Let’s get started
As I write this, I am sitting on the deck of an A-frame cabin perched somewhere in Sonora, CA. It’s sunny outside, the wind is rustling, and a family of deers is grazing 10 feet away from me. I hadn’t heard about Sonora until a week ago, let alone know that this cabin exists. The initial plan was to head to Yosemite, a place I am familiar with, and book a place to stay near the park. I found this A-frame on Airbnb through their newly launched feature ‘I’m flexible’. Ordinarily, I see no path to how I could have found this fantastic place - the place that’s inspiring me to sit down today and write all this. I’m delighted that this feature and product exist.
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Ok, Airbnb isn’t sponsoring this post. So how is this connected with me starting my website? I turned 30 this year. A year ago, I joined a big tech company as a Data Engineer, helping build AR products. I live in San Francisco, CA. I am surrounded by tech, innovation, ideas, and, most importantly, fun and intelligent people. A lot of these ideas and innovations directly connect with my daily life. I read a lot of what these people have to say. But, I want to add something of my own to this mix. I can’t live in this time and place and not create.
What is this space going to be about?
Writing is thinking
I want a place to park my fully formed ideas and my thought breadcrumbs. Andrew Bosworth writes that ‘writing is thinking’ . Thinking is what I have been doing all my life. I just haven’t been writing enough. In my head, I churn through ideas after ideas, formulating my opinion on them, but never really pausing and writing deeply. I use Roam research to log my daily journals. These journals are where I brain dump my thoughts at the start of my day before I get ready for work. I write a little more consciously when I’m fortunate enough to have the luxury of time, like at a coffee shop or some cabin in the woods. But it is still not enough. It isn’t something I would show the world. It isn’t proofread. I don’t have anyone reading the drafts and giving me feedback. This action, right here, is me taking writing seriously and a step further.
On Data
I know a thing or two about the field of data. In my career, I have worked as an Analyst, a Data Scientist, and recently as a Data Engineer. I see data and the impact it can and can’t have in unique ways. As I broaden my understanding and extend from Data, I want to share everything I have learned about this fascinating space.
Product
Product has been top of mind for me lately. Everything about it. How do you build products that people use and scale themselves? What’s product strategy, and how do you rally a team to execute it? These are problems that excite me now, and I want to get better at them. So I want to share my learnings as I go on this journey!
Building in public
I’ve started and dropped many projects historically and want to create a forcing function to break this habit of mine. For example, I kickstarted a podcast with a friend, and we just recorded the first episode this weekend. I want this website to be where I can document the journey of building products and content and hold myself somewhat accountable. I’ll be more committed if I create in public.
Fin
These are the themes I have for now. It is the first time I publicly put out more than 100 words. The last time I did something similar was when I published a terribly-tiny-tale inspired short story on Medium. Maybe, let’s not count that?