My name is Brad. Writing software, dadding, snowboarding, and whatever else floats my boat. Indianapolis 1986-2011, San Francisco 2011-2020, South Lake Tahoe 2020-present. I play guitar, rock climb, play disc golf, hike, camp, watch a lot of movies, read even more books, and have several other little hobbies. Day to day, I'm a web/application developer specializing in product development and currently working on SpecMade.com. I'm a former principal engineer at GrowthX.ai In previous roles, I co-founded and ran Soothe as CTO for 1.5 years, worked at Bleacher Report on mobile API's for 2.5 years, spent 4 years at Hired, was an original team member at StyleOwner, worked on wizard tools and CMS stuff at iGoDigital, and did front-end development work for Matchbook Creative. If you want to know more, send me an email!
https://matchbookcreative.com
https://igodigital.com (now part of salesforce)
https://styleowner.com (defunct)
https://bleacherreport.com
https://soothe.com
https://hired.com
https://coinbase.com
https://jeevz.com
https://tryrelease.com
https://growthx.ai
https://gnomebobon.com
https://specmade.com
My fil owns a bunch of grocery stores in Russia. The gov't still essentially subsidizes the cost of basic goods to keep prices low for the poor. Because of this, even the poorest have access to what they need, and they worship Putin because of it - "he makes sure we're taken care of". Obviously we could get into the corruption, why they're so poor in the first place, etc, but it is clearly working pretty well.
Many people losing their minds over stuff like this... I'm just glad some people are finally trying out new ideas, because the status quo is not working for a large portion of the American population.
I just hope they properly track and monitor the outcomes and foster honest/open feedback. The gov't loves to throw money at problems, but never really does much to analyze, pivot, or admit when something doesn't work because that just gives the opposition ammo.
You're completely missing the point. The problem is people aren't collectively incentivized to do so. Individually someone can decide "oh wow, I'm lonely, I should get out more", but collectively there's nothing incentivizing everyone to do it, or even notice it's an issue. If there were, we wouldn't be in this situation.
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"How do we solve the obesity problem?"
"Well people should just work out."
Obviously, that would solve it, but they're distinctly not doing that, which is why we're talking about a broader solution to actually get people to work out.
Yeah I'm very willing to socialize and actually do far more than pretty much anyone I know, even those without kids (but maybe not as much as a 25 year old just getting started in the world and living in SF like I once was). I'm lucky in that regard I guess.
YMMV I guess. I've got tons of friends I've made walking around the office and just dropping in and asking people what they're working on and introducing myself, or sitting at a table with people I didn't. Some are no more than acquaintances, but some are close friends now.
This as well. You need to learn to talk to people, socialize, handle adversity, etc. Sitting at home and your only real connection to the outside world being an echo chamber like facebook or whatever cannot be good for us
Yep, I met my wife at an office party - she didn't work for the company, just stopped by with someone who did
And not just the office friends that come from it -- I spent an hour a day on the bus, grabbed lunch around town, was downtown when work wrapped up and ended up at a nearby bar/restaurant, went to shows because I was downtown, etc.
Just being forced out of the house led to SO MUCH MORE.
Now I work from home and while we do travel a lot, we barely ever leave the house when we're home. We didn't make a single new friend for like 5 years (and we are a VERY social couple, generally the center of most of our friend groups). We've only just now started making new friends again now that our daughter is a toddler and getting us out of the house -- and it is incredibly refreshing
All of the replies so far are suggesting ideas for an individual but seem to be missing the real crux of the matter...
Yes, you'll be less lonely if you join a group, get out of your house, etc... But how do we actively incentivize that? Social media and whatnot have hundreds of thousands of people working around the clock to find ways to suck you in and monopolize your time.
While "everyone should recognize the problem and then take steps to solve it for themselves" is the obvious solution, it's also not practical to just have everyone collectively decide they need to get out more without SOME sort of fundamental change in our society/incentives/etc
How was your meal at Delifina the other night? Just kidding :)
I don't really have a question, but my girlfriend and I were seated next to you and I wanted to introduce myself and thank you for your insights, writing, and contributions to the startup community, but didn't want to disturb your meal. Now I have an opportunity. Thanks!
https://matchbookcreative.com https://igodigital.com (now part of salesforce) https://styleowner.com (defunct) https://bleacherreport.com https://soothe.com https://hired.com https://coinbase.com https://jeevz.com https://tryrelease.com https://growthx.ai https://gnomebobon.com https://specmade.com