10 things to remember from 2024
About the world
People are wrong all the time. Even when they have strong incentives to be right. How much more so when they don’t have strong incentives to be right?
Almost everything is non-essential. Having the right political opinions, “good taste” in movies and music do not matter. They might be fun, but they are not important outside of that.
We need to get out there and build things. Care about people’s identities and opinions less, and what they are getting done more
“My kind of people” don’t necessarily get things done. Analytical, impact-driven westerners often are very fluffy on executing things that matter.
Embed yourself with the right collaborators. David Bowie is not great because he did it all himself, but because he pulled together the right collaborators in the environment to do great things together. The same thing happens in companies, partnerships, film crews, bands, etc.
VC is very hard in Africa. There are markets worth building for, but in most cases VC is not the right model. And there are relatively few builders in the ecosystem operating at a high level. Then how are there so many startups? Because there is a lot of impact money - so frankly, the bar to get funding is lower. This enables a lot of “mickey mouse” startups, that look nice but have no real chance to become profitable at a VC scale.
About myself
Jia is my #1 priority.
I want to do hard things in my life. Not just “can”: - “want to”
It will be hard enough to be a good husband, and spend my career building something. After that, just play video games all day for all that it matters
The people I want to be around believe in things and act on them.