October 2023: London, Exits, Birthdays
What I Did This Month
Went to London, specifically Croydon, for a PostHog offsite. Speedran London in 1.5 days while there (mostly art museums, V&A was the best). Haven’t figured out London’s food yet, everything I ate was mid. The English countryside is out of a movie.
Published The hidden reason why BC’s startup scene struggles which blew up on Twitter and was republished in Vancouver Tech Journal. For PostHog, wrote a bunch of comparisons and more.
Made some upgrades to Iliad Translations. Added Emily Wilson, Rodney Merrill, Michael Reck, Herbert Jordan, and W. H. D. Rouse.
Also went to see Guns N’ Roses, BC Lions (congrats Matt for winning the pie-eating content), and Whitecaps. Celebrated Thanksgiving and multiple birthdays (Luisa!). Ate pink pineapple.
Thoughts
My advice for working well remotely: work in person with friends when you can, change your scenery at least once per day, get the most important thing done first, and show your work more than you think you need to.
Many of the world's top resorts didn't exist 50, like Punta Cana. They sprung out of the ground with relatively small amounts of capital. The rise of remote work, nomadism, and network states could spring many more over the next 10-20 years.
What you think about is what you should do. Many people suppress their true passions to follow the passions of others. Having desires and not pursuing them creates dissonance Work on the projects you are excited to work on. Follow obsession. Doing this creates momentum. It enables you to do more and be better.
It is clear when you are eating is junk food. It isn’t clear when your spending your time and energy on junk. There is infinite fake dopamine in the world now, it’s bad for your spirit.
Action produces information. The best path forward is just to do something. After doing something, you are in a better position to make a decision. Repeating endlessly is a path to success.
Renaissance Florence day labourers earned enough to live on working 3 days a week.
How many people are playing the wrong game? They could be playing a game they would enjoy and have a good chance at winning, but instead play a game other people say are important. Deciding to change games is hard, and convincing someone else to change games is even harder.
It is shocking how many people can attribute a significant amount of their success to cold outreach. Two examples I heard this month: Jesse Iztler's Marquis Jet marketing strategy was 10 hand-written letters a day, and Investor Michael Dempsey sends 10-15 cold emails per week to interesting people. Cold outreach rules the world.
Recommendations
David Perell disappeared for a bit but he has come back stronger than ever. His “How I Write” podcast is excellent. Two highlights: Riva Tez and Marc Andreessen. Unironically makes me want to do Write of Passage even though I’m already writing online for a living (his marketing is working).
The writing of Dryden Brown makes me a lot more bullish on Praxis succeeding. Good writing is one of the best signs, it shows strong clarity of thought and creativity. Also, appreciates the value of aesthetics. Two great pieces from him this month on how opinion leaders have outsized and centralized effects in crypto and how to implement techno-optimism.
Steward Brand writes to most exciting pieces on the seemingly most boring subject: maintenance. This time how maintenance wins wars.
Why isn’t there more ambitious people in the world? Rote learning, linear progression, lack of sense of historical belonging, lack of goodwill, and more.
Like him or think he’s a normie, Malcolm Gladwell manages to be one of the best popularizers of ideas. You can figure out how he does it by looking on a paragraph by paragraph basis, look how he writes.
What has become a bit of a traditional now, Matt Lakeman’s notes on Ghana was excellent plane reading.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications. Hundreds of thousands of the smartest people in the world spend their time making sure your apps don’t break or aren’t slow. This is the intro textbook to learning what they do. For someone unfamiliar and interested, it’s an amazing overview. There are so many situations you need to plan for.
Some cool AI tools I’ve discovered recently: phind (search engine and pair programmer), RecordOnce (AI video demo and tutorial creator), and Metaphor (another search engine).
Master getting started. Post lifting PRs. Measure presence. What happened to the serious public intellectuals? One year to rewrite the web to be multiplayer. New ancient text just dropped. New dev advice. Cold weather gets people locked in. Infrastructure is the blocker, not takes. Life is writing ordered lists. AI isn’t even close to making it to the real world. Stop overengineering. Do as much as you can. Avoid the index mindset. Download the code and struggle. Naan in butter chicken. Bronze II Jane Street blackpill.
Upcoming
I love Fall because it’s a great time to work, especially in Vancouver. Eventually, you embrace the rain and it becomes a partner in good work.
Writing, coding, reading, meeting cool people, lifting weights.