March 2023 - Too much snow ❄️
March 2023 - Too much snow ❄️
Introduction
Hey everyone.
I know, I know - this newsletter came a couple of days late again. I’ll try not to make this a long-term trend.
For some reason, I had at least 15 separate conversations this last month with different people about the really big dips and the twists and turns that life can throw at you. It got to the point where I even tweeted about it because it was so top of mind:
I guess I really just want to pass on a few thoughts of encouragement here.
First off, other people are obviously feeling the same way (since I had a lot of people bring it up this month). Second, things seem murky sometimes and it’s really hard to know when they’ll become clear again; when that happens to you, the most important thing you can do every day is to continue showing up and putting in the work.
Unfortunately, vision on where you want to be and how to get there can sometimes take time to develop. In order for that to happen, you just have to keep showing up and focusing on what you can actually control. Like I said above, sometimes something really unfortunate can end up being the defining act in your life that (in hindsight) was a blessing in disguise.
I would know. I was unemployed (and under-employed) for almost 2 years before landing my first job at Twitter in tech. But I arguably wouldn’t have pushed myself so unbelievably hard to learn back then (and still now) if it wasn’t for that life experience, so I’m actually grateful for those hard times now.
In any case, just know that I understand what you’re going through and that it will get better. And in the off chance that you want to be the 16th person to talk to me about this, feel free to hit me up.
As always, thanks for reading and thank you for being subscribed to my newsletter.
Talk soon,
Nathan ☕️
Books
“When Money Dies” by Adam Fergusson
Some of you have had conversations with me about this, and I’ve posted about it on both Twitter as well as Instagram. This book takes a look at the absolute nightmare of what happened in post-WWI Weimar Germany and how the devaluation of the German currency directly led to hyperinflation and paved the way for the breaking of their economy and Hitler’s rise to power.
Given our current global economic situation (and especially the “quantitative easing” the United States did during COVID), this is an extremely timely book for you to read.
Code
“Building a World-Class Oncall Program” by Nathan Thomas
I wrote an article this month (it’s really more of an essay) with everything I learned while leading the oncall program for Twitter.com while I worked at Twitter.
Even if you’re not into programming, you can probably learn something about emergency management from this piece. I hope you enjoy it.
GPT-4 by OpenAI
Many of my readers in the technical space will be surprised I put something as “straight-forward” as OpenAI’s GPT-4 model in here, a topic they’ve been deluged with constantly for the last month. However, I always have to strike a balance in these newsletters between technical and non-technical as about half of you don’t even work in tech at all.
If this is you, don’t think I was being condescending up above there. Just like any industry, sometimes it’s hard to even keep up with everything unless you’re actively involved and working in it (for instance, I know very little about the shipping industry). However, you should definitely at least check out (and play around with) OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4 models given that AI is going to be playing a bigger and bigger part of our lives. You can sign up right here: https://chat.openai.com/
Interviewing Resources
It seems like everyone in tech knows someone right now who has been laid-off and is currently job hunting. It’s the hardest time to be in the industry in many years.
That being said, I want to give you the complete list of free resources I’d use myself if I was job hunting or even starting my career out in 2023 (oh, and these are all free):
Neetcode practice tracker and explanations for LeetCode problems
Welcome to the Coding Interview - You Suck (a somewhat blunt but still very helpful guide for approaching interviewing)
In my humble opinion, these are the cream of the crop for getting your feet underneath you and prepping for interviews. You don’t need to pay a bunch of money to pass your interviews with flying colors.
Games
Trails (board game)
I previously wrote about a board game named Parks and raved about how fun it was. Well, Trails is the short version of it. It’s a great game for kids or for a laid-back gaming session with a few friends.
Metroid Prime Remastered (for Nintendo Switch)
Some of you might also have grown up on Nintendo games. Nintendo just released a remastered version of one of the highest rated games of all time. Their Metroid Prime Remastered game does it every bit of justice and brings it into the modern era in a great way. If you’re a sci-fi and Nintendo fan, you should probably check this out.
Music
“the record” by Boygenius
A supergroup consisting of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus (three of my most listened to musicians from 2022), Boygenius just released a new album and it’s 🤌🏻 I’d particularly recommend Emily I’m Sorry, Not Strong Enough, and Satanist.
Videos
The Story of the Founder of Kinkos
I read at the beginning of this last month that you should never take advice from anyone unless they’re in the position (or have been through things) to get to where you want to be. This sent me down a path this whole month to learn directly from the mouths of founders about how they got to where they are now.
This video is an interview with the (now) billionaire founder of Kinkos. It’s brilliant both for his business insights as well as for his thoughts on life itself.
“How to get ahead of 99% of people”
I know, I know… That sounds like a self-help book.
Actually, you’d be right. The guy in this video is the author of the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***". However, I think this video is really great precisely because he turns down most of the “self-help” steps people preach and goes for the jugular. You have to be contrarian, to be correct while being contrarian, and execute on it massively. He also questions if you really want to get ahead of 99% of people at all which is really valid for most people and what they actually want out of life.
There’s a lot of language in this one, so heads up.