For Immediate Release: Los Angeles, California — no gradient today announced that Sawyer Billings will be joining as Managing Editor and Pat Daly as Assistant to the Managing Editor. A fortunate addition given founder Dick Lucas will be on leave until 2020.

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My plan for no gradient is simple: keep it tight and entirely in sight. Pat and I will work to maintain the integrity, straightforwardness and character of this impressive publication. If you are interested in writing for no gradient please contact us here.

Sawyer Billings, Managing Editor

As Assistant Managing Editor, I will ensure that the content published on no gradient provides a balanced view on all issues and stays true to the mission of giving it to the audience straight. Sawyer and I look forward to providing readers with the same objective and insightful content they have become used to from Dick.

Pat Daly, Assistant to the Managing Editor

Founded on September 26 2017, 2018 has been the first full year of operation for no gradient. Let’s see what went down.

Viewership in 2018

• 9,632 site views
• 5,711 site visitors
• 1,211 YouTube podcast views (1,296 all time, 1,324% increase)
• 2,309 podcast downloads (2,742 all time, 433% increase)
• 169 hours watched by viewers on YouTube (173 all time, 4,125% increase)
• 2 Patreon supporters

Content Posted in 2018

• 44 predictions (60 all time)
• 15 podcast episodes (21 all time)
• 7 posts (17 all time)
• 5 sets of recommendations

Top Posts

• Project Treble, Coming into it’s Own
• The Lowest Hanging Fruit: Getting Rich Slowly
• The Results are in, the US Financial System is Stable

Top Episodes

• Raven Lee on Harnessing Crisis
• Louis Serafini, Selling in
• Joseph Cote, See America First

Predictions

In 2018, two of my predictions proved correct. Five proved incorrect. Bringing my predictions scoreboard to 3 out of 12, for a batting average of .250.

Correct

• By 2025 Coinbase will release public APIs for businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as payment online. Coinbase Commerce was announced 2 April 2018.
• In Android P, the UI to indicate battery saver mode will be replaced with something less garish. Battery save mode has been updated with the release of Android P on 6 August 2018.

Incorrect

• In the Pixel 3 phone, Google will release a Face ID equivalent that utilizes less specialized hardware than the iPhone X, but makes up for it in software. Similar to Portrait mode now. No Face ID equivalent feature was announced.
• Google will release the Pixel phone through all major US carriers in 2018. The Google Pixel 3 will be sold through Verizon, Project Fi, and the Google Store.
• Google will release an Android Wear watch in 2018. Miles Barr, Google’s director of engineering for Wear OS, confirmed there will be no Wear OS watch from Google in 2018. I’ve made a new prediction saying the watch will be released before 2022.
• The one year adoption rate for Android Oreo will be 9% (+/- 2.5%). Android Oreo reached 14.6% by end of August 2018- beyond the 11.5% margin of error. It will be fun to track future Android version adoption rates, I hope my predictions prove to have wildly underestimated Project Treble.
• By 2030 there will be a financial services company offering a fully managed investment solution (e.g. saving for retirement, portfolio diversification) that charges no fees. M1 Finance does exactly this and existed before I made the prediction.

Developments

• Most proud of my The Lowest Hanging Fruit: Getting Rich Slowly post. That was years in the making and it is the post I recommend the most (you should read it right now).  Thank you to my sister Cristina for all the help with it.
• Justin Dunn- previous podcast guest– debuts the new no gradient look as he competes in the 49th annual World Series of Poker No-Limit Hold’em Championship in beautiful, hot, transactional, Las Vegas, Nevada.
• no gradient became a video podcast with the 17th episode, James Zingarini Trusting the Process.
• First guest post contributor and previous podcast guest, Pat Daly wrote The Results are in, the US Financial System is Stable. The third most popular post on no gradient, which would have been more popular if the hardo reddit mods didn’t remove it from the front page of r/finance.
• no gradient podcast has first co host in James Newhouse, producer of the show, appearing on the Mandy Levy, Everything is Fun and Funny episode.
• Published first investigative piece with Yang2020 Presidential Campaign and how not to Accept Cryptocurrency. I’m surprised this has of yet received very little attention without even the Yang2020 campaign commenting on it.
• Added recommendations where I recommend publications, books, podcasts, videos, and nonprofits.

Struggles

• Traffic to no gradient is entirely reliant on my reddit submission gaining traction. Viewership to no gradient is very low on regular basis.
• Even when posts do well on reddit, this converts to few email subscribers or followers on Twitter and Facebook. All of which would help create a more consistent readership of no gradient.

Ahead

• Notable names on the no gradient podcast. I would love to get an over the hill b or c list celebrity with some name recognition to come on the show. Give them a low stakes way to riff in public and hopefully bring no gradient new viewership.
• More guest contributors. There are many people I know with gold inside them without an outlet. I hope to encourage more people to come on and share.
• More investigative posts with original research like Yang2020 Presidential Campaign and how not to Accept Cryptocurrency.

Justin Dunn- previous podcast guest– debuts the new no gradient look as he competes in the 49th annual World Series of Poker No-Limit Hold’em Championship in beautiful, hot, transactional, Las Vegas, Nevada. Qualifying by winning a smaller tournament, he has survived day one and starts today with 16.5k in chips. We talked game plan and he is in full predator mode telling me “I need to steal what’s on the table before anyone puts any money in by getting them to fold when I sense weakness.” With a short stack, not being aggressive will simply bleed him dry, it’s all in or fall in.

Logan Faerber is the creative genius and illustrator behind the new look, wrapping it up just in time for the shirt to get shipped out to Justin. He recently started his own design firm, Clade Design, and if you need work done, look no further.

You will see the new look rolling out as the podcast album art and on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Patreon, LinkedIn– wherever no gradient is found.

Update: J Dunn went for it and was knocked out on his second day of competition. Best believe no gradient will be sponsoring him next year.

Brothers and sisters,

I’m pumped to announce that the no gradient podcast has hit 1,000 unique downloads. I’ve talked with a marathon world record holder, a shamanic healer, a Marxist who tried to join the marines, a married couple in an open relationship, and just plain great conversationalists. Seriously, thank you to everyone who has listened, reached out to me about an episode, shared it- you all are my gods.

Thank you to Chris Derr for getting me started, James Newhouse for his constant feedback, and Chris Hoog for the famous intro and outro music. Most of all thank you to the guests who have been willing to come on the show. Without you, well, you know.

If you haven’t listened yet, dip your toes in. I always tell potential listeners to read through the episode descriptions and find one that speaks to them. I try to make the descriptions and the quotes I pull from each episode emblematic, so you know what you are getting yourself into.

I’ve started posting photos of my guests on Instagram, follow the show there if you are in to faces.

Thank you people, next stop, 10,000.