Refocusing

Jeremi attends a product conference; Luca walks through his decision to leave a club

Welcome back to Jeremi and Luca’s Newsletter, a weekly update from two friends connected by a relentless desire to learn.

Enjoy a closer look at what we’re reading, working on, and thinking about—from the small learnings to the large perspective shifts.

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Luca: On Quitting

I’m not a quitter—I’ve always been a “yes” person, eager to embrace every opportunity and see it through to the fullest. But recently, an exit door presented itself. I took it.

During my first semester at Cal, I joined Consult Your Community, a consulting club focusing on non-profit organizations and pro bono work. I joined to find challenge, stimulation, and community.

In the fall, my team helped upSWOT, a white-label banking software, pivot to a direct-to-consumer model with a branded finance and credit dashboard. In the spring, we advised Multiplayer, an AI-powered task management tool, on how to break into the college market and expand from a task organizer to an AI agent productivity tool that could complete tasks for users.

On the community side, I made incredible friends, connected with mentors, and had a lot of fun—club retreats, yacht parties, and more. I found almost everything I was looking for.

This summer, it was my turn to step up. I was set to come into the fall semester as a project manager, but that meant nothing without a project.

In April, after a flight to Palo Alto, I happened to meet a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot at the airport. We chatted briefly before going our separate ways. Later, I found him on LinkedIn and realized he was a VP of Engineering at Apple and, more recently, Corporate VP of Engineering at Microsoft.

Around the same time that I was starting to think about sourcing a project for the club, I was scrolling through LinkedIn and saw that he had become the Chief Engineering & Strategy Officer at Humane, a startup developing a wearable AI device.

So I called him and, after a thorough chat about all things aviation, I asked if Humane would be interested in collaborating with the club. He said yes.

The following months were spent solidifying project details, timelines, and scope. We were going to test Humane’s product and use the findings to inform strategic advice on market positioning.

Amidst all this, however, the pace of my own startup was ramping up. By the time school started, I was committed to going all in on it.

And then, this past week, Humane reached out with unfortunate news: they wouldn’t be able to move forward with the project until next spring.

Suddenly, I found myself standing in front of that exit door, forced to reassess my priorities. I had to decide how to best allocate my time. Had Humane moved forward with the project, I would have been fully committed. But with the project so close to its start date, finding a new one and giving it my best would have been nearly impossible without spreading myself too thin.

In the end, I decided that any extra marginal time outside of classes and the startup should be going to my social life. So, I chose to step down as a project manager for the club last week. Of course, I’ll still be involved as a social member and stay connected to the community.

As Jeremi and I learned from a podcast we both listen to: make a decision, move forward, and course-correct later. You can’t dwell too long on every choice. I’ve made mine, and I’m excited to pour my energy into the startup and what lies ahead.

Jeremi and I took two disposable cameras on our backpacking trip; a few of the recently developed shots

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Jeremi: Zero-Sum Games

This week, I flew from Santa Barbara to San Francisco to attend a product management conference. As far as I knew, I would be the only undergraduate student among business leaders. And I was going alone.

Why was I taking this leap of faith?

I’m a computer engineer. I spent my first year at university pursuing technical opportunities: I joined an AI reading group, did a project series with the data science club, and did a few hackathons. 83% of my classes were technical.

It happened naturally, and I don’t regret how I allocated my time. But there has always been a part of me that is interested in business strategy, in creating some product or startup that meaningfully serves people. To this end, I wanted to immerse myself more in business-oriented experiences.

Hence a 2-day conference in San Francisco.

As I waited for my plane to takeoff from Santa Barbara, I could feel myself becoming anxious. I had spent a lot of money on the tickets to this conference and on the plane tickets to get me there.

I wanted this conference to be worth it. I wanted to gain high-value connections, open up doors, and gain internship opportunities.

But I was at the mercy of an outcome I could not control. I couldn’t control who liked me, or what doors were opened, or whether any opportunities came from it. I could only control my approach to the conference: was I curious? Did I learn something? Did I enjoy myself?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of treating networking as a zero-sum game. The mindset of trying to meet people “above you,” is not one in which everyone benefits. It’s a competition in which I only want to talk to people who I think can provide me value.

The only way I can think to separate myself from this zero-sum mindset is to completely remove myself from the outcome. When I focus on the goal of being curious, I can be entirely in the present and enjoy the conversations I’m having to their fullest.

This is what I centered on as my flight landed in San Francisco, and I felt a strong sense of excitement for what the next two days would be. My anxiety was gone.

During these two days, I felt that the best part of my experience wasn’t any specific learning I had regarding business strategy. More than that, I felt like I was absorbing what it means to be a “product manager” — someone whose entire world is obsessing over customer needs and how a business strategy can satisfy those needs.

Just being in that room, in those conversations, gave me countless small data points that formed a picture in my mind of what it might be like to follow this career. Plus, I met people I really liked, people who were happy to talk to me and share advice.

On the first day, I went up to someone named Chris and asked if I could join his group’s conversation. He politely told me he needed to finish this conversation, but that he would come find me later.

I had nearly forgotten about this interaction by the second day. But on that second morning, I saw someone wave at me. It took me a second to realize that it was Chris. He beckoned me to where he was sitting and said “I’m sorry about yesterday, I was talking to an investor. Pull up a chair and let’s talk.”

It was these sorts of small interactions, where people responded to my curiosity in kind, that made this conference special. These people weren’t in a zero-sum mindset. There isn’t much a random student could provide them. But they were willing to give that random student some of their time, and for that I am grateful.

A presentation on the first day of the “Product-Led Summit”