Dear Kid,

Well, now there are even more things in the world I don’t understand.

Edward Snowden (yep, that Edward Snowden) is developing a new business for which he has gotten $15M in funding. He’s creating wearable technology (by which I believe he means a watch) that tells you when to worry. Here is the story from Seth Godin.

Seth, who is a smart dude, says Ed (he calls him Ed) is a smart dude. And presumably smart people put up the $15M. But your mother (me) who is not entirely the dumbest person you’ve ever met thinks this might be one of the stupidest ideas. Ever.

Worry Wart or Worry Watch? Edward Snowden's new venture DearKidLoveMom.comFirst of all, if you’ve ever worried about something and someone has told you to stop worrying, have you? Of course not. Just because there is a good reason to stop worrying doesn’t mean you are going to stop worrying. So having a watch tell you there’s no need to worry is likely to be as effective as driving to a gas station and telling the owner to reduce the price of gas. Never gonna work.

Secondly, if you’re not worrying about something, why would you want to be told to start fretting? Pointless, imho, absolutely pointless.

If you’ve been worrying about us investing your inheritance in this particular startup, worry no longer (see how that works even without wearable technology?). On the other hand, if this goes huge we’ll just have to live with being left out. Then again, Edward hasn’t invited me to invest. Or to call him Ed.

I’m not worrying about it.

Love, Mom