Growth Notes #5

27 Jul, 2025

Growth Notes: July 13 - July 27

Things I read, watched, listened to, or sat with.

Reading

– Kayaking by Parv: Nice short blog. Key learning was around that it’s easy to over-index on success stories. But I think there’s a quiet dignity in the almost-stories too.

– On Writing by Stephen King: Finished another quarter of the book. A few lines I underlined: “If you want to be a writer, read a lot and write a lot.” “When you write, you want to get rid of the world.” “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”

– Career Hypnosis: A counter-view to most of the advice we hear. Useful if you’re feeling stuck in the “climb.”

– Attention is the last scarce resource: Very timely read

– Writing is thinking: A paper I skimmed posed an interesting question: if writing is thinking, then when we read an LLM output, are we reading the “thoughts” of the model or just a reflection of the training data?

Listening

– Quinn's story: A startup building audio erotica, led by Carolina Spiegel. A refreshing take on consumer tech that doesn’t follow the usual startup route. Also interesting how she compares on Zara building a category around workwear to a need around women focussed erotica app.

– Partiful's journey: Loved the aspect of how the personal motivation led to the story of partiful. Proof - For example, the founder raised just before the pandemic but they didn't pivot to video invites like others. They stuck with building tools that make offline social life easier. Details like party themes, polls for planning, and “boop” features stood out.

– Future of cities: A video about the story of building a new city by Devon. She compared cities to APIs—they define what’s possible, just like platforms do for developers. Paris is three times denser than SF but still livable. Tokyo manages quiet in chaos. Esmeralda is designed as a dense but soft place—multi-generational, kids and grandparents both included, with 9 weeks of programming like science experiments and shared rituals. It’s still a prototype, but the thinking behind it felt thoughtful and grounded.

– History teacher turned Sports founder story You have to believe you can do it. He never allowed himself to imagine failing. Pulled inspiration from Apple to build simple, accessible products.

Watched a lot of founder journeys this week—none of them followed obvious playbooks. All personal, specific, and deeply intentional.

Watching

– The Storied life of AJ FIKRY: Something really peaceful about this movie the way it circled back to life, time, and redemption felt deeply human.

Also watched the new DC Superman and Fantastic Four. They are mentioned here because superhero movies give me hope. Hehe!

Meditation

I’ve gotten more consistent lately, so it makes sense to include it here. I sit with a group in SF called Community Village. We had a backyard potluck recently where we shared intentions around the group core values—friendship, meditation, generosity. One reading from last week stuck with me: in the 1950s, we were promised material innovation, cures for the body and mind, and a kind of human transcendence. Hearing it now made it all feel oddly familiar. Also this line: “birth is the cause of death.”

From the camera roll

Reading on writing at Autocamp Yosemeti on July 26th

Tweets that caught my attention

– Practice your craft -Set a deadline

That's it! Until next time!

#Personal Growth