Q3 2023 personal update

Hi y'all!

You're getting this because we've met through various means and I think you might be interested in a more detailed life update than what I share on social media. If it's been a while since we've talked, I'm including you in hopes we can reconnect! Inspired by my friend Zvi Band, I'll be sending these updates quarterly in hopes of creating deeper connections with each of you.

Please know I'm not offended if you don't read, reply, or even unsubscribe. But of course I'd be delighted to hear from you all. :)

First things first, a few quick asks:

1. My main area of exploration right now is curation. How do you keep track of your favorite products (or do you)? Do you keep lists? Where do you track things you want / like / want to remember? Do you ever share lists of your favorite things or recommendations with other friends? If you have any ideas, insights, or interest in this area—or know of any potential collaborators—please let me know!
2. Are you an investor, or considering angel investing in the future? Please fill out this 30-second survey so I can route opportunities your way.
3. I'm also playing with a little side project called bottledrops, a text-to-order weekly drop of curated non-alcoholic spirits. If interested, please sign up here!

// FAMILY

Zephyr turns two and... 🥁🥁🥁 a new baby is on the way!

Zeph turned two on Friday, October 13th (spoOoOky) and is now walking, talking, and fully expressing his adorable, fiery, red-head personality. We threw a much-larger-than-expected birthday party, complete with partial solar eclipse and releasing 4500 ladybugs—his favorite—into the yard (did you know you can just order them on Amazon?!). 🐞 We also got his first ever school pictures back a couple weeks ago.

Baby #2 is due in late March 2024. We're thrilled and keeping the sex a surprise until we meet them. We're also wide open to parenting tips for those of you with multiple kiddos!

Our house is still a construction zone. 👷🏻‍♂️

Our long residential nightmare is nearly over... two bathrooms down, one to go. Let me know directly if you need some intel on who to avoid at all costs and who we've actually enjoyed working with. We've now signed with a contractor and are hoping to wrap up this final project before baby #2 arrives, then we can move on to more fun house projects (a veggie garden? a parking spot for an Airstream? a new pool patio? tbd).

We had a summer of travel. ✈️

We hop-scotched around the country this summer, hitting Denver, Telluride, DC, New York, Santa Barbara, Seattle, and Asheville between June and September. We loved our quality time with friends at each stop, but I think we're all ready to be stationary for a bit. We'll head to Colorado in December and then maybe somewhere warm and beach-y for a babymoon in January (recommendations?!).

Austin is in its prime this month. ☀️

The weather is gorgeous, the sun is out, and we hit up ACL for the second year in a row. We hopped in and out of the festival, but particularly loved catching FKJ, Labrinth, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Shania Twain. With F1 this past weekend and Halloween right around the corner, October continues to be one of my favorite months in the city.

I'm playing more music again. 🎵

Inspired by ACL and Austin's always-awesome music scene, I've been diving back into playing music more lately, too. I've been tinkering with music from Philip Glass, FKJ's piano works, and Yann Tiersen on the piano, and recently started guitar lessons. Any recommendations for things to learn?

// WORK & PLAY

Fascination with curation

This year has been a journey in exploring my own entrepreneurial ambitions—and finding it harder than expected to settle on *the thing* that I want to fully dive into. But my reading, introspection, and conversations have led me to four interesting areas of work:

1. Curation and e-commerce. Exploring what could be built to incentivize more intentional buying. In a world of infinite options, where Amazon sucks and we have little support finding the right stuff for our needs, there should be a better way. My little side project, bottledrops, is part of my learning here.
2. Dashboards for our health. Recent conversations with some friends have re-ignited my interest in a better way of tracking our long-term health. We have more health data than ever before (e.g. Apple Watch, Oura Ring, EightSleep, Whoop, etc. etc.), and easier, more affordable access to important health metrics (e.g. Dexa Scan, basic blood work), but little support making sense of it all.
3. Psychedelics. While I don't want to build a psychedelics company of my own, I'm very excited about people who do. To that end, I'm supporting my friends at Lifeforce Capital with their new fund focused on breakthrough mental health treatments, and Miranda and I continue to serve on the advisory board for UT's center for psychedelic research. If you're interested in either, please lmk!
4. Travel and AI. I'm excited about the potential for AI to meaningfully improve our lives, and I love to travel. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to advise my friends at Govy as they build a new AI-powered platform for travel designed to do much more than just regurgitate basic itineraries. Please join the waitlist and stay tuned for more soon.

Our investments

We aren't doing much investing, but lately we've realized our little investments also involve curation in a big way. First with SOMEWHERE® (curated streetwear) and now with our recent investment in Charting Transcendence (deeply personal art advising).

Please check them both out, and if you're interested in art advisory services, reply and I'll connect you directly with Matt. 🎨 He's truly an amazing human with an incredible mind. Matt spent 25 years traveling the world as a diplomat, businessman, and connoisseur of transcendent experience before founding Charting to help others map their own way through the often opaque and overwhelming world contemporary art collecting and investing. And if you'd like to meet him in person, he'll be in NYC November 8–11, then Miami for Art Basel in December and throughout most of the winter and spring.

// QUESTIONS

A few of the big things on my mind lately... if you have any ideas or advice, please let me know!

• How can I best find partners to help me build? I don't want to work alone, and I'm craving meaningful collaboration.
• How can I balance an ambitious entrepreneurial journey with being the best father and partner I can be?
• What can I build to drive more intentional buying and product discovery, while also being an exciting, sustainable business?

// CURATED

• Reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, Anything You Want by Derek Sivers, Light Bringer by Pierce Brown, Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly, Radically Condensed Instructions for Being Just As You Are by J. Matthews, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (yes yes, I know I'm like 15 years late), The Daily Dad by Ryan Holiday, God, Human, Animal, Machine by Meghan O'Gieblyn, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. You can find the full list here (note I may receive a small commission for purchases from my list).
• Watching: Solar Opposites (S4), What We Do in the Shadows (S5), Futurama (S8), Ted Lasso (S3), Foundation (S2), Rick & Morty (S7), revisiting Archer.
• Snacking: Pop Daddy Pretzels (especially mustard), Quest Protein Tortilla Chips (ranch!), Tazzy Candy, Rotten gummy worms (compostable packaging! less sugar!), Majestic Sprouted Hummus (hard to find but worth the effort), Vista Hermosa Totopos (the best tortilla chips), Superlupes marinated lupini beans (delightful and healthy).
• Drinking: Slow Luck Non-Alcoholic Spirit, Siren Shrubs, OAX ORIGINAL mezcal, spicy mezcal negronis with Disco Inferno bitters, this combination for phony-negronis.
• Listening: Here's my playlists from July, August, and September! Also really enjoying vinyl again with our Victrola Stream turntable.
• Apps: Duckbill for assistant services, Akiflow for tasks/calendar, Texts for messaging (I have a couple invites if anyone wants one), Perplexity for AI answers, Snipd for podcasts, Bookshelf for book tracking, Retro and Threads for social media, and revisiting Bear for notes.
• Bonus: Miranda and I are obsessed with this tabletop tile game, Snakes of Wrath. It's quick (~20 mins), two-person, beautiful, and cleverly strategic. Can't recommend enough.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and please get in touch! I'd love to hear what you've been up to, what you're thinking about, and if there's anything I can ever do to help and support you in any way.

Alex