Every Sunday, I write a quick newsletter to share some thoughts, things I’ve learned, and a few of my favorite things from the week. Enjoy!

Hey friends,

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and Merry Christmas. I’m writing out my annual reflection and aiming to share it soon. I try to reflect every day in my daily entry in Notion, with the annual reflection being a lot more comprehensive. I also use my birthday, which is in a summer month, as a nice checkpoint to see how I’m doing in regards to my progress towards the goals outlined in the annual reflection, which encompass both professional and personal goals. Hope you’re all staying safe and enjoying this time of year.

Have a great week!
Daniel


Things that resonated with me this week

  1. I really liked this.
  2. I appreciated this tweet by Jack Altman. A disruptive company has to set out with originality and be bold in its first steps, if it is by definition a truly new venture that creates new markets and provides a fundamentally different approach to how something is done. That doesn’t mean you have to be disruptive in every other aspect of the business throughout the company’s lifecycle - actually, a lot of the best practices of established companies are still applicable. You can hold two different views and approaches simultaneously. Don’t feel that you have to take one idea and paint your entire approach and process with it - this notion goes beyond entrepreneurship and also applies to life in general, etc. It goes back to this podcast by Bruce Springsteen and Conan O’Brien.
  3. This was an interesting tweet by Matt Huang about the growing tech scene in Miami and Austin, which he notes is a form of a coordination game.

Things I’m trying out

  • Being more present and enjoying each day on its own merit
  • Writing out an article first thing in the morning with my breakfast on either tech VC, health, STEM, or pretty much anything and everything

Stuff that’s on my mind

  • Epidemiological history points to the fact that another pandemic can emerge in the future, and that pandemic prevention and preparedness measures are crucial - we need infrastructure in place, for example for the development of novel vaccines to address novel outbreaks that occur, in order to be prepared and so that we are ready for any future outbreaks and to prevent them from developing into pandemics.

Quote of the week

“Anything original comes from the unconscious. It’s by playing around, without any particular aim, that you hit on something.” - John Cleese