△ - Everything I Know Now
2023 and 2024 recapped
△
“There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts.”
“All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”
~ Candide, Voltaire
In the passage, the speaker is suggesting that all of Candide's tragedies were necessary for him to be where he is today, a way of saying that all the events Candide experienced (good or bad) were part of a grand, beneficial plan.
On the same plane, in our lives, we can only connect the dots looking backwards. Our fortunes and misfortunes are the gifts and scars of life, and each experience shapes who we are and who we become.
While thinking about these things is helpful to plan, I’ve learned we should not over-index on solving for massive abstract hypothetical problems or getting caught up uncovering universal truths. Sometimes all we can do is “cultivate our garden,” focus, grow, △ right here, right now. I’ve provided my personal manual for how to achieve this at the end.
Now, with that said, let’s solve some massive abstract hypothetical problems →
Introduction
Writing has become a central and effective tool I’ve adopted over the past two years in navigating my life. It is a way to organize thoughts and forces you to think deeply about assumptions you take as truths. It is also clear to me that sometimes the thing that really matters is knowing which question to ask.
In this piece of writing, I summarize essays I’ve written across 2022-2023. From the themes of each essay as individual data points, I connect the dots backwards into a narrative that has become my life philosophy. This writing is summed up into: 1) the importance of a personal belief system 2) growing based on your personal belief system 3) my pragmatic plan to △.
What is striking when reflecting upon my views as they have evolved over time is how much they can be tracked to specific instances and experiences I have had in my life, like an asteroid collecting scars and dents via collisions with other objects. In many ways, the human neural net is a loss function that adjusts to our environment and the information we consume, so we should be purposeful about what we ingest.
The clearest learnings have been from direct experience absorbing a problem, carrying its burden, chewing on potential solutions for an extended period of time, and finally arriving at my own beliefs from first principles. Humans learn by doing.
I’ve also created two new symbols, because I don’t like the current symbols we use for (1) “meaning / purpose” and (2) “growth, expansion of the self, overcoming, and will to power.”
The first set of words are a false symbol and overdetermined, there are no meanings, there just “is” the current state of the world.
I think the second set of words are extremely important, because in many ways they are poorly contrived symbols to capture what is the most important theme of this philosophy and what I believe to be the “meaning of life.”
1. Λόγος (The Logos) - “A principle originating in classical Greek thought which refers to a universal divine reason, immanent in nature, yet transcending all oppositions and imperfections in the cosmos and humanity.” I originally read this term in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and prefer to think of it simply as the current rational and logical state of the universe as a backdrop, and our own personal philosophies that spring from it.
2. △ - The hollowed out triangle replaces and combines growth, expansion of the self, irreverence towards current systems, and the requisite focus and suffering. It is also a very important symbol that I’ve thought about for the last decade. It was something that I’ve always known, but couldn’t quite articulate until now. Notably also the symbol for delta or change. And the symbol for Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, sacrificing for the sake of achieving self-actualization. How do you pronounce this, you ask? That’s for you to determine.
The Logos
I address the plugs we use in our society to provide humans with an answer to a question that doesn’t exist. “What is the meaning of life?” Or rather “What is life?” Often these plugs come in the form of religion or another proxy. In reality, there is only The Logos.
In the same way that people defer to a political party in the place of having their own nuanced views, we defer to these preexisting moral manuals. It is difficult to create meaning and defined behaviors out of an infinite universe of entropy. But we can. And if we can, we should.
The first step is to recognize that the existing competing systems are imperfect and set forth by other irrational humans no different than yourself, and that they change over time. You first recognize this so that you can begin to forge your own path and shine a light so bright that the existing systems must recognize it and adopt it. This is how someone shapes the world. There have been millions of systems that have come and gone. The systems that overtake and persist are the systems that △, which is an important point.
In order for you to create meaning, you need to step back and analyze the world from first principles. What is right in the world? What is wrong in the world? What is life? When you understand what life is, you can begin to formulate an ideology on how to live it. How to live life is inherently unique to you. If you reject the existing system but don’t create your own belief system, you are in no-man’s land. You are a moth without a light. You are a pilot without a map. I will here reference the old chess adage that “a bad plan is better than no plan.”
This is the most important point so far. Most people don’t have belief systems and wander through life in a random walk. It is difficult to create your own belief system. But if you don’t, you are living your life on other people’s terms. More importantly, if you don’t have a defined target, you will obviously never hit it.
There is also a lot of meaning and leverage in having your own belief system. There is more meaning in things that would not get done “but for” you. You don’t want to be the awkward 3rd person carrying a table. In today’s world where everyone wants the same thing, the competition is simply too fierce to leave you any scraps–you don’t want to be 3rd runner up, you should be the best in the world. Your differences are assets that provide leverage, they are not a liability.
△
Now that you have developed a personal belief system unique to you and understand that the world is malleable, you can create a plan to exert work and allocate resources over time to △ in accordance with your philosophy and actualize your beliefs.
Many people say that you should do what you are passionate about or what you are interested in. Some people speak of interests as if they are just something random that you were born with. Others speak of interests as if they don’t exist and all that exists is discipline and doing the right thing when you should. These were both frustrating responses to me. What am I interested in and why? I don’t feel like I was arbitrarily assigned with an interest at birth, do you?
I contend that interests are not random and are fungibly formed and exchanged as a mechanism for humans to △. Your interests help you solve problems you have or help you understand some form of characterological development unique to you and dependent on your understanding of The Logos. As your perspective changes, so too might your interests. This is why you should first have clear beliefs of your Logos, because it influences interests.
In the world we live in today, we are rewarded and punished for our interests in relation to current moral structures and how incentives are outlined. Artists aren’t rewarded as the capitalists are. These moral structures aren’t purposeful and there’s no big man behind the curtain pulling the strings. They are emergent properties of systems that persist. The systems that persist are those that are evolutionarily adapted to △. In some ways, these systems present themselves as obstacles to be surmounted or impenetrable walls equivalent to laws of physics. You need to straddle the line on how you can grow in the world you have been dealt. It is notable that the primary lever of change in modern society has become growth and innovation. Money runs the world and technology changes it.
In a world that 1) the meaning of life is to △ in accordance with The Logos and 2) the current systems that exist are the hand we’ve been dealt, I contend that the meaning of life is to △ at the fastest rate you can within the system.
In many ways, the meaning of life is to △
Pragmatic Steps to accomplish this and my personal angle
The overarching theme is also that the world is one of nuance. There are no right answers to many of life’s questions. But at the same time, humans need heuristics to organize the world and defer to daily behaviors. While very few truths are absolute, I have begun forming a game plan and a set of principles that I use for tackling daily challenges and decisions.
With this plan, we straddle the line between creativity and execution, life as a compounding step function, iteration and improvement, abstraction vs first principles, resource scarcity, the societal equivalent of the laws of physics, and the variable of time.
Essays
Some of these essays ask questions, some of them answer questions, some of them simply plant the seed for questions that are answered later, but that is equally important.
At this time in my life, I had COVID and went for a walk in the nearby graveyard in Champaign.
This essay introduced the question, “what is the meaning of life?” and how the question itself is flawed. Humans tie too much value to symbols and words that are an abstracted meaning of purpose. Nothing has purpose. We just live in relation to objects whose purpose is seen in the context of our lives. A shovel serves us the purpose of digging, but a better question is “what is a shovel?” or “what is life?” which I revisit in a later essay titled conspicuously “what is life?”
The theme of this essay reveals that life is meaningless.
At this time, I was in Palo Alto networking and conducting customer discovery for Nephra. I took focused time to explore Silicon Valley to understand what role it may play in my life.
What I had realized at this time is that New York City is brute force and pessimistic. San Francisco is creative and optimistic. I had always considered myself to be someone who was not smart enough to arrive at genius novel solutions. Around this time period, I realized that, yes, I am stupid, but so is everyone else. Grit overrides intelligence.
I also came away from this time period with an understanding that there truly are too different states of mind. One which is focused on execution and one on creation. The executing mind is one that is heads down and less aware of its surroundings, but accomplishes more. The creative mind is a wandering state and forms new connections and learns. I took away from this experience the ideal to be in a form of a superposition. You need to work hard to succeed. But you can’t work hard at just anything. You need enough creativity to work on the right thing and get to the right cliff of a step function. You need grit. You need leverage. You need both.
The theme of this essay revealed the leverage in being different, and also working hard.
This essay served as a time capsule of an email I sent to the Nephra team at the time where we had just finished competing in Cozad, the University of Illinois’ big startup competition.
It’s not to say that this specific email marked a grand realization, but in this time period, I did come to understand that the world is bottlenecked by engineering. What this means to me today is that ideas are much less important than the energy required to turn something into reality. What matters is having people who build the damn thing, which requires knowing how to build it, and having the resources to build it.
I learned that the world is malleable. I learned that because I could see a problem glaring at me in the face that not everyone else saw and took time and effort to uncover, but also that many ideas have many teams working on them at any point in time–another reason that execution matters more than ideas.
I learned a bit about how to lead teams. I learned that it is one thing to get people on board. I learned that it is an entirely different thing to get them inspired, motivated, and maintain momentum. I learned that people need to work in person (I still don’t believe in remote work for startups). I learned that human beings only have so much RAM and need to focus on one thing.
I learned to believe in myself. What did I know about biotech? I still won 2nd place in Cozad. I learned to accept ambiguity as what it is. When you know what you’re doing, have confidence. When you don’t know what you are doing, have faith.
The theme of this essay revealed the the world is malleable, and that you can shape it. I started to uncover the importance of human focus and the inefficient allocation of it in our world today.
I spent some time on campus in our beautiful 101 E Armory toiling away on projects while others went home.
I put pen to paper on some ideas that I knew, but didn’t quite know that I knew. I do not believe in happiness. Happiness is not a real thing, it is just your dopamine levels temporarily above your baseline. You will still be the same person tomorrow, happy or not. Similarly, suffering is not a real thing. These are both temporary human emotions. What is not temporary is how you grow as a human being. △ is the meaning of life.
I also understood another important thing in this time period. Just how mimetic human beings are and how dilutive being around others is to your belief system. We forget so easily and our beliefs are fungible depending on who we are sitting next to. This is fine if everyone around you and the information you consume is correct. But humans are irrational and emotional beings. It matters that you are very certain you want to become like these individuals, because you will.
The theme of this essay revealed human herd-like tendencies and reminded me of the fleeting nature of emotion.
At this juncture in my life, I spent a lot of time with a religious friend who attempted to convince me of the realities of religion.
I’m not going to say religion is fake with 100% certainty, but I will say it is fake with 99.9999% certainty. With that said, there is a lot we can learn from religion. What about religion is so unifying and has lasted such a test of time?
The entire moral system that we know today is derived from Christianity, which became clearer when I later read the Genealogy of Morals. At this point, I also solidified my understanding that we have hit escape velocity in one area, technological progress and growth, which first started when we decided to stop killing each other, invest, and build stuff.
The theme of this essay revealed religion is a plug that exists to solve the hole in human meaninglessness, and further that the moral fabric we see all around is us made up.
At this time, I had been working on Nephra for roughly a year and decided to log everything that I had learned.
This was an extremely meaty essay, because it was real problems I had and had carried the burden of for a year. I caveat that with the fact that often the realizations were from building the plane as I went. So it would go that I would experience some problem, face it head on, not find an answer, and sometimes find some tidbit of information that patched it, which was realistically the best I could do at the time. An imperfect solution for some that is now hard to read.
That said, there are still a lot of very real △ experiences that I had during this year surrounding the struggles of a founder and going Zero to One, before I had read the book.
Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something with nothing, or more with less
Startups are so ambiguous, which is not something that we are used to from the lives we’ve lived where we are always given the instruction manual. So having to be skeptical while at the same time optimistic about the path you are on without actually knowing.
Trust and the importance of co-founder strengths and relationships
Having “it” and the sparkle in the eye. A candidate who has a “why,” someone who knows independently why they do what they do. A surprisingly rare trait that shows agency. People who are excited and not paralyzed by an empty white board.
Another summarization of the realization that the bottleneck of society is the lack of people who can actually build the damn thing. Looking back on this now, but also the inefficient allocation of skilled labor to important problems in society.
The logarithmic importance of finding the right people early. Not compromising on hires.
Culture is way more important than I previously thought. And you need to be a cult.
People are always looking to the leader for validation and direction. You need to exercise the utmost thoughtfulness of what you say and when you say it.
Don’t repeat mistakes. Learn from them. These scars become your assets and crystallized wisdom.
The best way to be a great manager is to manage people that don’t need to be managed.
Salary is only a way to buy a person’s time and “get them on the bus.” You then also need inspiration and clarity of vision.
In order to inspire others, you can’t lose, there is no way around it. You need to be a winner. But at the same time, when you take a loss, you need to take the fall, and when you win, you need to distribute recognition to others.
Momentum is incredibly important for growing companies. Never let up on the gas. A startup is like a shark, if it stops swimming, it dies.
Human beings should be completely absorbed in one problem at a time and human focus is the most valuable commodity on planet earth
“The Shuffle” and gatekeepers of a company. How passing them is marginal progress leading up to consecutive steps in a step function.
It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be the hardest thing you will ever do.
The theme of this essay revealed practical learnings on startups
In this time period, I was graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in finance and engineering.
Essentially shitting on my business degree as a waste of time. Business is just the things you need to do to go from point A → B. Businesses are just vehicles for accomplishing organized change, through △. Lots of little things that don’t require you to be a genius but just require you to work like hell–and working like hell does not mean working hard for just 40 hours a week… Have a clear vision and back into it.
The theme of this essay revealed again that business is just execution. Ideas matter less than proper execution. Looking back on this means the importance of doing the little things right and working really hard.
At this time, I was working very hard in investment banking at SVB Securities. Working really hard is what initially drew me to the job, but what I realized in this time period is that it matters what you work on and that there was no leverage in the salary I was receiving in a saturated and hyper-competitive industry. I had read Meditations and was influenced slightly by Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism, which felt natural to me. I had also read Balaji’s Network State at the same time I was realizing how difficult it was to do anything in biotechnology due to its regulatory regime and barriers to entry.
This essay was partly another riff on the belief that the only continued and material change in the world is growth and technological progress.
As a result of my earlier learnings, I really questioned if this trodden path was the best path to △. This was a linear path, a saturated path, a hyper-competitive path. The answer that I arrived at was that it was not in my best long-term interest.
From my previous epiphanies that human focus is earth’s most valuable commodity, I had another epiphany that the world’s smartest were being shuttled through existing education programs that stifle creativity and individuality and sucked into these jobs out of college. They could be solving world hunger or nuclear fusion, but they are aligning logos on a screen. What I do believe is the only redeeming force of the education system is that at least much of it is the truth, we should adapt our neural networks to truth, otherwise we will have cracks in our foundation that will make it difficult to connect new future learnings to.
At this time, I looked around at my peers to see if they had similar coming-to-God experiences. Why was I doing that job? To make money. First principles, what is money? It is a proxy. Proxy for what? Value. Do I need a lot of money? No. Do I think I could create more value in another way? Yes. All these questions stacked up into two main realizations
Human focus is a horribly misallocated resource
Most people don’t have belief systems or know why they do anything, they’re inherited
“We work jobs we hate, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like.”- blah blah blah Fight Club
You are basing your expectations off of those around you. Why not compete inwards and aim for the best scenario possible for you individually. What would be your perfect life? What would you be doing? Most people have some sort of odd plan that involves them doing a bunch of stuff so that they can do what they want in 20 years. Why not just do it right now?
Then the question becomes what am I interested in? What is highly individual to me?
I also go into my belief that we should innovate upon our current government and the importance of bitcoin. But I will not get into that right now.
The theme of this essay reveals that most people live a life that is not their own, and that we should determine how you should live your own life based on your interests, without answering what those interests should be.
At this time, I also realized how little people around me believed they can change the systems that we are born into and view life as randomness.
The first step to achieving your goals is believing that you can. When you know what you are doing, have confidence. When you don’t know what you are doing, have faith. This essay highlights the importance of believing in oneself and taking risks. People are often misguided in their approach to assessing risk. What is the risk of failure vs what is the risk of never doing anything meaningful with your life.
“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life.
Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.”
Basically, the last essay said that you should imagine a world where you can do whatever it is that you feel you should. This essay defines how we should actually go about that. Because other people have learned how to live a better life, you can too. If you can live a better life and not accept constraints, why wouldn’t you?
The theme of this essay revealed again that the world is malleable and you can change it. It also took a stab at mapping who I am and what my interests are and continued to ask why?
At this time, I was continuing research and deep learning catching up to the biotechnology industry.
This essay was essentially a recap of Eroom's law and how biotech is not a realistic way for me to achieve my goals as a result of government regulation and high barriers to entry. It was a dead end and that’s fine. I recognized it and found that software may be the right way.
The theme of this essay is the resistance to △ in the biotechnology industry and how it was pushing me elsewhere.
At this point in time, I was going insane trying to understand the meaning of life in my shoebox NYC apartment while reading Nietzsche in the winter. Not a good combination.
A revisiting of the earlier question. Breaking life down into the organic enthalpy in which we spontaneously arrived in the universe, before evolving to multicellular organisms, apes, and the person that you are today. There is no meaning in the individual carbon atoms, but we have evolved for a purpose, to live, like moths attracted to a light. We live and △ as human beings with the instincts that we were provided at birth. Yet we live in a disastrous time. Culture and technology are now rapidly progressing at a speed that outpaces our own natural selection. We can run away from these instincts, but we won’t get very far, we’re wearing genes. Should we submit to our instincts or should we conquer them? What does it mean when in order to accomplish our evolutionary goal of growth, it requires that we go against the grain of our own genetic code? We are pigs in cages on antibiotics. We have hit evolutionary escape velocity through logic and computation, which we are not built for.
The theme of this essay is how we don’t have meaning at that atomic level, but we can create meaning based on human instincts.
Which Direction to Live It? (Part 2)
A continuation of winter laden NYC shoebox apartment Nietzsche insanity.
The goal of this essay was to fully reject existing moral systems in religion and society and overcome one's own vision of the universe, their role in it, and how that role provides man with his “end” and path to fulfillment.
In the previous essay, we established that humans are hardwired to expand and grow. We will dive deeper into this theme in this essay. Initially, we gave man religion to numb his meaninglessness. A moth was provided a light in the infinite darkness to fly towards. This essay explored what striving is and how we determine our values and meaning. What is our will, does it choose us, or do we have a say in this?
We are provided multiple solutions on this conundrum. Schopenhauer contends that we should deny our nature. Nietzsche contends that we should embrace our nature and exercise our “will to power,” I ascribe to the latter but repurpose to the term “△.”
We used religion as a plug before
Nietzsche had his worries. He saw that in the past, we covered the meaningless with religion. The argument goes as follows:
Base assumption: man, like any other animal, has no purpose. The moral systems we’ve been fed have been created by those with power to keep power. The village leader of 10 people says “No! Bad!” because a particular action erodes the glue of the system (and his power over it). Rules become laws to direct people into social conformity that is beneficial for the system. Systems live and die based on their ability to maintain order. Those that live on, pass on their genetic code in the form of morals.
It is insufficient to simply recognize this lack of purpose, it is actually harmful. Nihilism unguided leads to man being lost in his world, and then to suicidal tendencies. He suffers from the void of his own meaning. The problem is the end. Why does man suffer? He will not suffer aimlessly, there must be a meaning. In fact, man invites suffering and often runs towards it. Of this era, Dostoevsky also writes, “Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.”
Asceticism and religion provided man with a double-barreled solution to the void.
First, pegging meaning to an eternal salvation not visible in this world and attainable only after this life. Daily suffering is promised to be a temporary hurdle for infinite bliss. Man submits.
Second, providing man the framework for him to purposefully suffer worldly suffering for the aforementioned salvation through doctrine and scripture on how to live the good life. A “how-to” manual. It is a cheap trick. You must accept this infinite power you cannot comprehend. Suffering in this world is prescribed for infinite bliss in the afterlife. Or hell if you fall out of line! Man is backed into a corner to accept.
Nietzsche closes this loop with insisting that rather than feel guilt for morals created arbitrarily, man should let his instincts take hold in his natural will to power. Not to say be primitive, but to strive, for it is neither ugly nor beautiful but man’s truth to grow. Joy is not a real feeling and not what man seeks (like I mentioned with “happiness”). Man seeks an expansion of the self, an overcoming, a will to power. Joy is only the byproduct of seeing himself grow.
Religion is understandable
The date is January 16, 2023, Martin Luther King Day. Walking through Greenwich looking for a coffee shop, I came across Our Lady of Pompeii church. I am catholic but abandoned my faith in my youth. I do admit that the smartest people I know are religious, so I never leave it out of the question. Curiosity dragged me through the cathedral’s wooden doors, and I was welcomed by tall dimly lit ceilings and what may have been the Halo theme song playing over the speakers.
At that moment, I understood. I didn’t believe, but I understood. In an existential period where one is looking for answers, and where answers seem to only open doors to more questions, all of them with substance impossible to handle, like trying to grasp sand and it running right through your fingers or trying to capture the finity of cellular automata.
But in that sublime moment, where you feel like you are seeing both the depths of history and the suffering of man embodied in the cross, accompanied by the kind, accepting, and forgiving vigil, you understand. At some point, man looking for answers becomes a mouse swimming in a jar of water. The relief comes from submitting to not knowing and giving up the pathetic effort of trying to swim. Submitting to the Bible and Christ’s open arms. Something infinitely greater than yourself. Religion provides man with his end.
But I ain’t no bitch. I will not create a fake reality for peace. So I went on looking for answers.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - John 8:32
You should △. You should become more. You should be better. You should become all that you can be. Nietzsche doesn’t necessarily believe that this should be through making money. You can be the best skateboarder. You can be the best writer. You should have ambitions and work in a particular direction. You should work on what you are interested in. This is a personal thing only unique to YOU. But even then, I questioned why people are interested in anything? What should I should be interested in? I understand that some people are interested in things for the sake of things, but I am not that way. Once again, I went looking for answers.
I wrestled with this question for a long time. I’ve always felt odd that things didn’t interest me in the same way that they did other people. What is interesting about these things to these people. I have a feeling that it is not some arbitrary feeling, but a subliminal phenomenon that signals something. Often, we are interested in things that provide value to us. When Bill Gates was enthralled with the computer, he was at least partly interested because he saw its potential to change the world. Mimetic theory would say that people are interested in things that other people want. Charlie Munger says the world is not run on greed but on envy.
I explore interests more in the next essay.
The theme of this essay reveals how we should think about man’s search for meaning and how Nietzsche prescribes we △.
At this time in my life, Silicon Valley Bank failed while I was employed there, which was fun. I was beginning to come to terms with these questions and getting comfortable with an answer of my own.
I think we are interested in things as a result of their ability to provide us value, truth, or some sort of characterological development. In some ways, life is just overcoming obstacles in the name of personal growth/expansion of the self.
I saw a presentation with Ilya Sutskever, where he makes an interesting point that humans’ loss function, essentially optimizing all variables in our lives for a certain outcome, is optimized for survival genetically. I think societal norms probably recalibrate this loss function towards other things like making money in capitalism, but it is still an interesting point. I think this is an important tangent for where our interests are derived.
I believe that life is not supposed to be hedonism, nor is it supposed to be ascetic sacrifice. It is to be treated like a compounding investment, where you sacrifice a lot early and reap the rewards later.
What interests me? What is the root of interest? I’ve whittled away at this question for months and have been figuring out several things that make sense to me.
After wrestling with this question, I genuinely believe our interests are fungible and we are interested in them because they ultimately provide us with value that enables us to △.
If I were an early human, maybe fire would interest me. If I were in Florence in the 1500s, maybe I would be drawn to astronomy and the arts. If you were interested in something that forced you to be a peasant or women wouldn’t talk to you in the time, it would probably force your hand into a different interest, unless you were such a strong believer in that ideal
The theme of this essay reveals the natural basis of our interests and how they enable △
I was still in NYC at this time, probably floating around in an AirBnB in Harlem. Plotting what I wanted to do with my life and coming to the realization that leverage was getting whittled away in venture capital but was still existent in software company formation, especially with the big wave of AI oncoming. These interests primed me to make a quick jump to my current position at Shaper Capital, which I believe is well-positioned to capitalize on both.
I questioned capitalism and how it forces us to live by its incentives in order to grow. How capitalism has consumed the world, and obscured the meaning of work. In our society, often the way to grow is only via the accumulation of capital, which has led to economic growth and prosperity at the detriment of personal satisfaction.
My take at the end of the day is that people can reject this system, and it is well within their will to do so. In fact, Nietzsche would encourage one to reject systems that incentivize conformity.
But I want to △. If capitalism is the best (or only) game in town, I’ll play.
It is clear that some people create scaled value. If you could choose between providing and capturing 1,000x that of a waitress, why would you not? Since there are people that learn to do this, it can be learned. Since it can be learned, I want to learn how to do it.
The theme of this essay reveals some areas of inefficiency in the current markets and where my interests were pulling me for the prospect of △
Abstraction vs. First Principles
I actually remember where I was when I wrote this. I think I was winding down my analyst stint with Leerink Partners and was sleeping on the floor of Kyle Vitale’s apartment. Then I went to a nearby coffee shop and wrote this just for something to do. This was after I had accepted my position with Shaper Capital. This essay wasn’t particularly relevant to anything at the time.
It’s always better to work from first principles, but it just isn’t realistic. There is a fine line humans need to straddle for optimum results.
These questions actually get infinitely complex when you break them down into cells and atoms. What is the essence of why we actually want to get rich? Why do we work? What does it mean to be a good person and whose ethical framework do we want to abide by? Is being a good person dependent on what we do in the moment or do the ends justify the means? Once again, if we were actually original in every way of life, it would be paralyzing to try to analyze everything, so we rely upon heuristics.
So, when you say you want to get rich, what does that mean? Does having money allow you a lifestyle that you can live, or people you can associate with? Does it buy you your time? If you view money to buy you time, what would you do with that time? Why not just do that right now?
There is a healthy balance. It’s okay to use proxies but take them with a grain of salt. I think the best way to approach these questions is to wrestle with two or more sides of the spectrum to try to arrive at the local maximum.
The theme of this essay continues the discussion on the importance of nuance.
Create a plan for your future. If you want to accumulate capital, you will need to add value. Do not just participate in the market, work within the constraints of time and resources to actively shape it. The first $1,000,000 is the most difficult.
This was actually a much more profound essay than this description lets off.
The theme of this essay reveals a mathematical modeling approach to the variable T and the importance of time accelerating the compounding of △.
New Essay: The Hollow Pyramid
The previous essays define The Logos and △. What follows is an extremely important point on the second meaning behind “△.” Once you have defined your goal and plan, you need to execute. You need to have focus.
Somewhere around 14 years old, I came to a realization that I hadn’t been able to articulate over the last decade but that I think well encapsulates my philosophy that human focus is the most valuable commodity on planet earth
△
I was in AP Psychology class and we were learning about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At this time of my life, I had learned to work very hard.
The professor I had was a substitute, but she was brilliant. She expounded how human needs are met at each rung of the hierarchy (Food, Shelter, Sex, Community, etc.) and how each enables the next on the path towards self-actualization. I reject this. These rungs only lead to dopamine above baseline, which is unsustainable and fleeting. I believe self-actualization comes from △, which requires denying comfort at each rung, staying hungry, and instead focusing on greatness and solving the problems at hand.
This is not to say we should suffer for the sake of suffering, we shouldn’t, but we should prioritize △ before suffering and use discomfort as a weapon to maximize △.
Suffering and Comfort
I get shit from people when I tell them that I have never felt stressed in my life, and I have certainly never felt any form of depression. I have suffered, though, and I have been focused. Suffering is the most pure lever I have ever found that amplifies focus and performance. If I had an enemy, I would similarly leverage happiness to keep them comfortable and stagnant.
Humans love comfort. Comfort is distracting. Comfort and happiness are some of the most damaging emotions you can experience. You will never find the resistance that you need to sharpen you in times of comfort.
I am not a materialist, material distracts from focus. I don’t care much for money, unless I can spend it increasing time and focus. Human focus is earth’s most valuable commodity.
For whatever reason, I became comfortable with suffering early in life to the point where I actually do not recognize it, nor do I acknowledge happiness. It has always been the case in my life that the more difficult things have been, the more that I △. My philosophy has unknowingly always been to reject oneself for the sake of △. Try really pushing yourself to the limits. Your dopamine levels will adjust to that baseline and you will be able to run through any brick wall that presents.
This is also one of the most helpful ways to increase the need for growth. It pushes you to compete inwards, no matter how comfortable you may feel. Stay humble, stay hungry.
The reason I couldn’t figure this out before was because it’s not like denying yourself is some magic pill for growth. Nietzsche would agree there is no sanctity in asceticism. There is, however, the ability to focus and propensity to △. Don’t suffer just to suffer. Suffer as a lever to improve performance and focus, especially for delayed gratification.
Focus
Throughout history, many people are often defined by even just one experience, one philosophy, one trait, one accomplishment. Focus is more important than diversification if you want to accomplish amazing things. What makes me unique? What do I believe that no one else does? What do I know that no one else does? What am I the best in the world at? You will find incredible leverage in that one thing.
I believe in focus so much that I have devised a routine and written a ritual to remind myself every morning the derivation of my purpose and what that means for what I should be doing at this very moment. Humans lack focus. Especially in such a mentally stimulating time where we are distracted at every moment of every day, with shorter and shorter attention spans, I deeply believe in long-term focus at one goal.
That one thing often becomes the magnum opus that a person becomes remembered for. That one thing is what I will tailor my future company's cultures towards. That one thing is what I will look for in candidates. That one thing is the rule that I will live my life by.
I don’t know if you can tell yet, but I believe human focus is Earth’s most valuable commodity.
For all that has gone wrong and all that has gone right: if you had not stepped foot in that cemetery: if you had not gone to California: if you had not had Quant & Nephra: if you had not discovered engineering: if you had not spent time in isolation: if you had not questioned religion: if you had not worked a dead-end job in investment banking: if you had not invested in the best performing asset of the year: if you had not forged a connection that turned out to be the relationship needed for your dream job: if you had not earned a degree in a field that was a waste of time: if you had not been trapped in a shoebox apartment during NYC’s winter: if you had not came across Our Lady of Pompeii Church and stepped in its doors: if you had not gotten rid of your belongings and floated to an AirBnB in Harlem: if you had not quit your job and slept on the floor of Kyle Vitale’s apartment: you would not be here sipping wine and eating Takis.
“All that is very well, “but let us cultivate our garden”
No. Let us △.
Practical Principles For Company Formation - (these can be refined over time)
△ - The meaning of life is to △. Everyone on board should be aligned. That is the goal of the company. That is the goal of the employees. We want people who △ fast.
Focus - Human focus is the most valuable commodity on planet earth, and it is limited, humans only have so much RAM. Focus so hard it hurts, the pain will point you in the right direction. Instill a culture of growth and trust. Unleash human focus on infinite games (goals with no upper bound).
Why? And Vision - A core tenant to my philosophy is having a “why.” Know what you do and why you do it and how it fits into the broader vision. Engineers solve problems. Make sure they're problems that matter. Similarly, be very purposeful with the incentives you create. Create win-win-wins. The leaders set the pace. “Having a vision is what tends to separate the leaders from the followers” - Richard Hamming. People look to you. Do not stray. Leaders set an endpoint (use this power wisely). People will look as you do, not just what you say. Be consistent.
Talent - The right people matter. Hire for strengths over lack of weaknesses. Quality over quantity. The bottleneck of society is finding people that can actually build the damn thing. Co-founders matter. Trust matters. Talent Density. Get the right people and inspire them.
Execution, Velocity, Momentum - Execution matters. Speed matters. Momentum matters. Momentum comes from winning and believing deeply. Business is a mindset. Everyone needs to row in the same direction, be a cult. Cut bureaucracy immediately.
Culture - Culture matters. Create a place where the extremely ambitious go. Ambitious and smart people like working with other ambitious and smart people. If you create a place that is good to work, when things hit the fan (they will), people won't leave.
Reserved Optimism - Learning and understanding matters. Indeterminacy (learning) vs determinacy (execution). But often the best learning comes from doing. So defer to doing. If you know what you are doing, have confidence. If you don’t know what you are doing, have faith. Startups shouldn’t look at risk the same way an investor would. Burn the boats, make it happen.
First Principles - Think in first principles; question every assumption and proxy. Most things are a means to an end. Compete inward, escape outward competition. Focus on infinite games.
Logic - Computers are changing the world. The world of bits is not a bad horse to hitch a ride to.
Learn - Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Step-Functions - Life is not linear, it is an exponentially compounding step function whose upper limit is the business equivalent of the laws of physics. If I look back on my life, each △ has been the result of a long preparation and a step-up that took longer than expected but happened quicker than I thought.
Suffering - It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Suffering and happiness are both temporary emotions that you can ignore for long term △.