This is a place for me to think out loud.
I’ve come to realize that thought and discussion are limited in their ability to foster a holistic understanding of a topic. They can easily be lead astray because they are prone to distraction and lack structure. It can be hard to understand how you came to adopt a certain belief or perspective, or how you learned a concept. Was it something someone told you that you just took at face value? Or did it come from a persuasive argument? How long have you held this belief? What are the facts and assumptions underlying it? Under what circumstances should you reconsider it? In my experience, most people seldom ask themselves questions like these. I think the chief reason for this is that thinking and conversation are ill-suited for this type of introspection. To truly understand a topic, and then develop a holistic position on it, you need a way to anchor your reasoning.
There is no better way to do this than writing.
It forces you to structure your thinking and strip away irrelevant or superfluous information to really get at the core of the topic you’re seeking to understand. There’s no hiding from the words you put on a page. And if you sit down to write about a certain topic and find yourself struggling to articulate your thoughts, it could be a sign you need to spend some more time learning about it. Writing regularly is the only way to sharpen your critical thinking skills.
So that’s why I write.
I use three principles to help me decide what I write about:
- I write to think, not to build an audience.
- I enjoy taking my time with a topic and go as deep as I feel, even if it means publishing late.
- I’m writing for the long term. I want my posts to feel relevant for at least 5 years, which means I will mostly focus on ideas instead of commenting on trends.
What I write about
I write to understand big ideas in the following categories:
Enterprise software and product marketing
I lead product marketing at Modern Treasury, an early stage fintech company in San Francisco.
In my prior job, I was incredibly fortunate to have joined Twilio straight out of college in 2015. I started in sales, moved to solutions engineering and transitioned to product marketing almost two years ago. Observing the explosive growth of one of the most successful enterprise startups of this decade from the inside has been a career-defining experience for me so far.
I’ve learned a lot in the process about go-to-market strategy, customer development and positioning. With the 2020’s shaping up to be a boom time in enterprise software, there are a lot of interesting topics to explore here.
Economics
This is an area I know very little about. I didn’t have the opportunity to study it in college, (studying engineering at most Indian colleges means that enrolling in liberal arts courses is out of the question) even though I would very much have liked to. My writing will likely cover basic concepts as a result. It took me a while to understand why I was drawn to economics, until I realized that its theories are actually a great framework to understand how the world works. The other reason I want to write about it is to develop a more nuanced view of capitalist systems. They’ve been much maligned recently, and justifiably so in some cases, but I’ve always believed that the nature of human behavior means that there is no better way for us to organize ourselves in the pursuit of freedom, prosperity and individual liberty than with capitalist systems.
Book reviews
At the start of every year, I publish a list of books I want to read. At years end, I review how many of those I actually read and add others I picked up during the year. During the year, I try and write a few posts reviewing a book or two that especially resonated with me.
If you enjoy what I have to say, please say hello on twitter. I’d love to chat, and meet up if we happen to be in the same place at the same time.
Dysposition 