Hadar's Newsletter #2 - 07/01/2020
(If you're not sure why this is in your inbox, my first newsletter update explaining what this is and why I'm doing it can be found here. I'll be sending these at most once a week. No worries if you'd rather unsubscribe, or you could subscribe by RSS instead)
Hello! Thanks everyone who replied to my most recent (and first!) newsletter. I already feel like writing regularly here and the ensuing conversations will be more fulfilling than my interactions on modern social media have ever been. I wish all my friends and colleagues sent thoughtful updates about what they're doing and thinking about on a regular cadence 🙂
Life
After spending the past 3 months living in Buenos Aires, My partner and I made it back to the Bay Area. We're living for a couple months in my childhood home with my parents and siblings, which has been such a refreshing experience. We haven't had a full house in quite a long time so it's been great to catch up and be a full family unit again. I'm also grateful to be able to stray far from my home (socially distanced), drive around, walk through nature, etc. again for the first time in months.
We plan to be here until August or so, and will then be heading off to Hawaii for the rest of the year! With COVID, going anywhere internationally feels too risky still with little reward in terms of enjoying where we're at, so Hawaii felt like a comfortable and safe option with plenty of access to nature and good food.
Career
The past several months on career hiatus have been spent as a mix between unwinding; setting up systems to be more productive with personal projects including reading and writing; and supporting other builders through advising founders, coaching aspiring PMs, and helping start up the COVID related initiative testandtrace.com.
But this hiatus is coming to a close! I've accepted a new job and will be starting on Monday. Don't want to say too much about it yet until I've written up more about my rationale for the decision, so I'll leave that here for now 😬
I've also been thinking about hiring a virtual assistant to help me make more progress on various side projects that I want to spend time on. It's been interesting seeing my views on assistants shift over time. I used to value spending my own time supporting myself even when it came to tasks like calendar management, market research, working through financial stuff, and so on. I even found it meditative and healthy. Now I'm starting to think I could get the same benefits through spending that time I'd gain back on starting new projects, reading more, etc.
My Essays
Career: I've written a bunch about how I think about my career. Here's a longform version of my goals, an exercise in writing up job descriptions for my future self, and a shortform summary of my current thinking around what causes I want to dedicate the rest of my career to.
Crisis Mitigation: I wrote an essay on my learnings from founding the product/engineering team at Lyft focused on regulatory policy and mitigating crises related to regulation and safety. Check it out here.
Race: I've been doing a lot of thinking about race and my role in America as a white man. I wrote here about my experience with and feelings about race. This is something that's been a real challenge to write about and I'm really grateful for my friends who were willing to read early drafts and share their own reactions and personal experiences.
What I'm reading
Books
Finished Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet, a good primer on the history of the internet's impact on civic discourse and free speech. Covers problems with the current state of things and some potential paths forward
Finished White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist. Lots to think about with respect to how I can be a better ally and a better ancestor to future generations in America
Currently reading Why We're Polarized - history on how American politics shifted towards hyper-partisanship and (not there yet but presuming) how the internet has largely driven that change
Articles
Stratechery's Dust in the Light is a great timely intro to the framework I align with most strongly around internet content moderation. Couple other related posts include Tech and Liberty and The Internet and the Third Estate
Alex Danco's Never Herz to Ask is a fun take on why Hertz's stock went up after declaring bankruptcy and some predictions about how retail investors' fundamental beliefs about the economy are changing
Revisted Pitchfork's How to Be a Responsible Music Fan in the Age of Streaming
Music
Oldie but just discovered King Crimson's first album In The Court of the Crimson King and IT IS AWESOME
Khruangbin's new album Mordechai has a great name and even better focus / early morning music
Podcasts
Sam Harris's Can We Pull Back From The Brink? was so incredibly well articulated and really challenged how I've been thinking about the way through which today's social issues permeate. It's worth listening to the full 2 hours, even if the early sections grow uncomfortable
Rob Wiblin interviewing Tyler Cowen about *Stubborn Attachments* was a great summary of a book that challenged my views on how to best achieve societal progress
Thanks for reading! Would love any feedback on how to make this more engaging and informative.