2025: Calling out my Cope

This was the year I began to call out my cope. For years I've been hiding. I worked at a "fast-growing company," I was in the "ambitious circles," there were people telling me I was crushing it, but deep down I knew that I wasn't doing the things I needed to in order to reach my goal of building a company.

I was scared. I was scared to be judged fully on what I can create rather than my proximity to power. For so long I've been able to sound like the kind of person who will do big things and borrow the validation from my theoretical future self, without doing the hard part.

This is the year that changed.

Sometime in early January and February, I became very interested in food science. As I began talking to people in the space, one conversation in particular put me in my place. The conversation began amicable, but ended with them yelling at me to go to conferences, read papers, and do my own reading. The shame hit twice: first, that I wasn't well-researched. Second, and worse, that I already knew it was true before they said it. I had picked this space because it felt ambitious, because it was far away, and because it would take years to get anywhere. Once again, the space was "safe." I could borrow validation from my food-science-entrepreneur future without admitting that I didn't believe in this future.

In March, I met up with a close friend of mine: Alex Gu. He was visiting NYC from SF for a couple of days. I told him about my recent realization that I'd been running away from my real goals: ensuring my family's financial future. This was music to Alex's ears. This is a game Alex has been playing for much of his life. I'd said "I want to get rich" out loud before—to mentors, to friends. But there was always a slight pause, a pivot back to "impact" or "the right opportunity." Alex didn't pivot. For the first time, I didn't have to perform. We both just wanted to get rich.

So we started thinking and brainstorming together. And… I felt so lost. I was actually pretty bad at this. I needed to validate amorphous ideas without leaning on other people's expertise. This was a new ballgame for me. This is a point where I'd usually continue in a middling fashion, hiding behind the fact that I was "working on something on the side."

But, for the first time, with Alex's help, I finally stopped hiding. We doubled our efforts to find something we were excited about. People always say "work smart, not hard." But the truth is that if something isn't working, your best lever is to try harder. It's the only way you can learn to work smarter.

My lowest point came in late October. After we had decided to shut down our first big bet, ShortShop, I attended the Neo Reunion in Arizona, a gathering of founders and operators in the Neo portfolio. It's always an incredible weekend, but this time I didn't feel so excited. This was the first time I'd be joining as a founder, and not as a successful one, not as one who had raised money, just a regular jobless founder. There, I met two friends who had both started working on the same idea as ShortShop after us and both had hit single digit millions in revenue just within a couple of months. As I sat at the table staring at my second friend while he described his company, I wanted to be happy for him. But while one company could just be exceptional, two is a pattern. It hit me like a truck. We had failed at the "easy part." We were right. Extremely right about the bet. But we had failed to execute.

What was the difference? They had found and paid engineers who had built bot farms in the past. We knew bot farms existed, we even used the technology, but we told ourselves that building our own was too risky, too big a time investment at our velocity. We called it a calculated decision. But two other founders made the opposite calculation and hit millions in months. Same bet. Different execution.

In hindsight, this is exactly what the arena is meant for. This single experience has reframed my thinking on whether to raise venture, how to choose an idea, and what it means to execute quickly and well. Without the vulnerability of executing with people watching, you'll never experience the consequences of your actions, good or bad.

This year, our actions didn't bear any fruit. But somewhere along the way, what I wanted changed. It started as money. It was always supposed to be about securing my family's future. But this year I watched people make millions at jobs in the AI wave. And I was happy for them. But it also clarified something: if I got rich that way, it wouldn't count. Not to me.

What I want most is a win. Not money as a side effect of following someone else's vision. I want the proof that I caused it. That it was my agency, my bet, my execution. The money is just how you keep score.