The Biographer Wiki
Wikipedia only covers notable people, but everyone has a story worth telling. Biographer Wiki automatically creates a private Wikipedia-style page as you share your memories.
Ride It to the Sky
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Latest posts
AI and the Energy Transition
AI's massive energy demands won't just strain power grids—they will force a faster transition to renewable energy driven by market forces and geopolitical competition.
Biographer
I’m working on a project called Biographer. I started on it last year as a gift to my parents. I wanted to build them something that would help capture their life stories, that they’d actually enjoy using, and that would be a meaningful experience for all of us. My dad passed away earlier this year and I took a break from it. But now I’ve come back to it. I think it can be an important product. At…
Introducing Postcards
Social media in its purest form - sharing and connecting with real friends - is incredibly fun. It’s a great example of how technology can bring people closer together. It’s what I grew up with on the internet. Unfortunately, outside of our group chats, there are very few platforms that focus on connecting with people we actually know and care about. Maybe there’s no market for it anymore and we…
Storytelling
Last year i built an ai biographer for my parents. I wanted to capture their life stories and learn about ai voice. With my friend Avi, we built an agent that would talk to my mom and dad on the phone and it was trained to ask them personalized questions about their life. After each “chapter” was completed a separate agent would write it up Walter Isaacson style for everyone to read so people…
Things I Like
I no longer have a home on the internet. My online identity exists in fragments spread across various platforms, most of which are walled gardens. My home first existed in AOL and my AIM profile. My friends and I loved them and it’s how we’d express who we were online. Then it shifted to MySpace. Then Facebook. Then Tumblr. Then Twitter. Then Instagram. Then my blog. Also LinkedIn. It’s…
Lessons From My Dad
My dad passed away. We were blessed to get a very long goodbye. He had the privilege to go out in a way I wish for everyone - surrounded by friends and family, leaving no stone unturned. The man told jokes until the very end. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life and it will forever bring me happiness. The night before he died I told my wife that not only do I love him with my…
Dive into the Deep End
A couple months ago I started working on a new product with my friend, colleague, and head of engineering from my last company, Avi. We are building something we want to use. We need to go as fast as possible, and I want you to help us. Here’s what I am looking for:PotentialInsane work ethic and gritObsession with consumer products and AIA love of building thingsThere is no job title. But here is…
Sequoia Wants It Hard
I have seen a lot of young first-time founders play it fast and loose in their fundraising processes the past several years. It’s been frothy times, so I think it brings out a lot of strange behavior. It got me thinking of when I was a young founder and the things I’d do, particularly one specific story that I tell people when I get asked “what not to do” when fundraising. Back in 2010 Steve and I…
A Better Way
I am so tired of the current political discourse and its inescapability. I am tired of our two party system that is objectively failing us. I am tired of being told what to think, what to say, what to believe, who to like, who to oppose, what is right, what is wrong, etc. It’s too much. The Republican Party was dismantled with the arrival of Trump and MAGA. Now the Democratic Party, of which I…
Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast
Nearly a decade ago, a product manager told me about the phrase "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." It's a military motto that refers to how elite forces traverse ground and infiltrate enemy lines. The premise is that a deliberate and highly coordinated series of interconnected movements is significantly more effective and fast than an all-out storm the battlefield approach. While the former seems…
Early Stage Brand Design
When you are building a startup some things are cyclical. One of the things that constantly cycles through is the idea that a visual rebrand will be the thing that helps you find the next S-curve and grow. I found myself there multiple times with groupme and fundera. It’s part of the laws of physics of startup building. Almost all of the time this does not move the needle. What most every company…
The times they are ai-changin'
Two profound things are happening right now for entrepreneurs. First, AI is creating an entirely new set of capabilities for people to build new experiences and solve new problems. In the same way mobile and the cloud unlocked a new canvas for application developers, AI opens what is likely an even more vast universe of possibilities. Second, AI is changing how entrepreneurs build products and…
Bed Bugs and Trust on the Internet
Last week I began to notice what looked like bug bites on my limbs. I asked two dermatologists and ChatGPT what they were, and everyone said they looked like bed bug bites. Shit. My timeline checked out - I went to a big resort in the Bahamas, and it was the kind of place one could imagine people picking up bed bugs and bringing them home (ironically, I told a friend I was going there, and he…
2025 Goals
Every year I try to write down my goals for what I want to accomplish. I've been doing this for a while but forgot to do it in 2024. I regret not writing them down last year, but c'est la vie. I frame them with a regret minimization framework that I stole from someone else and like to use:By the time I'm 80 years old, I won't regret having spent an abundance of quality time with my family, having…
Just Because You Can
This weekend I took my kids to see The Hard Nut at BAM. It’s a great version of the Nutcracker and we all enjoyed it. I recommend seeing it. I also strongly recommend never using StubHub to buy tickets. That’s where we bought our tickets. The seats were listed in a section we were excited about, but when we received them on the day of the show, they were in a different section than advertised.…
Washington Square Park Online
When I was a kid I played competitive chess through most of middle school. My parents used to take me around the country to play tournaments. One of the trips I remember most fondly was when my mom, who was remarkably supportive and patient, took me and two of my friends to NYC for a couple of days for a tournament in the area. We hit up all the iconic chess spots like the Village Chess Shop and…
Don't Die of Heart Disease, Part II
In 2023 I took a 12-month hiatus to recharge after building startups nonstop since graduating college. During that period of time, I had a rule that I would only commit to something if its gravitational force was completely inescapable. The opportunity to join USV was that thing for me, but along the way I explored a variety of different startup ideas. One of those ideas was around helping people…
Universal Healthcare
Universal healthcare is a doctor that: you can speak with 24/7, is infinitely patient, and never rushes youhas access to all of the latest medical knowledge and literaturehas a superb bedside manner can communicate with you however and whenever you want: text, voice, or videoknows all about your medical history and doesn't have to ask you the same question twicehas memorized the results of all the…
The Deal
Founders have little to no diversification. They are all in on one idea, company, and mission. It's an insanely high-risk, high-reward endeavor. As founders become increasingly wary of this level of risk concentration, they begin to think about ways to mitigate it. One idea I've heard repeatedly is the notion that a group of founders can self-assemble and contribute a percentage of their equity in…