Newsletter #63 - Expectations Antler is like a reality show without cameras People disappear from the program all the time and nobody know where they went or what happened The whole thing kinda fizzles out At least if you’re not in a team, like me, and so have no outlook on an investment two weeks from now I shouldn’t care so much but I seem to be kinda sensitive to this Why do I feel bad people are leaving? Maybe because with less people there is less energy, and I like being surrounded with...
26 days ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #62 - Write On Mondays! For weeks I've been trying to write this newsletter For weeks I don't manage anything but boring drafts Is the vibe of the Antler accelerator killing my motivation to write? Or is my writing muscle just poorly trained? I'll go back to my early writing philosophy: "Write on Mondays" Mondays are the days of inspiration, of energy, of new beginnings The day in which I believe I have unlimited time. And hence I've noticed Monday is the better day to write....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Newsletter #61 - Settling In After two months, we're kinda settled in Amsterdam Kinda Because the kids go to daycare, my spouse is starting work But I don't have a plan yet Let's figure it out together The Would Be Plan Before moving to the Netherlands, I was working on AI image generation, and I gave myself a lot of time to come up with something before exchanging time for money again. But I need to put a money tap on, at least for a while. Partly because Netherlands is $$$, partly to prove...
4 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #60 - Step Change! I should write more often because it structures my thoughts because I want to have a record of my progress and thinking for the future Especially in times of significant changes Significant changes like right now Change happens in multiple ways: (1) Incremental progress, like dieting or learning something new, which requires effort every day (2) Big step changes, which change the course of life Currently we're in a Step Change The Step Change I'm writing from a...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Newsletter #59 - Update! My local coffee bar has a promotion: 150 THB for coffee and cake. As a child or student I would have tried to choose the most expensive cake, and the most expensive coffee. As students, we even theorized that alcohol price labels should contain the amount of alcohol you would get per euro. So we could optimize for that. I used to check the different European Amazon websites to find the cheapest price for a book. I could save 1-2 euros. Somehow my dominant optimization...
8 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #58 - Alea Iacta Est ! I write to document my thinking at that exact moment in time. I wrote the draft for this newsletter last week, in the moment. 10 days ago Monday Toyota announced they wouldn’t extend my contract as the USD JPY exchange rate is making me significantly more expensive Two days later on Wednesday they informed that due to headcount pressure they also won’t be able to convert me to full time if I would want to. That means the Toyota story comes to an end. I’m very...
10 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #57 - Marathon Again! Every week multiple things trigger me to write a newsletter. Sometimes it's mental block, sometimes it's a deep thought, sometimes it's a memory. But if I don't force myself into a weekly schedule, somehow I don't get to it. Last weekend I ran Tokyo Marathon. There were so many reasons to write: On Friday I was nervous before taking my flight. Writing is the best way to write off the nerves. At the airport I was contemplating how this travel breaks my routine....
10 months ago • 2 min read
Newsletter #56 - Deep Pockets! Money I just finished a podcast about an ex-prisoner who did bank loan fraud, acquired millions, got caught, spend around ten years in prison, got released and had to start from nothing. And he said he was miserable when he had the millions, and happy when he had nothing. There are similar stories, the book Wild Swans describes a similar maximum happiness at the moment when they're most poor. And yet, money seems to be the solution to many challenges. Where we...
11 months ago • 1 min read
Newsletter #55 - Distraction Is distraction good or bad? When I work, I am not open for conversation, I dislike it when someone comes to chit-chat. Hence why I love remote work. But I'm forcing myself to embrace it. A good conversation is probably more valuable than getting my todo-list done. I once heard this story that people who work heads down get a lot of things done, but get the wrong things done. While people who are open for conversation get less done, but get more relevant things...
11 months ago • 2 min read
