it is what it is

On Friday evening I noticed Freia liking and retweeting tweets from an account "it is what it is".

When we spoke later I asked her what it was and she defected the question. We moved on to talk about other stuff. I didn't give this a second thought.

On Saturday morning there were a zillion tweets and articles and "it is what it is" was blowing up.

I finally figured out what a small group of young people had managed to pull off in under 36 hours.

I'll let Freia tell the story in her own words:

- Hey guys
- I worked on a fun project with my friends the last few days


 
- We made a website pretending like we made a hot new app
- And everyone in tech wanted an invite
- And we used their attention through our twitter account to raise money for a few important causes
- And we also got some big donors to match
- the whole project was done over 36 hours start to finish


And let the Team tell their story in their own words:

WHAT IT REALLY IS

JUNE 26TH, 2020

You’re probably wondering what this is. Well, it started off as just what it is.

A group of us changed our Twitter names to include "👁👄👁" because we thought it was a funny trend from TikTok. People started noticing the change on their timelines, noting the creepiness of the emojis in particular. For a brief period of time, everyone who added the emojis to their name was added to a giant Twitter group conversation. From there, things unfolded.

What started out as a meme in our small group chat grew bigger than we ever imagined. So we thought about how to make use of the hype cycle we’d stumbled upon. But honestly, we didn’t have to think too hard: in this moment, there’s pretty much no greater issue to amplify than the systemic racism and anti-Blackness much of the world is only beginning to wake up to. We’re excited that we could use our newfound platform to drive action towards a few causes that are doing important work towards racial justice: Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund, The Okra Project, The Innocence Project, and others.

We’ve done pretty well for a non-existent product. 👁👄👁.fm was the top product of the day on Product Hunt (Theranos who?). The website accumulated 20,000 email signups and thousands of tweets sharing the link. We were covered in The Independent and Forbes. We got shoutouts from Josh Constine and Brianne Kimmel. Some folks on Reddit puzzled over who we were. Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz, Shannon Purser of Stranger Things, and Elon Musk may have subtweeted us? The @itiseyemoutheye Twitter and accounts of our teammates were inundated with invite requests. Most importantly, we raised over $60,000 in donations from people who hoped to get special treatment within our fabled waitlist. An anonymous donor has agreed to match the first $50,000 and we would love to work with anyone else who wants to match. Please DM us!

In a strange way, this sort of became an anti-statement against what we’d all seen on tech Twitter. We’re a diverse, ragtag group of young technologists tired of the status quo tech industry, and thought that we could make the industry think a bit more about its actions. Despite calls-to-action like that “It’s Time to Build” essay we’ve all read, most of the industry (from product teams to VC) still stays obsessed with exclusive social apps that regularly ignore — or even silence — real needs faced by marginalized people all over the world, and exclude these folks from the building process. As an industry, we need to do better.

We sincerely thank you for spreading the word and donating to these important causes. In conclusion, it is what it is: a meme that leveraged the relentless hype of exclusive apps and redirected it towards a critical social need. Thank you, and remember that unlike 👁👄👁, #BlackLivesMatter and other social movements aren't trends or hype cycles. Let’s keep giving back as best as we can.

Signed,

The 👁👄👁 Team

https://xn--mp8hai.fm/statement


And am once again giving below links to the 3 causes this amazing team supported.

https://thelovelandfoundation.org/loveland-therapy-fund/
 

https://www.theokraproject.com/
 

https://www.innocenceproject.org/

Agree to Disagree ?

A couple of weeks ago, I was meeting a colleague in office for work on a Sunday. After we finished our meeting, we got talking. And what started quite nicely ended up not so nicely. It was Politics. He couldn't believe that what was obvious to him wasn't obvious to everybody and especially to me. And I couldn't believe how he could draw such obviously, incorrect conclusions from the available data and facts. We walked away saying See you tomorrow, while thinking Really!

And for the record, he was wrong. :)

I decided as I have done 100's of times in the past never to discuss Politics and Religion. He sent me an article that he thought proved his point. I went through it and found it had no merit. I started writing a long response, but then thought it would be counterproductive and felt it was better to not respond. And the issue would die a natural death. I hoped.

I was scared to have a discussion, fearful that it would get into an argument and so I've reached a stage that I was willing not to engage at all.

It's my opinion that we should not discuss or debate ideas or thoughts that we are unwilling to change. If we Believe, we don't Think. And then there's nothing that will change our mind. We may make claims such as "I have an open mind. Show me the data. And I'll change my mind." And then when someone shows us the data that indicates that we are wrong, we bring in other arguments such as the objectivity of the data, the bias of the author, the political leaning of the media, ...

When I came across "How to disagree productively and find common ground", it was ironically timely.

The talk made me change my mind. About how I should think about sensitive conversations (aka Debates), and how I should handle those.
 
The complete talk and the ideas that Julia Dhar discusses are very powerful and the things that stood out for me were:
- Debating ideas rather than discussing identity.
- Humility of Uncertainty. Opening ourselves to the possibility that we may be wrong.
- Practicing "Intellectual Humility", a skill that enables one to be capable of evaluating a broad range of evidence in a more objective manner and become less defensive.

How to disagree productively and find common ground

Julia Dhar

The major takeaway is that in order to have a meaningful debate we must ask and answer:
What is it you have changed your mind about ? And why ?
and
Pre commit to the possibility of being wrong ? And have an idea of what it would take to change our mind ?

And as luck would have it, there was another equally powerful idea and talk of getting people of different persuasions into a conversation and ...

How to lead a conversation between people who disagree
Eve Pearlman

In Quarantine

Yesterday I dropped Freia to her New York apartment. 3 months after she was supposed to move. The COVID-19 stay-at-home that forced us to be indoors, had a silver lining. I got to spend 3 months of quality time with Freia. And learnt more about her than I had in the preceding 25 years. I had a great time enjoying the amazing food she made, the enjoyable choice of shows and movies she projected and the casual yet meaningful conversations we had.

And this blog is for her. And by her. Not 1. Not 2. But 3. Enjoy ! You can always follow her on tumlr

https://freiainquarantine.tumblr.com/

freia in quarantine

American History Recommendations from Twitter

•     A People’s History of the United States
•     Independence Lost
•     A People’s history of the American Empire (graphic novel)
•     March Trilogy (graphic novel)
•     Democracy in America
•     Cane River
•     Lies my teacher told me
•     The warmth of other suns
•     Black Against Empire
•     Stamped from the Beginning
•     The History of White People
•     Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America
•     Racial Politics in American Cities
•     And the Band Played On
•     1491
•     Age of Fracture
•     Medical Apartheid
•     Indigenous Peoples History of the United States
•     Black Women’s History of the United States
•     These Truths
•     Killers of the flower moon
•     We Were Eight Years in Power

a tale of four cities

i grew up in mumbai, the largest city in india. i loved living in a city and always missed it when we went to visit family in smaller towns.

one of the earliest memories i have, or maybe it’s a reconstructed memory from my parents telling me the story, is that when i was 3 or 4 years old we went to visit family in a smaller town and i complained to my mom that i could not sleep because it was “too quiet.” the darkness terrified me as a kid used to cars and lights.

i was lucky to have traveled quite a bit as a kid, and my favorite parts of these trips were always cities. i never cared much for nature, but i loved being able to try street food or go to dense shopping areas.

we visited san francisco and los angeles when i was 8, because i had family in both cities at the time. i am told i didnt like san francisco (too cold, water tasted weird) and i loved los angeles (disneyland). i visited new york twice, when i was 14 and again when i was 15. i fell in love. the city felt familiar to me, like mumbai in many ways, but more organized. i remember distinctly when my uncle took us to mamoun’s falefel, near nyu. i remember thinking - wow people go to college here? how lucky. i hadn’t yet realized that it had little to do with luck and everything to do with money and privilege.

and then, i was the “lucky” one. i moved to the us, specifically new york when i was 18, to go to college at nyu. from the very first day i felt immediately at home. the subway felt navigable enough, and i was finally able to do whatever i wanted. that first year felt like magic, and i remember every part of it. taking ridiculously long walks late at night just because, refusing to do anything touristy because i now lived in new york, feeling deeply homesick and going to jackson heights for a taste of home.

i studied computer science, and was lucky again to go out west every summer for an internship in the bay area. the summers were fun and packed with activity, and i loved being in san francisco where everyone, like me, loved tech. i missed my friends in new york, but i always knew that i was going home in a few months.

then in senior year, i had a decision to make. i had an opportunity in san francisco that i knew i couldn’t refuse, but i just didn’t want to leave new york. but i decided to prioritize opportunity over location, so i signed on to move. the last few months in new york were brutal. not because they were bad, but because they were great. i had the best streak of subway luck i had ever had in my 4 years, the summer was amazing and ending too quickly. my last day in the city was very emotional - i was leaving behind people i loved and a city i just didn’t want to leave. i threw myself a goodbye party, promising everyone that i would be back.

and then i moved to san francisco. i spent two years in sf, and for the most part i enjoyed them. i met a ton of people, the job was the right choice, and i had a lot of great experiences. but in parallel, i kept visiting new york, every 3 or 4 months for work or fun. and every time i landed at the airport, i knew i still wanted to move back. this was no secret, and though i hope i wasn’t obnoxious about it, i remember distinctly once in a meeting where after i had been in new york for memorial day, a colleague said in a very aggressive tone “how was your weekend in new york?  i don’t understand why people move to california if they hate it so much. why not go back to where you came from?” maybe i was more obnoxious than i realized.

last year, i had an opportunity to join a startup in la, a city i had only been to once before for a weekend. i liked it that one time, but i didn’t know anything about it. i also had a few opportunities to move back to new york, but they did’t seem like the right opportunities, so i moved to la. opportunity over location.

in many ways i loved living in la. i lived right by the beach, and i got more sun than i ever have. but i was also deeply lonely. a month into living in la, i had a work trip to new york. when i flew back to la, i felt the worst whiplash and had a major depressive reaction. i knew what i wanted, but it seemed insane to quit a job i enjoyed a month in, because of a fun weekend in new york.

i knew nobody there but my coworkers, i also happened to be traveling a lot and spent very little time actually in la outside of work, and had a lot of friends visit me. all of this helped me distract from how lonely i felt, but when it became clear that things with the job weren’t going to work out, my impulse was to leave the city as well.

i spent some time thinking about where i wanted to go when i left. i could go back to san francisco, where i still think most of the best jobs for me are. but i decided that i would not prioritize opportunity this time, but prioritize my friends and family.

so i flew back, two and a half years after my overly dramatic departure, and made it back. i stayed with my dad in connecticut and found myself an apartment and got the keys, and in my classic dramatic fashion i almost cried. this all happened right before lockdown, so i’ve had to push my physical move a little further, but i am even more excited to be back.

my dad tells me that i’ve talked about wanting to live in new york from a very young age. i attribute this to having read the devil wears prada far too early on. but i still feel that same silly excitement about the city, and while i can’t quite articulate why, it’s the place that feels the most like home.



what do you do?

recently, i was asked to write my job title and professional bio for something for the first time since i didn’t have an obvious one. as much as any young ‘ambitious’ person in tech, i have tied my identity to my job for basically as long as i can remember working. i never felt bad about that, and still don’t, but i’m starting to think differently about it.

my twitter bio says “just vibing,” and a few weeks or months (who knows really) a friend messaged me saying “hey so are you working anywhere or are you actually just vibing?” i laughed very hard and saved a screenshot to my favorites folder.

since leaving my job and moving cross country back to new york in early feb, i hadn’t really “announced” (lmao) “my next move” to the internet, which was obviously intentional for someone who spends as much time performing online as i do. the reason for the lack of announcement was because there was nothing to announce, i had no plan or idea of what i would be doing next, and the last thing i wanted was to deal with the questions of overly familiar internet strangers.

when i worked at twitter, it was my entire life. my workdays, my weekends, my whole personality and identity. it was all consuming and i wouldn’t have done it any other way. it left me with many deep relationships that i continue to cherish, and also with a lot of messy feelings i’m still working through. when i left for  a startup, it was similar, where i suddenly felt entirely immersed in the company’s world. i loved and am grateful for both those roles. but in both cases towards what turned out to be the end of the role, i started feeling a nagging restlessness, that told me it was time to move on.

i spent some time earlier this year job hunting, and as embarrassing as it is to admit, one of the factors i weighed was “how would i feel saying that i work at XYZ company.” i used it as a proxy for how i felt about the company, but i would be lying to myself if i said i don’t also earnestly care what people think.

eventually, i decided that i didn’t want to work at any of those companies, because they just didn’t feel right. it’s been interesting to somewhat unintentionally fall into a position of not having a concrete title and job that defines my identity, and navigate that after living a life where my linkedin was my whole personality.

the short answer to the question of what i’m doing is that i’m contracting full time with an awesome company, and trying out one off freelance things. the longer answer is that i’m trying to figure out how to build a life where i can have a setup that pays me well and helps me save money and build personal financial runway, while i also spend the remainder of the year thinking about what it would look like to work on my own company and what kind of company that might be, or if i want to join another company and what kind of company that might be.

i feel very lucky to be able to try something like this at such a precarious time. i can take the financial “risk,” am not on a visa, i don’t have debt or dependents. there are downsides compared to a stable job of course - the money itself, benefits and stability to name 3 hugely important things. but frankly, as cliche as it sounds, i’ve never been more happy or fulfilled in my work, and i finally feel after much restlessness that i am working towards the kind of career that feels right to me right now.
 

Black Lives Matter!

As a person of color, I've experienced racism in almost each of the 50+ countries I've visited. However, these have mostly been subtle and have not impacted me in any meaningful way. I guess this is also because I've been fortunate to have been privileged. First as an Officer in the Merchant Navy and then as part of Management in an IT company.

While I thought I understood Racism, it was not until a few years ago when the Black Lives Matter movement started that I began to realize that I did not at all understand it. Neither the acts. Or their impact.

A few years ago, Freia tried to explain it to me. And instead of listening, I tried to explain and effectively dilute the issue, in my mind.

It's only in the last 2 weeks, that I've come to realize how wrong I was. And how much of a systemic issue this is. Especially for those who in addition are also economically challenged.

And this week there were peace and protest marches in all 50 States. Yes! For the first time ever all 50 States agreed on something. And that was that "Black Lives Matter"

In addition to the chilling videos of the death of George Floyd, Trevor Noah's monologue on the subject hit home. And Hard.

George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper
The Daily Social Distancing Show
Trevor Noah



I have subsequently tried and will continue to get a better perspective as well as figure out ways in which I can help, even if in small ways. I believe that if enough of us acknowledge the issue and set out to make a difference, it will make a DIFFERENCE!

Like many organizations that have acknowledged the issue, TED too has created a playlist of Talks. Please do take time out and watch them.

https://www.ted.com/playlists/250/talks_to_help_you_understand_r