Disclaimer:
These are not the opinions of my employer, AWS, and the only purpose of this newsletter is to share, learn through sharing and foster some honest discourse in the community at large.
As stated in the post on my blog, the plan is to try something new. I decided that the easiest thing for me is text and the email distribution of it. It may or may not work but let’s give it a try. I have no idea how often I will do this. Once a week might be a good target but I can’t promise it. There is no goal here other than to share and learn but I derive no revenue or have any reason to grow an audience besides growing a community to learn from.
I think following a format might be the easiest thing for me to stick to so I may try that and hone it over time. My idea is to share a link, a book, a podcast or some form of media that has been useful to me and I will provide some commentary along with it.
Apart from that, I will try to share some lessons I have learned in either my startup, big tech, VC, restaurant or life experience. I am not young anymore and have seen a lot, made tons of mistakes and have learned from those mistakes. Sharing might help others and foster useful discussion.
For obvious reasons do not expect me to talk about AWS or Amazon except for when there is something public I can talk about but in general, I will most likely refrain from anything Amazon or AWS related. Given that my new role entails working with startups across ASEAN, then I will not talk about specific startups either.
Them’s the rules. Accept it.
Feedback is most welcome. Constructive criticism as well - I have a thick skin but keep it nice, please.
A podcast I am listening to:
I can’t stop listening to:
https://www.daveramsey.com/show/
I first was FORCED to listen to this when I was on a motor home holiday with my parents and my wife and kids. At first, I laughed it off, but I gravitated back to the podcast when one of my favorite TV show creators, Brian Koppelman, admitted on his podcast that he can’t stop listening to it. Brian also had David on his podcast and it was an awesome listen.
I grew up on talk radio - http://www.kgoradio.com, and I loved live format radio with regular people calling in. This is why I love the Dave Ramsey show, regular folks call in and he discusses their money problems or successes live. Depending on who calls will influence how you feel. When the person with 250k in debt calls in on their 40k a year job, I get pumped. When the 35-year-old multi-millionaire calls in, I get up earlier the next day to work a bit harder.
I can’t stop listening.
A lesson learned:
Karma is life’s great equalizer and history will always catch up to you - the good and the bad. I made good and bad historical actions in my life - I assume everyone else has as well. Something I learned about my career in my 30’s was that everyone you ever worked with or for might reappear in your life in the future. This has happened to me numerous times in tech land and luckily it has usually helped me. I got my Yahoo job due to someone I worked with in my WebLogic days.
I can’t get into the details but let’s just say that at AWS, I am working with very senior-level people who I know from my BEA days. The world is smaller than you think.
My advice to my children will be that from the very first day you start working, no matter the job, you are forming a historical record that will follow you around for the rest of your career. Create that record wisely by being kind, empathetic, and helpful to those below you and above you.
It will pay off in spades when you least expect it to.
Do Good Recklessly