Next month Jada will be heading to Singapore for a 6-month internship at a small local law firm, which she secured through school. It's the second of three full-time internships that students in her program do as part of their five-year undergraduate degree. And it's the second extended time she'll be spending in Asia, having just gotten back from a 3-month intensive Mandarin immersion in Taiwan last fall.
That previous trip probably gave her a leg up in a severe competition for these coveted non-US work experiences. So it's great to see Jada stack experiences on top of experiences. She is well on her way to being a global citizen and world traveler, and Amy and I are immensely proud of her!
I've told some of you privately, and now it's been announced publicly, so let me use today's post to announce that I'm leaving my job in May. It's a planned departure several years in the making - 2026 is 20 years at the firm - and since I first decided this was the time to go, we've been able to build up the next generation of people to run the company and do the work just fine without me. So it feels like a good time to exit stage right, and I'm proud of the work I have accomplished and particularly pleased to preside over so thoughtful a transition that leaves the future of the firm in great shape.
There will be time to recollect on the good times, but many people I tell quite quickly get to "so then what's next for you," partly because it's an obvious question people are curious to know the answer to, and I think partly because the assumption is that if I'm leaving my job I must therefore already have something lined up that I'm excited to jump to.
For me, not so much. It's so very unlike me, too, given how far in advance I like to think on and nail down other life milestones like where I want to live or where I want to travel. So this launching into the unknown is a bit scary for me, but perhaps for that reason I am doing so intentionally. Partly because, as a principal in the firm I'm in now, it's important for me to be 100 percent present, for my clients and co-workers, and any work time or brain space I devote to figuring out what's next takes me away from that. And partly because, while I certainly have my preferences and aspirations for what the next chapter of my professional career looks like, and will therefore take the initiative in seeking out those opportunities, it is quite possible some opportunities will come seek me, and I'm committed to keeping an open mind to considering those opportunities rather than preemptively closing myself off to them.
I feel like I've been pretty transparent throughout this process, but you'll excuse me if I hold my cards close to vest over the next few months as I hope that where I end up from here happens organically and results in a happy next thing to sink my teeth into. The better to keep my options open, and as mentioned above, to not get ahead of myself while I have plenty to work on right now in my current job. Although perhaps it will come as no surprise that a "nice to have" I'm hoping for in my next job is sufficient free time to keep working on my golf game!
Happy birthday to our oldest, our daughter, our now 21-year-old, Jada Huang! We love you!!!
Earlier this year, in a #LetsTalkTuesday post on social media, I asked what audacious things folks have attempted in a small group context. Cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has." This is an oft-quoted statement that speaks to the exhilaration of being part of a tight-knit group of people trying to accomplish something extraordinary and meaningful. There's nothing quite like it, and fortunate are those to have experienced it in their lifetime.
I don't know that I've ever changed the world or ever will. But I feel fortunate to have had multiple such examples. In college, I was an active part of a Christian fellowship that was motivated to live out faith, obedience, and joy in community, and the moments we shared continue to sustain friendships that continue to this day. Running a small consulting firm as a principal with other principals (including, for four years, as its co-president) has also afforded me the thrills and agonies of doing something really hard with a group of amazing individuals. So did keeping afloat the non-profit where I had my first job, and so did volunteering for my city's school board. And, I guess you could say that Amy and I have been a small group of 2, trying desperately to parent 3 kids together while investing in our marriage and our own sanity.
All of these things, indeed all such examples, have in common that they are hard. And why not, when you are trying to achieve the impossible? Would we expect to coast? It turns out, whether you're trying to do something in business or civics or sports or the arts or ministry or education, the audacity of the objective combined with the degree of difficulty combined with the daily grind of doing something really hard is not an unfortunate byproduct of the whole exercise but rather central to what makes it rewarding and memorable.
It is my understanding that Mead's original intent in her quote is that cultural change happens through small but committed groups of individuals, which is incredibly encouraging to those who want to change the world but feel it is too daunting to even try. My takeaway is slightly different, which is that such attempts come with a lot of pain and sacrifice and hardship and doubt and defeat and opposition, but that it is those very things that make it worthwhile. I hope my kids will live happy and fulfilling lives, including summoning the moxie and enjoying the good fortune of trying crazy things with awesome people.
This long-form article by AI entrepreneur Matt Shumer is hitting the socials like a thunderbolt. Like many people my age, I have dabbled with AI tools for a few years, both for work and pleasure, and spoken with my kids about their own usage. But, like a rushing tide, these tools are getting way better way faster, and with that progress comes an increasing inability to deny the ways that progress will revolutionize how we function as humans in a modern society.
A typical sentiment I've encountered, and at times harbored, is dismissal. They're inaccurate, they're no substitute for human intuition, they're just an avenue for easy (and ineffective) cheating. Whether or not this is true now, it is for sure far less true than it was even 6 months ago. Which means that 6 months and then 6 years from now, they will be darn right unassailable, rendering entire swaths of actions done without them as quaint as doing long division without a calculator.
As for me, I am increasingly using AI as an always available and non-judgmental companion at work, peppering it with queries to help me understand an issue and get essential background information. I haven't even progressed to the stage of using it to do my work, but at some point it will be both inevitable and expected, seeing as that it will be better, faster, and more accurate than me raw-dogging a task without its help.
Similarly, AI has enhanced my productivity and pleasure in my personal life. For example, I am constantly using it while I read a book, to help me keep track of characters, ask about a plot twist I didn't quite understand, and take me down a rabbit hole when something comes up I just want to learn more about. I query it for travel tips, help with house and car trouble, and synthesize complex current events. They say no one is smarter than everyone, and AI is getting close to being "everyone," so when used wisely why not tap into the wisdom of the masses?
As a parent, I do need to broach some tricky nuances with my kids on this topic. What will it look like for them to be employable when it's time for them to come off my payroll and convince some employer to put them on theirs? What are our ethics when it comes to cheating, prejudice, and bullying, given that it's now so much easier to give in to all of those things? And, as was once the case with World Book encyclopedia volumes and then the Internet itself, how do we cultivate the wisdom necessary to distill infinite information into actual insight?
Much more to probe here, but suffice to say the AI revolution is here, and it's only going to get faster. Buckle up!
About a year ago I wondered what life would’ve been like had I not gone to Penn, and the big snow and extended freeze from the past several days has me returning to this thought experiment. Specifically, and this is interesting because way back it really came down to Penn and Berkeley – go to the East Coast Ivy League school and best business program in the world, or stay close to home and continue to hang out with my high school friends – because the other two schools I got into were Michigan and MIT.
So, in a parallel universe in which I go to one of those schools, and like in real life I meet a girl and end up making a family and life right in place, right now I’d be living in Ann Arbor or Boston. In which case having snow and ice on the ground for weeks on end would be a normal winter challenge to get through.
Being sensitive to the cold and pining to get back on the golf course, my patience with this extended freeze (and the impact it has on simple things like using my car and going for a pleasant walk outside) is running thin. So it feels uncomfortable to think about of having to deal with something like this for months on end every single year.
The thing about parallel universes, though, is that we adjust. In the real world, I’ve morphed from young suburban Cali kid to middle-aged East Coast city guy. I’ve made it work and it in turn has made me who I am. And so in those parallel universes in which I’m a proud alumnus of the University of Michigan or Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and, I guess, to complete the thought, rooting for Detroit and Boston sports team, yikes!), I’m also more acclimated than the current me to things like very cold temps and extended seasons of snow on the ground.
Just like my current self, I may not like it. But I would have adapted, just like I have to this life I’ve made for myself. It has its pros and cons. And so will my kids have their preferences, but those preferences will meet the realities of their own lived experience, and they too will thrive or suffer, change and be changed, and make something out of it all.
