What's Now, What's Next

 

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 Jada

 

Happy birthday to our oldest, our daughter, our now 21-year-old, Jada Huang! We love you!!!

Small Group, Big Impact

 

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. 

AI, AI, Oh!

 

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!

But I Would Have Adapted

 

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.

Sometimes You Just Have to Do It

 

 

I’m pleased to make time for golf as a hobby that allows me to have fun amid my demanding responsibilities as an economic consultant and a family man. But, taking several hours out of every week for this pastime is not without cost. So, practically, on Friday mornings when I snag an early morning tee time so as to get back into the office in time to do a day’s worth of work before the weekend begins, I’m also racing through other pressing to-do’s. Playing partners for whom an 8am tee time is early for them are astounded to hear that not only did I get to the course early to stretch, but I also did a full workout (run and lift), house chores, time-sensitive desk work, and grocery run. 

Needless to say, I do this with severe haste. So even a small hiccup can create a big problem in staying on schedule. For example, for a while my grocery store was still closed many minutes later than their stated 6am open because security hadn’t shown up yet, leaving me and the other early birds cursing the employees for not setting their alarms and management for allowing such tardiness to become a pattern. 

Earlier this month, though, the grocery store delay had nothing to do with the grocery store. Instead, when I hopped in the car, after an overnight rain, and turned the wipers on to clean off the windshield, one of the wipers flew right off its arm. I made it safely to the store a few minutes later, and decided to figure out how to snap the wiper back on before going into the store. Not being very mechanically inclined, and it being pitch dark, I fumbled around with great frustration for a full 10 minutes before successfully performing the task. Thankfully I was able to figure it out in the end, and 10 minutes isn’t much of a delay, and that morning I had enough buffer that it didn’t adversely affect my ability to get to the course on time. But it was still quite frustrating to take on an unexpected task, do poorly at it, and have my tight timeline thrown akilter by it all. 

What I didn’t have the luxury of was to throw in the towel and leave the task undone. I was certainly tempted to complain that it wasn’t fair that I’d carefully planned my morning and this was throwing things off, to lament that this wasn’t a task I was particularly good at, that it was dark out, and why did the wiper have to fall off in the first place anyway since it wasn't my fault that that had happened. No, sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it. And, you have to do it without anyone helping you, or consoling you that it sucks you have to do it, or congratulating you on a good job after you’re done. 

I subject you to this long account of a mundane event because it is indicative of a parenting philosophy that is important to what I want my kids to understand as they prepare to go out into the world as fully formed adults. In a sense, what it means to be an adult is that there is no one tasked with bailing you out when there’s a task you don’t want to or just plain forget to do. I will admit that my mom picked up my dirty laundry and washed my dirty dishes for longer than was probably helpful for the kid version of me; it took until I was 16 and they all went on vacation while I stayed home for summer league basketball to realize that if I left a dirty dish in the sink and a dirty shirt on the floor in the morning, I would return in the evening and those items would still be there. But, however long it took for me to learn that lesson, I did learn it, and I learned it by having to deal with the fact that the task needed to be done and I hadn't done it so it was left to be done. 

We are lucky that we live in relative material comfort. We want our kids to have a deep sense of fairness rather than be fatalistic, and to express frustration rather than stifle it. We want them to feel celebrated when they do a good job and comforted when they do something hard. However, in life sometimes the wiper flies off your car and you just have to figure out how to pop it back on. It doesn’t matter that that’s not fair, or anticipated, or something we’re good at, or that there’s no one around to cheer us on. It doesn't matter that the problem was not of our doing, and that not only were we not at fault but there is no one to blame or otherwise seek out to make it right. We just have to do it ourselves. Sounds harsh, but sometimes life is.

But I Want It

 

It’s a tale as old as time, one told with a mix of lament and pride. One generation is poor because everyone is poor. They work hard and make something of themselves, but their kids remember the scarcity they came from and live accordingly. Then they move to a new country, and scrape and claw to make a better life for their kids including a higher education. Those kids have all the privileges of an upper middle class existence, but their upbringing is one of thrift and caution. Their kids, on the other hand, are further removed from deprivation. They grow up in a prosperous era and are saturated with the ubiquitous social media messaging of showy abundance. Their parents’ scolding about frugality and budgeting often falls on deaf ears because it feels so distant from their actual lived experience. And they’re not all wrong: they and their parents can truly afford to live better than those who preceded them, so while it’s not good to be profligate neither is there any honor in being a miser when you don’t have to be. 

Aaron and Jada, both in college, are in a multi-year transition period from “living at home and Dad pays for everything” to “being on my own and I have to pay my own bills.” Such is the journey from childhood to adulthood, which comes with many perks but also includes having to make rent, buy groceries, pay for phone and utilities, and so on. 

Both our older kids have had jobs, so they know what it’s like to make money and they certainly have a lot of experience spending money. Full adulthood, of course, is quite different from when you’re 16 and have a summer job and make a couple hundred bucks in a week and it feels like a million dollars because you can buy clothes and go out to eat with friends. Grown-ups can obviously buy clothes and go out to eat with friends too, but in a sense those are “nice to have’s” that are secondary to the primary obligations of housing/utilities, transportation, and groceries. 

I am in the habit of polling my friends with young adult children how they’re doing in the lifelong challenge of living within their means. “Are your kids doing ok at adjusting their outflow to be no more than their inflow” is a wonky way I phrase the inquiry. I’ve received a diversity of responses, from grim head-shaking to beaming pride, befitting that some in this generation simply have no financial discipline while others understand the important notions of scarcity and saving. 

One friend described his child’s status in a funny way. They understood, intellectually, that if they had money, and then spent it, they no longer had the money, and so the next thing they wanted to spend money on they would have to wait until they had money again. “But dad,” they would say to him in a confused tone of voice, “I don't understand, because the thing is, I want it.” As if the want must necessarily be satisfied, so how is it possible that it couldn't be?

“Wants” can feel strong enough to evoke bewilderment that one can’t therefore automatically and immediately have it. Past generations would not have any trouble understanding that simply wanting something does not then give you the means to get it. But current generations can be excused, drenched in a culture of rampant consumerism and instant gratification, for having their antennae crossed when it comes to wanting something and having to forgo or delay or save up for it. Such is where my older kids, and many others in their era, are.