What I’ve Been Doing Instead of Writing
A post inspired directly by Ben Kuhn.
I have done a poor job of publishing my writing recently. Which is a shame, because writing is one of the highest-leverage and most impactful uses of my time. It's a way to clarify my thinking and to learn publicly. By putting writing out into the world, I can point to a semi-permanent artifact to demonstrate my thinking and "expertise", which leads to interesting conversations and opportunities.
That said, it’s also very time-consuming. Over the past few months, I’ve been heads down:
- Building out the Data Science team at TRM Labs. Most of my time recently has been taken up with a project that I can’t say much about publicly. Suffice it to say this is something that the average person on the street has heard of, not just folks in the crypto industry.
- Working towards a Master of Science in Computer Science. I’m not sure if I’ll stick with this program or not – there’s a huge opportunity cost in terms of time – but right now I’m enjoying diving into concepts at a theoretical level and honing my technical skills.
- Doing a lot of reading, thinking, and writing about the most impact I can make with my career and life. A big part of this has been in-person engagement with people in the Rationality and Effective Altruism communities. In the wake of the FTX bankruptcy, it’s become a bit of a trend to criticize Effective Altruism, but I believe it is a largely misunderstood philosophy that provides a useful (though certainly non-exhaustive) framework for thinking about morality and my place in the world. More writing to come on this soon.
In any event, this blog post is a public commitment to publish here more frequently! I have many half-drafted posts that I will be releasing in the coming weeks and months.
