In 2019, I started blogging for the very first time. I was driving Uber, coaching chess in St. Louis, and tutoring at a local Mathnasium. I wrote ~60 blogs posts in ~60 days. I quickly ended up quitting everything, packing my life into my Prius, and driving to San Francisco.
Blogging daily represented a shift in my mind and my life. I was moving conceptually upstream, figuring out my priorities and how to live by first principles. That period of shipping self-understanding + world-understanding every day in my spare time helped me quickly debug some key mental blocks.
In SF, I landed on the floor at Anthony & Tieshun's place as the first non-eng hire at Namebase. On the 2nd day of work, it was clear to me I wasn't mentally ready, and I had to live more poetically for a moment to find my footing in the new environment of tech. Maybe I needed to secure an apartment, but really I had no idea what I needed, and I knew it.
So I quit Namebase, feeling horrible about bailing on my friends, and I walked back to the house to vacate Anthony's floor in about 20 minutes (probably writing them a dramatic sad goodbye apology letter). After a few days living in my car and on other friends' couches, I found myself a studio in Nob Hill and a contract role for $24/hr at Clever, thanks to Brett.
I quit that role too after 2 days, but this time it was a real strategic tradeoff as opposed to an "Andy mental / personality problem" as I had secured a role paying double, with equity, at Scale AI doing Customer Operations. I had already been rejected for 2 other roles at Scale, so the urgent offer from Richard was a big surprise. Much credit is surely owed to Steven Hao and Leigh Marie. I truly never thought I would be a Scalien nor a cop! Again, I was sorry towards the lovely Clever team I left behind, and especially Brett.
The rest is history, as my career unfolded a bit more linearly from Scale onward thru today, having most recently built a profitable small business to 7-figures of revenue. But even if the world doesn't see it through my eyes, nor remember, there have still been many step changes and bets in my life throughout.
For example, even during my 8 months at Scale, I was promoted into completely new responsibilities roughly once per quarter. During my 3 years in Ecuador, I hopped to a new city each year, and attempted multiple projects within each geographic location and associated semi-professional identity phase:
Blogging daily represented a shift in my mind and my life. I was moving conceptually upstream, figuring out my priorities and how to live by first principles. That period of shipping self-understanding + world-understanding every day in my spare time helped me quickly debug some key mental blocks.
In SF, I landed on the floor at Anthony & Tieshun's place as the first non-eng hire at Namebase. On the 2nd day of work, it was clear to me I wasn't mentally ready, and I had to live more poetically for a moment to find my footing in the new environment of tech. Maybe I needed to secure an apartment, but really I had no idea what I needed, and I knew it.
So I quit Namebase, feeling horrible about bailing on my friends, and I walked back to the house to vacate Anthony's floor in about 20 minutes (probably writing them a dramatic sad goodbye apology letter). After a few days living in my car and on other friends' couches, I found myself a studio in Nob Hill and a contract role for $24/hr at Clever, thanks to Brett.
I quit that role too after 2 days, but this time it was a real strategic tradeoff as opposed to an "Andy mental / personality problem" as I had secured a role paying double, with equity, at Scale AI doing Customer Operations. I had already been rejected for 2 other roles at Scale, so the urgent offer from Richard was a big surprise. Much credit is surely owed to Steven Hao and Leigh Marie. I truly never thought I would be a Scalien nor a cop! Again, I was sorry towards the lovely Clever team I left behind, and especially Brett.
The rest is history, as my career unfolded a bit more linearly from Scale onward thru today, having most recently built a profitable small business to 7-figures of revenue. But even if the world doesn't see it through my eyes, nor remember, there have still been many step changes and bets in my life throughout.
For example, even during my 8 months at Scale, I was promoted into completely new responsibilities roughly once per quarter. During my 3 years in Ecuador, I hopped to a new city each year, and attempted multiple projects within each geographic location and associated semi-professional identity phase:
Today, I'm shifting once again. It's some wild déjà vu that I'm packing everything into my Tesla and driving to SF, again to land on Anthony and others' couches. But although many things are superficially similar, like my chess set and the fish oil pills, this time it's really very different. My friends and I have all evolved in our own ways over the past half-decade, much for the better.
Me - I have a yoga mat, a walking desk treadmill in the trunk, a couple monitors, a fancy air purifier, a stylish baseball cap, a bigger bank account, and an amazingly supportive girlfriend. Not to mention a much deeper understanding of myself and the world, as well as a theory of value creation I'm extremely excited to execute (and collaborate with friends on)!
I've already studied various dynamics of the problem. I have the receipts and proofs to go with my whitepaper conjectures. I'm no longer exploring, so much as exploiting. I'm not blogging to debug myself and unearth influences, but rather to market my ideas and become influential. I'm ready to cause a new effect, rather than simply opening myself to be affected by the world's causes.
My coauthors remain tbd, but thanks Jeffrey Hu for being one of the first test pilots way back in Karger's class for our final paper project (below). Turns out it's a fun algorithm to live by, and I'm glad to be familiar with the math.
Much to come.
Stay tuned!