Maturity and common sense are rare phenomena
Product & Startup Builder
Extraordinary In The Ordinary
You can’t be so fixated on finding the extraordinary that you miss the extraordinary in the ordinary - Aaleah
In-Depth
So proud of my friend Doriane for her relentless pursuit or the truth and saving her vision!
Diverse Teams
I love hearing about things that diverse teams figure out that the homogeneity missed
Regular Reminder
When it comes to government, It’s not a debate between more or less. It’s a debate between current and smarter. Government isn’t the enemy or inherently corrupt. It’s just the OS of society. There are good and bad OSs.
How To Treat People During Good & Tough Times
Lately I've been asked about, 'tested' and confronted in the area of maintaining perspective and how to treat people during good times and tough times.
I have some very specific thoughts and patterns I try to follow in these areas:
1. Sharing
Something that has surprised (and even confused) some people is how I share my stuff.
More than once I've had to explain that I consider all of my stuff (little things or nice big luxury things) to be essentially shared property. Sure I have veto rights and right of first refusal - but if I'm not using it, and if someone close to me can get pleasure/utility from it, then I try to make it abundantly clear that they should treat it like it's theirs.
I don't really understand any other approach?
By treating my stuff (it's just stuff) and the people in my life this way - not only do I get to have nice or useful things - I also get the added benefit of others in my life having those things too. It's like I bought it 2 or 3 times! Bonus!
Some people have read this sharing behavior as somehow showing off. To them, I say, you don't know me well enough or I don't like your perspective on the world. I tend to distance myself from those people.
2. Passive Aggressive or Pretend Ignorance behavior
In my mind there are 3 ways to deal with uncomfortable situations or situations where you're unhappy with what's going on...
a) Decide it doesn't matter
b) Put up and shut up (not ideal)
c) Express your personal truth clearly and with empathy, and work to understand the truth from the other party
I truly find it ineffective and frustrating when people half say what they mean - especially with a smile on their face.
It makes them appear rude, it confuses and/or embarrasses the other person, and it rarely remedies the real issue - or if it does, it takes a few tries to figure out what the heck is going on.
3. Getting angry
From small things to large, I've been told that people are surprised I'm not getting angry.
For me anger is pretty much reserved for basically 3 things
a) Injustice
b) Willful ignorance
c) Stupid rules/bureaucracy that are getting in the way of common sense (see point a)
Otherwise I find expressing anger does absolutely nothing useful.
For me, it's more than this, though. I don't really FEEL angry in the first place. I'm not suppressing it. I'm just keeping everything in perspective.
I find that most of the circumstances that might typically elicit expressions of anger from people also typically involve someone(s) who are...
a) Trying their best/don't know better
b) Not the cause of the issue - just an agent trying to help
c) Innocent (Didn't mean whatever they did to you)
d) Sharing the responsibility with you
It's also very likely that whatever is going on pales in comparison to how badly it could have gone or how bad other people in the world have it. If you're reading this you are likely in a very privileged position in life compared to most of the other people in the world.
Further, getting angry makes the problem much, much worse. If you're expressing emotional outburst of anger, you're only compounding an existing sub-optimal situation with emotional pain for yourself and the people around you. You're making it 2 or 3x worse!
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you deal with perspective and people. Do you get angry? Do you share your stuff like it's shared property? Am I missing something?
People Behind Plates
Movie Recommendation: Extinction (2018)
This movie was seriously surprising. Give it a chance and I guarantee it will surprise you more than once before the end
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Reboot is Happening with a Black Lead
Entrepreneurship is a Mindset
I’m a big believer that entrepreneurship can’t really be taught in an academic setting like a classroom. It’s something that needs to be experienced and it’s a mindset that needs to be lived.
That being said, I do believe there are some core things we can teach our kids in schools and at home to arm them with the right foundational tools and thought processes. Here’s some that came to mind after a discussion with my old high school teacher Jenny.
Finding problems and markets
- How to find waste/inefficiency
- How to become uniquely qualified
- Asking questions/research
- Determining your unfair advantage
Difference between product and tech
- What is Product
- MVPs
- PRDs
- Roadmaps
- Basic project management techniques
How cap tables and VCs work
- Valuations & growing the pie
- Using ESOPs to align incentives (including how vesting schedules work)
- Funding rounds and what they mean
- What VCs look for and common terms/levers in term sheets.
Pitching/narratives
- How to make a pitch deck
- Public speaking
- Taking feedback well
Psychology
- Opportunity cost and overcoming risk aversion
- Learning about and compensating for weaknesses
- Managing Expectations/Managing Up
- Avoiding pain avoidance and investing in the long term
- Learning from others
- Attitude of lifelong learning
Any other ideas?
My take on Trump’s Russia play...
My take on Trump’s Russia play...
1. He’s treating it like a business. You talk to everyone and you don’t let ego and posturing get in the way.
2. If he was truly trying to undermine the US in favor of Russia as a secret Russian agent It would be easier to keep doing everything else he was doing without actually going to meet with Russia. I think its actually possible that this could be brave political action despite appearances
3. If meeting with Russia was done in isolation - it might actually be a positive development. What adds a very odd and destructive spin on everything is that he’s ALSO...
A) Undermining NATO and UN
B ) Undermining the FBI and CIA
C) Under investigation for being a Russian Agent
D) Running a trade war against the world
E) Pretending there’s a moral equivalency between the US and Russia’s actions in the world
F) Wow the Q&A was a horrifying travesty
A strange combination of things that cause a perfect storm to massively undermine the position of the US in favor of Russia and China.
Joined Instagram!
They say that social media is a highlight reel. But right now, in this moment, I’m profoundly grateful to notice that my instagram is a pretty accurate account of what’s going on.
Exotic cars, family amazing friends and love, silly toys, delicious food, drones, parks, views and more.
Those that know me would know that I’ve been somewhat of a homebody for a very long time. I realized the other day that part of the reason I’ve been going outside more in the last year is just a choice I’ve made. Part of it is having more time. But part of it is also that there’s warmer, nicer things to do just outside my door (literally and figuratively). In the last 10 years I’ve lived in relatively cold places with greater distances to walk and a lot more sad poverty and dirt to walk past. Brisbane is such a beautiful livable city.
Having a car you love to drive helps too. It forces you to imagine places to go. Of course, that would have helped anywhere!
Oh! Follow me on Instagram.com/chrissaad
As an Adult Masculine Figure
As an adult masculine figure (let’s not debate labels) in the lives of the people around you, part of your role is to...
a) Modulate your emotional outbursts and volatility in favor of calm, steady contributions to the general well-being (note that this is different from suppressing your feelings)
b) By virtue of the first point, and many other things, to make the people around you (particularly dependents) feel physically and financially safe and secure (and actually help make them safe and secure)
I don’t have a lot of tolerance for people who violate these sacred things with their family and friends.
I’ll be forever grateful for my father Richard’s example in this.
A Year Ago I left on a Sabbatical
A year ago today I left on a sabbatical from my job at Uber. At the time I genuinely didn’t know if I would be returning or if I would be moving on to something else. I also assumed that if it were something else, that it would be based in San Francisco.
During the break I had a real opportunity to think about life, my priorities and some of the trade-offs I’d been making.
Ultimately I decided to leave Uber. After announcing my departure I was fortunate enough to be offered many amazing roles (understatement) both in the bay area and around the world. But in the end I chose to spend some time advising startups with the goal of helping them avoid the mistakes I’d made in my career and fast-forwarding to the right answer as quickly as possible.
Many people have asked me why I chose not to immediately return to the valley (although I have since been back for a month in January).
First I’d like to clarify that I consider Silicon Valley my second home. I’ve spent most of my career there and most of my independent adult life there. When I first arrived about 10 years ago I immediately felt at home. I never really even felt home sick for Australia.
The reason I’ve chosen to spend some time away though, is multifaceted. There are things that have pushed me AWAY, and things that have drawn me TO other places.
Pushed me away (I list these things not in a mean spirited way - as I said above I still love the Bay Area!):
- It’s wearing to deal with the constant sense that you’re living on a knifes edge. While I was living there I didn’t actually realize that’s how I felt until I spent some time traveling on my sabbatical. It’s like background noise you don’t notice until someone turns it off. At any given time I had to worry about my visa, healthcare, earthquakes, violence in the streets, and increasingly the threat of violence from other countries like North Korea.
- It’s also wearing to see the abject poverty on the streets while walking to work past millionaires and billion dollar company headquarters.
- It’s cold. All the time. Even on warm sunny days if you find yourself in a patch of shade, wrong time of day or in the wrong microclimate you’re not going to be happy.
- Because San Francisco and the bay area attract so many people from out of town, it’s common for your dearest friends to ultimately move away. This can really leave you with a sense of loss and sadness.
- As Trump started winning elections and ultimately won the presidency, I felt a palpable change in both the country and the culture around me. It may have been placebo, but I genuinely felt a jarring gap between my own personal values and the values of the country I was living in. Something I obviously didn’t experience under Obama.
Things that drew me TO other places...
- I missed my family and childhood friends dearly. I missed so many weddings, personal milestones, and tiny moments of shared experiences.
- I found, with my advisory work, the profound freedom to work from anywhere in the world - I can’t be more grateful for this.
- In particular I wanted to spend more time and share more experiences with my brother who is like me in many ways, but also has far more raw talent and potential that I wanted to see flourish
- I wanted to see the world before settling down
- I found that there is now a massive and increasing opportunity to make real impact in other tech hotbeds around the world. China, SE Asia, Europe etc
- I wanted to recharge before starting something new
By far the thing I miss the most by being away is the people. Especially my friends.
Being part of that fraternity is pretty much the longest sustained thing I’ve ever done. You only spend five years in high school. 10 years in the community of Silicon Valley meant that I had found some profoundly amazing relationships with some incredible people.
There’s also a crackling and visceral sense in the Bay Area that the next person you meet could be someone who would change your life or a conversation that would spark the next profound idea.
Just being around these people pushes you to be better, think more broadly and challenge yourself to make a bigger impact.
At the same time, though, many of my cohort have left the Valley to raise families and engage in other opportunities - sadly leaving me with some sense of “you can never go home again”.
I have found the time spent out of the bubble has been immeasurably helpful. Not just for my own well-being but also for my career. It has helped me develop new perspectives and insights that I think will be invaluable for whatever full-time operational role I choose to take next.
In the end, I imagine I’ll come back to the epicenter of innovation and technology. But it probably won’t be before I do a lot more traveling and enjoying my new found perspectives and work/life balance.
Thank you Doriane For taking this photo and reminding me of the occasion with your very sweet words. I dearly miss you too my friend. You’re amazing!
“Do you support open national borders or do you support strict national borders”
Saw this image/screenshot in my feed just now.
“Do you support open national borders or do you support strict national borders”
This is how the national debate is being framed in the US right now.
What a lie. On every level.
These are not the actual options being debated.
The real debate is...
“Do you support a rational immigration policy that vets and funnels people with a measure of empathy and dignity OR do you support building an ineffective physical wall (instead of using high-tech and recognizing that most illegal immigrants fly into the country), broadly painting countries as shit-holes and people as rapists and murders and separating them from their children at the border”.
That’s the actual position of the people on both sides. That’s the actual debate going on. One side arguing for reason and the other side arguing for cruelty and ineffective stupidity.
Also, immigration isn’t even a top 5 problem in the US. It’s healthcare, education, political corruption, polarization, automation, spiraling debt and deficit, total lack effective social safety nets, crumbling infrastructure, and so many other things. To say nothing of the problem with the president and his countless investigations.
And yet somehow the media, the pundits and the people debate this straw-man fake argument instead.
Boggles the mind
Trump ends his policy of family separations
The mad king has made his decree.
My mom once told me a parable: Once you’ve hammered nails into a fence, even if you remove them, the holes, the scars, will remain.
UPDATE HT Maria
DO NOT CELEBRATE. KEEP PROTESTING. THIS IS OPTICS ONLY. THIS IS STILL BAD. JUST AS BAD. REALLY FUCKING BAD. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.
Statement from Montanans for Immigrant Justice and Missoula Rises re: Trump’s Pending Executive Order to Stop Separating Families:
Trump has indicated that he will be signing an Executive Order today to stop separating families when they initially cross the border. While this is movement in the right direction, DO NOT BE FOOLED by what this Order does. Here are the facts thus far:
1. Families will not be immediately separated, but they will be held in detention together.
2. Crossing the border “illegally” will no longer be deemed a civil violation, it will be deemed a criminal violation.
3. Because it is a criminal violation the parents will be charged criminally. At that point, their children will be forcibly taken.
4. The Executive Order will provide a provision that families will be expedited through the criminal process. This means that the removal of their children will be expedited.
There is still a need for the Tent Cities. There will still be Tender Age Facilities. This serves as optics for Trump to claim he is not ripping families apart. He is. The GOP are. They are just hiding in in the fine print.
Understand this is a result of the pressure we and others have exerted. WE made this change. But this is not the solution. He anticipates this will temper our moral outrage. Do not let it. This is not close to enough. This is not a victory for those families crossing the border.
The American Dream is very likely over
I was intending to save this kind of post until the Mueller investigation was over and we gauge Trumps reaction, however I think it’s already obvious...
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I’ve been saying for a while now that, despite my work and career being based on my ability to track trends and roughly predict the future, it’s been impossible to predict geo-politics since brexit and the election of Trump.
But now I feel like some things have become clear, and it’s irresponsible not to share:
The American Dream is very likely over and things are likely to get much, much worse. I say that knowing that many people reading this will think I’m massively exaggerating.
For those not paying attention...
Domestic institutions like the free press, congress and the executive are failing. There is no such thing as objective truth and shared understanding. The Congress is unable or unwilling to perform its function of being a check on executive power. The executive is run by a psychopath with strongman tendencies and his cronies.
Global institutions like the G7 and UN are not far behind. The Trump administration has thrown them under the bus. They were nothing without US power anyway.
And now Trump is using ICE as a loyal law enforcement agency (saw that coming as soon as he gave it extra funding early in his presidency).
The Republican Party now has a cult like allegiance to Trump and the Democrats have no power and no cohesive message or leader.
The population is afraid, uneducated, misinformed and deeply, deeply polarized.
The only thing standing in the way of the news report attached to this post turning into full on Handmaid's Tale is the courts.
I believe there is now an uncomfortably high probability that there will be a full blown constitutional crisis, a hard shift into fascism and/or some kind of inciting incident that turns the culture war into an actual civil war.
Given the flywheel effects that have been building steam for decades, it’s not clear to me right now how the US can be restored within the next few decades. The rest of the world has already started reconfiguring itself to circumvent American leadership and the old post-WW2 geopolitical status quo.
This is a real tragedy for the people who live in the US and for the world.
I sincerely recommend those that can leave to start looking for the exits.
Some People Are Like . . .
Some people are like porcelain. Set in their ways and their dogma. Unchangeable and crack under pressure.
Some people are like soaking wet mud. Changeable under the slightest pressure. Unable to hold themselves up.
Some people are like perfectly moist clay. A beautiful sculpture ready for continuous refinement by life’s many lessons.
Inspired by a conversation with Aaleah
Porcelain
Some people are like porcelain. Set in their ways and their dogma. Unchangeable and crack under pressure.
Some people are like soaking wet mud. Changeable under the slightest pressure. Unable to hold themselves up.
Some people are like perfectly moist clay. A beautiful sculpture ready for continuous refinement by life’s many lessons.
Inspired by a conversation with Aaleah
When you're feeling unmotived
What do you do when you’re feeling down or unmotivated? I do basically the same thing I do when I’m feeling awesome.
I remind myself that “this too shall pass” and act accordingly.
When I’m feeling down I lean into it, bathe in the experience, let it wash over me, rest and wait for it to pass.
When I’m having a particularly amazing time, I lean into it, bathe in the experience, let it wash over me and relish the sensation - trying to appreciate every aspect before it’s gone.
Crucially - I try not to berate myself about feeling down or congratulate myself too much for the good times either.
What are some of your tactics?