I think it’s mandatory to have people that you look up to.
Not to copy them or be a replica, but to calibrate your standards.
I do that with multiple people (maybe I’ll write about that one day) but today it’s about Paul Graham. Specifically his blog that inspired me to create mine.
Again, not because I want to imitate him, but because his writing is a reminder that clarity is a skill, and that ideas are sharper when you have to put them into sentences.
His definition of what the best essays are: “The best essay would be on the most important topic you could tell people something surprising about.”
Do I have important topics to cover? Can I offer surprising perspectives? Time will tell.
For now, I am treating this as practice: thinking in public, trying to be rigorous and changing my mind when evidence demands it.
I am, however, a big believer in written format. I think in today’s world of fast content we don’t spend enough time to think through topics. Thinking deeply about topics, in my view, can only be done in written format. Books. Essays. Articles.
I’ll write about the things I’m building, the things I’m learning, and the things I’m trying to understand: technology, e-commerce, health, performance and whatever else refuses to stay out of my mind.
Right now, that means obsessing over what the future of data analysis will look like, but next month it might be the startup hiring process.
This webpage is designed with this lightweight approach in mind to restrict from any distractions. I want to write about things, about as deep as I can (maybe shallow for some) and I want to be able to stay with the reader. In written format.
Attention is the scarce resource; this site is built to protect it.
Something else about written content is that it stands the test of time better than any other form of content. Videos from 2006 look way too blurry now and it dulls the message.
Text stays. I like that.