Life doesn’t get many turning points, but 2024 was one. After being tossed from the OpenAI rollercoaster, I’ve expanded work on our family office. Both kids are now in school, and my day to day is an axis between the local coffee shop for me and the BMX park for my son, with much less idle time available for reading. I also focused more on Chinese, which means I read about half as many (54 v. 120) books this year as last year. ...
2023 was a return to the new normal – full-time work resumed, but at OpenAI. Daily commutes resumed, but on a skateboard rather than a bus. On the home front, our decision to teach our children Chinese has been a case study in unintended consequences, with this decision affecting their interactions with each other, with us, and with the broader world. In reading, 2023 focused on four areas - books directly relevant to my profession, catching up on nonfiction around China, understanding America’s military foreign policy in the 20th century, and strategies to raise a family. I ended up reading about 120 books, and here were the best of the lot: ...