Tamara Winter (X) is the Commissioning Editor of Stripe Press, where she exercises her taste to identify the knowledge and "ideas for progress" that matter most in alignment with Stripe's mission: to increase the GDP of the internet.

"Tammy" worked at the Charter Cities Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which is chaired by Tyler Cowen.

Tammy is obsessed with tacit knowledge and the illegible parts of the world that actually support so much of our lives, work, and societies. This includes taste, charisma, relationships, and a wide-range of load-bearing infrastructure that supports healthy and trustful societies, from small-talk and manners to hidden forces that prevent anti-social behavior and maintain safe places to live and work.

We discuss this and more, including how she selects the ideas worthy of Stripe's audience, her unique career path, her refreshing take on agency, her standards for herself, reading and writing, and how she chooses how to spend her time. Above all, Tammy's incredible love of other people shines throughout the conversation.

Full episode transcript with all linked references: https://dialectic.fm/tamara-winter

Timestamps

• 2:09: Taste, absorbtion, and influences
• 10:54: Deploying your taste
• 15:49: Ideas that matter and taking yourself seriously
• 22:13: Aesthetics
• 24:16: Choosing Teachers and Authors
• 28:15: Charisma & delightfullness privilege
• 34:59: Living a relational life
• 44:07: Trust, social scaffolding, and small talk
• 51:01: Erosion of social norms, low-trust environments, and load-bearing infrastructure
• 1:02:17: Cultural arson and the dark sides of "you can just do things"
• 1:15:44: The healthy kind of agency
• 1:20:45: Tammy's N-of-1 path and who she aspires to rhyme with
• 1:28:38: Red herrings of success and focusing on outcomes
• 1:32:22: Assortive everything
• 1:37:52: Personal and professional standards
• 1:43:06: Journaling, great writing, and audience
• 1:57:29: Reading & Biographies

Key Links:

• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering - Richard Hamming
• On Self-Respect - Joan Didion

• Scaling People - Claire Hughes Johnson

• High Growth Handbook - Elad Gil

• Virginia Woolf on Montaigne
• Ava on Tammy
• Old Enough!
• Sort By Controversial - Scott Alexander (Scissor Statements)
• Scarf tweet

• Tammy's advice to young people

• An Elegant Puzzle - Will Larson

• Interact
• The Making of Prince of Persia - Jordan Mechner
• Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - Gay Talese
• Why not inquire together more? - Tyler Cowen
• The Common Reader - Henry Oliver
• In Five Years - Rebecca Serle
• Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination - Neal Gabler
• Up from Slavery - Booker T. Washington
• Anna: The Biography - Amy Odell
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris
• Brian Jacques
• A Pattern Language - Christopher W. Alexander

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