Humans of the Moon

This week I am joined by Karan Halal and Arnuv Tandon, the co-founders of PetCode. Both of them talk about juggling High School and building a company from the ground up and how the pandemic has affected their processes. Their company's team is composed entirely of High School students which provides them with a unique perspective and challenges. Arnuv and Karan talk in depth about how they built the team through connecting with other people during Hackathons, how they had to adjust during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the nature of fully remote work during a challenging time. They discuss the essential role of communication for their team in order to achieve their goals. We also talk about the evolution of the Internet and the impact it has had on younger audiences trying to start their own companies. We discuss how the Internet can fit into what people want to use it for, it can be a great tool and it can also be a way to waste an entire afternoon. We talk about the importance of side projects, and passion projects as well as avoiding burning out too early. -- Learn more about PetCode on https://petcodeusa.com/ or follow them on major social media networks @petcodeusa

KP is a maker whose mantra is "build in public". He's spent the last two years building out products leveraging both the tools from the no-code world and the community he's built on Twitter. Through his journey of building in public he was able to land a job at OnDeck as their Program Director. I chat with KP about a myriad of things: his personal journey in tech, the no-code community, the benefits of Twitter, and a few other topics. We talk about all of our failures and the beauty of failing often and continuing to try to do better. I was curious about his process in product building and how KP has built his following, so KP explained his approach and the data that he uses to cater content for his followers. He also talks about the importance of transparency, building in public, and how it has benefitted him. We also talk about the power of social media in building relationships and meeting new people from across the globe by "using Twitter intentionally". You can follow KP on Twitter: @thisiskp_

John Brieger is a board game developer based in Sunnyvale, CA with a background in qualitative research. His recent clients and licensees include Tasty Minstrel Games, Indie Boards and Cards, Deepwater Games, Thunderworks Games, and many more. He also writes the board game advice column #PlaytestingTipOfTheDay on Twitter. John and I talk about how we met, and what I consider to be our defining moment as friends during college. We then go into John's 10 goals in 10 years. When he was 20 years old, he set himself ten goals to complete by the time he is 30 years old. He talks about his progress so far, how he measures progress, and whether he will be able to complete each one. Within this conversation, we also discuss his life developing board games, managing a studio, the importance of user feedback, and managing an everchanging schedule. John gives us some insight on the world of board game development, the culture within the industry, the changes due to the pandemic, and the differences between this industry and his past in tech. We then jump into how Kickstarter has aided board game development by giving power to the consumers along with providing exposure to smaller game development companies. We finish our conversation by talking about mental health issues, setting your schedule based on priorities, and ensuring that you have time for yourself and for whatever is important to you. - You can learn more about John's work by visiting his website: http://briegerdevelopment.com/ Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @dasbrieger

Gabi Dumet is a former lawyer, now a philosophy MA graduate just trying his best. We talk about what we call home, how we've changed our definitions, and what we are looking for in the places that we do call home. We also discuss "figuring things out" in our mid-twenties. Gabi talks about the professional form of philosophy, and the conversations that are carried out in that setting. We also delve into the understanding of truth and the fuzziness of objectiveness and subjectiveness. From that question, we go deeper into some philosophical concepts, how they shape our reality, and the assumptions that we have to make in order to have civilized discussions. Then we apply some of the philosophical concepts to the role of technology in society.

Omar Waseem is a 16-year-old filmmaker based out of SF Bay Area. He's worked with brands such as Penny Boards, Lexus, and even traveled to Morocco to film a documentary. He graduated high school out of his junior year and took a year off to focus on his side projects. He also runs his own podcast called 52 Stories. We start off on our journeys on Instagram through the content we've created, and how we met. Omar talks about his own podcast and how it has influenced his conversations. We also talk about our generational differences and how the social media has grown and become ever present in our lives. We also talk about how the Internet has changed our perspective of safety and the various services that it has provided. We go back and forth about the placebo effect, cancel culture, modern problems, and whether social media has adversely affected our mental health. We also talk about our assumptions and inherent biases, and how we can go farther together. Finally we discuss our constant evolution and how we can acknowledge our past while growing and understanding how we can move forward. - Omar's podcast is called 52 Stories and you can find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify You can learn more about Omar by visiting his website: https://omarmwaseem.com/ Follow Omar on Instagram @omarmwaseem

TJ (Tomás) Dardet Preston is a Puerto Rican entrepreneur and healthcare supply chain data analyst who co-founded Symmetric Health Solutions. We discuss the importance of names and how we evolve our own names throughout the years and with different groups of people. TJ discusses his path to Symmetric Health Solutions and the different paths he was looking at during college. We then talked about the importance of mentors and looking up to people without painting them in a perfect light and understanding that they are human. We question how we value friendships, altruism, our peace of mind, and transparency. This led us to the discussion of radical transparency, becoming a "lighthouse for like-minded people" along with the dichotomy between celebrities and their personas.

Karon is a New York City native living in Pittsburgh working as an online and in-person coach specializing in biomechanics and nutrition. We discuss our development and leaving our jobs to pursue our passions; Instagram as a powerful marketing tool for content creators, and the tools it provides for growing your business. Karon talks about the allure of fame and how he refocused his goals after seeing the side-effects and some of the weirder aspects of it. We also talk about the importance of setting goals and working towards them through consistent habits and creating accountability systems ("squishy goals, concrete habits"). Our conversation then turned towards Karon's journey to fitness starting with dancing, then weight training, and Flobility. We close out the conversation discussing the importance of health and what "being healthy" actually means. - Karon's Podcast is The Kronic Lifestyle Podcast and you can find it on Spotify, Apple, and Stitcher. Karon's Instagram is @coachkronic Karon's website is: https://kronic.fit/

A conversation with my friend Henry Peck: Golf’s similarities to life How valuable is your time Needs vs wants, wealth providing you with opportunity to figure what you really want Managing expectations as the key to happiness Defining success, *hint* it’s not money Life is gambling with your time Spongebob and Humor + Irene for commissions Would you go to college today Quarantine accelerating all trends Growing a brand through social media The power of referrals and internalizing costs Friendships compound continuously If you start networking when you’re looking for a job it’s too late

A conversation with my friend Mika Reyes: - Culture of a company, hard to measure ROI but important - Layoffs, how different companies handle it and why transparency is important - Reasons for switching a job and why larger companies have a leg up on smaller ones - Every company or community is a “cult” to some degree, it’s a scale - Why you should encourage people to leave your company and how to do it

Chatted with Eric Wei covering all of these topics - Becoming friends even though we know nothing about our pasts and had never seen each other - Strengthening a frienship through repeated contact - Future of frienships - COVID's acceleration of existing trends - Sharing experiences with others without physical connection - Societal norms of asking "How was your trip?" - Forcing activation energy to filter people - Increasing your Dunbar Number - Flow state - Convincing yourself something through proofs - Being more explicit over text - Strawmanning vs Steelmanning

Conversation with my friend Arman Hezarkhani, founder and CEO of Parthean - Why I started a podcast - Content creation strategy - Why I'm bearish on California housing in the short term - The future of living through standardization - How cool Arman is - High vs Low latency forms of communication - Breaking down problems in to its incentives - Education as the solution to all problems - The future of nomad lifestyles - Generational home ownership trends - Arman almost living on a bus

Lars Wander and I take a stroll down memory lane - Ambient music theory on friendship - "Filtering" for your people through push and pull - Anonymity on the internet - Building a brand through transparency - Fighting human nature - My roommate telling me to "suck a dick"