A friend asked:

Why are you writing publicly again?

The tl;dr is that I can’t imagine a more exciting or important time to be working on AI, news, and consumer products — how could it not be the right moment to be talking out loud again?

Slightly longer version

Writing has been part of how I think and imagine for as long as I can remember. I wrote and ran ‘zines in college. Articles, white papers, and public blogging at Linden. Written debates with Mark. A startup built around writing. Shaping and refining strategic vision through long-form documents at Google. A manifesto setting our new vision at SmartNews. Constant writing for nearly 50 years. And much of it public.

During roughly the same period, I’ve also written a lot of code. Not every programmer views coding and writing as similar endeavors, but they’ve always felt entwined to me. The tensions between exploration and simplicity, the path from idea to final form, the intentionality of it all.

But the biggest? Both are more exciting, fulfilling, and interesting when there’s an audience. Did players find the hook and joy you were hoping for? Did a reader understand the idea? Was the company able to see the vision that has me so excited and join on that next journey?

And for writing, I’ve missed the public nature of blogging.

I’m an introvert with a great act

We took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test a bunch of times at the Academy and what jumped out at me was how borderline Introvert-Extrovert I would score. Because I feel like an introvert. Navigating large group settings, talking about myself, or being the center of attention just isn’t my favorite thing. Of course, the military — or much of my career in tech as a manager, leader, founder, CEO, and Board Member — is about spending a ton of time doing exactly those things. In fact, you must be really great at them.

What I realized even back at USNA was that the training gave me tools and training to put on the extrovert role when needed. To appreciate the excitement of public speaking rather than just feeling the nervousness. To understand the importance of visibility and decision making even when — especially when — there’s uncertainty or you’re being hammered by Imposter Syndrome. To own the mistakes that you’ll make along the way.

This all really clicked for me at Facebook, where all the senior leaders went through intensive media and speaker training. It was super fun, but one thing really stood out. The instructor was asking the class whether we wanted the long and complex answer for how to be great at speaking or the short one.

We, of course, demanded the short one. It was awesome advice:

Get over yourself

Everyone blogs differently, especially in a world of newsletters and paid audiences, but I think it’s a wonderful practice for thinking out loud and celebrating the connections and feedback that come from it. Of not being precious about a memory or idea.

It has been intensely rewarding to write and influence inside companies for the last decade, but it’s just not the same as launching thoughts into the web.

Especially with so much exciting stuff coming!