Generally, businesses exist to make money and a shareholder letter is written to review past performance and declare future plans. I have neither shareholders nor a business.
As an experiment, let’s call the business Y. Why? It’s the dependent variable. As the lone shareholder, I am Y.
But, how do we measure value in the absence of money? What’s the metric?
Self-actualization - “the full realization of one’s creative, intellectual, and social potential through internal drive (versus for external rewards like money, status, or power).”
My first draft never mentions self-actualization. I didn't know that was the goal when I started. How could I optimize for a metric I didn't know existed?
That's kind of the point.
Jobs famously said you can’t connect the dots looking forward. Only by giving myself the freedom to wander have I begun to find my way.
Who am I? How did I get here? Why am I here?
I've always been extremely curious. As a kid I would always ask the same question, "why am I me?” My mom said I’d be a philosopher one day. I brushed her aside.
I couldn't wrap my head around it. Why could I only see through my own eyes? What would it be like to experience life as someone else?
I never got the answers, and maybe I never will.
My parents are both Italian immigrants who were teenagers when their families uprooted them from their quiet lives in Italy (everyone knew everyone, doors left unlocked) and dropped them in the loud chaotic Bronx. Safe to say, they had their opinions about America.
This meant I spoke Italian at home, had limited screen time (if any), read lots of books, played lots of soccer, and spent lots of time outside wondering why I was so different.
I had this insecurity about my eyes, constantly red from some condition I never figured out. I struggled to hold eye contact and used eyedrops every day in school.