Writing to Think

I recently announced that I was stepping back from my full-time role at Upstart. It was sad for me to go, but I tend to be someone who looks forward and not backward — so I’ve been enjoying all the questions about what I’m going to do next. And the honest answer is, I don’t have any substantial plans right now.

However, I do know that I want to spend more time reading (and thinking). In particular, I plan to spend time diving into the newest areas of AI (a landscape which is seemingly shifting by the hour!) and the connected topics of climate change and energy. If you have any recommendations for books, newsletters, articles, etc — send them my way!

As a part of that process, I plan to start writing more as well. I don’t expect to have a lot of particularly new thinking to share (one can always hope!). However, I find that writing about a topic helps me to understand it better and to clarify my thinking (an understanding I have borrowed from Paul Graham). At my best, I hope to share what I’m learning in ways that might be more understandable or digestible that others can find in other sources.

In addition tho the writing process helping to improve my thinking, I’m hoping my audience can help me think through topics in real time as well. So often, debates with strong critical thinkers can help us improve our understanding of a concept or topic. I don’t exactly have a huge audience, but I am hoping that comments and replies to my posts will help me refine my thinking and expand my understanding.

For now, I will continue to post here on my Medium blog and share those posts on LinkedIn. Mostly because I don’t want the overhead of running a personal blog, and I find the signal-to-noise ratio too low to be worth engaging on other social platforms. So, I look forward to writing more — and engaging with your feedback!