Category: Everything else

For a while between 2017-2019, I wrote long ~monthly posts on technology as part of a project I called “Notes by Ada.” Inspired by Ada Lovelace, this project prodded me to expand how I thought about technology and the biggest problems we needed to solve.

If it wasn’t for writing for two years, I don’t think I’d have formed the perspective I hold on the importance of solving for climate and employment in a world where the connection between labor and capital is breaking as well as a whole host of other topics. Writing, as always, was both powerful and clarifying.

Over time, however, this project became hard to keep up. Each long form article needed a lot of research and this research was time away from the family on weekends. And, after kid #2 came along, this approach became untenable.

Just as I was beginning to think about winding this project down, my MailChimp subscriber updates email began showing unexpected activity. Suddenly, 30-40 folks were signing up every day for a few weeks. I tried emailing a couple of these folks to ask where they heard about this project. I had shared on Medium and LinkedIn but this felt too good to be true. No response.

So, I finally ended up writing a post on the climate crisis to see whether I’d hear from a few folks. I ended up getting a collection of “I never subscribed. Please unsubscribe” responses.

That hurt.

All my notes are opt-in only for good reason. I have no intention of forcing my notes on anyone. There are no big pop ups on any project asking you to sign up. If you do, you hopefully do so because you believe there’s value. And, if you don’t, that’s also understandable. We only have so much time and attention in a day.

Anyway, it turned out that there was some Russian bad actor who just dumped a bunch of these emails into a Mailchimp form that didn’t have double opt in by default.

It turned out to be the final nail in the coffin for that project. But, it also helped me (re)learn two important lessons.

If you have a project involving a subscriber list, use double opt in. (And, if you don’t, beware of the risks.)

And, second, if it feels too good to be true, it probably is.

There’s a fascinating story in Bob Iger’s excellent memoir about the weekend in before Disney was set to announce it was acquiring Twitter to the world.

They had worked for months to get the deal in place and it all looked ready to go.

Until Bob Iger decided against it.

He shared reasons for his reservations with the board (which included a disappointed Jack Dorsey) – primarily his worries about nastiness/abuse on the platform. But, he also admitted that the decision was less about logical reasons and a lot about his gut. It just didn’t feel right.

I loved Iger’s memoir for its candor. This anecdote was a great example of that. He repeatedly touches on the importance of decisions feeling right. And, in this case, when his gut – one that had decades of training in decision making – said no, he couldn’t go through with it.

It is a lesson I’ve been reminded of time and again in (much smaller and lower stakes :-)) decisions in my life. Our gut knows more than we can parse. And, it is in our interest to pay careful attention to what it is telling us.

I was in conversation with a friend who lost a loved one recently.

As we exchanged notes, and feelings with each other, there came a moment when we acknowledged to each other that nothing I said or did could help make the situation better.

She was in the cave with the fiercest of demons and no amount of wishing they go away would make that happen.

The only way out was acceptance.

Every once in a while, we’re faced with situations when words and actions only go so far. These situations often tend to involve mortality and loss.

Acknowledging our powerlessness to get to grips with the situation sounds counter intuitive.

But, it is often the best way to move forward and make progress.

We recently took up a temporary HBO subscription to make sure we watched Chernobyl. I’d read that the show became the highest rated TV show of all time on IMDB and was intrigued.

The five episodes HBO put together to depict the story of the Chernobyl nuclear strategy were – in one word – fascinating.

It tells the story of an unfortunate accident caused by misinformed and reckless ambition whose effects ended up being far worse thanks to a massive attempt at covering up the reality. It speaks to the challenges scientists face when they tell uncomfortable truths. And, most of all, it pushes us to think about the world we inhabit and the interactions at play between the earth, human wants, science, politics, and beliefs.

Valery Legasov had a powerful reflection at the end –

“To be a scientist is to be naive. We are so focused on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants. It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: “What is the cost of lies?”

It poignantly reminded me about the discussion after the scientific consensus around climate change was shared.

We haven’t yet accepted the gift of Chernobyl.

An underused job seeking practice – when someone you don’t know well helps/refers/puts in a word for you, stay in close touch with them regardless of the outcome.

This isn’t a note about this being the “decent thing” to do. I’ve heard that argument and think it is unfair – job seeking is hard/long/exhausting. It is easy to forget and, besides, the feelings associated with rejection in particular aren’t pleasant and can cause hesitation.

However, it is worth moving past the hesitation because things often come back full circle before you know it. The same people often end up working with us or moving to places we want to move to.

And, when that happens, it helps to be the rare person who followed up, closed the loop, and maybe even stayed in touch.

The best part about this practice is that it converts job searching into a great opportunity to connect with helpful people and to even build that occasional long term relationship when the chemistry is right.

(On a personal note, this practice is how I ended up finding my way to LinkedIn after being rejected the first time a year prior. It can work well. :))

I work at LinkedIn. Our vision is to provide economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. One of our initiatives is called the #plusonepledge where every member of the LinkedIn team helps someone in their network with finding economic opportunity – finding a new job, a new contract, a new client, and so on.

As part of this initiative, I am able to gift 6 months of free LinkedIn Premium Careers subscription to 4 folks who are actively seeking a new opportunity. For example, LinkedIn Premium could be helpful if you’d like the ability to get in touch (selectively :)) with recruiters and hiring managers of jobs you believe you are a fit for.

After posting this last year, I received ~30 requests and ended up requesting (and receiving) help from a bunch of wonderful colleagues. I intend to do the same this year and will do my best to share these subscriptions with as many of you as possible – on a first come, first serve basis.

My only request is that you fill this form by Fri, 2/28. I’ll aim to get back to you by mid-March.

Job seeking is a tough process and, if you choose to use one of these subscriptions, I hope it’ll help you in some small way. If it doesn’t, I’d appreciate feedback on what we could have done better too.

“What if being lost is part of the path? What if we are supposed to tack across the surface of the lake, sailing into the wind instead of wishing it was only at our backs? What if feeling lost, directionless, and uncertain of the progress is an indicator of growth? What if it means you’re exactly where you need to be, on the pathless path?” | Jerry Colonna in Reboot

Being lost is part of the path. The challenge and uncertainty are its markers.

And, the obstacle is the way.

Someone shared this TED talk on depression and anxiety by Johann Hari a few weeks ago.

I finally got to reading the transcript yesterday (I prefer reading transcripts to watching TED videos for some reason) and I thought his content was the kind that was both common sense and insightful.

There’s a lovely anecdote about a cow that explains his thesis.

---

There was a farmer in their community who worked in the rice fields. And one day, he stood on a land mine left over from the war with the United States, and he got his leg blown off. So they him an artificial leg, and after a while, he went back to work in the rice fields.

But apparently, it’s super painful to work under water when you’ve got an artificial limb, and I’m guessing it was pretty traumatic to go back and work in the field where he got blown up. The guy started to cry all day, he refused to get out of bed, he developed all the symptoms of classic depression. The Cambodian doctor said, “This is when we gave him an antidepressant.”

And Dr. Summerfield said, “What was it?” They explained that they went and sat with him. They listened to him. They realized that his pain made sense — it was hard for him to see it in the throes of his depression, but actually, it had perfectly understandable causes in his life. One of the doctors, talking to the people in the community, figured, “You know, if we bought this guy a cow, he could become a dairy farmer, he wouldn’t be in this position that was screwing him up so much, he wouldn’t have to go and work in the rice fields.”

So they bought him a cow.

Within a couple of weeks, his crying stopped, within a month, his depression was gone. They said to doctor Summerfield, “So you see, doctor, that cow, that was an antidepressant, that’s what you mean, right?”

If you’d been raised to think about depression the way I was, and most of the people here were, that sounds like a bad joke, right? “I went to my doctor for an antidepressant, she gave me a cow.” But what those Cambodian doctors knew intuitively, based on this individual, unscientific anecdote, is what the leading medical body in the world, the World Health Organization, has been trying to tell us for years, based on the best scientific evidence.

If you’re depressed, if you’re anxious, you’re not weak, you’re not crazy, you’re not, in the main, a machine with broken parts. You’re a human being with unmet needs. And it’s just as important to think here about what those Cambodian doctors and the World Health Organization are not saying. They did not say to this farmer, “Hey, buddy, you need to pull yourself together. It’s your job to figure out and fix this problem on your own.” On the contrary, what they said is, “We’re here as a group to pull together with you, so together, we can figure out and fix this problem.” This is what every depressed person needs, and it’s what every depressed person deserves.

---

He then goes on to discuss two key causes of depression and the solutions that emerge from them. They were loneliness and consumerism.

The solutions that emerge are investing time to find a group that exists for a purpose that is bigger than ourselves and figure out how we can find ways to focus more on things that enable us to move toward love, meaning, and connection.

Most importantly, he explains that depression and anxiety are signals. Their presence tells us something.

And, in his words – “We need to start listening to these signals, because they’re telling us something we really need to hear. It’s only when we truly listen to these signals, and we honor these signals and respect these signals, that we’re going to begin to see the liberating, nourishing, deeper solutions. The cows that are waiting all around us.”

Thanks to the 24×7 nature of many careers and the many devices around us, it is easy to walk into weekends with an endless list of things to do, read, or think about.

In the face of that, I wish you (and myself) time to stare out of the window this weekend.

Let’s make sure we give ourselves the permission to do that.

A friend recently shared how he thinks about interesting job opportunities similar to how he thinks about finding a parking spot.

As it is easy to get suckered into a zero-sum mindset, he chooses to view every interesting job opportunity that didn’t work out at this time as a parking spot that just got occupied.

There’s no good obsessing about spots that are taken. It just means it is time to drive around a bit more and find a new spot.

Who knows – it might even be better than the one we considered previously.

The analogy resonated.