Hadar's Newsletter #5 - 10/04/2020
Hello! Last time I sent an update here was a month and a half ago. Been averaging once every two months or so lately. Less frequently than my initial goal, but maybe every week is too frequent of an expectation as well. We'll see where this goes 🙂
Life
My partner and I have now been living in Hawaii for two months. We've been trying to go to the beach at least once every other day and recently rented a car so are able to explore new parts of the island. Beyond all the nature over here, we've really enjoyed whatever local culture we've able to engage with given the circumstances of the year, especially many farmers markets and volunteering on a farm this past week.
I feel incredibly lucky to be able to be here, especially throughout the West Coast's fires and smoke, and hope everyone out there is staying safe.
Career
I'm now three months into my role at Facebook and have been enjoying it a lot! The leadership team here is incredibly thoughtful and principled, the culture is empowering, and the people have been fun to work with. Since my team is entirely focused on protecting the integrity of the US 2020 election right now, I've been keeping really busy with the role, but this might be the most okay with that that I've been in any role given how fulfilled I feel by the outcomes of the work.
I also recently started Angel Track, a program run by First Round Capital for new angel investors to build community and learn the basic principles of investing. We just had our first session and I can already tell this is a great group that I'l learn a lot from!
Thinking about
Naturally with how much of my day job is spent supporting it, but even if that weren't the case, the US 2020 election has been on my mind a lot. This election for many reasons feels like it'll be the most important one of my lifetime, in particular given how 2020 has been one of the most eventful and consequential years of my lifetime. Who knows if I'll still feel that way in 20 or 50 years looking back on this year, but for now it does. I haven't been making time to volunteer by phone banking or anything similar, and I feel bad about that, but I hope that the outcomes of my full-time work on election integrity will make a positive impact.
Relatedly, I've been thinking a lot about how social media and technology broadly has impacted not only our elections but society as a whole. Something I've written about a bit already, have lots more to write about, and obviously a big topic with too many sub-conversations within it to count. I'm especially interested right now in the current debate about whether social media is net-positive to society or not. I'm personally convinced this debate doesn't matter. If you believe that having a free internet that anyone can contribute to is net-positive to society (probably less debatable for most people given its impact on education, economic opportunity, and increased innovation in separate fields like healthcare), then you have to concede to the inevitability of people building social networks like Facebook and Twitter on that free internet. The question then becomes how to minimize the negative externalities of those more harmful parts of the internet. We can instill better mores across our society that normalize turning off push notifications and connecting through more-personal methods like calling (and newsletters!). We can pass targeted regulation to prevent specific harms, like limiting how personalized the internet can be in effort to prevent the fracturing of our shared reality. I think this sort of nuance is missing in major parts of our public discourse (eg: The Social Dilemma), but I'm sure we'll get there soon once we all agree it's a problem worth putting more effort into solving.
Writing
Starting First Round's Angel Track program inspired me to write an early draft of how I think about startup opportunities. It's primarily geared towards how I'll be thinking about angel investing, but I wrote it generically enough to apply towards how I'd think about starting a company as a founder. I think some of the nuance for either path got lost in addressing both at the same time, but there'll be future versions. I've already gotten a bunch of really helpful feedback on it (thanks David, Ryan, Ryan, Drew, Ivan, Angela, Matt, and Leon!), and expect to refine this a LOT as I think more deeply about the space.
I wrote up some thoughts on mentorship - what to look for in a mentor/mentee, how to think about finding one, and how to make the most of your mentorship relationships. hadardor.com/mentorship
In one of my last posts, on how to hit the ground running at a new company or team, I left out the helpful tactic of making a "user manual" that introduces yourself and your values to your new team. I wanted to share my user manual that I made for Facebook, and to share the template I used to make it in case you want to make a similar one. Props to my friend Preet who inspired this!
Reading
(I'm tracking all the books I'm reading at hadardor.com/books)
Some of my favorite shortform from the past few weeks:
Death of the Calorie - why minimizing fat consumption was mistakenly everyone's dietary fad for much of America's history, and some tips on how to be more thoughtful about nutrition
The Gentle Seduction - Beautiful story dealing with when techno-aversion meets techno-optimism. Thanks Ryan for sharing!
What does QAnon stand for? - While QAnon is clearly a hate group based entirely on false information and doesn't deserve the attention it's getting, it is worth taking a minute to think about why the people who believe in the conspiracy do, and what that means for working towards unifying our country.
Could the pandemic bring artists back to SF? (bypass paywall here)
I also recently finished Why We're Polarized! Some thoughts on it:
First section had a great historical account of how America's political party system started pre-civil war and how it developed over time into where it's at today
Had some astute implications about the incentives at play in our political landscape that cause things like a demographically diverse and hard to align Democratic party and constant gov't shutdowns/filibusters as an attempt to flip majority
I did think it was a tad simplistic in some parts, though. For example, it basically boiled down the entire problem of polarization to race tensions and biological determinism in how people organize within societies.
Reading How Asia Works next. Trying to mostly read history books nowadays. Got a bunch of recommendations from friends before picking; here's what else I considered (and will read next):
The Making of Modern Japan
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Peter Zeihan's trilogy
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
The Private Life of Chairman Mao
Color of Law
When Genius Failed
How Innovation Works
A History of the Modern World
The Terror of History
Music
I've been sleeping on Air until now. Love their sound so much! The Virgin Suicides and Moon Safari are my two favorite albums of theirs so far
Really excited for Nick Murphy to return to his original stage name and related sound as Chet Faker. Low is a great single and I hope a full album is near!
deca joins is an awesome new Chinese indie rock band I discovered
Moodymann's eponymous album has been playing on repeat especially while getting work done
Men I Trust released a live sessions album that sounds amazing; great follow-up to Oncle Jazz from last year to keep them top of mind
Podcasts
Started a running list of my favorite podcasts: hadardor.com/podcasts. Similar to my list of favorite writers: hadardor.com/people.
Been recently listening to the most to Philosophize This and Intelligence Squared, two long-time favorites of mine, and finally got around to starting Hardcore History, which I've always been too intimidated to start due to how long each episode is.
Films
If you don't already have Letterboxd, it's a great way to keep track of films you've watched and share socially with your friends to see what their favorites are. Follow me! hadardor.com/letterboxd
We got a month of Disney+ and binged our way through some old favorites like WALL-E. I saw Coco for the first time and it's now my favorite Pixar film - long time since I've been brought to tears by a movie! We also watched a ton of Pixar shorts I hadn't seen before. Some favorites include Sanjay's Super Team, Presto, and La Luna.
Couple other first-time watches that I've really enjoyed this past month:
12 Angry Men - One of my favorite films now. Such well-written dialogue and inquiry into the American criminal prosecution system
There Will Be Blood - Haven't enjoyed Paul Thomas Anderson's other films so far, but this one was amazing. Loved the acting, cinematography, use of sound, and symbolism for the early 1900s transition away from traditional religion and towards capitalism as society's guiding ideology
The Godfather Trilogy - A classic that I should be embarrassed to have taken this long to see
I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Charlie Kaufman is one of the most provocative writers out there. Love hate relationship with this film. On one hand I found it too dragged out; on the other hand I ended up thinking about the film's themes for much longer than I would have expected
Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Wasn't a huge fan of the storyline itself and felt dragged out, but some of the best acting (especially facial expressions) I've seen in a long time