I built my last company solo for 3.5 years. When Zach told me he’s been doing the exact same thing at Warp for five years, I got it immediately — there’s no one else in the room who has as much riding on it as you do.

Zach was one of five people on Google Sheets back when it was an unlaunched Google Labs project. Seven years leading engineering for the whole Docs suite. Then a first startup — photo editing, of all things — that raised a Series A, grew to millions in revenue, and still ended in a founder breakup and a 40-page postmortem he’s never shown a soul. Then Warp. Solo. Backed by people like Sequoia’s Andrew Reed and GV’s Erik Nordlander. Nearly a million developers use it now, rebuilding a tool almost everyone agreed was bad and nobody thought was worth fixing: the terminal.

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Every version of Zach’s career comes back to the same test: did he actually believe in what he was building. His first startup, he didn’t. Warp, he does.

“It’s very hard to sell a thing if you don’t believe in it.” — Zach Lloyd

I loved this one. If you do too, send it to a friend — you know the one who’s hedging on something right now.

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Timestamps

(00:00) Trailer
(00:59) Zach Lloyd, Founder & CEO, Warp
(01:03) Grandfather Lloyd K Lloyd, San Francisco's original salesman
(04:42) Marc Benioff is his cousin
(21:33) The humility lesson from Google Sheets' original creator
(27:07) SelfMade: 150 employees, still not a real business
(34:04) Why hiring is really just sales
(39:32) Nearing a million terminal users
(41:18) Building AI before Claude Code and Codex existed
(42:52) Only going halfway in on AI
(1:03:09) Why he barely opens a spreadsheet anymore
(1:10:10) Warp is automating 30% of its own engineering work
(1:11:12) Building automated cloud factories
(1:14:49) Almost naming the company Cursor
(1:15:48) Never living on Saint Mark's again

My biggest takeaways from Zach:

On finding what to commit to

1. Don’t rush figuring it out. Zach studied a mashup of math, philosophy, and computer science, almost did a PhD in logic, dropped out of law school, and worked at NASA before any of this. “I don’t think there’s such a big rush,” he says. Try a bunch of things. Commit once you actually care about one of them.

2. The skills that matter are systems thinking and writing clearly. Zach won’t bet on some niche skill AI is going to do very well — like coding. He’s betting on systems thinking, reasoning, and writing clearly, because communicating what you actually want is what matters once you’re the one telling the AI what to do.

On leading people

3. Good management is making space. His manager at Google Sheets, Farzad “Fuzzy” Khosrowshahi, never told Zach what to do. He kept finding harder things for Zach to try instead. That’s what actually built his confidence.

4. Humility isn’t enough. You also have to tell smart, high-performing people the truth about what they’re doing wrong. Zach’s read: most managers never give their best people that kind of honest feedback, because it’s easier to just be a cheerleader.

5. CEOs lose their peer group, so they have to build the honesty back in on purpose. Nobody tells the person with power over them the full truth by default. Warp runs monthly company-wide retros, an anonymous culture survey, and open office hours — and Zach still gets surprised by what surfaces. A recent one: people feeling burnt out at 50-60 hours a week, which he hadn’t fully clocked until the survey said so.

On building something worth building

6. Don’t sell something you don’t believe in. His first startup, Self Made, scaled to multiple millions in revenue and raised a Series A — and it still broke him, because he never cared about the product or the influencer-heavy customers buying it. “It’s very hard to sell a thing if you don’t believe in it.”

7. Hiring is sales. You need a pitch good enough that a genuinely great engineer turns down everything else to bet on you. Zach pays in equity and mission over salary, and he’s wary of anyone chasing a big paycheck at a startup in the first place.

On where software is headed

8. His bet now is the “cloud software factory.” Agents live in the cloud, diagnose the bug, write the fix, and sometimes merge it without a human ever looking. Warp already automates about 30% of its own engineering work this way, and Zach expects that number to keep climbing.

9. A lot of software interfaces are going away, in his view. He doesn’t open a spreadsheet anymore — he pastes a CSV into an agent and asks for the analysis. What survives: things with a real network effect or a physical backbone, like Stripe or DoorDash. What doesn’t: a SaaS interface sitting on top of a database with nothing else going for it.

On the cost of it all

10. The pressure never fully lifts, and he’s made peace with what he can’t control. No cofounder, no peer to call, just the constant awareness that people gave up other jobs, and investors gave up their money, to bet on him. “I know I can’t really control the outcome, but as long as I feel like I’ve picked a thing that is useful and tried my hardest at it, I think I’ll be satisfied with that.”

"I wouldn't recommend being a founder unless you're down to endure a lot of stuff going wrong. But that's good — it's like, that's how you do anything worthwhile." — Zach Lloyd

When walked around San Francisco with Michelle Lim for this one, and I kept catching my own story in hers. She almost became a doctor. At 18, standing at a med school admissions weekend in Singapore, she saw the next ten years of her life laid out and quietly decided it wasn’t hers to live. I studied chemical engineering and taught myself to code in my third year of university for the same reason — the path everyone hands you isn’t always the one you can live with every day. Once I saw my path as a chemical engineer in front of me, I knew I needed to pivot.

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Michelle went to Yale, fell into computer science through an entrepreneurship club, then interned her way down the size ladder on purpose — Meta, Slack, Robinhood — because every smaller company handed her more ownership. She became employee number two at Warp, a company with a placeholder name and no code written yet, and over four years grew it to half a million developers while rotating through engineering, marketing, product, and sales. Then she left to build Flint.

What I loved most is how deliberately she thinks about her own decisions. She talks about prestige not as something to chase but as something that changes shape depending on who’s around you.

“Prestige is not only ephemeral, it’s also very much tied to the environment you’re in.”
— Michelle Lim

The thread running through everything she said is that she builds — and chooses — from love rather than logic. Who she wants to spend her days with, what she’d be proud to have tried even if it failed. It made for one of my favorite conversations this year.

If you liked this episode, send it to a friend who’s trying to work up the nerve to do their own thing.

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Timestamps

• (00:00) Trailer

• (00:32) Intro

• (01:21) Singapore’s definition of success: doctor, lawyer, or government scholar

• (02:31) Applying to Yale on a whim, thanks to a one-school early action rule

• (06:16) Why a startup was “one of the lowest prestige things” she could do at Yale

• (10:48) Discovering computer science through a Yale entrepreneurship club

• (16:21) What she took, and left behind, from Meta, Slack, Robinhood, and Warp

• (19:48) Winning an hour alone with Mark Zuckerberg on her best internship project

• (22:12) Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership lesson: repeat the same story until it lands

• (27:59) Her framework for writing LinkedIn hooks that actually convert

• (35:53) Bodies “piling up” in Covid-era New York, and the push to join Warp

• (40:53) Telling Warp’s CEO upfront that she wanted to be a founder

• (47:47) The “five Infinity Stones” framework for knowing when to start Flint

• (54:47) Why VCs avoid funding marketing startups, and her bet on a $100 billion market

• (1:00:23) Meeting her co-founder through a 200-question questionnaire, and his parents’ interview

• (1:09:14) Never try to save money on a lawyer

My biggest takeaways from Michelle:

Choosing your own path

1. Prestige is relative to your room. Michelle’s sharpest insight is that status only exists inside a crowd. “If you stay in Singapore and you’re not a doctor, everyone feels like you’re not doing what’s great. If you’re at Yale and you’re not doing law, it’s like, what are you doing?” Move to San Francisco and the same tech job becomes the prestigious one. So do what you love, because you can always find the people who’ll think it’s valuable.

2. Don’t let your 18-year-old pick your 21-year-old’s life. When she chose against med school, her logic was disarmingly simple. She looked at how different she’d become between 15 and 18 and extrapolated. “I don’t want an 18-year-old deciding what my 21-year-old life is going to be.” It was the first time she really listened to her gut.

3. Exploration needs a safety net. She’s honest that agency isn’t just courage. “It’s a necessary but not sufficient condition. You need privilege to try it, and then the ability to fail if it doesn’t work out.” Supportive parents and a good school system were the scaffolding that let her wander.

4. Build from love, not logic. Because she’ll live with this choice every day for years, Michelle picks based on who she wants to serve, not what the consensus says is fundable. “It was very important for me to do things based on love than to do things based on logic.”

The founder apprenticeship

5. Chase autonomy, not logos. Michelle interned at Meta, Slack, and Robinhood and noticed a pattern: the smaller the company, the more of the product she owned. “Every time I went down, I got more ownership.” That math is what eventually pulled her to a two-person startup.

6. Fall for the craft. She joined Warp partly on a belief that “coding is one of the best levelers mankind has ever seen, where a high school dropout could get a shot at a really comfortable life.” And she’s a self-described weirdo who loves debugging, because bugs appear in traceable patterns, “almost like being a computer doctor” — the part of medicine she got to keep.

7. Collect the five infinity stones. Before founding, Michelle wanted to touch every function — engineering, product, marketing, customer success, sales. “While I wasn’t the best in any of these five stones, I at least knew they existed and vaguely knew how to hire for each of them.”

8. There’s magic in the number four. She had a great time at Warp and wasn’t running from anything. She left anyway. “If I wasn’t going to leave after four years, I just wouldn’t ever leave.”

9. Don’t quit just because you haven’t won yet. Michelle stayed through years of not-crushing-it because the rare thing wasn’t the win. “To present to the board of directors as a 23-year-old is really hard to get. Why lose it just because we haven’t won yet?” Clay took seven years to work.

10. Tell founders you want to be a founder. She said it to Warp’s CEO on day one. Her rule: “If the founder doesn’t like what you’re saying, they’re not the right founder for you.” Making your intentions clear is how you actually get the opportunities, because now people know how to support you.

Building the team

11. Aspiring founders are your best hires. Far from a flight risk, they build functions from scratch and stretch across roles, saving a founder headcount. Michelle asks for a two-year commitment up front, then genuinely invests — she brought her founder-track intern to investor meetings and posted about his work.

12. Bet on young, smart talent. Her Robinhood takeaway became a hiring philosophy. She gave a 19-year-old intern, Connor, the hardest project in the company, and he built one of its most important parts. You earn the trust gradually: a small thing, then a bigger thing.

13. But experience is underrated too. Her designer ran growth design at Netflix; her marketer was head of digital at Reddit. In domains she doesn’t know herself, senior people already know how to build a team and need far less managing. One blunt corollary from watching friends get sued over preventable things: never try to save money on a lawyer.

14. Culture has to be built, not wished for. Even a naturally fun leader needs rituals and has to reward the right values. And it can only go so far as who you actually are — “this job is so all-consuming that if your company isn’t in line with who you are, you’ll burn out.”

15. Drag your customers into the room. Every other Friday, a customer uses Flint live in front of the whole team, and they file 25 tickets every time. On the off Fridays, someone on the team uses the product themselves. The point is to never let engineers lose sight of customer impact.

Telling your story

16. Repeat yourself on purpose. Watching Sheryl Sandberg give the exact same story the exact same way to different rooms taught her that consistency is the skill, not a bug. Even at eight people, Michelle repeats what they’re doing this week and why, every week.

17. Assume no one has ever heard of you. It’s the mindset behind posting on LinkedIn every single day since starting the company. “Even if it’s repetitive to the people already following you, it’s still useful for people who’ve never heard of it before.” The risk of boring a fan is tiny next to the upside of reaching someone new.

18. Lead your hook with credibility. For a team recruiting video, the weak opener was “my team made a creative video about why you should join.” The strong one: “this team raised $X to build the future of the website.” To a stranger scrolling past, the second version is the one that earns the click.

The Flint bet

19. Sell the outcome, not the software. Michelle frames her market in three layers: the tool, the labor on top of it, and the outcome above that. Old marketing software stayed small because it only captured the tooling. “With Flint, you’re no longer paying for a website tool. You’re paying for more revenue.” That’s how a $10B category becomes a $100B one.

20. Know why the smart money passes. She can recite exactly why VCs avoid companies that sell to marketers: small public comps, low contract values, CMOs who churn every six months. Her bet is that AI changes the equation, because you’re selling the work itself now, not just the software.

"Just do it now. Because if you die, at least you know you would have tried to do something interesting."
— Michelle Lim

I met Blake Scholl the way I meet most of my supersonic fantasies these days: stuck. I’d just flown in from San Francisco, my flight had been canceled, I’d been sent back to the airport, and somewhere in that mess I thought, I cannot wait until supersonic planes are here. Then I walked into a hangar in Colorado and stood next to the plane that’s going to make that real.

Blake is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic. He was roughly Amazon’s 200th engineer, spent more than a decade building XB-1 into the first supersonic jet made outside a government or military, and got the US ban on supersonic flight repealed after breaking the sound barrier. Now he’s scaling Boom toward carrying passengers in 2030.

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What got me was how he decided to chase something everyone told him was pie in the sky. He talks about two kinds of founders: the ones who take the big swing and win, who become part of history, and the ones who take the big swing, give it everything, and fail — the “dark matter” you never hear about. He decided he’d rather be dark matter than spend his life asking what if.

“I would rather be a dark matter entrepreneur than a what-if entrepreneur… I’d rather fail than not try.”
— Blake Scholl

We get into the day XB-1 broke the sound barrier and why, for Blake, it happened hours before the plane ever took off. The six years Boom spent trying to get Rolls-Royce to build a custom engine, and why losing that deal is what made the whole business viable. Why “work on something you know about” is, in his words, terrible advice.

I loved this one. If you do too, the best thing you can do is share it with a friend. That’s how this show grows.

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“Courage is not fearlessness. Courage is acting despite the fear.”
— Blake Scholl

Timestamps

00:00 Trailer
00:41 Intro
01:39 The day XB-1 broke the sound barrier
05:40 2,000 pounds overweight and called the Theranos of aviation
09:15 How big a dent can we make in the universe
12:01 Bill Gates and the dark matter entrepreneur
14:55 Mom's advice: work on something you already know
17:12 The flying lesson at 19 that decided everything
23:17 Starting Boom with three kids under two
24:39 The mistake dinner that became a staff meeting
27:22 Why the Rolls-Royce breakup was the best gift Boom got
30:37 Brian Chesky and permission to make the big swing
34:29 Amazon at engineer 200 and automating ads at 22
37:58 Congestion price the entire road network
40:12 "I'd be proud of you for trying"
43:58 The $750K prize to fly supersonic
44:33 Outro

My biggest takeaways from Blake Scholl

On courage and the big swing

1. Two kinds of founders. Blake splits entrepreneurs into the ones who take the big swing and win — the ones history remembers — and the ones who swing, give everything, and fail: the “dark matter” you never hear about. His point is that you can’t reason your way to which one you’ll be. “I don’t think you find your limit by thinking about your limit. You find your limit by pushing.” He decided he’d rather be dark matter than a what-if.

2. Courage is a decision. Once Blake reframed starting Boom as a courage question rather than a competence one, it got easy. “Courage is not being fearless. Courage is acting despite the fear.” The whole company hinged on him seeing that difference.

3. “I’d be proud of you for trying.” On a drive home from ice cream, with Boom possibly going bankrupt without ever flying, Blake asked his ten-year-old how she’d feel if the thing he’d worked on her whole life went bust. She didn’t miss a beat: “I’d be proud of you for trying.” It became his rule: do the thing you’d be proud to fail at.

4. Honest failure is freeing. Blake separates honest failure, which we forgive and should, from dishonest failure, which we don’t. An audacious goal actually lowers the pressure. If everyone already assumes you’ll fail, it’s easier to give it everything. Building another mobile app comes with more expectation of success than building a supersonic jet.

Building Boom

5. The barrier broke before takeoff. By the 12th flight, Blake knew that if they flew at all that day, they’d go supersonic. So the real moment was watching the flight-test team walk out of a closed-door go/no-go meeting with electric energy in their body language. “The crew chief walked over… and started hooking up the tow bar. For me, that was the moment we broke the sound barrier.” The rest of the world got it a couple hours later.

6. The Rolls-Royce breakup was a gift. Boom spent six years trying to get Rolls-Royce to build a custom engine, and got all the way to a Rolls-Royce board meeting before it collapsed (that meeting ended with their CEO getting fired). Losing the deal forced Boom to build the engine in-house, which led them to discover they could use it for ground power generation. That pulled scaled revenue in years early and made the whole company financially viable.

7. Bad luck means a fragile plan. Blake had bet the entire company on a 100-year-old British firm choosing to play ball. When it collapsed, he didn’t call it misfortune. “Bad luck is a way of reality telling us that our plans were fragile.” The lesson he took: keep things under your own control.

8. Brian Chesky gave him permission to swing. Deep down Blake knew Boom had to build its own engine, but he feared no one, not even his own team, would believe it was possible. Then he heard Brian Chesky describe leading Airbnb through Covid: in a crisis, the temptation is to compromise, but what you actually need is to become the truest, best version of what you always knew you should be. “It was as if Brian had stood on stage and said Boom should build their own engine.”

On leadership and endurance

9. Mistake dinners build candor. In his family, Blake swapped the gratitude dinner for a mistake dinner, where everyone shares a mistake and what they learned. He ran the same practice in his staff meetings, and it cracked open transparency across the company. “Everyone’s just a big kid.”

10. Hire people who can’t rationally quit. Boom’s work guarantees “stage-four-cancer-diagnosis” moments, and in those moments people fight or fold based on how much they believe the goal is worth the pain. So Blake built a team of true mission believers. “If you don’t believe in that goal, it’s irrational to put up with it, because this shit’s really hard.”

11. Repeat the hard thing until it’s boring. Blake compares Boom to a nearly-empty amusement park where he rode the scariest roller coaster four times in a row until it stopped scaring him. A decade of near-death moments, the worst being when Boom and his marriage were on fire at the same time, worked like exposure therapy. “Bad news does not faze me the way it used to.”

12. Live at your red line. Blake stays at his personal limit on purpose. “If it gets easier, I just stack on the challenge — take on a new goal, start a new project… until I’m at my limit.” He just won’t leave capacity sitting unused.

On work, life, and the ideas he can’t shake

13. Build what you love. Someone gave Blake advice to build something he understood, not a supersonic jet. He calls that terrible advice. You can learn what you don’t know; people badly underestimate how much they can learn. What you love is much harder to change. His résumé-driven first company (mobile e-commerce, because he knew mobile and e-commerce) shipped a lot of software that didn’t matter, and he was miserable.

14. Work on the must-win problem. At Amazon, Blake got to work on something Jeff Bezos cared about, “and therefore won’t let you fail at.” The whole org held his feet to the fire, and that pressure was the education. His advice: if you don’t have a startup you can’t stop thinking about, go work with the best people on a must-succeed problem you care about, and the best mentors will swarm.

15. No work/life tradeoff. Blake started Boom with three kids under two (twins were involved) and rejects the work/life tradeoff framing. A lesson he learns as a father makes him a better CEO; a lesson from the office makes him a better dad. The constraint also forced the core skill of doing more with less.

16. Flying is his deepest focus. Flying demands 100% presence because the stakes are absolute, and that’s why it clears his head. “One hour in the air is more relaxing than an entire week of vacation, because I’m actually, for once, not thinking about anything else.” The danger is what makes it work.

17. Congestion-price the roads. The average American burns roughly one working month a year in traffic, and Blake argues autonomous vehicles will make it worse, since people will tolerate even more of it. His fix: congestion-price the entire road network. We give away prime-time roads for free like a grocery store that charges nothing, so there’s always a line. “Traffic is a line for the roads.”

18. Prizes build industries. There’s a missing cohort in aerospace, roughly 30 to 50 years old, because nothing exciting was happening in flight while they grew up, so they went into social media and e-commerce instead (Blake included). After seeing a kid build a 500-mph RC plane, he put up $50K to fly one supersonic. Others chipped in, and it’s now a ~$750K prize with 100+ teams registered. “Someone’s gonna do this for sure.”

“Do the thing you’d be proud to fail at.”
— Blake Scholl

It’s almost the end of summer — how did that happen? I last wrote that I moved to NYC, and I can surely say summer’s been my favorite season. Almost every day, I walked to the water, without my phone, to spend 10–20 minutes reading a book and meditating. Outside of all the fun interviews, all the travel, and everything else, this ritual is my highlight.

I also spent more time in SF than I expected. Almost every month I’ve been back for a few days to a week. While I’m settling into NYC and finding my people here, I do love the vibrancy of San Francisco — the nervous energy and excitement about what the future might bring. I now spend even more time there to record interviews.

This has been my professional highlight: I’m going all in on my favorite thing in the world — asking questions and listening. What’s always fascinated me is how people decide what to do with their lives and how they think. What motivates them? Why are they the person building this company or investing out of this fund? Everything is motivated by human experiences and stories. And I want to do my part to uncover the brilliance in how people live and build.

I’ve done a bunch of content experimentation over the last few months, and had a few realizations:

• I love long-form conversations

• I love being able to uncover someone’s life story and wisdom, and make them feel seen

• I love tech’s ambition and optimism

I committed to regularly posting interview content and getting sharper as an interviewer. I feel rejuvenated, excited, and grateful that I’m at a place where I get to do this. I also feel free, because I tried a few things and made a commitment to this format. Someone once told me that “commitment is the ultimate form of freedom.” This really resonates.

I’m going to start sharing the podcast episodes and takeaways here. If that’s not your thing, no hard feelings. And if you want to follow along, I’m really glad you’re here! Shoot me a note anytime with thoughts or feedback.

I have an awesome guest coming up this week. Look forward to sharing the conversation!

Have a great Sunday!
Luba

You’re receiving this because at some point in the distant past, you subscribed to my Substack (thank you!!). I totally respect and understand if you want to unsubscribe 🙏 Thank you for being here and thank you if you decided to continue following along!

Building a startup has always been my Silicon Valley dream. I’m so grateful that I got to experience it: build a product that people loved, build a team of people smarter than me, live the uncertainty of making something people wanted.

Most chapters come to an end, and it was time to wrap up this one. Deciding to wind down the company was a painful process. After asking myself a lot of why’s, feeling tired, and not confident I had it in me to keep going, I decided to call it.

I will say, winding down a company takes much longer than starting one. I’m at the final stages of wrapping up this process, but it’s been a couple of months, which is kinda wild.

I feel much happier. I even feel relieved, which is a good sign. I might make a longer video about it - perhaps that’s a topic for YouTube. I started posting on YouTube again, but this time around long form interviews. Been thinking about posting again on there, but the bottleneck is time!! (Always haha)

The winddown also came with a change of scenery. One I didn’t expect I needed as much as I did.

It’s now been almost exactly a year since I moved to NYC. New environment, new people, new routines. Sometimes change of scenery is just what you need to have a fresh perspective on life. Being in NYC gave me another view on my journey as a founder. In the Bay, it truly feels like if you’re not building a startup, what are you doing with your life?! Everyone wants to be a founder. Now. At some point. It’s inevitable. It’s funny because even people who clearly don’t really care about being a founder feel the pressure of saying “But I’m thinking about leaving my {Job X} to try to build something”.

It’s contagious, and it’s also very narrow. Being in NYC allowed me to see the bigger picture for myself at the time when I needed it most.

Tech in NYC is much less concentrated. Bay Area’s monoculture is a blessing and a curse: I love how ambitious everyone is, I love that it attracts a specific type of thinker. But being in the Bay means it’s hard to take a break from everything tech. It’s hard to stop and take a break. It’s hard to retreat.

After my decision to wind down Paloma, I wanted to get away from tech. I was exhausted. I could not stand to hear about another AI platform, or tool. I needed to find escape in the “outside” world. Meet new people, go to art galleries, stop listening to tech podcasts and stop keeping a pulse on friends’ startup journeys.

I was even thinking that maybe I’m just done with tech. Turns out I just needed a bit of a break: last week I visited San Francisco for about a week and felt massive fomo. Turns out, I just needed a bit of a break!

NYC is amazing, but I do miss the Bay: I miss the kind of nerdy convergence of conversations that only happens there. The running into people, because the city is so small. The house parties that are actually coworking sessions. It’s weird, but it’s a certain type of flavor for a certain type of person. Maybe I just lived there so long, that the Bay’s weirdness is a part of my bloodstream.

And with that rest came something I didn't expect: feeling more rested, I’m excited to get back into the tech scene. I want to learn more about what’s happening in NYC, what folks are building, and what they are excited about. If you have any leads for communities or investors, let me know!

I’m also in a full swing with content: I’m mostly posting on Instagram and running a few different series. Curious to hear what you think!

This week I launched the new “Coffees with VCs” series - it’s literally what it sounds like. Right now I’m experimenting with the lighter, funner format, but thinking about mixing it with questions for founders. Let me know what you think - here’s the first one!

What I’ve been excited about this week

All things OpenClaw. While I’m mostly working with Claude Code, I’m thinking of use cases for a Claw and got sucked into watching a bunch of fun videos. I love these two podcast:

Greg Isenberg - https://www.youtube.com/@GregIsenberg

How I AI by Claire Vo - https://www.youtube.com/@howiaipodcast

This video was particularly good: OpenClaw use cases after 8 weeks of using it.

Last week I finished The Choice, obsessed with it! One of the best books I’ve read in a while (to be fair, it was a listen for me and the narration is great)

Quick ask

I’m looking for a social media intern locally in NYC. I’d love to work with someone organized, excited about content, ideally excited about tech, and scrappy. I’m not putting together a formal JD (yet), just putting the fillers out there for now. Responsibilities would mostly include helping with posting content across platforms + tracking. If you have any leads - let me know!!

If you’re still reading, thank you! I'm shaping out what this next chapter looks like, both in life and in content. What would you like to see more from me?

With Love,

Luba

It's been a while since I last posted, but I'm back and I'm so excited that so many of you continue to follow my content.

I've been heads down for the last year building a startup called Zarta that helps creators make money and viewers get access to exclusive content. We're building a "pay-per-view" video platform.

But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm excited to announce my new video podcast series, "Founder Therapy"! In this series, I interview fellow founders about the ups and downs of building a startup—the real journey, not just the headlines and success stories.

I just posted the first episode featuring Jesse Zhang, co-founder of Beacons.ai. He opened up about how tough every single day of the first 2 years of their company were, arguing with his cofounders and dreading whether they'd be able to stick together and push through.

Jesse is one of the most positive and optimistic people I know, and I know you'll find his insights valuable. You can watch the episode on Zarta—it's full of actionable advice for anyone who wants to start a company.

https://zarta.com/v/jesse

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode, so please let me know! And, if you want to stay closer in touch, I've also launched a Discord community—use this link to join.

Thank you for sticking by me, I know I haven't been posting much, but that's going to change!

Luba

You can find this interview as a podcast: https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/flo-monier-job-searching-and-recruiting-during-a-pandemic

Luba: You’ve spent a few years at a recruiting agency, and a few years as an in house recruiter. From the candidate’s perspective, is there a difference between working with one or the other?

Flo: As an agency recruiter you work with a bunch of different companies at the same time, and as an in-house recruiter you work with only one company. For example, right now I am only hiring for Airbnb.

Luba: Which one is better for the candidate?

Flo: It depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a small startup, I would choose the agency. Bigger companies have huge recruiting organizations, right now Airbnb has 250 in house recruiters. I think the size of the company you want to work at is the crucial difference when picking a recruiter to work with.

Commonly, recruiting agencies are contingency-based, which means the company pays the agency according to candidate placement, so it’s at no cost to the candidate.

Luba: Kind of like a talent manager?

Flo: Yes, kind of. It’s in the interest of the recruiter is to build trust in their relationship with the candidate. If you have a recruiter who works closely with you, knows all your strengths and weaknesses, it simplifies the job searching process a lot.

Recruiters do have your interest in mind because we are working on the same goal — your successful placement. We give tips on how to prepare for the interview, what to practice, what manager’s personality might be like. We give that advice because we really want you to do well :)
It’s a two-sided relationship.

We give tips on how to prepare for the interview, what to practice, what the personality of the manager might be like. We give that advice because we really want you to do well :)
It’s a two-sided relationship.

Luba: Are there any common mistakes that you see candidates make?

Flo: A lot of candidates think they can wing their conversation with a recruiter. They think there is no need for preparation. For example, ‘I know what Airbnb is because I use it all the time’. But it does not mean that they have gone through the Airbnb website to check our company mission and values. If you are interested in a company, you can apply and you do not need to know everything, but when you go to an interview, it equals doing your homework at school. Do some research, prepare a list of questions, and be ready to ask them.

A lot of candidates think they can wing their conversation with a recruiter. They think there is no need for preparation. For example, ‘I know what Airbnb is because I use it all the time’. But it does not mean that they have gone through the Airbnb website to check our company mission and values.

Luba: What are the things you are looking for in a candidate’s application?

Flo: I like looking over the candidate’s career progression over time: I start with checking the educational background, then I look at where the person started their career and how they got where they are today. It has to be logical: how they made the shift from one place to another, how they grew their skills. Tenure is also very important, you can hop around a lot, and that’s fine, as long as you can explain the reason. Candidates who make a lot of moves and can not explain why can look suspicious. Tell us your story, we want to know it to represent you in the best way to the employer. Sometimes recruiting agencies help you create this story.

Luba: Let’s talk about the current state of the world. How will the job search look like after the pandemic is over?

Flo: It is definitely a unique time in history. There are dozens of lists circulating who is hiring, what companies may have a hiring freeze. Many people post very openly on LinkedIn about being laid off, about the set of skills they have. Sharing information is becoming more and more common. I do think the job market will become tougher. Companies not only let people go, but they also freeze hiring to save costs. They might continue this for a while.

It is definitely a unique time in history. There are dozens of lists circulating who is hiring, what companies may have a hiring freeze. Many people post very openly on LinkedIn about being laid off, about the set of skills they have. Sharing information is becoming more and more common.

I advise continuing job search because there are still places that are hiring. In the meantime there is still a lot of remote work to do, there are still courses to complete and certificates to get in case you want to uplevel your skills. I recommend using your time wisely, sharing information, and looking in strategic places.

Luba: I noticed you mentioned getting certificates, I was always curious — do recruiters look at completed certificates?

Flo: It is important to focus on the skills you want to learn. Hiring managers are recruiters who may be impressed that you took various classes and aspired to study something new. You need to show that you have a growth mindset, that you are a lifelong learner, and highlight it.

Hiring managers are recruiters who may be impressed that you took various classes and aspired to study something new. You need to show that you have a growth mindset, that you are a lifelong learner, and highlight it.

I thank Flo for her time and we both hope that this information will help you make the right choices while looking for a new role or while thinking about your next career steps.

You can find this interview as a podcast: https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/haseeb-qureshi-cryptocurrency-is-the-new-cash

Luba: I want to start with the basics. What are the fundamentals of the blockchain? 

Haseeb: You can think of a blockchain as being a shared ledger between the people keeping records, a ledger that can not be manipulated. And it’s exactly like money. Money is a way of keeping track of who owns what without personal controls. For example, if you owe me $5, I can not go back and rewrite that history. As long as you can get this property of having an ecosystem that always records everything that happens, and never reverts any history, then you can create money on the internet that is not tied to bank accounts. That kind of money is completely untethered from countries, nations, states. This is the innovation I like the most because it is a new kind of money the world has never seen before.

Since the panic around coronavirus cryptocurrencies have been doing really well, which is surprising because the rest of the economy is kind of in disarray. Cryptocurrency would be diversified away. 

Luba: When would someone use crypto?

Haseeb: Right after COVID cryptocurrency markets dropped 40% in a single day. Since then they have recovered pretty fast. Since the pandemic cryptocurrencies have outperformed all other equities. Now cryptocurrencies are used for all sorts of things. Not so long ago people used crypto to buy coffee at Starbucks, which is not its basic mission. The reason why it is not an attractive use of cryptocurrencies is that there is enough experience in this field already. Take Starbucks points, Ali Pay or WeChat Pay for example. The places where cryptocurrencies are most attractive is where the traditional financial system has not served people well. 

We can see a lot of cross country transactions happening in crypto, especially where it’s difficult for international parties to nominate and regulate because of the difference in national currencies. 

Right after COVID cryptocurrency markets dropped 40% in a single day. Since then they have recovered pretty fast.

Crypto fills some gaps in the world, where either one regulation or monopoly has made things way too expensive. If you are sending money abroad, you pay nearly 7% commission. If you are transferring money in cryptocurrency, it is less than 1%, which makes a huge difference.  

Luba: The idea of cryptocurrency is decentralization. In that case, how does this decentralization go hand in hand with government regulation? 

Haseeb: It depends on the country and time. There is a huge misunderstanding that cryptocurrencies are private by their nature. Take Bitcoin, for example. Bitcoin is pseudonymous and not anonymous because everyone knows who owns what. Bitcoin is Twitter for your bank account. When I started transferring money, everyone could see my email address. They may even not know me personally, but they can observe some email addresses sending money somewhere which makes it possible for people to track you. Some governments pay analysts to do this kind of service, so they can potentially track the flow of the funds.

In reality, if you are not a target, no one is going to check what you are doing. Same goes if you create an anonymous account on Twitter, people are not aware of your personality, but Twitter can find out who you are. 

Governments are afraid of turning off innovations, and they know what happens in cryptocurrencies is a hot innovation itself. Even though there is a potential threat to their power, they are more afraid of cutting off innovations completely.

Governments are afraid of turning off innovations, and they know what happens in cryptocurrencies is a hot innovation itself. Even though there is a potential threat to their power, they are more afraid of cutting off innovations completely.

Luba: A couple of years ago crypto ICOs were a big thing: what is an ICO Bubble and why did it die down?

Haseeb: Let’s say that I have some new crypto project, and before I have it launched, I would go ahead and sell the tokens for this network I am about to launch. This happened massively in 2017, and we called it an ICO Bubble. It collapsed one year after, but there are still some tokens, which are kind of shady.

ICOs are no longer an issue because it’s rather easy to see that the prevailing part of them is not valuable at all.

Luba: Do you believe that coronavirus is a trigger to crypto adoption?

Haseeb: I would say yes and no. In the ‘yes’ case COVID-19 is definitely going to accelerate the demand for bitcoin. Bitcoin is like digital gold.

All over the world governments with major central banks are printing money like crazy, and there is a big fear that in order for this to be sustainable, printing money can resolve inflation. It can, but the best way is to take your money out of this economy and invest it into that digital gold.  

Luba: Will we soon be paying with cryptocurrency in the USA?

Haseeb: Cryptocurrency is competing with traditional fin-tech companies. Our payments are very digitized at this point because we have Apple Pay or Google Pay. This is less true in many parts of the world. It is possible that we will see some adoption of the stable coins in the B2B sector, but for consumers, I do not really see that happening. 

Luba: If bitcoin is so volatile, why do people still want to buy it? 

Haseeb: Bitcoin’s volatility is going to stick around for a while until it becomes a state old boring currency nobody thinks twice about. That can probably take about a decade. Bitcoin is fundamentally scary. Bitcoin has limited availability, there are only 21M bitcoins globally. This finiteness is what makes it so valuable.

Bitcoin’s volatility is going to stick around for a while until it becomes a state old boring currency nobody thinks twice about.

Every world currency has got massively inflated at some historical point. 

Luba: What happens when a couple of people own all bitcoins?

Haseeb: There always will be a person who would love to sell something to you at a very expensive price. 

Luba: From your perspective, what are the top 3 cryptocurrencies?

Haseeb: Bitcoin, Enthereum, and Maker. 

You can find the full interview on YouTube:  

You can find this interview as a podcast: https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/gustaf-alstromer-the-formula-to-build-a-successful-company

Luba: Working remotely has been a huge experiment for companies around the world. And I’m glad even the most conservative workplaces are seeing that it’s a lot more successful than they thought. What are your thoughts on remote work?

Gustaf: Sometimes people are willing to take risks only after something forces them to do so. Humans are adaptable by nature.

Luba: Do you see the future where companies never meet their employees in person?

Gustaf: There are two main reasons why companies fail: they are running out of money or founders start to fight or disagree. The second is far more likely to happen if you have never met each other in person, or if you don’t know who you are working with. I can imagine that in the remote world the history of working together would also become remote, not as it used to be before. We don’t have enough data yet, so we will see what happens.

Posted on Vectorate

There are two main reasons why companies fail: they are running out of money or founders start to fight or disagree. The second is far more likely to happen if you have never met each other in person, or if you don’t know who you are working with.

Luba: What do you think is the future of hiring and talent?

Gustaf: In the past, we were kind of aspiring to work remotely, and occasionally some people earned the right to work remotely. But those were exceptions, and the majority of people were not encouraged to work from home. If you have a centralized organization, where no one is remote, it is much harder to move online. Firstly, you have to play a very specific type of role in the organization, and secondly, you have to build a lot of trust with other people. Once you become fully remote, you start building a completely new set of processes to make it work. I do think that there are a couple of challenges you have to figure out, like answering the questions: ‘How can I build an experience that replaces the in-person work?’ instead of “How can I mimic the in-person experience?”. Remote work means working asynchronously, especially when you are in different parts of the world.

I do think that there are a couple of challenges you have to figure out, like answering the questions: ‘How can I build an experience that replaces the in-person work?’ instead of “How can I mimic the in-person experience?”. Remote work means working asynchronously, especially when you are in different parts of the world.

Luba: The US is becoming more aggressive in terms of their immigration policies. What will recruiting soon look like here in the Valley?

Gustaf: It is absolutely true that you do not need to be in Silicon Valley to start a great company. If you want to replicate Silicon Valley in another city or online, there’s a bunch of components that you have to consider. First of all, you need people-founders, the ones who are willing to start a company with you. Secondly, you need talent, and these people need to be available. Thirdly, you need to fundraise, and maybe all these three things can move online, but fundraising is still primarily done in person. There is yet no equivalent of the startup ecosystem of Silicon Valley, and for that reason, people come here. You can however build your full company remotely.f we consider local hubs like India, Brazil, and a couple of other places, we can see that it will become fully online, but you will likely still need to have a connection with investors in the center of the community such as Silicon Valley).

Luba: As a startup founder, do you have to be an expert in the field you’re starting the company in?

Gustaf: If you are too much of an expert, you will not be able to see what you can change. The idea of how startups are founded is when someone has a bit of expertise in the field and also has a strong technical background. They know how technology changes that field, and they know enough of technology to be able to change it. At the same time, if you have no expertise, you can still succeed, but it would take far more time to do so. The great recipe for failure is to overthink the idea in your head. You need to be creative with understanding what needs to be changed.

If you are too much of an expert, you will not be able to see what you can change. The idea of how startups are founded is when someone has a bit of expertise in the field and also has a strong technical background.

Luba: You’ve been on both sides of it: as a founder and as an investor. How has your perspective changed over time?

Gustaf: Building a company is extremely difficult. Within the last 10 years, entrepreneurship has become more popular, and a lot more people have started to set up companies. Getting a good job makes the goal visible for you, but with business things are different. Most ‘startuppers’ fail. You need to ask yourself a question: ‘How am I going to deal with it if I will not succeed?’. You need a dozen talents, a really good idea, a great team, and luck. No matter how good you are and how much money you have in your account, it is still really difficult to build a successful company. Many people, who have risked to take that step, start to realize that there’s a whole field of the unknown, and it feels different.

Luba: Do you help founders to avoid failure?

Gustaf: Most people will only start a company once or twice. You can gain great experience from one company, but it does not apply to other companies. Of course, you can google ‘how to fundraise money’, but there is a bunch of options that lead you straight to failure:

1. Not talking to customers;

2. Burning through the capital;

3. No co-founder communication.

Luba: What should new founders be focused on now?

Gustaf: Founders should not rely on capital anymore, but instead go for revenue. There are benefits to starting in the bear market. You might be able to convince a person with a great job and stability to join you as a co-founder. I’d say now is the best time to start a company and give this a chance!

You can also find our full conversation on YouTube:

I thank Gustaf for such an insightful dialog, and I hope to bring him on Life of Luba again soon!

For 7 years, Lenny Rachitsky led Growth at Airbnb. About a year ago, he left to explore next steps, and now you can find him focused on his amazing newsletter, advising, and investing.

In my conversation with him, we talked about writing, how he and his startup got acquired by Airbnb, his productivity routines, the focus of his last year, and his insights about product management.

You can find the full interview as a podcast

https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/lenny-rachitsky-joins-the-meeting

Luba: I’ve noticed that Twitter is such a tool in Silicon Valley, and there are even more people active than on Instagram. Why do you think that happens?

Lenny: People pick their primary network based on how much time they spend there, and it is kinda individual. My wife prefers Instagram, I like Twitter.

Luba: Lenny, I recently got into Twitter, and I see that you’re very active there. Did tweeting get you excited about writing? How did you into it?

Lenny: I spend way too much time on Twitter. After 7 years at Airbnb, I tried to figure out what things I learned through this journey. I found out that to clarify it, I had to write it down. I realized other people could benefit from my story and findings. I ended up with 7 things I learned after 7 years at Airbnb, which was the start of what now is my newsletter.

After 7 years at Airbnb, I tried to figure out what things I learned through this journey. I found out that to clarify it for myself, I had to write it down. Through that, I realized I could tell about my path to other people and crystalize things I was learning.

Luba: When distilling those 7 learnings down into a post, did you have a goal to publish the Medium article and share it with the world, or did you mostly do it for yourself?

Lenny: It started with a personal note because I knew that people would ask me what I learned after 7 years in the company.

Luba: Would you say that your writing skills have been cultivated in your product management role?

Lenny: Communication is an extremely important part of being a product manager. When I started to practice writing, I understood I became more effective, and that writing itself is a huge power. If we are talking about product management, we have to look at the core of the job. For example, designers make designs, software engineers write code, product managers talk and write. So the better you are at writing, the more powerful you can be.

Communication is an extremely important part of being a product manager. So the better you are at writing, the more powerful you can be.

Luba: 8 years ago, before you joined Airbnb, you were running your own company that got eventually acquired. How did the acquisition happen?

Lenny: I had an idea of starting my own company when I had been working as a software engineer in San Diego. One time I went to Montreal to visit a friend, who invited me to a conference he hosted. It all started there - some friends and I decided to start a company and I convinced some more friends to come to join us. LocalMind was born and in 2011 even TechCrunch encapsulated its launch. We raised money in Montreal and then moved to San Francisco.

Luba: Why did you decide to move back to the Bay Area?

Lenny: My cofounder and I decided to move back to our origins - we are both from California. A year later the Head of Product at Airbnb, Joe Zadeh, came to us and asked if we remembered him from SXSW. He wanted to see what we could do together since we were in the same space and back then Airbnb was going through a phase when they were developing the Snow White journey. They wanted us to focus on getting Airbnb guests together to have a good time in the destination city. We ended up making a deal, and we had about 8 months to think about how it would look like.

We spent a bunch of time talking with customers, staying in hostels, because hostels and Airbnb are a completely opposite experience. They wanted to add a community aspect to Airbnb, and finally, we came up with 15 different ideas. We had this flashmob like idea that Brian really liked, where the guests would receive a special signal and gather together to dance, hang, and have fun :) Kind of like Rancing now.

Luba: When you joined Airbnb, how did you make a transition from an engineer to a product manager?

Lenny: I entered Airbnb as an engineer, reporting to the CTO. I was the CEO of our startup and as the CEO you kinda lead the team. At Airbnb, our team stayed together, and I continued to lead it, and I happened to be at every PM meeting, doing PM things. I got a clear understanding that I would not be successful as an engineer at Airbnb because it’s such a high bar. So partly this transition was out self-preservation but I enjoyed the product job much more. After 6 months I switched to product completely.

Luba: What would you recommend for people who are considering becoming a PM?

Lenny: I even have an article about this! To say it simply, figure out what fulfills you: are you more fulfilled by building things, or figuring out how to build them. If you are more fulfilled by the latter, Product Management is a great path.

To say it simply, figure out what fulfills you: are you more fulfilled by building things, or figuring out how to build them. If you are more fulfilled by the latter, Product Management is a great path.

Luba: A few months ago you decided to move on. Why did you make this decision?

Lenny: Every year I checked in with myself: I found out that year after year I was still very happy, living my life, trying different things, amazing teams, amazing managers, amazing colleagues, and I had no real reason to leave. Then I went on a 3 months long sabbatical. When I got back, I gave myself one month to make up my mind on my next steps, and eventually, I realized that I was ready to try something new.

Luba: And how are you splitting your time now?

Lenny: Right now, I have three tracks in my life: running my newsletter, advising, and investing. I’m using a pretty cool accountability model - every two weeks I think about the goals I want to reach, I compile them into an email and send them to a dedicated group of friends. That’s what makes me get the goals off the ground :)

I’m using a pretty cool accountability model - every two weeks I think about the goals I want to reach, I compile them into an email and send them to a dedicated group of friends. That’s what makes me get the goals off the ground

Speaking of productivity, I like my friend’s new product Magic Mind a lot. It helps your brain work faster and better for a short period of time, and it is completely natural! I also use a website called Centered.app, which helps your brain to focus on a particular task. It’s lifechanging when I have to write and work on my projects without any distractions.

Thank you for reading that article and for listening to the podcast. I also thank Lenny, who is extremely knowledgeable and inspiring, and I urge you to check out his newsletter. I swear, it’s worth it :)

Senior Software Engineers are leaving high paying tech jobs to build a startup - recently I visited Santa Cruz to interview two of my best friends and colleagues - Stepan And Joe, who decided to leave Airbnb and jump into the tech entrepreneurial world! Guys showed me their Airbnb in Santa Cruz county and explained their decision of taking such a serious step in life.

I made my first angel investment - investing is risky, but I’ve always wanted to get into it. This experience is new for me, and I hope to do more of it over time. It’s always fun to meet new people, learn about the “crazy” visions they are working on, and make my bets!

Last day in my apartment - 2400$ studio in San Francisco - I gave a tour of my victorian studio, which inspired me over a period of 2 years. I liked it for several reasons: There’s enough space and light, which is amazing for videos. It is located in the middle of Hayes Valley, which is one of the coolest neighborhoods in San Francisco. This area is really diverse with its restaurants, cafes, and what I love the most is that it is very central. Even though it was right on the street and the car noise disturbed my sleep sometimes, I was always inspired by this beautiful area I used to live in.

Don’t miss the new podcast episodes coming up on Tuesday at 9am PST, I have an exciting episode coming up! The Meeting is available on all major podcasting platforms. Consider subscribing to my Telegram channel where I share articles, podcasts, newsletter that I recently discovered.

Stay safe!

Love,
Luba 💜

You can check this interview as a podcast:

https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/marina-mogilko-joins-the-meeting

Luba: You are successfully managing a remote team right now. How did it all start?

Marina: My story of building an online team goes back to 2013. We originally started with offices in St. Petersburg, and when we realized that we wanted to expand our business (and back in those years, it was a study abroad booking agency), we had to open an office in Moscow and other Russian cities. I hated traveling to those offices. So we came up with an idea of an online business, and I thought that if clients were booking online, why don’t we set up the team remotely? Every time I came to the office, I had this urge to talk to people, to be sociable. I realized that instead of working 8 hours a day, I worked 4, spending the rest 4 on communication and lunch breaks.

Luba: What do you like about working from home?

Marina: First of all, saving time and energy. I have a bunch of other things to ‘invest’ my energy in, such as my family.

Luba: Has coronavirus affected your business?

Marina: All of our employees remained, but we had to let go of some of our contractors. We have two focuses on LinguaTrip: online and travel. The last is luckily not completely dead, because we still have some bookings.

We went from 80 people in total to 53. But as a company, we are becoming more efficient, diving deeper into processes. We are looking at the pandemic in a positive way.

Luba: You hire a lot of folks internationally, how do you ensure they are successful?

Marina: Rule №1: always have instructions for everything: you see a person as a set of functions, things that need to be done, and their KPIs. It is really important for them to see the whole framework, a person who they report to, a person who they ask for advice.

As a founder, you have to set up a framework that is convenient for you, because we all see things differently. If you do not create clear instructions, it will be a total mess.

Rule №2: Set up a tracking software for people, whose KPIs you control. Always stay aware of the time you are paying for, and check on everything before you know that they can manage it all on their own.

The more details the better!

Rule №1: always have instructions for everything. Rule №2: Set up a tracking software for people, whose KPIs you control.

Luba: I love the process you’ve described! How many businesses are you running right now?

Marina: LinguaTrip, Linguamarina Inc, Fluent Express. I also have YouTube courses and digital-products, so that’s a lot of stuff :)

Originally posted on Instagram

Luba: Are you fully or partly operational in each of these businesses?

Marina: I do a lot in LinguaTrip, and I do a lot on my YouTube company.

Luba: How do you manage it all?

Marina: I am trying to limit my work to 4 hours a day because otherwise, I would be working all the time without spending time with my family.

Luba: Sounds like you have a great work-life balance. Was it your goal from the beginning?

Marina: That was my goal when I got pregnant because I realized once the baby is here, I won’t be able to work 8 hours a day anymore. This is when we started creating all the instructions, when I started hiring people that I would trust long-term, setting up everything in case I want to retire.

Originally posted on Instagram

Luba: Was the situation different before the baby?

Marina: I used to say ‘yes’ to everything, and now I understand that I have to say ‘no’ to some stuff. Now it is about limiting the number of projects that I have.

Luba: When is the best time to start hiring new people and shifting responsibilities?

Marina: When you are sure that you have all the instructions and KPIs when you understand exactly what the person is going to do, and exactly what you are going to delegate. It is also important to understand that you can never delegate strategy. Hiring people who are able to do it is really pricey. By Delegating operations, your day-to-day processes are ok, but you can’t expect a person to come from another company and draw a target line for your business. The strategy should be purely on you.

Delegating operations, your day-to-day processes are ok, but you can’t expect a person to come from another company and draw a target line for your business. The strategy should be purely on you.

Luba: How did you manage to build multiple businesses?

Marina: I have a role model for every business. I love to learn from serial entrepreneurs.

My role model is Oleg Tinkov. He had a food company, a beer company, the famous Russian bank. It does not mean that he is an expert in the beer industry, food production, and finance. He is just good at finding the right people, who help him grow his businesses. He understands how he can make the processes more and more efficient.

Tinkoff Bank (Founded by Oleg Tinkov) is a Russian commercial bank focused entirely on remote servicing, rather than retail outlets. The photograph is taken from Instagram.

Luba: And how has your perspective of a company building has changed after relocating to Silicon Valley?

Marina: When we came here, we realized that we did not want to be on the investor needle, which means that you can survive only by raising another round. We returned back to Russia for one year just to make sure that we were cash positive so we could finance everything ourselves, and not be dependent on other people making decisions for our company. This is what makes a business healthy.

People focus more on raising money instead of building a product, which is a complete mistake.

Posted on Instagram

People focus more on raising money instead of building a product, which is a complete mistake.

Luba: How can one get started with diversifying income?

Marina: When I started building diverse income sources, I was thinking about trying new things. Then you need to understand which of those things you enjoy the most. First, we started LinguaTrip, then I got my first 1000$ from my YouTube channel, and I decided to dive deeper. Afterward, we launched online courses, which are literally saving us now, and then I started my own YouTube course.

Luba: Speaking about online courses, most tend to think that a lot of people are not willing to pay for an education, because the content on the internet should be free. What are your thoughts on that?

Marina: It all depends on personality. There’s a great platform ‘Masterclass’, where people are willing to pay for the digital-products they offer. It is all about brand and producing quality content.

When you are paying for your education, you become more responsible for it, right? You’ve already spent money, and there’s less risk that you will drop off.

Luba: Can one create a paid course without a significant following?

Marina: When I started producing my YouTube courses, I only had 100 true followers. If you have 100 people who love you, and they invest 100$ in your product, then it makes 10000$ a year. And if it’s 1000 people who love you, then it’s even more. If you are a creator, you do not need 1m subscribers, you just need 1000 true fans, and then you can make a living off of it. That’s a whole theory.

Luba: How do you know that you are prioritizing your work correctly? Do you set metrics for yourself?

Marina: Every week we sit down with my husband when we define two actions for the next 7 days, which can lead us to bigger goals. These are the actions that we tend to forget about, being overloaded with day-to-day operations.

For example, next week I need to find a person who is going to run my social media in China because China is my top priority right now.

Luba: You’ve mentioned China as your main goal. How are you going to focus on it?

Marina: I am not sure that I can crack it, but I want to try. A lot of my content is copied there, and it’s getting a lot of traction, which means that Chinese people like these topics.

The majority of money in China is made by live streams, but if you are not a Chinese citizen, you can not even go live. I am trying to find a person who would help me with my social media, and then we’ll see how we are going to deal with it.

China is the №1 market for language learners, and we really want to be there.

Overall, Marina and I had a truly pleasant conversation. I learned that it is necessarily important to say ‘no’ sometimes, to delegate and create clear instructions before deciding to take a step back. I am already intrigued to try all these ‘hacks’ at my work. What about you?

Hope you are doing well and having a great week! What have you all been up to lately?😎

This week was pretty hasty, but I figured it out. It’s been a lot of stuff with my move, new podcast and blog ideas. Here’s what you missed:

I am finally moving out from San Francisco - it's time to say goodbye to San Francisco! I can't believe this chapter of my life is over for now. After 5 incredible years in the city, I decided to move on. 

I spent the 2 last months about an hour away from San Francisco, closer to nature, in a small city. And I realized a few different things...

Interview with @moredaria -  I interviewed Daria, who comes from Ukraine — a country of creatives. She managed to build an impressive career in fashion and became a symbol in this field. She made her motherland trendy, provided with a flow of opportunities for her peers. We talked about digital fashion, sustainability, and the future of consumption in different countries. And don’t forget to listen to my podcast with Daria 💜

I am also trying a new accountability technique a friend has recommended and assembling my own Personal Board of Directors

Don’t miss the new podcast episodes - The Meeting is available on all major podcasting platforms, and consider subscribing to my Telegram channel where I share articles, podcasts, newsletter that I recently discovered 😎

 Stay tuned and keep safe!  😉

Love,

Luba 💜

https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/anna-kostikova-joins-the-meeting

⁣Luba: You’ve spent a lot of time at a pharmaceutical company, and you are much closer to what is going on in this field. What are your thoughts on coronavirus and what are your predictions?

Anna: There are a couple of things. The first one is the level of effort going on across the world in pharma, life science, and biotech going on and concentrated on one thing. Everybody collaborates, tries to share knowledge, technology, and simple things like laboratory equipment. Everybody is not competing to get to market, but rather trying to achieve a common goal.

Luba: Do you think we will find the cure?

Anna: There are two lines of effort. The first one is about developing a vaccine, and the second one is repurposing the drugs which can help people with severe types of COVID-19. Now it is mostly about testing people with difficult cases of coronavirus. However, it is a long process for vaccines because it is not about just discovering them, but also about making sure that they are completely safe and effective. Now we have more than 100 vaccines that are being developed, and one of them will probably work, but it is really time-consuming to test them all. That is why many governments are trying, even without knowing which one, to start manufacturing because if we wait until the vaccine is ready, and then build factories or deploy production, it may be too late. At the same time, many people are afraid to use a vaccine because of safety, if the vaccine was not sufficiently tested. We have one year in reserve so we will see.

Luba: You spent most of your career working in Machine Learning, how does it help medical production?

Anna: Machine learning and data science are ramping up in all pharma, biotech, and life science. We are at the very beginning of the process, and I am super excited to build it all from scratch. Starting from discovering chemistries, or new drug products, data science, and machine learning can identify which one can actually benefit the human being, and also help to discover which patients are going to respond better to specific treatments. There are lots of applications to machine imaging, large data sets of CT scans analysis, or even IHS, which help to detect the disease earlier.

Luba: How is Machine Learning helping the application of a drug?

Anna: We analyze different types of assessments, and we take this data from molecule information. It is about our DNA, proteins which exist in our body. And by looking at what quantities it consists of, we use these ‘features’ to understand who is going to respond to a drug better. We try to break down a human organism into multiple features, and these features could be molecule information or medical history. Then we try to scan these massive data sets to figure out how the person is going to respond to the drug. Unlike other fields, where you have enormous data information, in clinical settings we actually have to deal with completely new data sets.

Luba: You’ve spent about 5 years working at Booking.com and building a data science team there. Could you elaborate on the difference between working in tech versus in a traditional industry?

Anna: There are a couple of differences, which I am going to highlight from a data science perspective, and from this point of view the tech is definitely different. During my time in Booking, we have been using the most modern data warehousing technologies, streaming technologies to capture the data, to do real-time prediction. Moving towards a more traditional industry, we experience a very old technology set coming from the 70s or 80s. It is also a very different attitude of how you capture the data and how you keep it. In tech companies data is considered to be a very valuable asset, in traditional industries this is much harder because people are not used to thinking about the data as a contribution to the company. Therefore, if you want to build something and use data science or machine learning, first you need to persuade all the stakeholders that they need to engage in proper data capturing storage and so on. And this is not an easy task because you need to wait until you accumulate enough information. You can make your company more competitive by using data.

Data harmonization, standardization, and data governance are new concepts for traditional industries.

Luba: What can the tech industry learn from the traditional industry?

Anna: A lot of traditional businesses are very physical, and it means that you have a lot of different relationships with all types of suppliers, other small businesses which help you to navigate your complex supply chain. And lots of them have really involved relationships. For example, Booking.com had really good relationships with partners who provide accommodation, and this is what makes this business very competitive.

It is easy to build a platform, but building relationships takes time.

Luba: You became a data scientist and a machine learning engineer before it was cool, built a successful team in Booking, and now you work for Novartis. How did you know that DS and ML would be the future?

Anna: If I rollback, a decade ago, I was finishing my PhD in Computational Biology and bioinformatics, which is a heavy analytics field because you need to know programming, coding, statistics. After getting the degree, I was intrigued by going into the industry. It was the year the Glassdoor came to Europe, and their advertisement popped up hey were looking for a data science specialist. At that time I never heard about this role, but I clicked on it, read the description, the requirements, the job functions, and I loved it. It was a quintessence of what I used to do before. I literally read all the blogs and materials, and after Kaggle (online competition) went live, I decided to take part in it. There were only two roles in Europe with this title, and I applied. When I got in, I understood that real data science was completely different from what I used to study. I had imposter syndrome, I also learned a lot (and I still do), and I even started thinking differently — what exactly I was bringing to this business.

PS Anna put together a list of her favorite books on Machine Learning and you can download it for free here

Luba: The Data Science field has so many verticals right now. Which ones are particularly lucrative?

Anna: Over time data science has changed a lot. There are a lot more specializations happening. Now you have people who do visualization, data analytics, and you also have generalist data scientists, then you have machine learning engineers. Besides you have data engineers, who are more like software engineers, building the back-end of the data.

I would say that there is a higher demand for engineers with data science skills and vice versa.

Luba: You are passionate about helping other women lead and amplifying their voices. Has the fact that you are a woman ever been an obstacle for you in your career?

Anna: I am passionate about helping other women to not be shy and step up. The tech field is predominantly male, and there are many fewer women working. But all my male colleagues were really supportive and helpful, and they were encouraging me to become a woman who can do it all. In Europe, this problem is less severe than in Silicon Valley. However I still feel that women, in general, are not represented in tech, but I am sure this bias will be fixed soon. Different opinions generate creativity and inspiration :)

Once I became a mom, I understood the misbalance between the expectations of men and women. When my male colleagues became dads, it was a small change for them, but for all my female colleagues it was a huge life shift. Even in comparison with the salary conversion, for men, it is ok even after taking a father role, but for women becoming a mother is really costly, as the huge loss in salary is observed. It is not because women are worse as professionals, it is because of social expectations.

I thank Anna for such a great conversation about her career path and data science immersion. I am sure that even though this field is pretty developed and hard to get into, I know there are lots of ways to contribute to it.

You can find the full interview as a podcast:

https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/daria-joins-the-meeting

Posted on Instagram

Luba: As a modern woman, how do you manage to do it all?

Daria: I have good days when I am full of energy and I want to conquer the world, and some days I think that I’m doing nothing and I can not find time for anything. My goal is to increase the quantity and quality of the former. I think as soon as we reach the end of our extreme potential in everything, we can serve a true mission. That is why I am really thankful for this situation with the quarantine because I think we have more time to reflect on what we are doing, what really brings us joy, what’s important and what’s not.

Posted on Instagram

Luba: Have you reached your extreme potential or is there still some room to grow?

Daria: There will always be room to grow. I feel that there were moments in my life when I was more prepared for what’s going on. We all have different phases of our life when we have more or less energy. I know that I did stuff like charity events, running marathons, I lived in Ukraine, traveled a lot, then decided to move to the USA, which was basically like starting a new life. That’s a challenge, as well as building your profile in another country.

Posted on Instagram

Luba: How do you think life will change after the lockdown is over?

Daria: Some part of our life will certainly become online. People are already ok with having Zoom birthdays, it is ok to stay in touch with close people and family via FaceTime, and it is ok to have online meetings. I have already transferred 70% of my meetings online, and it is really time-saving. I also have this aspect that my family is in Ukraine, and when I moved to the USA, I talked to them through Skype or other messengers like What’s Up. We have this habit of staying in good relationships by using only online tools, and it is really beneficial for me. I don’t know what I would do without social media.

I think some part of our life will certainly become online. People have already understood that it is ok to have Zoom birthdays, it is ok to stay in touch with close people and family via FaceTime, and it is ok to have online meetings.

Luba: What kind of innovation will happen in fashion?

Daria: Everyone understands that we will never live like we used to live before. It’s unacceptable to have so much waste in fashion. Do you remember the time two years ago, when we (moredash.com) created some popup stores, where people could not only buy clothes but also create content? I think the store environment should be fun and it certainly is becoming a new asset. But now when everything is closed, I think it is important to move online.

Luba: Can you tell a little bit more about digital fashion?

Daria: Our garments will become intelligent, for example, they will calculate calories while we run. Of course, we have an Apple Watch, but not everyone wears it. As a result, I think that sportswear should become intelligent. Vintage resale will become more and more important, as well as storytelling, which has already started gaining popularity. It’s like asking yourself: ‘What should you do when your starting point is fashion, and you sell your universe to people?’.

The demand for loungewear will continue growing because it is important to look good even at home. Take China, for example. They still like having 90% of their meetings online, they want to stay at home and look great in front of their web-cameras.

Luba: What is digital fashion exactly? Is it the future?

Daria: It definitely won’t substitute all the clothes we wear, but a part of the fashion world will move into ‘filters’. For example, I can wear something during my online meeting, without wearing it in real life. It’s really amazing! If we have filters for the background, why don’t we have them for clothes? So we see that this trend already exists in all these Zoom backgrounds, and Instagram masks. Big retailers have already started a collaboration with gaming companies, so I think that it is the future.

‘For example, I can wear something during my online meeting, without wearing it in real life. It’s really amazing! If we have filters for the background, why don’t we have them for clothes?

Luba: Is it going to change our perception of ourselves?

Daria: I think it is inevitable because the biggest part of our lives has already moved online. Digital clothing is just a matter of technology, so we will get used to it quickly.

Luba: More and more brands are shouting left and right about being sustainable. Is it just a marketing strategy or do brands actually starting to care about sustainability more?

Daria: Most of the brands are now online, and sustainable ones show this vividly on their social media. It’s like meeting a vegan. They share it from the very start of the conversation, and it is the tool for them to be different. There are more and more brands that use sustainability either as a marketing tool or as their strategy. And it definitely has transformed our perception of sustainability. The main problem was that most recently sustainable garments were not sexy when the core of fashion is to give women femininity, the feeling of beauty. So with this change, many brands have started driving sustainability towards cutting edge and towards looking better. That is why I love supporting the brand Reformation.

The main problem was that recently the sustainable garments were not sexy when the core of fashion is to give women femininity, the feeling of beauty. So with this reformation, many brands have started driving sustainability towards cutting edge and towards looking better.

Luba: Moredash started a TikTok account recently and it’s doing well. Is TikTok a good platform for designing your B2C channel?

Daria: I love it. I spent all of my time there. I love everyone can express their creativity. It is no longer possible to do that on Instagram. TikTok does give you the opportunity to express yourself. It might die, but if it has all Instagram features, it will certainly move forward. I see a lot of brands going there.

Luba: China is a country to watch when it comes to digital consumer behavior. Are all of the trends coming from Asia nowadays?

Daria: Asia can give us a lot of ideas. Take virtual shopping, for example. When I traveled to Hong Kong for the first time, it was a brand new world for me. I went to a big fashion store there, and I saw how the merchandise was done, and everything was so different. The stores are very consumer-driven: it’s always the game between the brand and the consumer. It’s important to have this feedback loop and for the brand to change accordingly to what the consumer wants.

I kindly thank Daria for such a deep look into the fashion sector and for this great insight into the future of fashion. I am already intrigued by the virtual clothing. How about you?

You can find the full interview as a podcast:

https://the-meeting.captivate.fm/episode/akhil-joins-the-meeting

Akhil with his dog, Melo.

Luba: Akhil, how many interviews have you had in the last few weeks?

Akhil: I’ve been receiving a lot of inbound requests, a lot more than I typically would during ‘normal’ job search. On average I’m having one call with the recruiter every day, and it’s ongoing.

Luba: I’m really sorry you were directly impacted by COVID-19. Could you share more about your layoff experience?

Akhil: I was working from home, and we had to work from home a week prior until the company made sure everyone had a monitor setup. Then out of the blue, I received a Google invitation to the mandatory meeting, which was a webinar with the CEO. It was only two minutes long. He just expressed that our company is projected to lose revenue this year and we’re not doing so well. In order to lower our costs, they had to cut our workforce. Within seconds after that webinar, we lost our email access so I couldn’t even look out for the HR’s email. Sad but true.

Luba: Were you worried at first that you wouldn’t be able to find an opportunity right now? I’ve heard that many companies are freezing hiring and cutting costs…

Akhil: To be honest, I was a little bit worried and I had no offers, no final round interviews at the time, but at the same time I was also encouraged and motivated that I will find something better. And I did.

It was a Zoom meeting with the CEO. About 2 minutes long. He just expressed that our company is projected to lose revenue this year we’re not doing so well. In order to lower our costs, they had to cut our workforce. That was my last day working for ZipRecruiter.

Luba: And as far as I remember, the role you accepted is higher level and higher pay.

Akhil: Yeah, exactly! I don’t want to go into numbers, but it’s almost double my income in comparison to my previous positions. I couldn’t be happier. I am looking forward to this next chapter in my career.

Luba: What are the tips you have for people who are looking for jobs during COVID-19?

Akhil: My first advice is to stay motivated, be confident, and use this extra time that we have at home to really work on your mind, your body, and all other things that you would not spend time with a usual normal day. Approach people, and don’t be shy because there are so many resources for free to reach out. Talking about me, I’ve made a list of all the resources that have been helpful for me and I sent them over to a couple of friends.

Never forget about online courses, especially the ones with free trials. Get the certificate for a specific program, because these achievements show that you’re using this extra time in quarantine trying to level up your profile, not whining about your complicated fate. Quarantine is a blessing in disguise so never waste a crisis to boost your knowledge and skills. This opportunity will not be presented at any time soon.

‘My first advice is to stay motivated, be confident, and use this extra time that we have at home to really work on your mind, your body, and all other things that you would not spend time with a usually normal day. Approach people, and don’t be shy because there are so many resources for free to use.’

Luba: I love this advice for anyone, not only folks impacted by COVID-19. You mentioned completing a certificate, I’ve always been curious, are recruiters really paying attention to what certificates and courses you take additionally to your degree?

Akhil: It’s hard to say. I’ve never asked a recruiter what points in my resume caught their eye. I’m curious as to why I might be being reached out to for these like higher-level roles that I would not expect to be considered for: Facebook has reached out to me for several data scientist roles even though I had no relevant experience. That was surprising, so having a course in data science might have definitely helped. That’s why I think taking a class and putting it on your resume would never hurt.

Luba: How did you manage to get rid of the feeling of an imposter when applying for higher-level roles?

Akhil: — never undersell yourself. I used to be intimidated by higher-level positions until I was reached out to senior-level roles.
- every candidate brings ‘something different to the table. You need to show the recruiter what you are bringing to the table, what is your personality or your credentials. Everyone is different, and you could be a very valuable individual, with whom the company would love to work.

‘You need to show the recruiter what you’re bringing to the table, what is your personality, or are your credentials. Everyone is different, and you are a very valuable individual, with whom the company would love to work. ’

Luba: What makes data science a unique field to pursue?

Akhil: Data is growing every day. People should recognize that with this pandemic there’s gonna be a lot more data points to measure. This is why Facebook is hiring a lot more data scientists. They want to understand what is going on and how to be better prepared for the future if something like this occurs again. In general, a lot of people are at home, there’s going to be higher traffic volume on messengers like WhatsApp which means a lot more sheer volume of data and that’s why the demand for data scientists is going to continue to grow. I recently read an article that by 2022 there will be 50% more data science jobs than in 2019. It’s a great field to be in.

“People should recognize that with this COVID pandemic there’s gonna be a lot more data points to measure. So this is why Facebook is hiring a lot more data scientists. They want to understand what is going on and how to be better prepared for the future if something like this occurs again.”

I thank Akhil for such valuable insights into his layoff, job search, and, generally, career. He put together a guide for anyone who’d like to get started in Data Science. You will find a list of books and courses, and resources to apply for jobs there.