eric wu

business is making stuff people want. art is making stuff you want.

@mnovendstern this me

Guy who boldly proclaims the contrarian view that is completely consensus within his peer group

@MoreBirths @MisterKeegan

Women can have a big family and an impactful career, but timing is everything My conversation with Catherine Pakaluk There seems to be a terrible conflict at the core of modern life, between work and family. Men and women alike, but women especially, are pulled in opposing directions on this. This clash helps explain why birthrates plunge ever lower as countries become integrated into the global economy. To turn the birthrate crisis around, it is not enough for women to have one or two kids each. Since many people will be childless, the only way to solve this is if a lot of people have big families. But how can a woman ever have meaningful work and make an impact if she has more than two kids? Doing it all I have been delighted to get to know Catherine Pakaluk. Professor Pakaluk is one of the most accomplished people I’ve ever met: a mother of 14, a Harvard PhD, a much-loved, tenured economics professor at Catholic University, an author of multiple books and now a regular on some of the most influential podcasts in the world. That 14 number can’t be right, can it? Well yes, she really does have that many. Dr. Pakaluk adopted her husband’s six young children after his first wife died prematurely of breast cancer. And then they went on to have eight more. By all accounts she has been doing a wonderful job as a mother. Yet she also got a PhD from Harvard? And a tenured professorship? Multiple books? How Dr. Pakaluk did it To be fair Catherine Pakaluk has a remarkable set of gifts, both intellectual and in terms of sheer energy. If you want to know what peak performance looks like, she's got to be close. But career and family really are at war, especially for women. I had to ask her how she did both at such a high level. She explained to me, “The main trade off is that [my husband and I are] 18 years different in age, so he had already gotten tenure before we got married. Two professionals operating at maximum effort is usually pretty rough—I agree with you there.” So, her husband was established, successful and able to provide strong financial support when the kids were little. Good, what else? “The other trade off — I took 12 years getting my Harvard PhD — almost double the ‘normal’ time. And another 12 to get tenure — double the time.” Pakaluk poured herself into family while young, and spread her education and career building over many years, operating on a timeline that society does not present. Here is a picture with her upon getting her Harvard PhD, six kids in tow. She tells me, “The iron law of demography is that fertility goes down with women’s education. If births are good, that means only one of two things. Either women’s education is bad (and many young trads are starting to think this!), or women’s education is fine (even good!) but education currently has been structured on a male timeline. My research, and my own life, and many friends’ lives, give me reason to think it’s number 2 and not number 1.” Well said! Catherine’s new book Hannah’s Children is the story of mothers of many and how they do it. Buy a copy for yourself, and more copies for the young people in your life. Our world is in big trouble for lack of children, and mothers of many may be the ones who save us. (And please follow @MoreBirths for more answers to the global fertility crisis.)

@TylerCWhitmore @movieboy69 there are only 35 alamo drafthouse locations out of the thousands of movie theaters in the US. and consumers have a lot of choice in how / where they watch movies compared to the 1930s when this antitrust bill was passed. so not horrible from an antitrust standpoint

@movieboy69 Good for the very short term, bad for the long term. Keeps Alamo from going under but horrible from an antitrust standpoint. Wall Street will now determine Alamo’s future. I think at best it delays Alamo’s eventual death.

Can one of you nerds tell me if this is good or bad

@gregisenberg 3 close friends

Status symbols today: - Long Strava runs - Empty calendars - Caring about microplastics - Electric cars - Mortgage rate below 3% - Having lots of followers or being off social completely - Being sober - Eating "clean" - Type of water you drink - Private school for kids - Traveling to Japan - Premium skincare - 2nd house - Backyard pizza oven - 2+ fridges - Sauna/cold plunge regiment - Charcuterie boards - Private chef - Dyson vacuums - Beautiful workstation - Le labo products - Second hand goods with stories - Eating organic - HiFi audio - Reading books - Work-life balance - High end coffee regiment - Digital detoxing What did I miss?

@nickcammarata how?

it's wild that we can train to make time move more slowly

@avnibarman_ 👋

Or you can comment ✋below if you can’t message me and I’ll send it over!

Every day before I get out of bed, I cold message two new people that I admire. It never takes me more than 5 minutes. I've been doing this every morning for years, and it has gotten me: - 4 internships - my first full time PM job - my first investor in my business - a self-made female billionaire to fly me out to her office for a private meeting - 3 new best friends - an invitation to an exclusive founder retreat sponsored by Nike - and my first five-figure brand deal! Curious to see what a cold message like this looks like? DM me and I’ll send it to you!

@uberstuber lol 28 bookmarks and we're only 11 tweets in. strap yourselves in boys

Last year I was diagnosed with ADHD. I haven't written about it much because the diagnosis was a shock. Now I have a more solid understanding of ADHD, how it presents for me, and ways to mitigate some of the downsides. So, for threadapalooza 2023, here's 100 tweets on ADHD

@fmfclips @foundmyfitness everyday? how much sauna per week is too much?

.@foundmyfitness' sauna protocol • 175 ªF • 15% humidity • 20 minutes if post-workout, 30 minutes otherwise

@PalmerLuckey can someone do this for palmer and oculus / anduril?

Introducing: Roadrunner, a compact VTOL drone powered by twin thrust-vectored turbojet engines with extraordinary speed, range, and payload capacity. & Roadrunner-M, a radical new low-cost weapon that allows for unprecedented tactics against powerful threats.

@MisterKeegan oh god those last two lines sent a tingle up my spine

If there is anything that makes me skeptical about this rally, It is that not enough folks are skeptical about the rally. From a pure non-analytical, vibes-only perspective I feel like bull market beginnings are usually met with more disbelief/I’ve-been-hurt-before/don’t-you-dare-give-me-hope/jaded-neutrality. I’m not sure we’ve marinated enough in pain that the flavor has really sunk into our bones and made us forget that once upon a time, long ago, number did in fact go up. I, of course, will ignore this thought and position myself as though this is the start of a bull market anyway. Once more unto the breach.

@AKlokus and this nbcnews.com/news/weird-new…

The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence stating that we have recovered technology that did not originate on Earth... The fact we aren't talking about this more is mind-boggling.

@MisterKeegan i’m starting to wonder if i’m a security

🌈✨ R E G U L A T O R Y ✨🌈 🌈✨ C L A R I T Y ✨🌈

@utotranslucence not as cool or indie as the other ones but with far more nostalgia twitter.com/ATRightMovies/…

Hi Twitter, wanna recommend me a movie? Want deep archetypal resonance, particularly feminine archetypes, gorgeously unique/intricate visuals/world, deep sense of texture (opposite of minimalist sci-fi), ideally something related to myth, magic, worldviews, cultures…

@dieworkwear i like linen :)

@dieworkwear any recs for suit options for september weddings in new york for someone who's 5'11" 150 pounds slightly broad shoulders and a slimmish waist?

saw someone asking for help finding a suit and 80 ppl replied that they should get something custom-made or in X fabric. while well-intentioned, such advice is bad. custom doesn't mean better; fabric depends on use and climate. have to think about your fit challenges and needs

@dieworkwear thoughts on jordan’s with a linen suit for a wedding?

@derekouyang have you read diaspora by greg egan?

@derekouyang i’m gonna give your asimov reading order a shot, mostly because ted chiang is top 5 author for me of the last few years so i now immediately trust you

@melodaysong i like the idea of a solo space embedded in a community

i recently realized the living situation that helps me thrive the most (as someone with extrovert tendencies); it’s a space where the default environment = readily available spontaneous connection opportunities and then, when i need alone time, i can go seek out solitude

@bryan_johnson 2000 calories a day, 20% calorie restriction...how do you deal with hunger / fatigue? was there a transition period?