October 2022: London, New York, Office Space, Bilar
What I Did This Month
Went to London for company onboarding, and spent the week there (with my co-workers). Went to Max Richter at the Barbican, ate many sausage rolls, drank many flat whites, got Swedish candy (Bilar), and went to bookstores.
Moved to a new apartment, had thanksgiving dinner, played basketball, went to a crypto event where Bryan Pellegrino was speaking (he’s incredibly smart, I’m bullish on LayerZero), and ate bison.
Went to New York. Pizza toured, comedy clubbed, Broadwayed, ate a lot (Union Square Cafe, bagels), got more Bilar, went to the Met, and saw Tom Sach’s “Spaceships” at Acquavella
Published BC Tech’s Problem Is Not Office Space for Smart Young BC as well as “All the cool things we built at our Rome hackathon” and “How to choose and measure growth loops” (and a bunch of tutorials) for PostHog.
Thoughts
We are just scratching the surface of what is possible with AI. I’m excited about all the individual customization it enables. I’ve heard in interviews with Sam Altman and Nat Friedman that the companies that create the most value in the AI world will be those who create the interfaces that make them usable for people. There is so much opportunity here.
Young people in the UK dress very well. All types of people, from tryhards to casuals dress better than in any place I’ve been to recently. Makes me think about how much collective energy goes into that.
Physical places encourage different ways to spend your energy. Some places waste or misallocate more energy than others. Be aware of this.
Smart people often generate lots of ideas but cannot do anything with them. They are a flow others can capture with the right mindset. Listening is important.
Recommendations
I’ve been reading Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software and enjoying it. I learned to code in kind of an opposite, top-down way by learning how to make small changes to massive codebases and frameworks. Code teaches from 1s and 0s upwards which is interesting. Wish more books went from the most basic parts of their field upwards to the complicated parts.
Vancouver (apparently) has the highest tech job growth in North America, probably because we were so far behind for so long.
Excellent (older) interview with Bryan Pellegrino. Seems extremely talented. Top of the world in multiple important areas (poker → AI → crypto). Lots to learn from him.
I’m learning more about other areas of software development. How to build software like an SRE was an excellent introduction to reliability engineering.
There was a mini-storm of anti-effective altruism criticism lately (has been interesting to read), but Scott Alexander counters with Effective Altruism As A Tower of Assumptions. Even if you disagree with how it is implemented now, this doesn’t mean you have to disagree with the assumptions that got them there.
Explainpaper is a cool AI for understanding science better.
Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on. tldr: North America is big and geographically complicated. It may have been easier before, but the world has changed.
Crypto is definitely in a downturn, was interesting hearing about Nat Eliason’s experience, making tons from various projects, but ultimately burning out.
Discussion about investing in the network age (Urbit, nomading).
A full thread of the Facebook Red Book, the world needs more dramatic manifestos. Peter Thiel on Momentum. Noise is bad for you. When was the last time someone told you to be great? patio11 on DAO liability. Don’t read the news. How Musically convinced influencers to join.
Shout out Ligma Johnson. Ghetto load balancing. Pickleball is a psyop. Just delusional enough for Waterloo-Kitchener.
Upcoming
Going to PostHog offsite in Austin (writing this on my way back). Have some exciting projects in the works, and a ton of opportunity to do more.
Finding a physical copy of Matt Levine’s The Crypto Story.
Writing and publishing lots. Coding and picking up side projects again. Focused month on being healthier and squatting more. Spending time with friends.