May 2025

My wife and I don’t have kids (yet). We have spent several hours over the past few weekends having deep conversations around our future plans, our shared values, and our marriage. These were really valuable conversations. It wasn’t the first time we were having them, and it certainly won’t be the last, but I found it to be incredibly clarifying to put on paper and voice explicitly answers to the “bigger” questions like what “matters” to me, what provides meaning, what my core values are, what my ambitions are, etc. I’m writing here some of the core themes and values that came up in the “work” section of our conversation:

• “Work” plays an outsized role in my life. I personally do not subscribe to the idea of work-life balance. Balance implies these things are on the opposites ends of a scale. I believe work is a sub-component of life, and what matters most is how it integrates into the system. For me, work can sometimes be all consuming and all I think about. I have been hardwired to achieve from a young age, and I place an arguably unhealthy amount of my sense of self into my professional identity and success. This is something I’m working on - not by reducing the amount of work I do or time I spend working, but rather by enriching myself in other ways outside of work (I’m sure having kids helps with this).
• I place a premium on quality. Doing things well, the first-time, is very valuable to me. I believe in the “measure twice, cut once” philosophy, especially on important projects. I take pride in putting together high-quality work and strive to ensure anything with my (or my team’s) name on it meets the highest-standards.
• We overcomplicate work, a lot. Sometimes I need to remind myself that what really matters at work can be boiled down to the following 4 imperatives:
  • show up
  • work hard
  • be kind
  • do the right thing

I’m sure that I will continue to evolve over time, as a husband, employee, investor, entrepreneur, and maybe one day as a father. Work’s role in my life I’m sure will naturally evolve too. If there is one thing that is certain to me, it’s that change is inevitable and stagnation is death. I will always evolve my priorities, my thinking, and my tactics. My values, however, remain the same.

• I want to be useful. I want to be helpful. I want to be of service.
• I want to show up
• I want to work hard
• I want to be kind
• I want to do the right thing
• I want to win
• I want to give back