Life » Turn 20 out of 80

October 9th, 2023 Noon @Wings n'Stuff

'What do you wanna do?'

I always feel like I'm lying when I answer this question. The gap between what I'm working on and the vision of what I wish to be working on makes this uncomfortable to answer.

'Hm. Do you want to be great? Ya know, do you want to do great things?'

The gap does seem to be shrinking over time though.

Puzzled, 'Um.'

'Most people don't care that much. They just want to live their lives and have food and a home and stuff. Which is cool I guess.'

I always feel like such a maniac no matter who I ask this question to.

Moderately unsure and uncomfortable, 'Yea. Yes, I do want to. I'd like to do great research, and sometimes I wonder if the papers being published here are actually worthwhile.'

'I know whatcha mean about the papers. I wanna be great too ya know.'

'Yeah, yeah. Like I wonder whether anyone will ever care about the effects of this obscure microorganism?'

'I think you'll understand where I'm coming from. Right now I feel very confident in my technical ability to build great products. But even if I had the insight to make something like an Apple 2, the computer that really made Apple take off, I wouldn't know how to sell it or turn it into a company.'

'Ah so you are like Steve Wozniak without Steve Jobs around.'

'Yea kinda. And I'd be open to working with a Steve Jobs, but I'm not gonna wait around. I need to find something to start just to make money: to give me that experience. But also, to keep building my body of work too. I have to be able to say look at what I've done in the past. It wasn't Apple 2 level stuff, but look I can do things, I can build something that makes money, join me.'

'I can see how I might get the wrong idea without the context.'

'And it really is a hard problem. It is like, how do I align these not-so-world-changing projects/experiences so that they compound in a way that allows me to make the jump to bigger things? I love the game. To answer your question, I'm building a business – not an amazingly great one just yet. But it is on the horizon.'

'Very cool man. Very cool. So are you a Windows or MacOS or Linux kinda guy?'

'Yeah I'm loving it. Defnitley MacOS.'

I don't think I've ever felt so heard.

2023-10-12