You are graded on speed

When taking an exam, it's not enough just to get the right answer. You have to get there within the time allotted. You are graded on speed. Every second of every day is a resource that you can't get back - and in the meantime the world is changing around you, making your previous progress … Continue reading You are graded on speed →

Dating a founder

If you had told me in high school that I would ever dare try to give dating advice to anybody, I not only would have laughed you out of the room, but would have grown terrified at the prospect I might, in the future, become so very out of touch with my limitations as to … Continue reading Dating a founder →

The limits of the ‘rational’ founder

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strong preference for explicit, formal logic over vague intuition or tradition. The mantra is fairly simple. If you can't explain something clearly and logically, you don't truly understand it. It you don't understand it, you can't make accurate predictions about the real world using it. And … Continue reading The limits of the ‘rational’ founder →

How to write company policies

Imagine a world where companies had no employees, but instead utilized only ideal programmable robots. If you wanted these robots to, say, interact with each other in an optimal way, you would write formal policies - also known as code. That code would have to outline every single possible situation the robots might find themselves … Continue reading How to write company policies →

Tasks, Arts, and Values

Bridgewater had a mantra of "skills, abilities, and values" which they used to break down concepts around personal growth. The idea is that skills are easy to acquire and tend to be more constrained - something like "write queries in SQL" or "manage emails through Hubspot." Abilities relate more to your patterns of thought, and … Continue reading Tasks, Arts, and Values →

Predictions for 2021 (and 2020 grades)

Last year, I registered a bunch of predictions about the gaming industry to try to test my knowledge of the space. It's been one heck of a year, and certainly COVID-19 impacted both gaming and the wider world in a lot of profound ways. But at the same time, things continued moving in largely the … Continue reading Predictions for 2021 (and 2020 grades) →

Building a culture of respect

It's at this point common wisdom, at least within the tech startup community, that diversity is not only good but necessary to be successful. As a founder myself, I can say this is true on a number of levels. The most obvious is that it is crucial to have a wide range of perspectives - … Continue reading Building a culture of respect →

Believability Cascades

Epistemic status of this post: I am not an expert in the relevant fields, and this is not a principled suggestion after careful review of all possible research. Rather, this is me attempting to articulate an idea that seems good to the best of my understanding, in the hopes that by doing so I'll make … Continue reading Believability Cascades →

Developing Good Intentions

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. This is due to a combination of reasons - I've been particularly busy, both personally and professionally; I've had multiple ideas competing for real estate to discuss next, but needed to think them through to avoid diluting them; and perhaps most significantly, I've struggled with … Continue reading Developing Good Intentions →

A Businessperson’s Guide To Information

I've written quite a bit recently on communication, and in particular on how to help someone understand the idea you're trying to convey. This is an incredibly valuable skill to develop, but we should note that it's not the only skill tied to "communication" - for instance, being able to communicate concisely is it's own … Continue reading A Businessperson’s Guide To Information →