derek

Maybe that culture is fine for you at linear, and it looks like it’s working great for you! You’ve created something worth over a billion dollars in 7 short years, that’s something very few people on the planet have done before. But sometimes there are big problems that need solving, and there is more creative thinking, not less, that happens with contact with the big problems. In our case, creating the financial operating system that owns the creation, transfer, financing, and investment of risk, using AI to automate the paperwork of the most regulated entities to make every business and person a little more profitable, waste a lot less time, and be more protected, is a big problem. Maybe there were super geniuses at the Manhattan Project working 1 day per week like zen masters. I doubt it though, because if you’re obsessed with a problem, you work hard. Nowhere did I or do I glorify lack of sleep (I always think sleeping right and exercise are very important), and different people have different visions, cadences, and ways they want to run their companies. And that’s ok, but you attacking our style based upon sound bites when we are solving a really important problem, by market sizing probably the biggest problem large language models can solve, isn’t it.

Am I just a monster? It's been 4 years since I became a father and I'm beginning to fear for my soul. The truth is I just don't like being around kids for very long. Historically, this is not uncommon among fathers, but today it feels almost illegal. It's causing me a lot of confusion and anguish. The ideal amount of time I would like to spend playing with my kids is probably about 70-140 minutes a week—roughly ten minutes each day, maybe 2x/day, taking breaks from work. My feelings of love toward them are perfectly strong, but if I have to watch them or entertain them for more than about 10 minutes my blood starts to boil. I just want to be working, or accomplishing something. I try to be grateful, but it doesn't work. It's 9 AM this morning, Saturday, January 3. It's a sunny, warm day here in Austin, and my four-year-old son is begging me to play catch in the street. I was drinking coffee, still waking up, so I didn’t really feel like it, but at this age his desire to play is insatiable. He begged and begged, so I conceded, and with a smile. I have no problem being a kind and loving father, the problem is only that I do not enjoy it. It's not that I'm trying to maximize my personal pleasure; it just seems wrong that I experience so little delight when my dad friends all claim to experience so much. It was beautiful. We live on a picturesque, tree-lined block. I am even relatively relaxed from the holiday rest. Playing catch with your son is supposed to be an iconic, peak experience. Yet for every single minute, on the inside, I just don't want to be there. I want to be drinking my coffee in peace. Then I feel guilty and absurdly ungrateful, and ashamed, when we're done. I know that when he is a teenager, I'll long to have these days back. I have all of this perspective rationally, and I've been very patient and steadfast trying to digest it, but nothing fixes me emotionally. Am I a terrible person? Or is my feeling within a certain range of historically normal and it's modern parenting norms that are off? Whether it's my fault or not, I don't even care, I just want to figure this out. Something is wrong and I no longer have the excuse of being new to this.