Personal news: Amit and I got engaged earlier this year! Amit said the hardest things about proposing to me were 1) keeping it a secret from me, 2) waiting to match the exact time of our anniversary, and 3) finding the ring.
Amit says that every time we’d talk about what I wanted in a ring, I’d add on more requirements— I wanted it to be a unique, beautiful, comfortable, expensive work of art that represented our love, and so on. Stressed, Amit looked at hundreds of rings. Luckily, when Amit saw it, he knew this ring was the one. His friend went to 3 jewelers in Germany but they didn’t have it, so he imported it to NYC and got a friend to check it out there. This designer is known for making comfortable pieces fitted to how you wear them. Amit had me trying on ring sizers of different thicknesses and materials at different times of day for weeks to make sure it was the perfect fit.
Amit put in so much work into the proposal and coordinated with a bunch of friends to pull it off and keep it a secret. He used apple watch data to get the time down to the minute that we reached the peak of the hike that we went on for our first date exactly 2 years prior. He reminded me how, on our first date, he wanted to give me a high five and I was like, “No touching, don’t overstep,” but now we’re in love!
A week prior to the proposal, Amit’s friend hiked to the top and scouted out the location. Amit schemed with friends to perpetuate the lie that it was just a big surf trip. He even pretended to pack his wetsuit to throw me off the scent. Even though I knew a proposal was coming, I didn’t think it was happening on the hike because there were so many people. He had many backup plans in case it rained or if I didn’t want to go to the top. Friends hid in the bushes to record the proposal and took videos and a ton of legit, fancy photos. Other friends made sure no one was around. Friends texted each other throughout the hike to make sure the timing was right. Another friend put together a beautiful basket of our favorite exotic fruits. Afterwards, a private vegan chef cooked us dinner in her house using local ingredients. Amit also surprised me with a visit to an alpaca farm because I love alpacas. Amit had tried to recreate another part of our first date set in a burning man-esque kombucha shop but gave up after many calls trying to revive the defunct shop. I felt so moved and grateful to be with someone so caring, thoughtful, and logistically competent. He’s so great at community and designing a surprising, delightful experience unique to me. He knows me so well. I’m so lucky he wants to be with me.
During the proposal, I felt how I muted my emotions. I didn’t know how to celebrate this much joy. I’ve never let myself love this much before. I used to think I would die alone. I never wanted to need anyone, not even my parents, but now I let myself need Amit. It feels great.
[Author’s note: This is a parody. I don’t know these people. I took artistic liberties with characters, timelines, and plot. The jargon is based on my own background as an MIT alumna, algo trader, tech founder, and reader of EA/ rationalist writings.]
NYC, 2017.
We’re in a big office space. The windows are darkened. It’s like a casino— we don’t know what time of day it is. Clusters of desks sport 2 to 11 monitors each, screen after screen of financial charts, models of financial data, computer code. This is Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm.
A young trader turns to a middle aged trader, points to a graph on his computer screen, “Does this analysis show the lead lag correlation between ETF—”
The older trader says without looking up, “Ask SBF.”
We cut to a cluster of young traders sitting around the desk of a crazy-haired, sloppily dressed 25 year old. This is SBF, aka Sam. He’s playing a video game while fielding questions, his fingers flying over the keyboard, clicking on macros on his custom gamer mouse to quickly execute multiple complex commands with a single touch.
A trader asks SBF, “The exchange confirmed the positions. What do you want to do to offset the risk on these overnights?”
SBF doesn’t look up from his video game, “Hedge it with SPY’s. But not 100%. Our models picked off those orders before their cancel messages were executed so we should have some edge.”
The traders around him take notes. One of the traders whispers to another, “I heard he was the highest paid trader of his class.”
A trader asks SBF, “How do I make as much money as you? I’ve been here longer and you’re tracking to make 20X more than me.” He looks around, embarrassed, then shrugs. “Not like our bonuses are secret.”
SBF says, “I work hard. And I try not to be wrong about important stuff.”
The traders take notes. “And how do you do that?”
SBF shrugs. “I guess… I always think about work. And I make sure to be right and smart and rational.”
“But… what if you want to go have fun?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like… go to a party, or a date.”
“Just don’t do that.”
“Don’t you get tired?”
“Oh. I take nootropics and drugs for that.”
The traders take notes.
A frizzy-haired girl with glasses and buck teeth asks, “Sam, the algorithm you were talking about today that only works in high vol environments… Are you going to run it tomorrow?”
Hearing her voice, SBF does look up from his video game. He says, “Why not, Caroline?”
Caroline is the only girl in the room. She stammers, “Well, if the economic release tomorrow is like the last one, your analysis showed it might fluctuate by a whole day’s PNL in a few minutes. Is it worth risking all our other models’ performance-”
SBF talks excitedly, jabbing his finger down onto his leg for emphasis. “If it’s positive expected value and has long term potential for good risk adjusted returns, it’s our job to figure out the trade. If the numbers check out, it’s our moral duty as traders- nay- as rational actors, to stomach the risk. Otherwise another firm could build it out and eventually crush us.”
Caroline gulps. The other traders look at SBF with admiration and respect. He’s got nerves of steel and thinks so strategically. It’s impossible to argue with his logic.
Caroline presses, “But why not try it with smaller size first?”
SBF says, “Some things work best if you go… big.”
Caroline blushes.
SBF’s eyes widen. He abruptly goes back to coding and playing his game with renewed vigor.
===
Palo Alto, 2017.
SBF is home for the holidays. His parents’ advanced degrees and photos with Steve Jobs, Nobel laureates, and famous Stanford alumni line the walls. The modified-Eichler house is beautiful, warm, and very Bay Area with its skylights, glass walls, compost bins, solar power, natural textiles, redwood floors. Everyone is sitting down for a vegan dinner.
SBF’s dad says, “I talked with Professor Gordon today. His son’s nonprofit’s doing well. Did you know he started one? They’re working with the Gates foundation on tackling malaria.”
SBF nods, eats hurriedly without tasting anything.
SBF’s mom says, “How’s your work, Sam? Are you having fun? Making friends? It’s still a surprise to me that you’re a trader, whatever that is. I was telling my friend today I was sure you’d be a professor like us.”
SBF’s dad says, “I’m glad he went into something different. Not everyone has to worry about saving the world.”
SBF protests, “I care about the world! I earn to give. I donate a majority of my income-”
SBF’s mom soothes him, “Of course you do, honey. No one has a bigger heart than you. You’re our star.”
Everyone keeps eating.
SBF’s mom says, “So how involved is Bill Gates with that project? I heard malaria was one of his highest priorities.”
After dinner, SBF calls his friend, another Sam, nicknamed Trabs. SBF fidgets and starts playing a computer game as he waits for the call to connect.
Trabs answers, “Hey, Sam.”
“Hey Sam. What’s up?”
SBF pauses. He abruptly minimizes the game from his screen. He leans forward and speaks with a new intensity, “Do you ever think about what this is all for?”
“You mean, the meaning of life?”
“Yeah.”
“Um… not really. I mean… isn’t it about having fun and learning and stuff?”
SBF starts fidgeting and pacing. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about work because we’re from rival firms, but I’m one of the top at my firm. I know you must be crushing it too. This field is just not that deep. No one really knows what they’re doing. I built our derivatives platform in my 2nd year. Junior lab was harder than this. We had problem sets freshman year that were harder than this. Think what we could do if we took more risk.”
Trabs hesitantly replies, “What do you mean more risk? We take risk every day-”
SBF cuts in, “We take risk on behalf of the firm, but not in our own lives. Don’t you see? There’s more to life than making millions of dollars a year.”
Trabs laughs. “You mean like… making billions of dollars a year?”
SBF chuckles but is serious. “Right. That’s literally impossible if we stay at our trading firms.”
“People would say we’re crazy to walk away from-”
“We’re not ‘people.’ Normal people are struggling to pay rent. Our BATNA is that we move in with our infinitely supportive parents and live amazing lives. Or just get other jobs making at least a few hundred grand a year. People of our opportunity, privilege, and talent have a duty to take more risk, to be more.”
“So… how do we do that?”
===
1 year later…
Berkeley, 2018. The office is crowded, desks jammed right against each other, monitors everywhere. There’s a small sign written in sharpie that says Alameda Research on the door, otherwise it’s nondescript. SBF is sleeping in the office on a bean bag. The vegan protein drinks he subsists on are littered everywhere. It’s past midnight and his coworkers whisper so as not to disturb him. The office is full, everyone still working, unkempt, long hair, dirty hair and feet.
Caroline and Trabs are interviewing a candidate who’s dressed in a suit while they wear gym shorts and MIT/ Stanford t-shirts. The candidate stifles a yawn and says, “The answer is root n over e.” Caroline and Trabs look at him, impressed.
Trabs says, “Did you do that in your head?”
The candidate nods, “Yes.”
Trabs looks over at Caroline, who says to the candidate, “Can you please wait outside for a moment while we confer?”
The candidate exits. Caroline turns to Trabs, who looks excited. He smiles at her hopefully, “Well?”
Caroline says, “Send the candidate home. Not worth waking up Sam over.”
Trabs protests, “But no one else has ever gotten those answers that fast. I think we might’ve postulated a new theorem. And look-“ Trabs gestures to the candidate’s resume. “International math Olympiad, international informatics Olympiad, international physics Olympiad-”
Caroline interrupts, “Sounds great for a sleepy monopoly like Google that just needs to not die too fast. You know what Sam says. We have to have the whole trifecta.” She counts them off on her hands to demonstrate, “Super genius, crazy hard working, and self sacrificing. This person isn’t inspired by a huge mountain of work and the prospect of saving humanity. Most people just want to make enough money to go home to their families and enjoy their lives.”
Trabs pulls at his hair. “So?”
Caroline retorts, “Which isn’t enough for our mission! Sam says once you have kids, you can no longer think rationally. Your utility function gets warped into prioritizing your own kid over random strangers. You start valuing your first million dollars more than the next million dollars. That’s irrational. We need people who are monkishly devoted to work, who always want the next million as much as they wanted their first million, who see the importance of making more money so they can save more lives today, who feel as urgently about saving a stranger’s kid as they would about saving their own kid. You can’t be a monk if you have kids. Even if you’re smart and hard working, you can’t save all the suffering strangers in the world if you’re not willing to take a massive calculated risk.”
Trabs sighs, defeated. “I’ll just say, ‘not a culture fit.’”
===
2 years later…
Hong Kong, 2020.
The office is again packed with desks and nerds hard at work. The city glitters below them. It’s past midnight. The employees are kids who wear t-shirts that say “FTX.”
SBF sits with a serious, thin, middle aged Chinese man. The Chinese man sizes up SBF, who plays a computer game. SBF’s hair is longer and unrulier than ever.
The Chinese man says, “So, what make you think your exchange will survive? Why people use FTX instead of Binance?”
Without looking over, SBF says, “With all due respect, CZ, sir, because we let them trade cheaper and faster.”
CZ rubs his chin, looks skeptical. “How you give better price?”
SBF says, “The full details are proprietary, but our liquidity engine funnels the tough to match orders to Alameda, who’s better able to internalize that flow because it trades a larger basket.”
“And you let the customers trade with leverage? How you collateralize?”
“Same way everyone else does.”
CZ grins for the first time. “Yes. Tokens. We both discovered alchemy- the secret of turning shit into gold!” CZ cackles and makes money gestures with his hands.
“I don’t want that. I’m in it to make an impact.”
CZ scoffs. “Come on.”
“It’s true! I want to do the right thing. The logical thing. The right business choice.”
CZ smiles knowingly. “You want me show you right way do business in Asia?”
SBF nods earnestly. “Yeah. Of course.”
We cut to CZ and SBF in a casino sitting at a betting table surrounded by dancing women. Chinese music blasts and CZ takes a shot. The scantily clad women rub themselves against CZ and spill alcohol. SBF sits on his hands, nervously shaking his legs. His fingers itch for the comfort of his gaming mouse. A woman strokes his hair and he shrinks from her touch.
A woman approaches with a whole roast pig. CZ says to SBF, “Eat the face. Best part.”
Grey faced, SBF shakes his head and swallows an urge to vomit.
“Which girl you like?”
“I’m good. No thanks.”
“You ever go to casino? Splash cash?”
SBF shakes his head no.
“You should spend more time here. This is the business we’re in. Gambling. You know how I learned about crypto? While playing poker! I was degen. I went homeless to buy crypto. Have you heard more degenerate shit than that? Like addict. Crypto religion. That’s why I know my customers. Everyone in crypto because like us. Dream of big money, better life.”
SBF demurs, “I just want to add liquidity to markets-”
CZ leaps up and throws the roast pig off the table, stunning SBF into silence. A woman runs to clean it up, wiping on her knees, picking up the food with her hands. CZ ignores her. “You pretend you are better. Better than human. You pretend you don’t like food, sex, money. You‘re a machine for altruistic purpose, a god, above base urges, right? But how will you give the people what they want if don’t admit the vice in every man?”
“I don’t— I think—”
CZ looks disgusted. “You think too much, Sam. Outside you talk pure, inside you’re dirty like the rest of us.” CZ addresses one of the scantily dressed, dancing women. “Agree? Aren’t the nastiest lovers the ones who button up and tie their ties perfectly?” CZ looks back over at Sam. “How much you want to bet she agrees? $10K? $100K?”
Sam shakes his head, “I don’t want to bet against you. I wouldn’t know. I agree with you.”
“What kind of trader doesn’t bet?”
“All my trades are automated.”
“Of course!” CZ slaps his leg. “You hide behind math and machines. But have you been tilted? Have you been stuffed with a bad order and felt the sinking in your whole body as it moved against you? Have you agonized over whether to puke out of your position and eat the loss, or to let it ride on the blind hope it’ll come back?”
“I would never do that. That’d be irrational—”
“Ha! Rationality nothing. Everyone has limit. You haven’t been pushed, but one day must. On tilt. Then learn the hard lesson we all must learn. How it feel to be horribly punished for mistake. Denial, shock, loathing, blame, doubling down, make it worse, dig in deeper…”
“I would never do that.”
“Let’s test.” CZ’s smirk drops. “I flip this coin. You call it. If you win, I give you $50MM investment for 20% of FTX. If I win, you give me 20% of FTX for free.”
Sam doesn’t hesitate. “Heads.”
CZ flips the coin into the air… It’s tails.
CZ grins, the coin in his palm. He starts to withdraw his hand when Sam reaches out to stop him. Surprised, CZ halts with the contact.
Sam says, “Again. This time, I flip, you call it, $100MM for 20% or I give you 40%.”
CZ looks intrigued. “Now wondering, do I even want 40% given this interaction? And how much you are considering how to enforce this agreement?”
Sam shrugs. CZ hands him the coin. Both their eyes are on it as Sam flips it in the air…
===
1 year later…
A montage of people talking about FTX:
A day trader signs up for FTX. “You mean I can make money fast, easily, without posting much cash upfront? Genius.”
An effective altruist admires SBF. “He’s my hero. He’s proof that if you work hard, are well intentioned, super rational, and a genius, then you win. And humanity wins. Genius.”
A venture capitalist: “I love the risk neutral thing. One of the reasons Sam’s my favorite founder. At a big fund like ours, we don’t care if you make a lifestyle business, or even if you sell for a hundred million. We need bets that could potentially return the fund, otherwise it’s worthless to us. And normally founder interests aren’t aligned with that, but for Sam, that’s not the case. He doesn’t want to just make a few billion and call it a day. Heck, he’s already done that. He’s a billionaire but in his mind he’s fighting for the next dollar like he’s penniless. If I had 1% of his money, I would never work again. And yet he won’t settle for anything less than making ALL the money. And it’s brilliant how he justifies his greed using arithmetic around effective altruism. I think he actually believes it too, which makes it all the more effective. Genius.”
A celebrity listens to the investor talk. They sit across from Trabs. The celebrity nods along. “So if I get people to sign up for this thing, I’ll make more money?”
Trabs says, “More money for the community.”
The celebrity nods. “Sure, for ‘the community.’” The celebrity winks at the investor. “I already have hundreds of millions of dollars, but I’ve never had a billion.”
The investor says, “This is guaranteed to score in the end zone. And who better to know about that, right? You’ll finally have billionaire status.”
===
SBF, Caroline, Trabs, Caroline’s parents, and SBF’s parents are all at dinner. SBF’s parents say, “I’m so glad we could help! Your company is world changing. I was just telling Professor Gordon that maybe his son should apply for one of your grants.”
SBF has a small smile.
He glances over at Caroline, who’s gazing into Trabs’ eyes. Trabs and Caroline laugh together at a quiet inside joke. She shoves Trabs playfully. SBF’s smile drops.
===
CZ watches SBF testify to Congress on TV. The chyron reads, “SBF lobbies against low integrity exchanges like Binance, calls for regulations, higher standards.” He throws a platter of whole roast pig across the room. He glares at SBF’s talking head on TV. “You think you’re so much better than us? You want to wipe us out? I will show you… Soon we see how each strength is also weakness. Faith in rationality blinds you to common sense. The key to your destruction is inside you. Just need to wait and help pull the trigger…”
===
1 year later…
Bahamas, 2022.
Trabs and SBF lounge are in their beautiful mansion. In contrast to the elegant molding and staircase, Trabs and SBF are dressed in slovenly clothes and are generally unkempt. The TV is behind them broadcasting how LUNA and all of crypto is tanking at a breathtaking rate.
Trabs says, “We can’t handle this toxic flow. These moves are massive, huge market gaps. And now we’re bailing out others? Where’s our bailout? All the other market makers pulled out so Alameda was left holding the bag.”
SBF shrugs, “Maybe our company doesn’t deserve to exist. If Alameda liquidity isn’t providing the FTX promise of best prices, speed, and least cash upfront, then FTX dies too. What’s the alternative to sticking it out?”
Trabs says, “The alternative is to just focus on the exchange. Being undercollateralized could kill-”
SBF interjects, “If people want to accept our token as collateral, who are we to-”
Trabs says, “I don’t want to accept it as collateral!”
SBF and Trabs look over at Caroline, who’s been sitting silently in the corner. SBF says, “What do you think, Caroline? You’re the Alameda CEO.”
Caroline squeaks, “Co-CEO.” She sighs. She hates when they fight. “I guess I don’t agree with Trabs… I think we have to keep doubling down. It’s… how we’ve gotten here. It’s the rational thing to do.”
SBF nods. He says, “The meaning of life isn’t keeping FTX alive. The bigger mission is to do as much good as possible. Even if it doesn’t work out 90% of the time, if the upside is so large that it’s positive EV, then we have a duty to do it.”
Trabs buries his face in his hands. “But now it’s so much more at risk. When is it enough? We’ve succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. When do we get to rest?”
SBF furrows his brow. “Rest? Enough? There are millions of people dying every day-”
Trabs groans. “Stop!” Everyone is silent for a moment. “What about us? I want a family one day. I want-”
SBF’s voice cuts Trabs off. “A family? That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard.” He looks at Trabs with pain and betrayal. He had thought of them as a family. How could this not be enough for him? SBF’s face shows a moment of anguish before stiffening. “You want to leave? Is that what you’re saying?”
Trabs looks at SBF, “You know I don’t mean that. You’re my best friends. I would never leave you.”
SBF turns his back on Trabs. “If you’re not 100% with us, you’re a liability.”
Trabs’ eyes widen in disbelief. “Don’t do this, Sam. Why is everything so black and white with you? The world isn’t like that.”
“My world is. I don’t get to be normal. I’m either the hero or the villain, the good guy or the bad guy. I either save the world, or I fail.”
“Sam, we’re your friends. We love you even if you don’t do anything.”
SBF snorts in derision. “I’ll leave you two to figure out it how to announce it to the team.”
Trabs looks hurt and disbelieving. “You can’t wait to get me out of here.” He looks at Caroline. “And you. You always choose him, don’t you?”
Trabs rushes out of the room. Caroline pauses, looks at SBF uncertainly, then follows. SBF is left alone. The sun glitters in this tropical paradise while the tv shows the crypto world crashing. He’s distraught and quickly paces around the room, not sure what to do. He pulls out his computer and starts playing a video game.
===
A few months later…
SBF’s parents call him. He doesn’t answer the phone. They leave a voicemail, “Sam, we’re all so proud we get to work with you! I told Professor Gordon you’re the only one doing the right thing in this space.”
SBF cringes, hardens his jaw, plays his video game.
===
CZ watches Sam on TV. “You betray me for the last time. Such a good mask, you fool your team, reporters, even yourself, but you can’t fool me. You say you care about humanity, but you deny part of what makes you human- ego, selfishness, fear, stupidity. Now time to call your bluff… SBF, welcome to the human race.”
CZ tweets, “Due to recent revelations that have came to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT.”
===
Millions of traders react to CZ’s tweet and type rapidly on their computers.
In the Bahamas, Caroline’s team is in chaos. Dashboards are flashing red alerts, phones ring endlessly. An FTX employee asks Caroline, “All the customers are cashing out. Should we call Sam?”
Caroline looks like a deer in headlights.
===
Caroline and SBF pace around the room in silence.
Caroline suddenly bursts into tears and runs into SBF’s arms. He holds her.
Caroline cries. “I’ve ruined everything! I knew I wasn’t good enough. I’m just a kid. Alameda is dead. And now Trabs is gone.”
SBF’s face hardens. “We don’t need Trabs. I’ll take care of it.”
Caroline looks up at SBF and sniffles. “You’d risk FTX to save Alameda? But why?”
“There’s more to life than making billions of dollars a year.”
She looks up at him blankly. “There is?”
SBF looks at her tired, dear face. They’ve been through a lot together. Many time zones, many adventures, she’d always stuck by him. “Your utility to me is infinite.” SBF wipes the tears from her face. Cut to black.
===
A montage:
FTX-affiliated employee: “We wasted 1 to 3 years on this. That’s a long time! Now what do we do? Will anyone hire us if we don’t disavow? We always knew he was evil!”
An effective altruist: “He was evil, unlike me— I’m the good guy. It’s impossible that working hard, having good intentions, and being a genius isn’t enough. So logically he must’ve been not enough of one of those things. He’s smarter and harder working than me, so he must’ve been actively evil. He’s supposed to shut up and multiply when calculating EV, but not like that. I would never do what he did.”
MIT alum: “What if being MIT turns into a red flag for VC’s? At least we weren’t in his weird living group. You see, MIT has these houses called ILG’s—”
Celebrity: “No comment.”
FTX trader: “You mean he tried to make an easy, quick buck gambling, levered up, without posting cash upfront? What the heck? I would never do that! He’s a cheat!”
Business partner: “We were cheated.”
Warren Buffett: “My partner Charlie says you can’t cheat an honest man.”
CZ: “People say I wiped him out. I’m old man compared to SBF. Forgive me if I use old fashioned techniques like long squeeze, bank run. Not that I did. I only want to help the community.”
Trabs: “I think Sam thought of himself as a hero and acted as such. The cardinal sin of a business hero is losing money. Thou must make money, so he did what he had to do to fill that business hero role. A romantic hero must risk all to save the girl. An altruistic hero must risk all to save the world. Sam saw an opportunity to do all 3 and he had to take it. I think we put too much trust and responsibility in 1 person, which is how we got to the $30B+ valuation so fast, but it’s also how we lost it and more. It’s human to fail sometimes. And it’s human to make people into heroes and then love it when they topple off the pedestal.”
I’ve always been obsessed with growth. When I was CEO, this obsession went into hyperdrive because startups are all about growth and I kept telling myself, “I have to prove I can scale.” For 6+ years, I went through dozens of executive coaches, CEO groups, and coaching programs, read 100+ business books, all with the aim of continually exponentially leveling up in life so that I was bottlenecking my company’s growth as little as possible. Every coach has their own framework, and I went through different types of coaching: productivity/ accountability coaching, therapy-like communication/ group dynamics sessions, skills coaching (from media training, to operational leadership like running meetings, KPI’s, hiring, management, 360’s, etc). After $100K+ in coaching and self development services, what did I learn about how to best level up?
I concluded that increasing in self awareness is the ultimate power. No matter how much power and resources and money I have, I’m restricted to reacting at the level of awareness I’m operating at. At the lowest level of consciousness, I’m a slave to my desires, a beast, easily manipulated by external circumstances, my body, my emotions, my biases, my ego. At higher levels of awareness, I can notice and appreciate my patterns, and I can change them.
The best way I found of improving self awareness is Conscious Leadership forums. I want you to do it. It’s ~$10K+/ year and if you can’t pay for it, I will pay half the fee for 5 people who ask me.
I’ve been in many founder/ CEO groups, often because I was excited to join something exclusive. Each time it was fun onboarding onto a new framework and meeting people, but then we’d fall into the same patterns. We’d whine about engineering/ executive hiring, fundraising, engineering management. We’d end with exchanging intros for recruiters or doing arithmetic around SaaS metrics. I’d start looking for a new coach/ group to join. I’d wonder, “Is there more? Do I really know so much already? Are these fields just not that deep, or am I an idiot, or are these learnings experiential and unlearnable through abstractions like language?”
I’m a writer, I love the science of story structure, and I often look at my life as though it were a movie. Waking up is a key part of my favorite movies like Fight Club and The Matrix. I love the moment of revelation that unlocks and repaints the story. Going through CLG has been one of those fundamental shifts for me. Now, I look back on my experiences and can tell a more insightful story about them, not just a simple villain/ victim story of blaming someone / circumstances for the conflict, or with a deus ex machina event where that new hire or my great idea swoops in to save the day, but a philosophical story that changes how I see the world.
I love being able to dissect the story of my life on a meta level so that it’s not just an episodic sitcom that keeps repeating and glorifying how great the protagonist is at fighting or seducing people while everyone else acts as an antagonistic/ comedic foil. This is my life we’re talking about- I want to build a deeper arc and unveil my wizards of Oz. I don’t want to sweatily re-live my favorite scenes again and again, the same pornography of impressing the highest status whatever, getting into the most elite thing, being the most desirable/ successful/ smart. I want the story of my life to be mind blowing on a totally different level. I want to grow substantively, repeatedly. The movie of my life doesn’t need expensive special effects so long as it’s thematically rich. The wonderful thing about theme is that it’s free. It’s all in the writing, in the awareness of the writer, and the writer is me.
What entertained me for hours when I was naive to story structure- Wile-E Coyote endlessly chasing the roadrunner with bigger and bigger explosives- left me hungry for capital-M-More once I understood the cartoon’s underlying structure. When I learned the tropes and how the conventions of genre work, the patterns unveiled themselves to me, I could predict how the movie would go, and I could choose how I wanted to innovate on the script. Isn’t that more fun than continuing to watch the same thing unfold forever? It remains literally world shattering to see the stories I unconsciously tell myself about my world, to gain the lucidity to affect the script instead of blindly continuing to chase my roadrunners with bigger and bigger explosives. Do you want to learn the underlying structures behind the stories you tell yourself about your world every moment? Isn’t awareness of story structure key to experiencing the most exquisite movie, the movie of our lives that we’re currently casting, writing, and acting in?
Writers learn that in the most powerful stories, underneath your protagonist’s conscious, voiced drive, they have an unconscious, subliminal need (ie. Ricky Bobby consciously wants to win car races but unconsciously wants his dad’s love). The arc of the story requires bringing the unconscious into the light so that the protagonist can grow and their world can change. A well structured story circle feels surprising, revelatory, satisfying, and inevitable. It’s so cheap to insert substance- if a story doesn’t have theme, the only reason is a lack of awareness. Why blow millions on special effects if your story doesn’t explore a heart shaking, deep truth?
Anyway, that’s what I realized was happening in my life- the movie of my life was exciting in a shallow way, with $ and stakes and drama at various moments, but it was a fleeting story that had limited depth of meaning. I had the conscious drives of proving I was the best XYZ, all the while being driven by unconscious desires for love, to be worthy, and I kept missing the turn that would break the story. Until I brought my unconscious desires into the light, my story would keep feeling like Act 1. I’d keep wondering, “Is there more?” and, so long as I wasn’t seeing the truth, “more” would just seem like more of the same old thing, which isn’t actually more of anything. People gain awareness through repeatedly unveiling the unconscious desire driving their conscious actions, and after they see the unconscious, they can finally change the pattern and go a layer deeper to find a new pattern. We can control patterns that we can see, but not the ones we can’t see.
Without awareness, we’re repeating the same thing again and again, an episodic, masturbatory tv show of Sherlock Holmes solving crimes again and again, showing how dumb everyone else is, how he’s always right, never learning, never changing. And that’s fine as entertainment- it’s fun to be right, it’s celebrating and embracing an event that we enjoy and want to see again and again. But that’s not our highest art, that’s not all the meaning there is, that’s not our full potential, that’s not how I want to experience my whole life. I want to change and figure out how I’m wrong. I want to see the meta pattern and tell a full story of my self and my world in a way that doesn’t blame anyone. When we talk with each other and tell each other the stories of our lives, let’s not masturbate the whole time. Let’s go deeper and birth something new and magical. Let’s always keep leveling up. Let’s not keep cycling through our narrative patterns without curiosity.
TLDR; I would love to invite my wider network into CLG. They have forum openings right now. If your company won’t pay for it, I will pay for half of it for 5 people so long as you are in the program for the full year. Contact me if you want my support in doing CLG. I’m excited to commit to leveling up in consciousness together.
Self awareness is the key to easing suffering. Without self awareness, we’re slaves to the patterns in our brains. The universe reflects our unknown biases, so we’re caged within our own blind spots, trapped in patterns that reinforce how we’ve learned to see reality, missing the richness of the infinite other possibilities. It’s easy to read stoic/ buddhist philosophy and think we’re enlightened, but there is a huge gap between theory and practice. CLG takes it beyond theory into structures that make it easier to see when we’re reactive and blinded to higher levels of awareness. Let’s level up so the movies of our lives can become more thematically deep.
I froze more eggs during COVID! Now I’ve done 3 cycles and feel I have abundant eggs. Even if none of them turn into a baby whenever I’m ready to have them, I feel like I gave it a solid try and am free of biological clock time scarcity. FB posts from friends have motivated me to freeze my eggs, so this post is my way of passing on and adding to the story.
Birth control unlocked freedom for uneducated women, giving the choice to go to school, to get a job. Egg freezing is the 2nd half of that equation. Egg freezing unlocks freedom for educated women, giving us the choice to enjoy the fruits of our careers instead of feeling like we’re sacrificing personal life for career, or being rushed because of time scarcity. For the first time in human history, the 2 technologies give women male-like freedom over their reproductive destinies. Egg freezing + birth control level the playing field for women. Until a few years ago, I never thought of a new path towards domestic bliss because, until the last few decades, stories of successful women being single moms via surrogates at age 45 didn’t seem accessible, financially or biologically. But now there are other stories that are possible, and we’re the first generation that will see what kinds of families we’ll create.
The happily-ever-after story I learned as a kid went like this: I’d effortlessly marry my childhood sweetheart (even though I didn’t have one), we’d take over the world together by day while making love all night, and when we’d sufficiently mastered and indulged that phase of life, start pushing out as many babies as possible. In high school, I chastised my best friend for dating idiots who were clearly beneath her. In college, I didn’t date seriously, especially no one my senior year because, even if I liked the guy, we were going to get jobs in different cities and break up anyway. I didn’t date for most of my 20’s because I was focused on my work and my family. But when I hit 30, I realized that my family fantasy was not coming true. It had already not happened. I had to catch up! My high school friends were long married. My MIT friends weren’t married yet, but they were heading there.
My executive coach asked me, “How old is your dad? Do you want him to have a relationship with your children? Right, so when do you need to marry by? So how many dates do you need to go on per week?” I was busy running my company, and I resented that I, the great Nancy Hua, had to go on dates with internet strangers just to build pipeline. Why couldn’t I effortlessly fall in love with some supermodel genius who was already my best friend and had loved me for years, as per my childhood fantasy? Instead, I was stooping to swiping on apps.
I told my personal trainer my dating stories to make him laugh. He said, “You’re such a badass. I told my friends your dating stories. That last guy isn’t good enough for you.” Then he looked at me aghast, “Are you crying?!” I couldn’t explain why I was crying into my towel, mid-dead-lift. When he said, “You can have any guy you want. Every girl here wants to look more like you,” I cried harder. When people told me they were sure I’d find someone, I’d feel so hopeless and heartbroken. One of my executives discovered this the hard way when he remarked during our 1:1, “You’re the most eligible catch I can think of,” and I burst into tears. “Why are you crying?” he asked, eyes wide. “Don’t go into the office or the bathroom in case the team sees you.”
Dating was not fun for me because I was doing it out of fear, so I’d try frantically dating in bursts, get tired and sad and delete all the apps, take 8 months off during which I’d distract myself with my friends and my work, then get scared of dying alone again and re-download all the apps. This happened for several years. With my biological clock counting down, I wondered if I should just settle.
Then I stopped being CEO of my company and decided to never do anything that I wouldn’t do solely for the fun of it again. This included dating, because dating for me was about alleviating the fear of being alone, not about the joy of dating. I got curious about all my fears and sat with them. I was scared of my friends leaving me behind, of not prioritizing me once they got married and had kids, of being a single mom, of being lonely. I sat with each fear, and looked at the opposite story. I thought of how I’d seen married friends get divorced, how I’d grown closer to friends after they’d married and had children, how it could be better to be a single mom than co-parent with someone who wasn’t right for you, how married people could be even lonelier than single people. I saw how I was making finding a partner the Way to Having a Happy Family, when really it was no guarantee of happiness, as evidenced by so much experience I’d personally witnessed and experienced. I started looking for counterexamples and saw them everywhere, single moms, successful women I knew like my VC’s, or celebrities like Lucy Liu or Shonda Rhimes, raising children on their own even though they could probably marry genius supermodels if they wanted. I started to see another way the happily ever after story could happen.
I wrote on my goals doc, “Freeze enough eggs such that I feel abundant about future progeny.” Then I did nothing for years.
One day, Diane posted on FB about freezing her eggs, which inspired me to get off my butt. I did one cycle, then thought I was done. But my founder friends told me stories that scared me into intending to do more cycles. I procrastinated that until Jessica posted on FB about freezing her eggs. Then I did 2 more cycles and crossed off “freeze enough eggs” from my goals list.
In my 20’s, I thought I wasn’t afraid of being alone, or afraid of anything, but I was just better able to ignore fear then. My 30’s forced me to face my fears, which I’m grateful for because now I don’t have those fears. Facing fear, I saw that the fear I was avoiding was with me all along, and that I was fine. I was always feeling it even when I was running from it. So it’s better to love it and feel it instead of trying to control it, which is futile and was actually making everything worse. Trying to control my emotions or the future is like building a sandcastle. It’s a fight against nature. Life wants to shift and change. Emotions want to be felt, to move and to move you. All I can do is play with it. And when I dance instead of control, I see life can be better than I’m able to imagine.
Now I look forward to potentially being a single mom, to dying alone. I’ve embraced being a cat lady. Not to say that I’ve given up on love! I want to love again and raise a family with a man I’m devoted to. I’m just no longer afraid of that not happening. Rather than settling, my standards have gotten higher over time because I love my friends and my aloneness and my cat more every day, and anything new would have to be better than investing in my existing exquisite life. I look forward to making beating my aloneness as hard as possible, and to being delighted if it ever happens.
The Egg Freezing Process:
Each cycle took 8-10 days. So fast! COVID is a great time to freeze eggs because, unlike my first cycle, I don’t travel or do anything, freeing my body to do nothing but cook up eggs. The first cycle, years ago, I went to UCSF because Diane used them and it was close to my work. They extracted 16 and froze 11 eggs.
My friend Jessica went to RMA so I decided to use them for my extractions this year. Sart.org only had data for RMA’s NJ office, but that data was good and Jessica is smart, so I went with them. I loved RMA! They were really communicative over text and super organized. They worked during Thanksgiving and Christmas.
At RMA, the 1st cycle took place a week or so after my period. The time from 1st injection to extraction was 10 days. I went in about every 3 days so they could check on the follicles, and I found the process fast and fun. I never felt like they were wasting my time or being inefficient. Everyone was smart and nice. I loved interacting with everyone and highly recommend them.
I injected myself with 1-3 medications every night for 10 days. I figure out how to have fun no matter what I’m doing, so I generally enjoyed injecting myself. I felt like I was playing at being a mad scientist mixing powders and tapping for air bubbles. I found it satisfying to *poink* into my juicy flesh. I did get scared towards the end of the last cycle when I started making mistakes. I bruised myself by hitting a blood vessel or something somehow, and I injected air by forgetting to expel the air, which made me scared I was going to die, but a doctor friend said I was fine.
The extraction took about an hour and I was knocked out. When I woke up, the first thing I exclaimed was, “I feel great!” They said they extracted 27 eggs and froze 21.
The 2nd cycle took place immediately after my period, and was just like the 1st cycle except 2 days shorter and with fewer side effects. The time from 1st injection to extraction was 8 days. They extracted 19 and froze 16. With 40+ eggs banked, I felt abundant about future progeny.
Costs per cycle:
$8K for the procedure.
~$2K for medications. You don’t know how much medicine you’ll need because it depends on how your body responds. Alto delivers same day, so you can avoid ordering more medication until you’re sure to save $. Also they give you a caramel with every delivery, so you’re incentivized to increase delivery count.
Side Effects:
The first cycle I did with UCSF, I don’t remember having any side effects even though I was worried about acting crazy. I did feel sore after the procedure and watched hours of Reign (a show I’ve never watched before or since) and shop for elaborate ball gowns, which is uncharacteristic of me, but that was just for 1 day.
The first cycle with RMA, I gained 9 pounds in 3 days! I’ve never bloated like that before, and it was uncomfortable. Lying on the exam table, I felt like a queen bee whose limbs had withered off, only a gigantic thorax remaining with drones swarming around me feeding me royal jelly while I pooped out eggs. It was water weight, and the day before the procedure I somehow lost 4 pounds, maybe because I had swapped the hormones for the trigger shot. Anyway, a week after the procedure, I was back to my normal weight.
I babied myself this whole time with lots of heating pads and soups and basically followed what I guessed my cousin would say Traditional Chinese Medicine would say, and basically soupifying everything before I ate it (even fruit) and under-washing my hair. I started getting into making mushroom barley and other veggie soups. I bought a bread machine, an electric steamer, and tons of wild rice. But when those hormones went away, so did the urge to bake.
The final time with RMA, I didn’t bloat, which made me worried it wasn’t working, but it was. We did this cycle immediately after my period, whereas with the previous cycle, we started injections about a week before I would’ve normally ovulated, so maybe that made a difference.
Both times, my uterus and boobs felt sore so I used heating pads. Unlike my first cycle years ago when I was running around working a ton, for the cycles with RMA, I basically lay in bed all day for a week under a giant heating pad. Generally lethargic, I was not in the mood to do anything other than watch pretty people entertain me via Netflix. My cat was really happy to get so much snuggling and warmth.
The day after my extraction, I got the strong urge to do annoying tasks I’d been putting off for literally years, like a super-charged PMS time (when I’m in my PMS zone, I get into hyperproductive, focused, conscientious mode). For example, I got very interested in my taxes, which has never happened before. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned to notice and love my cycles. My hormone cycles weren’t noticeable until my 30’s when I started getting PMS symptoms. When PMS-ing, I start to clean my house, figuratively and literally. I throw out stuff, organize drawers, and speed to inbox zero with renewed zeal and certainty. The morning after my extraction, I, with genuine gusto, got new health insurance, transfered my retirement accounts, and mailed a package. My body was like, “I guess we’re not pregnant so let’s get busy creating whatever else we do with our lives when we’re not making babies.” All my times of the month bring unique benefits, and I love making the various parts of the cycle work for me.
I said, “I always meant to, but I kept putting it off. Finally my friends posted on Facebook and that inspired me to pull the trigger.”
She said, “Yes, that’s often the case, where women in tech read on some message board randomly and then finally do it.” Indeed, my friends who posted are both women with STEM PhD’s from Stanford and Caltech who work in tech. This post is my way of passing on and adding to the story. Sharing more personal experiences has been a gift from Facebook because it safely normalizes / surfaces some things we can normally view as private, which can help us learn more faster together, so I want to share my experience of this process.
Annie asked, “When do you want to have children?”
I said, “It sounds silly, but I read Lucy Liu had her kid via surrogate at 45. She’s Asian, and I’m Asian, so I arbitrarily pegged that age in my mind as roughly when I’ll have kids if I still haven’t by then. But a decade is so far in the future; I almost can’t imagine it.”
She said, “That makes sense. There aren’t a lot of models for successful women who can afford to be single moms with abundant resources and support network. It’s new.”
I asked, “What blind spots do you see women having?”
She said, “I see people who have a very specific time they want to have kids by, and that lack of flexibility can cause issues. I also see people underestimating the support of the community and overestimating the importance of their significant other.”
“I won’t overestimate the importance of my significant other versus my friends. My friends are the standard that helps me set the bar and decide if a guy is worth dating. He’d have to be really special to be worth investing in instead of just continuing to invest in my friends.”
“What if holding that standard means you are alone?”
“Then I’m alone! I saw a video on tik tok where this girl was saying we don’t need men because women make sperm in their bone marrow.” We laughed.
Philosophy:
The future is fundamentally uncertain and thus scary, so I try to give myself the illusion of control to try to alleviate my fears. Yet control is impossible. Even with all the eggs I’ve allegedly frozen, who knows what power outage or earthquake could happen. Maybe I’ll go to the doctors in 10 years and they’ll be like, “What eggs?” Maybe none of my eggs will convert to being a child. Maybe my child will die young. Maybe my child will grow up to hate me. No one knows. From the view of fear, nothing I do is ever enough to make me safe, because safety and certainty are impossible. All is illusory. So we might as well choose the illusion of abundance instead. And, of course, take advantage of the amazing, abundant technologies available to us. Scientists can make embryos out of skin cells. Through science, much is possible.
Anyway, abundance teaches me that even if my friends spurn me, and I never find true love, and I never have children, I’ll always have me, and that’s just as abundant as it is scarce. It’s cool, having enough, being enough, letting go of control, all an illusion anyway. Whatever happens, I know I’ll be ok, more than ok. I’m not going to do anything out of fear anymore. I’m doing it because I can, because I want to, because it’s fun.
Technological change drives cultural change, and in this case egg freezing changes the possible futures I can envision for myself. Now I see infinite stories full of abundant joy and no longer feel any scarcity or pressure.
“Annapurna, to which we had gone empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realization we turn the page: a new life begins. There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men.” There are other Annapurnas in the lives of women.
