The goal of today’s newsletter is to inspire at least one person to think about building a career not just to earn money, but in addition to that, as a meaningful, enjoyable, and purpose-driven journey, through the exposure, thoughts, and inspirations I’ve gathered so far.
Introduction
During my teen years, I loved studying math and physics. In high school, I was so fascinated by modern physics that I dreamed of becoming a physicist at CERN. In fact, during my first year of undergrad, I even looked up summer internships at CERN, thinking I’d spend my whole life studying and working in physics.
But a year later, through my undergrad explorations (writing this newsletter, hosting a podcast, and freelancing for a Singapore-based VC podcaster), I stumbled upon The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, the single most impactful book I’ve ever read. Page 21, in particular, shifted my perspective on careers completely.
Naval studied computer science and economics at Dartmouth, started as an entrepreneur, and went on to build a career across multiple spectrums - as an angel investor, writer, and thinker, while still talking about physics, life, and everything in between on his podcast. His journey had a deep influence on me. It opened my mind to the idea that you can consciously design your career across different verticals and move freely through them, instead of following the linear path I saw around me: get a degree in X, take a job in X, climb the ladder in X, or get another degree in Y to shift careers and repeat the same cycle. (There’s nothing wrong with this path, but the former spoke to me more than the latter. Additionally, some careers don’t operate in intersecting circles. You have to tunnel into one specific thing for years, like being a researcher.)
This single page shifted my mindset: from wanting to tunnel deep into one subject for life, to thinking of career in a linear way, to ultimately discovering the possibility of stacking fields together and operating in intersecting circles. That shift shaped how I approached undergrad, how I see my career today, and ultimately led me to NYU.
Exposure in New York City
I met so many interesting people building their career in stacks like this.
One of my professors, Michael Driscoll, worked at Verizon for 30 years before becoming a full-time faculty member at NYU since the last 12 years. Two of my other professors, Sam and Sean, are actively building startups, involved in venture capital, and working in product design, while also teaching at NYU.
I met Sahil Bloom, who spent the first decade of his career in private equity before transitioning into writing, investing, and entrepreneurship, and he now reaches over a million people every week through his content. I met Andrew Yeung, who started his career at Google and Meta before going on to build large-scale tech communities across the US, especially in New York. I also met Jeff Bussgang, a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, who previously built and sold three tech companies, authored three books on entrepreneurship (his latest being The Experimentation Machine: Finding Product-Market Fit in the Age of AI), and co-founded Flybridge Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Boston and New York managing over $1 billion across six seed funds and nine network funds. I also met Lenny Rachitsky, a thought leader in product management with the largest business newsletter on Substack (1M+ subscribers), a former product manager at Airbnb, and now an active investor and podcaster.
My Thoughts
This exposure has inspired me to think of careers in ‘stacks,’ and I’m actively working toward building one for myself through the projects I keep myself occupied with. I love marketing, strategy, growth, operations, community building, leadership, public speaking, writing, podcasting, and creating videos, all of which I’m practicing through side projects.
I also love teaching. I’ve been a teacher since I was 15, thanks to my mom, who encouraged me to tutor younger kids in her classes. One of my long-term dreams is to return to a university as an adjunct professor, much like my current NYU professors. (Imagine coming back to NYU as faculty, how cool would that be?)
Eventually, I’d also love to invest my time, energy, and capital into supporting young people and early-stage entrepreneurs and creators, which is why being an investor (after my entrepreneurial stint) is also on my radar. And somewhere along the way, I want to find a way to reconnect with my love for films, cars and physics too.
The Conclusion
We often think of careers as a straight line: choose a major, get a job, climb the ladder. But the most interesting people I’ve met, studied under, or drawn inspiration from are building careers as layered stacks, blending interests, skills, and experiences across fields over time. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that your career doesn’t have to fit in a box, you get to design it.
If this newsletter taught you something new,