New Chapters

In just the last six month, both of my parents retired from their medical practices — my Mom, psychiatry, and Dad, Gastroenterology — and my sister welcomed a baby boy to the family.

My parents immigrated to the States to give my sister and I better life, and while I can only begin to reckon with the hardships along the way, their retirement forged a moment to reflect and appreciate their work over the past 30+ years. Despite my sister and I having packed scheduled as kids, we never fully grappled with the realities of Mom and Dad’s situation - both working full time, managing meals, making sure we were set up for success. It’s bittersweet watching them embark on this new journey, and shedding light on how quickly times change.

With that, their focus has quickly shifted to being full-time grandparents, taking care of my nephew 💙.

It’s a poignant milestone, with many of their patients having been with them for many years.

There’s been parts of life and work that I had itched to come to more swift end in the recent months: client situations that tested me, some feelings of lostlessness with direction, other personal ups and downs - I was sometimes waiting for an end in sight, single-minded to that thread. It established a lack of presence in other parts of life, with stress bleeding over. The older I get, the more I’ve found the subtle art of compartmentalization - shifting energy where necessary, appreciating moments for what they are.

Baby Kairav has been an amazing, talkative addition to the family, and so excited to watch him grow up.

Other

Top of mind musings:

• Venture: Found this thread illuminating. I love following fundraisings and startup news, but the behind the scenes points to less rosy, more hazy picture. There’s a bloat of venture firms out there today, many of which are holding onto middling companies devoid of venture scale returns. /Dev/agents just raised at a $500 million valuation, requiring 35B eventual exit for 70x returns. There’s likely much deeper rationale behind the raise (hot product/team demands higher val), but it makes me wonder how many firms live on just getting on the hyped companies. Also, the paths to liquidation must be set out from the get go. A sky high valuation really means quite little if there is no path to achieving that revenue scale and going public, getting acquired, or allowing for selling of shares via secondaries. I’ve found any one of these options quite rare.

• Agents: Started tinkering more heavily with V0, Cursor, Replit, Windsurf. I’ve been using pro plans for both ChatGPT and Claude for nearly all life inquiries, though am seeing what could be a momentous time for ‘indie’ developers. The speed to a working prototype with V0 and iteration to functional product in hours. Satya holds strong takes on the future of SaaS, and while it’ll take time for agents to become trusted workers in more secure enterprise areas, I am convinced that AI-native counterparts to traditional apps will quickly emerge, and new methods of work will emerge. I’m thinking of an app like things on steroids - with AI generated plans, subtasks, and abilities to iterate on project planning and needs. More to come (my initial ‘idea’ to play with across AI coding tools).
• Physical Space: I recently moved apartments, and while just a few blocks away, i’ve sensed a notable uptick in energy with a space and room that feels a bit more homey. My room (and office) has more light, and the living room is a bit more spacious, creating a noticeable increase in mental space and calm. I understand the ‘live in a shoebox’ recommendation for making New York affordable, but I don’t know if my well-being could find stability.
• 2025: I don’t necessarily believe in resolutions, but do like the idea of focus areas. I wrote a bit about some ‘things I want to do,’ and plan to make progress on some (given I really didn’t commit to any this year). I’ve found a Hindi class I’ll be starting in January, and have been thinking through a dinner party or ‘coffee-shop’ we could host in our apartment. I recently wrote out some areas for 2025 which I’ll link to soon.

Some Monthly Highlights

Given my last update was in May, some highlights from the last six (!) months.

Preface - after writing this I’ve realized this is just a photo dump of food and sunsets. Excuse me before you read ahead.

June/July

My cousin got married!

It was held at Liberty Warehouse in Red Hook, just a few miles south of my abode.

Can see Lady Liberty hanging out in the background!

I visited SF for the first time since moving -

and spent most with friends and family. I opted not to just extend a work trip, which usually leaves me a bit drained, and instead worked out of our HQ in SF and commuting out to family around the Bay. I spent most of the week in the city, indulging on burritos (go to Chuy’s in the Mission) and coffee (go to CoffeeShop in the Mission), and taking in the city views from Dolores. I also rode in a much improved Waymo, went on morning runs through the Marina, and caught up with old co-workers for dinner.

Back in NY, I continued going on runs near the water, and we had finally held our Housewarming in Williamsburg (only seven months late). We made a vat of espresso Cold brews to ensure no one went home sleepy.

I went to DC for July 4th, where I braved the heat for golf, (Cardinals) baseball, and some late-night poker sessions.

I went Ocean City with a group of college friends for a ‘golf and crab trip’ to end out July. Much of our time was either spent putting down crabs or losing golf balls to the woods. If you’re ever there, make sure to check out Seacrets; it’s something else.

August/September

I went to Chicago with my roommate and a friend for August for an early Birthday trip. We dined well - check out the Salt Air Margarita from Bar Mar, the Aviary experience for experimental cocktails, and Tzuco for dinner (including the Maiz Dessert)

I spent the last few weeks of August back in St. Louis, where I celebrated my and my Mom’s birthdays (hers is just a day after mine 😊)

In September, I had a long back and forth on the difficulty of baking. I held a take that most baked good were relatively simple, outside the more intricate pastries and macaroons that require a deeper dedication and skill. I stood by the fact that a vast majority simply required focused periods of time, attention, and usually some arm power for beating. I was challenged to bake a cake (my first), and in means to prove her wrong, so i used claude to come up with a recipe (chocolate caramel layered cake)

I feel both validated and humbled by the experience. It took longer than I wanted and was a mess to clean, but I’m quite happy with the result and do hold that most of the steps felt well-defined. Again, my take is a gross overgeneralization and I am a sucker for great baked goods, but I’d give my output an 8.7/10 (a touch drier than 🤌).

More trips came in Sept, as I visited Kansas City with two friends (one from KC, the other from Baltimore) to see the Chiefs season opener (against the Ravens). I had no dog in the fight meaning I was simply pulled by whoever commanded more excitement day of - turned out to be the Chiefs 🙃. We got to briefly experience the Suite before the game (just left as Taylor was making her way up!), but spent the game itself in last row (yes, against the cement) watching over the sea of fans. It ended in a thriller, and it made me genuinely sad that we lost our former home team due to a frustrating and wrong decision.

Back in New York, I went to my friend’s launch party for his new swimsuit line, which he ideated, developed, and launched, all while working alongside me at Retool (!). I wore his trunks on my last beach vacation and love them (and him) dearly.

I remember having sat with Karim in our office when he first proposed the idea of starting a ‘brand.’ I challenged the idea, unsure what that meant and how it’d take shape. Amazing.

Check out the line here.

October/November

I went to Lucali for the first time, and my gracious roommate spent a few hours of his day off waiting in line for us to try the infamous Pizza. Sadly, I found it underwhelming and strongly prefer L’Industrie.

Later that month, I saw Wicked on Broadway! I had seen Lion King in the first month of moving in with my parents, but love the soundtrack of Wicked and found it a fitting time before the movie (sto be seen). Despite multiple daily showings, the auditorium was full. I scarfed down chicken wings to end the night (BWW has BOGO on Thursdays)

I also had my first Apollo and Ess-A bagels in NY (both ranked quite highly). I found both good, thought not sure if I love the open faced concept. My tops are Leon’s in Williamsburg and Thompkins.

Nov started with a friend’s Diwali party. Coming from a traditional Indian household, there’s a special feeling recreating those celebrations with a new generation (having not celebrated much in the last few years). We feasted on homemade Pav Bhaji, Pallak Paneer, and Chai-Infused Old Fashioneds.

I took the last few weeks of November off - I spent a week in Mexico City with friends and then came home for Thanksgiving. It was a much needed and nice break from a long-stretch of work (despite the pictures and trips, work continued to push me in ways I’ll write about it in the future).

Back in New York for the final stretch of 2024 ⌛

Just Shoot

I’ve been writing somewhat consistently since I graduated college, often publicly but not publicized. After starting and (one year later) ending a personal newsletter in 2020, I realized the ease that comes with leaving thoughts out when they come rather than pushing them on a schedule and inducing consumption.

I enjoy writing to this isolated island on the internet, yet I explored some more public writing apps this past year - I joined Contrary’s Research arm at the end of 2023 and wrote guest posts for my friend Justin’s Technically newsletter. I just finished my last article for Contrary and my third for Justin (and have currently exhausted the ‘company breakdown’ writing muscle).

Some Takeaways:

• Both opportunities stemmed from outbound outreach: Opportunities can be hidden! Be honest and intentional with search.

• There are usually positive externalities: The work with Contrary opened up some conversations with some of their venture and talent partners, who gave some very helpful and apt advice on career options and paths. In the future, it also opens up conversations with future fellows and helps expand my network into an amazing pool of operators who write.
• Platforms Help to Start: Platforms and brands carry weight! Both the blog and newsletter have strong readership and quality brand. Opportunity begets opportunity, and having that ‘platform’ does give a stamp of approval at a pre-vetted quality bar for later items/tasks.
• It Almost Always Left Something on My Plate: There is no true done state when it comes to writing (and even more so for articles that are going out publicly/representing a brand). Work has duly ebbed and flowed, and I began both writing initiatives right before my move to NY. There was always a background ‘todo’ for either writing or revising, which added some stress when work picked up.

Related:

Ran the Brooklyn Half

I had been (under) training for the Brooklyn half but finally came around. Similar to my second half in SF, I slept just a few hours. This was likely a mix of nerves and knowing how early I was to be up. Luckily, most of my race/game days were driven off adrenaline, so I didn’t think much of it. Despite showing up two-plus hours early, the weather was beautiful and I felt more driven by excitement than anything else.

I ran with three friends, and while it was my first running with anyone, I found it wonderfully refreshing to have a group next to me. I had no trouble leading to mile nine, though hit my first wall at 10.5. I walked a bit to recover and found a second wind to finish it out on the boardwalk (with a finish in Coney Island!).

I don’t think I have a marathon in me, but I enjoy the feeling and working up to and staying in ‘half-marathon’ shape.

Equally excited to be done with running for a bit and get back into sports and other activities.

My Sister is Pregnant (and Nearly Due)!

My sister is about to conceive a fucking child. It’ll be a baby boy, and I will be the corrupting uncle.

We did the gender reveal a few months back when I visited home, and I got to secretly attach balloons to her dog as it ran out (more so, I carried her out when she didn’t want to move).

It’s little surprise that life moves a few ticks faster in NYC. It’s hard to pinpoint why, though the indicators are obvious - a greater density of friends within such close proximity, a boundless plethora of new (experiences, restaurants, sights) within a stone's throw, and a more pronounced ‘hustle-culture’ (make more spend more!). I’ve found it harder to prioritize activities that felt more natural in the past - face-timing my family, setting time to write, and getting lost in online rabbit holes. I don’t think these feelings are entirely unique, though it’s become an apparent reality in the last 3+ months.

With that, New York is a wondrous spectacle of novel sights and feelings. I don’t think I’ll get over the skyline views, three bridges within walking distance, and the unending buzz.

Trying

To make better espresso (& martinis). Fortunately, my roommate invested in a Breville and was gifted a bougie grinder, resulting in a stark rise in my caffeine intake and increased snobbiness regarding shitty coffee. Turns out - beans, grind size, pressure, and accurate bean volume are indeed important! And that there are quite a few shops that overcharge for sub-par coffee.

Favorite spot’s been Devoción (where Margot Robbie was spotted just a day after I went???).

Doing

Back into running. I continued to run consistently when I first moved to NY (had a sublet right next to Prospect Park while finding our full-time spot), but just a few weeks in experienced more acute and prolonged knee pain. I first felt it in my left knee after a long run after which the same pain hit my right. My doctor mentioned a classic case of IT Band Syndrome (common for runners, especially those with a taller build). I began stretching more regularly, though not having access to one of the more cathartic activities in my life was difficult in a new city.

Anyways, stretches and rest seemed to do the trick. I hit seven miles in the last month and ten this past weekend. I ran across two/three lower Manhattan bridges for the first time, which I’m sure will become a routine. Stunning views and looking forward to the half in a few months.

Reading

Words that Matter. Consumer social, especially in the content space, is notoriously difficult. That said, I do believe the content to be some of the most resonant and important when well-curated. There’s a sea of clickbait out there with the barrier to internet entry so low. But finding that sweet spot that inspires and entertains is all the more special.

There are some wonderful links shared by some wonderful people, and I highly recommend giving them a read.

Space to Operate

I plan to write a longer piece on this sometime soon, though thought I’d start by putting down early thoughts here.

I joined Retool’s professional services (PS) arm a few months ago, a transition that induced a significant deal of uncertainty. I’ve now held four distinct titles at Retool, and while all are closely related and aligned, each is fundamentally bespoke. The move to PS somewhat felt like a move back into my past role in consulting, which I had intentionally opted out of just a few years ago.

That said, it’s quickly proven to be one of the better decisions of the past few years. I joined on the ground floor of the function, meaning we’re building the plane as we fly. My time as a Deployed Engineer has served as a necessary prerequisite to the work we’re doing - informing the issues and gaps in how customers use the product, their willingness to pay for add-ons and services, and the do/don’ts when scaling. We’ve been chugging away at all tenets of the org - determining our core customer offerings, stepwise activities within an offering, milestones to track, and selling motion and narrative. We’ve undergone considerable change in the team and company in the last few years, imbuing a somewhat consistent mental toll. It made it harder to feel I was operating in the right space. Much of the original team I started with left, the role I joined changed, and many larger hiring and operational adjustments were retracted or shifted.

I shared many of these uncertainties with my manager during our last team offsite, including feelings of recent urges to start something of my own, pursue business school, or move to a product role in the near term. His advice was accurate and apt - we’re building the function from scratch, and while the role might not have been where I expected a few years back, it would allow for building this small business within a business, from scratch: the offerings (product), the selling motion, marketing, pricing, enablement, execution, and scaling. There are still areas to index on - e.g. being the core liaison for offerings touching specific areas of the product (e.g. platform configuration or app building services). With that framing, the role has become much broader, and quite fulfilling.

My focus has been primarily on our Quickstart program - the fastest way for customers to get up and running with Retool. I found this particularly appealing for a few reasons:

• It allows for full ownership: It’s me and a colleague defining the program - what we want to offer, how we want to sell it, what the handoff process looks like, and what activities need to be run. The role has always been autonomous, but I feel like this allows for fuller control with our ‘hands-on keyboard’ approach (compared to the Deployed Engineering role, largely consultative)
• it seems to be the highest velocity way of gathering product feedback. We expect most new committed customers to go through our Quickstart program, in which we’ll oversee/advise on deployment and initial application launch. By staying even closer to these two very pivotal moments in the Retool lifecycle, we’ll be able to pull out all the gaps, difficulties, and potential product improvements. Plus, I’ve gotten to build more robust tooling in Retool, exposing some of the builder challenges that we must empathize deeply with.

A bit long-winded, but as I’m continuing to explore my career options and experiment, the broader learning seems to be - it takes time to navigate functions, spaces, areas, and companies to find a space to operate well. Many standard roles will continue to exist - Account Executives, Product Marketers, Software Engineers. But there is a beauty in the space between those - connecting lines between roles and playing the generalist in the less defined areas of operation.

I love finding flow states, and while many of my days are in and out of meetings, it’s allowed a bit more flow in and out of work.

Puppy

My sister’s cutie pie pup!

Two months down in 🗽!

The move has been energizing - having and being in person with work continues to be a priority and has provided some semblance of structure in a time of somewhat erratic change. I’ve hit the essentials - saw Lion King on Broadway, had my share of NYC Bagels (Tompkins is great, Leo is better), and acclimated to the beautiful consumerism that is New York 🙇🏽

Full recount:

Food

Wallet’s begging me to get cooking.

• Glin: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Birds of a Feather: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Scars Pizza: ⭐⭐
• Tompkins Square Bagels: ⭐⭐⭐
• Rule of Thirds: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Win Son: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Los Tacos No 1: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Lucy’s: ⭐⭐⭐
• Kuun: ⭐⭐⭐
• Boqueria Soho: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Joe’s: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Osteria Morini: ⭐⭐
• Le Industrie: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Barbocino: ⭐⭐⭐
• Atithi: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Eataly: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Kebab Aur Sharab: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Wu’s Wonton King: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Dokebi: ⭐⭐⭐
• Leo: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Popeyes: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Views

Reading

Elon Musk: Walter Isaacson

Halfway through. Well-written and highly engaging. Elon’s life was (is!) highly tumultuous, and his resilience in the face of constant pushback and backlash commands respect. Many of his pains seem self-inflicted, but it’s a testament to the shaping of early environment on the ethos of will and work.

Same as Ever: Morgan Housel

Housel is one of my favorite storytellers and writers, and I genuinely enjoy his simple takes on life and money. Psychology of Money remains one of the few books I strongly believe everyone should read, so excited to get through this. The premise being - we focus most attention on all that’s changing, looking for new models to predict the future without taking a step back and doubling down on those things that perpetually stay the same.

I’m a few chapters in - nice follow-on to Psychology of Money, but the lessons seem a bit less profound and a bit overdrawn.

How Finance Works: Mihir Desai

Loving it! Vanderbilt didn’t have a traditional finance major, meaning the closest I could get to the ‘business’ side of things was through economics classes. Having worked and now having seen the boom and bust of the startup market (and subsequent valuations), it’s inspired a want to dig deeper into the numbers - what does a good business look like? How is it evaluated?

It’s equally compelling mapping the terms to actuality (especially at Retool) - assets, liabilities, costs, growth targets, etc.

The Successful Technology Investor: William de Gale

Quick read. Debunks the myths of common investment approaches and clarifies principles for higher probable returns.

Listening

La leçon particulière

Lavern, Francis Lai · Song · 2023

open.spotify.com

It’s been a whirlwind of the past few weeks. Moving across the country is no joke; especially amid a NY heat wave that left me profusely drenched before even getting into the office. SF’s 75 and sunny weather didn’t help with acclimatization.

I got in late Friday, grabbed my keys, and made it to my cozy one-bedroom in Clinton Hill.

Also decided it was a good idea to immediately go to Electic Zoo on Sunday. Fortunately missed the festival cancellation/next-day delay/storming of security.

Beyond that, NY is wonderfully hectic. Excited to find a rhythm.

Other

Reading

Setting the Table

I’m not sure if my move to NY and the nearby Union Square park was the tipping point, but my friend recommended this book a while back and I recently finished it. It’s a story on Danny Meyers’ devise of his restaurants and later (Union Square) hospitality group. Highly recommend a read! Many of his approaches to hospitality resonate and apply aptly to any customer-facing role.

Danny Meyers also went to my high school 🙂.

Some highlights:

On Saint Louis:

During my adolescence, food continued to figure prominently in my social life. In the tenth grade I took cooking lessons in home economics, and as one of only two guys in the class I furthered more than just my culinary interests. That year I had transferred from the all-boys St. Louis Country Day School, where I had been a top student, to its coed archrival, John Burroughs School. Burroughs was an excellent and highly demanding independent school—presenting me for the first time with female distractions in the classrooms and hallways. My academic performance dipped dramatically. I was now fifteen years old, and what mattered to me most were girls; pickup games of street hockey; football on the lawn; tennis; and going to bed with my transistor radio tuned to KMOX and glued to my ear, as Jack Buck called that night’s St. Louis Cardinals game or Dan Kelly announced for the St. Louis Blues. Yet a constant theme in my life was always food: Imo’s pizza, Ted Drewes frozen custard, and Steak ’n’ Shake. Steak ’n’ Shake seemed to be where my friends and I all ended up every weekend night, throwing back shoestring fries, steak burgers with cheese, and shakes. Were those necessarily the best hamburgers to be found anywhere? It didn’t matter, because the nights at Steak ’n’ Shake with curbside service in our own cars were the best hamburger experiences I had ever known. (Decades later, my memories of Ted Drewes and Steak ’n’ Shake inspired me to create Shake Shack in New York’s Madison Square Park.)

The first place I drove after getting my license was to Ted Drewes. Jack Buck’s son (Joe Buck) was another Saint Louis parent whose daughter went to my middle school. Imos pizza was the only pizza we’d order, and it was somewhat sinful to talk down on it, even if you weren’t a fan of the thin crust or provel cheese. I probably had more burgers from Shake & Shake than any other fast food joint combined.

This hit home.

On work:

Being jazzed is a combination of feeling motivated, enthusiastic, confident, proud, and at peace with the choice to work on our team.

The feeling of ‘flow state’ persists across jobs and functions. I like the depiction and enjoy the feeling even more.

On Opportunities

It’s a tempting challenge that may look quite good from afar; but on closer scrutiny, many opportunities are far from good. I’m curious to see the view going up the mountain, and I’m curious to see it from on top of the mountain. One aspect of climbing I especially enjoy is the adventure and challenge of getting to know all the people with whom I’ll collaborate along the way. Each business journey attracts a new and different group of players—chef, general manager, cooks, waiters, hosts, reservationists, managers, bookkeepers.

Climb the right hill, and be wary of the hill you’re climbing.

At about this time, my assistant, Jenny Dirksen (now our director of community investment), shared a priceless expression her grandmother had taught her: One tuchas can’t dance at two weddings. It’s nice to be invited to a lot of parties. But as much as you may want to attend them all, it’s important to acknowledge that you can be in only one place at a time, and do one thing well. My own grandfather used to express similar wisdom: Doing two things like a half-wit never equals doing one thing like a whole wit.

New York has already established it’s ability to distract. It’s hard setting priorities, even if a priority is saying yes and getting a bit distracted.’ But the energy shifts across contexts is evident.

AI

I’m bullish on AI. Chat-GPT is starting to feel like a superpower for both writing and software (I don’t use it at all for hands-on keyboard writing, but it is great to run ideas off). It’s near real-time, and proper prompts deem proper results. It’s not for everything, but drastically improves certain activities (like rudimentary logic in a programming language).

I’m not sure what it means for the longer term. I saw a tweet that argued it’s no longer learning fundamental CS logic. I somewhat agree → outside of pure understanding, most simple blocks can be written and debugged efficiently through a prompt. There is long-term risk, with LLMs capable of building the majority of any junior dev in a fraction of the time.

I’ve also seen examples of awing Midjourney images and face melds, have been playing with Pi for journaling, and testing Eleven Labs Speech Synthesis (I CAN’T SPEAK HINDI).

Are you kidding me?!

There’s also been an insurgence of work in the health and ed-tech spaces, which I am particularly invested in. I want to relearn topics in a drastically more efficient manner than static schooling. Language is the largest rock that comes to mind (spanish, hindi), in a way that is AI-driven, and derived on conversation with an AI agent (that learns and iterates based on human interaction).

Left Brain / Right Brain

I’m getting back into a space of more creation, both on the writing (working to put out a few articles for friends and firms) and building front (apps, documentation, new team processes). While much of my time at work had previously fallen into ‘advising and consulting’, the new normal does rely more on outcomes and material progress.

It’s a different mode of thinking, and when switching between tasks it requires a new method of approach (and some alternative ‘brain’ work).

I also learned (I cannot confirm the certainty of this) that the height of our visual world affects our cognitive processing. High ceilings promote abstract thinking while low ceilings promote analytic work.

I worked out of the NY Public Library this past weekend and it reminded me.

✈️ 🗽

I’ve confirmed my move to New York! After ~1.5 years in SF, I’ll be trying out that little concrete jungle.

Reading

The Browser Company is building Arc, an experimental, ground-up take on the web-browser. I just started playing with it.

They try to explain their rationale and approach to the new browser here:

Acid & Amazon Boxes

Examining the question: "Do we really need a new browser?"

browsercompany.substack.com

Before drugs, my friend assumed his eyes would always work like… well, eyes! Everyone’s eyes are different of course, some people can see better than others, some people are blind or visually impaired in some way, but he had assumed that eyes generally acted within the bounds of some laws set by the universe. Eyes were a thing that absorbed the world to the best of their ability and reported back to the brain as honestly as they could.

Then he did acid and entered another dimension for a bit.

When he came back, his understanding of reality had been toppled. He was like, “Wait, how did my body even do that? What is reality?! What are eyes?!”

He hadn’t realized he had been living under assumptions about the axioms of the universe, but these false pillars became visible in their acid-induced shattering. If all it took was some chemical cajoling for his eyes and senses to transport him to another planet, what were the actual rules? Are there rules, or are there only defaults? What other invisible false pillars was he living his life by?

And this is why he liked recreational drugs — because he could explore and challenge and unlock a new relationship with reality.

Though my friend didn’t quite put it that way. The way he phrased it to me was, “When I do acid, it’s like messing with the operating system for humans.”

The best analogy we’ve got is actually not about a browser at all — it’s about recreational drugs. An engineer I knew in San Francisco, the “goes to Burning Man” type, was trying to explain to me why he liked drugs.

Before drugs, my friend assumed his eyes would always work like… well, eyes! Everyone’s eyes are different of course, some people can see better than others, some people are blind or visually impaired in some way, but he had assumed that eyes generally acted within the bounds of some laws set by the universe. Eyes were a thing that absorbed the world to the best of their ability and reported back to the brain as honestly as they could.

Then he did acid and entered another dimension for a bit.

When he came back, his understanding of reality had been toppled. He was like, “Wait, how did my body even do that? What is reality?! What are eyes?!”

He hadn’t realized he had been living under assumptions about the axioms of the universe, but these false pillars became visible in their acid-induced shattering. If all it took was some chemical cajoling for his eyes and senses to transport him to another planet, what were the actual rules? Are there rules, or are there only defaults? What other invisible false pillars was he living his life by?

And this is why he liked recreational drugs — because he could explore and challenge and unlock a new relationship with reality.

Though my friend didn’t quite put it that way. The way he phrased it to me was, “When I do acid, it’s like messing with the operating system for humans.”

Are they rewriting the internet?

Vibes

Up All Night - Marlin Remix

LeMarquis, Marlin · Song · 2018

open.spotify.com

Canada

We recently went on a family trip to Banff. This place is stunning. If you are a poor photographer like myself this is the place for you. Impossible not to get pictures like this.

Some takeaways:

• people in Canada are some other type of kind. Every single person had such genuine love and care for each other, including us ignorant (Indian) American tourists
• We used an app called Autio as we road-tripped - very cooll! It narrates stories and guidance on the surrounding areas based on location. The narrator also sounds eerily similar to Ray Dalio
• Lots of Indians
• Found that many of the service workers (park rangers, hotel personnel) were nomads spending a few years there before finding a new place to jump to.

Writing

Getting back into the habit of writing has been the best thing I’ve done for myself in the last year. I’m excited to have a home for thoughts, whether one or one million people read them.

This Writing Life

The Purgatory of the Practice

open.substack.com

Reading

Endurance

Sleep Tracking

I’ve gone full tech bro and bought an Oura Ring. Big fan for sleep tracking

We Fostered Adopted a Dog

My roommate and I fostered a wonderful mini-doodle named Enzo two weeks ago. He is 3.5 years old, loves to cuddle, steal socks from our rooms, and stick his head on armrests.

AI Explorations

These are funny

Music

Bonobo

Fred Again