There is always a debate in startup life as to how the density of a given ecosystem impacts outcomes. A tight network of well connected communities and individuals helps founders, investors and talent connect.
Before the pandemic it was considered fairly normal to be within a major hub as the common knowledge was that “density” matters. You wanted to be in the action of a scene.
There are great startup cities. New York has an incredible scene. My hometown of Boulder has a great technical core. But as much as cities and companies compete over status the one with longevity is Silicon Valley. Heck it was a debate when that even encompassed San Francisco until Twitter moved in.
Then everyone spread to the four winds during the pandemic. I like to think of this as the era in which Silicon Valley got back to its digital roots. Being extremely online became a behavior that worked well for anyone if you communicated well with words. Being on the right coast was about being in the right online communities. The network state is online.
I’d say that was as pure a return to source culture as there ever was. Different people value signal across different networks and the open web of words has been home to software and hardware developers for generations.
The world that builds companies lives virtually as much as it does in the real world. We like to meet up but we also know it’s the tools that connects us that make the difference.
Every subculture that has emerged with a breakout hit did it through the digital commons we built together. I’ll always appreciate coming to the source culture to replenish but I know the density of the network is at its swiftest when our extremely online communities communicate.
I’ve been running around keeping a busy schedule while I’m on the road for a few weeks on the west coast.
I had a number of things I wanted to do today but I’m so tuckered out I have been slowly passing on everything.
My stomach is upset, I’ve got a migraine that isn’t quitting and everything hurts. So pardon me for the interruption in my regularly scheduled posting but I am going to attempt one of those sixteen hours of sleep nights in the hope that any issues can be fixed with rest.
I’ve heard this multiple times across enough demographics in the wider “startup” ecosystem that I’m afraid I’ll have to accept it is happening. People are faking being weird. In some cases they are faking being autistic.
I find this to be an almost laughably unlikely thing to want to imitate. And yet I’ve heard it three times in the last week. The new poser is faking being a neurodivergent weirdo.
We regularly joke that at chaotic.capital a part of our deal sourcing relies on “Julie being professionally weird on the internet.” My pinned tweet from three years ago is a ramble on this ethos as it’s been true for decades. Unique fixations often undergird problem solving.
Being weird, or more specifically autistic, has now taken on a specific connotation of an intelligent but socially strange or oblivious character who sees the world differently. This means you are special somehow and can be forgiven for being a dick (that’s a lie be nice).
It was probably a source of pain for many millennial kids who were awkward the more oblivious you are the less it bothers you. Marching to the beat of your own drum. We’ve got a whole set of social tropes around smart nerds in popular media and most of them were negatively coded.
Despite this history, revenge of the nerds occurred. The power and dominance of technology (and its cousin nerd) culture means the spergy truth telling autist has cachet. We live in a post Sheldon Cooper world. Once something involves capital it collects social capital as well.
I have clearly underestimated how much this affects Zoomer behavior and incentives. Millennials experienced this archetype negatively but in a softer “everyone is special” culture your quirks can lead you to money and prestige. So there is now an incentive to act like a weird asshole to fake being weird and a little socially anxious.
If autism can have stolen valor then we might be in that era. It seems to greatly annoy the actually autistic (a tag on social media used by many poorly socialized entirely normal people) to have the symptoms of autism faked.
Authenticity is actually quite hard to fake and anyone with a decent social radar can usually spot it. Whether all autists have that capacity to read social cues is up for debate. It’s probably why anyone tries to fake being a genuine weirdo.
I’m inclined to say skills issue as the internet has made class, manners, and social cues much more accessible to everyone. And good news being every social class values being chill, real, and passionate. So there is no need to fake anything. Just vibe. Be cool.
American politics has become center of gravity for culture. I’m not thrilled about this as I have utopian high mindedness in my bones and that never pairs well with the real politic of a nation.
I felt being open to change was a part of my cultural upbringing as an American. Reagan Revolution babies enjoyed Clinton neoliberal growth. Optimism meant being interested in technology.
I have never been satisfied with reality because “we can do better” was both the regional culture of frontier Western civilization but America in particular.
We can imagine better which means we can do better. Somewhere between the neoconservatives forever wars, liberalism’s tolerance of intolerance and the growth of an expensive permanent state bureaucracy we lost some shine.
Losing our can-do spirit to fear and zero sum thinking led to strange institutional outcomes. Watching fear spread over years of pandemic and institutional failures did not help.
I’m not a novel voice in this discourse but most of the startup world and technologists in general had sincere affiliations with American institutional liberalism and even in particular the flavor of Democratic neoliberalism you might have associated with Bloomberg. The Obama administration certainly acted as if we were part of the coalition. The sincerity of that alliance is a question of course.
I don’t know where the realignment lands as we go forward but I hope as many people as possible sincerely embrace wanting more optimism.
Yesterday I had one of those Lyft driver experiences where your life changes from what you learned. While driving to the airport, our very chill Zoomer driver explained the different financial incentives he got for ground game political canvassing in the Montana Senate race.
As our driver explained it, Sheehy (the Republican candidate) paid fewer people more ($22/hr) than Tester (The Democratic candidate) with more flexibility and a higher number of hours, but more aggressive requirements (20 doors/hr) for success.
Naturally the young man being ambitious and motivated to earn (he clarified he was an independent politically) he chose being on the Sheehy teams as it rewarded his desire to make money. Though he did pick up some hours for Tester it just wasn’t much.
That’s the difference in the ground game in a nutshell. Ambition from a young man was rewarded and he aligned with those incentives. And the candidate won.
Im certain he was a terrific door knocker. He has the easy social graces of a local. He felt PacWest Missoula than over the divisive to plains kid but still as Montana as they come. He was white boy with face tattoos & piercings in the way of Zoomers.
His whole energy seemed to be aligning to vibes. He told us he came in to run ride shares for the big football game in Bozeman. It was a busy night and he ran out of hours (Uber tops you at 12). He was media savvy. Theo Von had just played Missoula and he was sad to miss it. Kendrick Lamar played on Spotify.
His attitude was so positive. He liked Uber, Lyft and Dashing for the flexibility. He said it didn’t feel like work because you are helping with the daily life of people. Helping others be responsible appealed to him. It’s nice to get someone who shouldn’t be behind the wheel home safely.
He used to make prosthetics but this paid better & was more social. It was fascinating learning how he picked up Uber & Lyft regionally in Montana and decided to run longer shifts for events. His attunement to supply and demand was keen. He seemed determined to maximize his time as it was his preferred lifestyle. He noticed incentives and it moves him.
If he ever see this “Hi Jacob!” It was great ride. Seeing viscerally how Montana’s senate race played out across the waves of rational economic actors living their American lives.
We’ve just had a beautiful snowfall in Bozeman. If you are back up on the mountains at the edge of the valley you are enjoying a mystical winter wonderland.
Alas I am not long for cosplaying Frozen (blessed) as I am headed west. No, I am heading not to Seattle the most important city of the 90s. I am headed to Joan Dideon land. I’ll be in California.
I’ll be in Los Angeles for the week or so if you happen to be on the west side. I’ll then be headed up to San Francisco.
It will be a little whirlwind of family, friends and hopefully some useful business. I’ll be visiting start ups. Going to YC Demo day which I have not done in person. Meeting up with anyone who might want to be a node in our network.
I am game to meet up with folks working on weird shit and are looking to build it. I am also looking for LPs in our next fund so we can keep funding the weirdos who build things.
The virtuous cycle of techno capital starts long before an opportunity is clear. If you have something chaotic in your heart send me a DM
Running a startup, for all its supposed glamour, is mostly an exercise in learning how little you know.
Sure there are playbooks for some of what you will do. As the technology industry has grown and startups have become an appealing career choice we’ve filled out how-to guides for everything from fundraising to operations.
Alas all advice is specific to the giver’s experience and untangling biases to make advice relevant to your specific needs is quite hard. That’s where it helps to have more experienced operators on hand to call bullshit.
At chaotic.capital we pride ourselves on being investors who “have a guy” for even the most esoteric possible requests. Playbooks can only you so far when you need an expert.
Just in the last two days we’ve worked through how one hires a chief of staff, what to do when letting go of counsel who made a mistake, installing appropriate security procedures for digital footprints, and the resale brokers for a rare commodity.
We like to problem solve and the weirder the problem the more fun it can be. Removing obstacles and clearing bottlenecks is satisfying work. And knowing guy who knows a guy is a heck of a fun game of social geography.
An offensive “joke” I learned from my favorite trainer when I was a powerlifter contains a simple truth.
You should only ask a former fatty for exercise and nutrition advice.
The reasoning is simple. The naturally slim and athletic never had to work for it and as such don’t understand the struggles of the average person.
As someone who has metabolic challenges I feel reasonably strongly this is correct. Struggle that leads to success has useful lessons that ease and natural talents doesn’t always pass along
It’s with this in mind that I sometimes hesitate to give cosmetic advice despite my professional experience. I had some teenage acne and an enormous struggle with eczema on my body. But everything from the neck up has been a breeze.
My face has been clean, clear and even at 40 largely wrinkle free. My hair grows down my back like a hippie. I can get past an optimal place with relatively little work.
I say this not to gas myself up, just that I don’t fully understand the struggle of problem skin or hair. So if you really struggle I’m not your girl.
And yet I get asked a lot about cosmetics as people presume I got my results from hard work. Thats only partly true. Some of it is just good genetics. I’ve got plenty of other genetic dings so I’ll take the good luck.
I do however maintain a very consistent routine and understand the inputs that lead to my desired outputs.
Getting yourself to a Pareto optimal place doesn’t require anything terribly elaborate or even expensive. Women’s magazines and Sephora may make it look impossible but heed the words of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.
The rules of haircare are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known
There are basic rules for skin and haircare that you can follow diligently and at relatively low cost. If you give some basic inputs about your skin (is it dry or oily) and give me a budget I can get you 80% of the way there if you simply follow some basic steps everyday.
Marcia Kilgore of Bliss and Beautypie fame has a terrific memetic device I repeat to everyone.
ABC + SPF.
Vitamin A (retinol) plus Niacinamide (Vitamin B) and Vitamin C is all you need along with a sunscreen. The optimal order is a retinol moisturizer at night with a day moisturizer that contains B & C vitamins along with a SPF.
Now you can gussy that up a lot with dosing, adding in more acids if you have oily skin or ceramides and peptides (which I do as I have dry skin). I myself take a collagen and biotin supplement for some additional help. My expensive piss post offers some additional supplement options that are worth it if your nutrition isn’t perfect. Obviously you need to sleep and drink water.
Beyond a night cream with retinol and a day cream with SPF you can get more elaborate. There are manual processes for microdermabrasion, red light devices, Botox (I just started at 40 with about 15 units while the average is more like 70) as well massaging techniques and needling techniques. I think it’s overkill mostly especially if you don’t have good habits in the first place. Check your foundation before doing renovations.
If you just do the basics morning and night consistently (which can be fit in one or two products) you don’t shouldn’t to go hard until nailing the basics.
Unless looking good is a professional obligation it’s wasted time and money. Just do the basics. If you need product recommendations I can do that at any price point from drugstore to the luxury houses. It’s obviously a lot of fun if you are into it and I am so just hit me up.
As no cultural heritage must remain uncommercialized, you can find many pop culture best sellers on Swedish “lagom” philosophy.
“Not too little, not too much. Just right”
I’d actually never heard of it until today despite being the daughter of a Swedish American man. I am not one for balance though I actually do live a life of simple routines.
Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life.
This mentality is famously captured in the Law of Jante—a set of commandments believed to capture something essential about the Nordic disposition to personal success:
“You’re not to think you are anything special; you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are; you’re not to think you are good at anything”
I did not think I was anything special as a child. I’d laugh listening to Garrison Keillor describe the Lake Wobegon residents who were all above average. Those jokes landed with Minnesotans because who would be so foolish as to set unrealistic expectations?
I went through most of my life with the presumption that I was totally normal. I liked ketchup didn’t I? I wasn’t out of the ordinary and didn’t think I was especially intelligent or attractive relative to my peers.
As it turns out this was a real lack of self knowledge on my part. But it set me up for happiness. Every win feels fantastic because in my head I’m just a normal girl from a normal family who will achieve normal things.
None of that ended up being true. And I’ve been pleased to find myself actually quite a bit above average. They say expectations are premeditated resentments. And I have precious few of those.
Maybe I have achieved lagom. I’ve got just the right amount of expectations for my life. Set it low and your achievements will always be great.
My natural optimism is looking for the positive. If you go in for numerology 14 is a good number for the moment as 1 represents independence, leadership and change while 4 is stability and balance.
The world is shifting but my path is clear in front of me. We may be on a chaotic course but the adaption brings us new opportunities. I’ll just do my best to get enough sleep when things get exciting
