Closed Compounds
Jeremi shifts his focus to a group project; Luca finds more planes
Welcome back to Jeremi and Luca’s Newsletter, an update every Sunday from two friends connected by a relentless desire to learn.
Jeremi: Teamwork
Last weekend, I raced a triathlon in San Francisco.
This was coming off a half ironman a few weeks prior, where I had struggled to even make it to the finish line. This time, I could feel the resiliency that I had built. Everything just felt so much lighter in comparison: the 8 mile, hilly run felt much shorter compared to the half-marathon I had needed to run before.
After the triathlon, I made a conscious decision that this week, I would shift my focus almost entirely to a class project.
So despite the long day (3:30am wakeup, 7am triathlon, then a 6 hour drive down to Santa Barbara), I immediately jumped on my computer to work on this project.
My team and I had been working somewhat sporadically up until this point, as we each had other responsibilities we were focused on (in my case, the research with my professor).
But over the course of the quarter, I grew more and more excited by this project. This is partially because I think we’re working in an interesting area and have the potential to publish novel results.
But mainly, it’s because I’ve really enjoyed working with my teammates. I admire how they approach problems, and I feel like they push me to be better. We didn’t need to take on this challenging of a project for this class. We did it because we’re all interested in this area and we set a higher standard for ourselves.
For me, this week was to show my teammates: I care about our project, I care about our team. And I’m prioritizing it to prove that.
Despite this project being less aligned with my stated interests in Robotics, it’s honestly where I’m having the most fun right now.
This has implications for the summer! My initial plan was to solely focus on the research with my professor. Now, I know I want to work with my project teammates in some capacity.
It’s funny—I don’t find myself trying to very carefully weigh the technical differences between the two projects, and which one would be “better” to pursue. I enjoy being around my teammates, and so I follow that feeling. That’s enough to tell me that it’s worth making space for this project, whatever it turns into.
Luca: Airplanes
I wrote last week’s newsletter on the train to Connecticut to meet up with Paul, a friend whom I met at last year’s business aviation convention in Las Vegas. He’s an aviation attorney, commercial pilot, and flight instructor, and he generously invited me to go flying in his plane since I’m living in New York.
We flew up the coast for lunch on Block Island, passed a seaplane training school on the way back (where I’m tempted to get my seaplane rating this summer), and said goodbye… only to see each other three days later at a regional business aviation forum.
The forum was at Westchester County Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country in terms of business aviation—so a great place to be for the startup. Plus, there were some beautiful jets on display and lots of interesting people to meet.
On the way out, I grabbed an elegantly printed pamphlet for a displayed luxury helicopter. I don’t know why I grabbed it, though, because I had no place to put it.
So I carried it around for the rest of the day until I offered it to a postman who was taking some mail of mine. He grinned and told me his nephew is obsessed with aviation and would love it. Makes me wish we could sell our flight management software for business aviation operators to kids—a much easier market to penetrate!
This week was also New York Tech Week, organized by a16z. I wasn’t able to make it to many events, but the two I did go to were fantastic.
The first was a demo night at Palantir’s headquarters. I’m personally excited about Palantir, so I met some awesome people to follow up with to learn more about the company and their work there.
The second was a Saturday pickleball tournament in Brooklyn. My roommate and coworker, Hudson, and I won a game and lost a game. But it turned out to be an amazing way to meet people—like a fellow pilot, ambitious founders, someone who went to the same boarding school as me, and new pickleball practice buddies.
Now off to a Red Sox vs. Yankees game!
❤️🤗