this page is the most up to date list of what i'm working on, thinking about and doing right now
life
grew up in a northern coastal city in mainland china
graduated with a b.b.a. (a.k.a. bachelor of bullshit artistry) in 2024
employed by three cats & one dog
work
i don't belong there — a conviction that has driven me to intern relentlessly, seeking out and working with the best
spent my college years interning across strategy consulting, product, corporate strategy, venture capital, and media
often skipped exams, believing the real world teaches business better than textbooks
authored books, started a business with friends, and blogged along the way
then fell into the trap of elitism and meritocracy — inflating ego, piling up titles, chasing an upward identity slope instead of real growth
over time, drifted away from the real world, from the people and things that matter most, losing both original curiosity and authentic empathy
the world isn't just startups, valuation, and fundraising — there are other games, other rules, and far more interesting things to explore
now allocating more of my bandwidth to street & documentary photography because real people interest me more than finance and grand narratives
as another version of i don't belong there, in the words of susan meiselas — the camera is an excuse to be someplace i otherwise don't belong. it gives me a point of connection, and a point of separation.
street & documentary photography — photos below, will archive them one day
learn from people sharper than me, across any domain
whisky & cocktail
football
poker, including both nlhe & plo
some things i believe
most careers turn into sales jobs when you get senior enough
if you loved your work, you'd work on sundays
not to equate work with a job
to be driven by curiosity rather than careerism, to give free rein to your curiosity instead of working on what you're supposed to
different is better than better
if you do what everyone else does, you'll get the same results everyone else gets
best practices aren't always the best, by definition, they're average
ideas are dead ends, curiosity is a through street
you can copy ideas but you can't copy curiosity
10x is easier than 2x
one of the best ways to get unstuck from a problem is to imagine something an order of magnitude bigger, where you can't do the current process to do it
it doesn't to say you have to hit a 10x goal, its more the exercise of what would it take to be 10x bigger or do something 10 times better
to think differently about the problem means you have to more deeply understand the problem
we might call this first principle thinking
intellectual honesty
the best praise i've ever heard about someone was from peter fenton's remark about bill gurley, the degree to which truth comes ahead of ego or self for him
