Movies or Warp Engines?

I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought it'd be nice to tell a story I have told people in real life. At the end of this post, you'll realize why aliens made me think Elon Musk is a baller.

First, let's go back to elementary school. The flavor of apocalyptic movie was aliens and Near-Earth objects (e.g. Independence Day, Armageddon, etc.) As a kid, I remember staying up nights thinking I was going to eventually (a) work in the slave pits of alien overlords or (b) die like the dinosaurs when the BIG ONE hits. As a kid in Colorado, I loved the wide expansive night sky, but during this period, I remember being terrified of opening my shades.

So, I got to thinking that if Hollywood was really the soothsayer of America, what could I be doing before I meet the grim reaper from outer space. I asked myself, what could I do that would make my life worthwhile?

My first thought was that I would just play video games, read comic books, and watch TV/movies all the time. Having only played video games at friend's houses, read comic books from the Bookmobile, and watched movies from the local video rental store, I realized that if I wanted choice, I would need money. To a kid, I needed SERIOUS money (like hundreds of dollars!). So, I would work and then the logical choice would be to live a life of consumption.

video-games.jpeg

That summer, I did live a life of consumption... I found out that it was utterly unfulfilling. Not only did it give me headaches playing video games and watching movies from morning till night (I should take food breaks), but I just felt selfish. The Tiger Mom conditioning from birth kicked in and I felt that I needed to do more... I had to be productive! 

My next thought was that as a movie lover, I thought that I should make movies. I was a huge fan of Steven Spielberg and I thought that we needed more life-changing movies like Jurassic Park! I thought it would be awesome to be an actor because if we can't bring back dinosaurs, at least you can escape into your imagination and pretend. That seemed like a ton of fun!

At some point though, I became really disappointed. It may have been that I failed at a lunch table trade of fruit for chips, but I thought to myself, what is the point? We're all gonna die from the tentacled aliens anyway. 

I had an epiphany though after watching Star Wars... that's right, WARP SPEED! If we developed technology to transport us to new planets, then we could escape the aliens, perhaps colonize other planets and with all our forces combined - fight back! See below for one time we fought back: 

Looking back, I realized I was on to something (albeit through the eyes of a 5th grader), I found cause in either a life of:
  1. Great creativity, i.e. movies - the highest form of art for any pre-adolescent
  2. Great advancement for humankind, i.e. the warp engine - the most awesome form of scientific advancement known to a pre-adolescent
One person who has done both is Elon Musk - see his vision for Space X in this article: 1 visionary + 3 launchers + 1,500 employees = ?, and that he played himself in Iron Man 2.

Both of these things (great creativity or great advancement of mankind) made me think that for the brief time alive, I would open my shades and yell out to the unreplying universe: "Hey, I'm here! I'm human!"

I just had Lasik, bye bye Asian Steve Urkel

For the past 18 years of my life, I've been near-sighted (-11.5 myopia). I've worn glasses since I was seven.

It's one of the genetic gifts my parents gave me, but I'm sure my penchant for watching television, playing video games, and reading books with a flashlight when I should have been sleeping didn't help any.


I started wearing contacts when I was 13 years old and became liberated. I could play sports without fear of my glasses breaking (at some point, I had broken a pair of glasses every month), and I could run around without my glasses fogging up. I could wear sunglasses!

Recently though, my optometrist told me that I'd been wearing my contacts too often and that I was starving my eyes of much needed oxygen- thus my eyes were getting more and more red because my body was trying to feed oxygen through blood vessels. I had been told this before in 9th grade, so I had limited my contacts to a max of 12 hours a day. It became annoying though when I would start my day with a 6 AM run, then have to switch to glasses at 6 PM for dinner, especially when my workday would sometimes extend late into the night. When I would go to conferences, I would wear contacts during the night, and find that glasses were less painful after a night of socializing. Also, if I couldn't find my glasses or my contacts were unavailable, I was literally blind.

Well, I finally chose to get LASIK. I pay about $250/year in contacts, eyeglasses, and eye appointments, so given I have 15 years left before my eyes start failing me because of old age, I might as well just pay an up-front cost. Additionally, who will be providing -10 contacts when the zombie apocalypse occurs?!

Since I had enough corneal tissue, I had a choice between LASIK (the most popular form of laser eye surgery) and bladeless PRK (LASEK and a bunch of other names). LASIK has a shorter recovery time (I was working the next day, but had to wear the goggles...) but is a little more invasive, while PRK is less invasive, but has a longer recovery (6 days- no sight, plus all types of other stuff). Both surgeries require a few weeks to fully recover. I chose the former because the difference was negligible for me.

So on Monday, I said adieu to the Asian Steve Urkel  and said hello to the guy who can wake up in the morning with functional vision (not great night vision). It's not nearly as good as the vision I had with contacts (it is only the fourth day), but it astounds me that I don't have to take off my contacts at 11 PM at night. I have light sensitivity, see halos (which I just realized I've seen for my whole life, so it's astounding that other people never experienced that). It's no different than wearing contacts (after contacts, Urkel was more heard, than seen :D ) , but I'm sure there will be little things that astound me. Moreover, for someone at my degree of near-sightedness, almost everyone wondered why I hadn't done it sooner.



Man, I used to love this shirt back in middle school - now I live in SF!

Dan Gilbert explains why we are happy

This video along with Seligman on Positive Psychology explains the  world of happiness to me. I usually talk about this when I talk about  why money won't buy you happiness and usually people disagree with me.  I think it'll just take time.

My Experience with LaunchBox Digital

opportunityGiven the state of our economy, it is a great time to build a business with a revolutionary product.

No, I’m not trying to scam you into investing in a Nigerian royal family. Your competitors will be thinking of cutting costs instead of innovating and since the cost of starting a website has gone down so drastically, you don’t need as much capital to launch a business. Lastly, you’re probably going to be tightening your belt anyway, so why not tighten it just a little bit more and start a business. LaunchBox and other early stage investment firms can help.

NOTE: This is the second in a two-part post about LaunchBox Digital.

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Startup March Madness 2009: Getting into LaunchBox (and YCombinator, TechStars, etc.)

The factors that affect acceptance into LaunchBox Digital - an early stage investment firm who invested in our company JamLegend - are very much the same factors that affect acceptance onto a college basketball team.  They are all measurements of potential with the purpose of assuring that when the game starts, the right player is on the court.

This post is the first in a two-part post about LaunchBox Digital.

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