-m].

and that's why we call one of the section in our Objet journal 'Soul of an Objet'; example here with Gilles: https://objet.substack.com/p/063-nailing-down-your-style

I'd say it's a reference to Tracy Kidder's book "The soul of a new machine".

Diderot Effect and a few more points re: our consumption habits. Via Dr Laurie Santos [cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University] and her podcast about 'demonic possessions': https://objet.substack.com/p/demonic-possessions

I love this. Thanks for sharing Currently doing it with objet.cc

I don't do this as an inventory for insurance or even 'the final count' of my stuff, but to save the stories / anecdotes attached to my most beloved items. An example here: https://objet.cc/kev/travel-chess-board

It makes me reflect on what I truly care about [re: physical things]; which dramatically increases my awareness when I intent to buy something new. Where does that 'desire' come from? Why should I buy this? Why that one instead of that one? etc.

This last sentence sounds weird to me: 'But he noted that he feels fine giving founders a few hundred thousand dollars — just not millions.'

Is the question 'is it fine for founders to cash out at a round of financing before their exit?' or 'how much founders should cash out before their exit?'? They're two different questions.

And an investor who says to a founder 'if you sell some shares I sell mine too' forgets that he has some eggs in other baskets while a founder spends generally all his time to only one. Is it normal / fair / you name it that a founder wants to put some eggs in other baskets too (if I mention the Buffer's founders quote when they argue 'we'll invest some money in other startups'?

Wikipedia grab: "Opportunist behaviour can be self-reinforcing: if there is a lot of opportunism, then not to be opportunist oneself would mean that competitors take advantage of that, and therefore people can be forced into an opportunist role as a defensive strategy."