WRITING ON THE INTERNET, SO HOT RIGHT NOW
Everyone’s doing it!
Just ask around on Clubhouse, it’s the path toward financial freedom but also your future VC resume. A free option - all upside! It’s basically OnlyFans for smart people: OnlySmarts <3.
Look, I’ve tried multiple forays into writing / publishing online, I know intuitively that it’s a really valuable thing to do with a lot of upside, but I’ve always ended up building the process up in my head and the stupid “production value” I’ve felt compelled to add has always made it an un-clearable hurdle for my natural disposition to procrastinate. The inertia is real.
I know that writing on the internet (which has itself become a sort of tech circle meme) is one of those high-leverage endeavors that I am supposed to do. I legitimately do want to do more of it, I see it as a sort of public “save game” that crystalizes your thinking at that point in time, but I’ve probably just been approaching it all wrong. Naval in his “How to Get Rich” thread talks about media being a permissionless form of leverage and I do want to go levered-long my various pursuits in general - so I need to get over the hump.
So here is yet another attempt to be more expressive online. I actually write a bunch of personal notes that I never really show anyone else and so it’s time to expose them to the brutal windchill of the idea market. I need something longer and freer-form than a Tweet storm, but which I can approach with the same carelessness.
If you’re still with me, here’s some stuff I’m going to try this time around to do the writing thing differently:
Stuff I will try NOT to do:
Use this newsletter as some deliberate vehicle for larger goals: I’m gonna strive for some semblance of authenticity, this isn’t supposed to be a secret resume. I do see the ability to publicly discuss and have an audience to engage with as a valuable thing, but it is an asset in itself and shouldn’t be a covert stepping stone to where I am trying to go. If cool stuff comes, that’s great, but I think I will be less effective if I am trying too hard to angle it there.
Try really hard to get you to subscribe: Great if you do, but I am not going to focus too hard on audience size at this stage, because I think it will create impediments and pressures to actually publishing, so it needs to be somewhat secondary at this point. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE.
Commit myself to a content plan: I just don’t want to, it sucks. The whole point is to make this feel like another low-stakes channel and not an obligation.
Within reason, will try not to over-index on:
Structure: sometimes we’ll just be a bulleted list and sometimes we’llbeastreamofconsciousness.
Research: this is going to be a lot of observation and intuition, it’s kind of all I’ve got to run with - but happy to expand on stuff that I might have a good perspective on.
Perfecting word choice: I am verbose af. I think it gives my writing “voice” but I am trying to balance it. No promises.
Editing: trying to get these out quickly without getting too hung up on things.
Stuff that would make sense for me to talk about at some point in this space:
Crypto - but only if I think it represents a differentiated perspective. Lots of people are way better informed than me and I would probably just be ripping off their ideas if I made this entire substack about crypto.
Startups in the Philippines, especially VC funding and team building.
The intersection of expat life, being part of a returning diaspora, and the powerful “insider-outsider effects” that come with the territory.
Mental models - you know, the standard tech bro stuff. Networks effects, systems thinking, Dunning–Kruger, that sorta shit.
Memes - and how they affect society.
Shamelessly over-analyzing the works of Nassim Taleb and trying to apply his principles to situations that are totally irrelevant to his work.
Other stuff I find interesting or summaries of conversations I have with people more interesting than me.
Stuff that I would ask from you, the reader:
Give me feedback, both positive and negative. I’m a robot made out of meat that predictably responds really well to positive-reinforcement. However, even if you are a stupid hater and want to beef about it, it’s probably good for a couple extra content cycles for both of us - and I’m trynna get my reps in here anyway.
Feed me prompts. I’m easy to reach and I’d be happy to expound on a random topic that I’m perfectly unqualified to write about! Hit me.
Essentially, I want to be incredibly transparent that these initial posts are going to strive for quantity over quality. I’m trying to get shit out quickly, but in doing so, the muscles for releasing stuff a bit more regularly online will in theory make me a better/more insightful writer.
I can’t promise it will be good, so if that’s what you’re here for at this stage:
Okay! That’s enough angsty paranoid deep-seated distinctly-millennial failure-hedging.
Let’s just get started :)
…this image here literally has nothing to do with the post. Substack just doesn’t let you use GIF stills as the social preview, so I couldn’t use that excellent Mugatu scene at the top. I’ll use this random still from 2001 because I think it’s good for a first post. It’s basically bait.