Day 15: The TV Show Special
Today we hiked the Twin Peaks, put on a Barbeque University display, and introduced RWBY to the group.
Back to the book (report)
We got back on a slightly more organised schedule today with book reports by Katie and Joey. Katie presented on her book, Founders at Work: Stories of Startups Early Days by Jessica Livingston. The book is a collection of knowledge from interviews with the CEO's of successful startups, including Steve Wozniak, Caterina Fake, and Sabeer Bhatia, of Apple, Flickr, and Hotmail respectively. Katie had us start by thinking of notable qualities of founders of major tech companies. Of course, the obvious qualities of passion and determination came up, but there was also the reprise of a talking point that hasn't come up in a little while--failure. One doesn't tend to immediately think of failure when the great and powerful Woz is mentioned, but each CEO has dealt with failure in the past, in one form or another. Jobs and Wozniak didn't just make the first Apple computer on their first attempt. It took trial and error to make it. Even their business plan of selling computers came from a failure to sell their idea to others. Once again, we grappled with the idea of how failure impacts us, and how it impacts those who have been successful. Failure is a good teacher and a good motivator. As Thomas Edison supposedly said about his non-functioning lightbulb prototypes, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In the same way, those who first start businesses have to work hard to get around the failures to find the ways that do work. Often, that can mean pivoting your business into a new area where there's more need, or where your product does better. Sometimes it's working on a new product. The point is that there isn't one guaranteed way of starting a business, you just have to find the one that works for you.
The 4-Hour Workweek, or how to manipulate and use everyone around you to let you get out of the office and enjoy life
Ok, full disclosure, I made up that subtitle. And it isn't entirely fair to the book to say that. As you may have surmised, Joey's book was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. From what I gathered from the presentation, the book's overall message is that life should be spent learning and doing the things that you want to learn and do. However, the ways that Ferriss suggests to get to the point where you can do that are pushy at best, manipulative and deceitful at worst. Basically, the method revolves around cutting down any contact with your coworkers, getting your management to let you work remotely all the time, never answering email or phone calls, and then scampering off to enjoy life, only working four hours a week while still collecting a full salary. I'm slightly exaggerating here, but only slightly. Obviously, I don't agree with the message Ferriss is sending in his book. While I do support learning new things and traveling to new places as time allows, the methods by which he does this are self-centred. Sometimes people need to contact you and get an urgent answer. Sometimes you need to have a face to face conversation to iron out a point. Also, the book is built on the premise that not everyone can do this. In essence, the book encourages a pyramid scheme-type style of living, where everything is peachy as long as you're on the top. Maybe there's some lesson I'm missing that would be more obvious if I read the book, but from all the impressions I've gotten, it's not a read I'll be picking up anytime soon.
Twin Peaks Season 4?
After the book reports, we were done with organised group activity for the day, so after some bewilderment and discussion on what we would do, we split into two groups, those who went to Fisherman's Wharf yesterday, and those who didn't. Those who didn't decided to go out to see the Wharf, while the rest of us decided hiking sounded nice, and set out to climb to the top of Twin Peaks, the two hills/mountains (I'm not quite sure what the difference is) in the middle of San Francisco.
While Minnesota was being piled under heaps of snow, we enjoyed the mid-50 degree temperatures for our hike. For those who have never been to San Francisco, saying the city is hilly is an understatement. It seems like most streets are at different elevations to the ones next to them, with inclines of up to 60°. Which is intimidating to climb, and downright frightening if you have a Uber driver who floors it out of stop signs. If I remember the numbers right, from our house to the top of Twin Peaks is roughly a 650ft climb. So we had our work cut out for us. We demonstrated our entrepreneurial abilities as we perservered with determination up the streets, stairs, and dirt hills, until finally we reached the lookout point and decided it was a good place to stop and catch our breath.
After we caught our breath (and noticed that there we weren't actually at the top of the hill yet), we made our way up to the top of peak one. Unfortunately, we didn't actually go to the top of peak two (they're right next to each other, hence the name Twin Peaks), but the view from the first peak was astounding. You could see the entire city stretching out in front of you, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, slightly obscured by mist/smog/fog. If you ever get a chance, absolutely go to the top to see the view. I know I say that about almost everything I've been doing, but this especially is worth the time. If you can't (or don't want to) hike up there like we did (it does take some serious effort and leg strength), you can drive up to the lookout, and then take a quick walk up the hill instead.
After the harrowing climb, we relished in the view until the wind drove us back down the hill. You may be able to tell it's windy in that second picture (hint: look at Tyler and Erik's hair), and it was about as windy as it looks. So we headed off back down the hill in a different direction, so as to see more of the city. On the way, we saw another small city park, Tank Hill Park, where we stopped for more pictures and sightseeing.
It was a nice area for pictures, with a rock outcropping to stand on (carefully) and observe the city down below.
A RWBY in the rough
After we got tired of sightseeing we finished our walk back to the house, thoroughly exhausted. By the end of the hike, we had climbed the equivalent of 97 flights of stairs and walked 4.58 miles, according to Tyler's Fitbit. We were all so exhausted, we actually managed to take naps before heading off to get supplies for dinner. We took the roughly mile-and-a-half round trip walk to Safeway to pick up hot dogs, brats, and sides for dinner. Once we got back, Jacob was kind enough to grill for us, and we enjoyed some good grilled meat, which was good, because after the hike that afternoon, we were all pretty hungry. After dinner, we all continued lounging around and trying to rest our aching feet. We also took some time to introduce Katie and Claire to RWBY, an animated show from Rooster Teeth. Much to my surprise earlier in the trip, I discovered that I am far from the only RWBY fan in the group, so Tyler, Kari, Joey, and myself all worked to spread the fandom. (If you're interested in watching the series, it can be found here)
Tomorrow holds more book reports and a visit to the Exploratorium! Should be a good time!
Back to the book (report)
I'm so out of touch with the schedule now
We got back on a slightly more organised schedule today with book reports by Katie and Joey. Katie presented on her book, Founders at Work: Stories of Startups Early Days by Jessica Livingston. The book is a collection of knowledge from interviews with the CEO's of successful startups, including Steve Wozniak, Caterina Fake, and Sabeer Bhatia, of Apple, Flickr, and Hotmail respectively. Katie had us start by thinking of notable qualities of founders of major tech companies. Of course, the obvious qualities of passion and determination came up, but there was also the reprise of a talking point that hasn't come up in a little while--failure. One doesn't tend to immediately think of failure when the great and powerful Woz is mentioned, but each CEO has dealt with failure in the past, in one form or another. Jobs and Wozniak didn't just make the first Apple computer on their first attempt. It took trial and error to make it. Even their business plan of selling computers came from a failure to sell their idea to others. Once again, we grappled with the idea of how failure impacts us, and how it impacts those who have been successful. Failure is a good teacher and a good motivator. As Thomas Edison supposedly said about his non-functioning lightbulb prototypes, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In the same way, those who first start businesses have to work hard to get around the failures to find the ways that do work. Often, that can mean pivoting your business into a new area where there's more need, or where your product does better. Sometimes it's working on a new product. The point is that there isn't one guaranteed way of starting a business, you just have to find the one that works for you.
The 4-Hour Workweek, or how to manipulate and use everyone around you to let you get out of the office and enjoy life
Ok, full disclosure, I made up that subtitle. And it isn't entirely fair to the book to say that. As you may have surmised, Joey's book was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. From what I gathered from the presentation, the book's overall message is that life should be spent learning and doing the things that you want to learn and do. However, the ways that Ferriss suggests to get to the point where you can do that are pushy at best, manipulative and deceitful at worst. Basically, the method revolves around cutting down any contact with your coworkers, getting your management to let you work remotely all the time, never answering email or phone calls, and then scampering off to enjoy life, only working four hours a week while still collecting a full salary. I'm slightly exaggerating here, but only slightly. Obviously, I don't agree with the message Ferriss is sending in his book. While I do support learning new things and traveling to new places as time allows, the methods by which he does this are self-centred. Sometimes people need to contact you and get an urgent answer. Sometimes you need to have a face to face conversation to iron out a point. Also, the book is built on the premise that not everyone can do this. In essence, the book encourages a pyramid scheme-type style of living, where everything is peachy as long as you're on the top. Maybe there's some lesson I'm missing that would be more obvious if I read the book, but from all the impressions I've gotten, it's not a read I'll be picking up anytime soon.
Twin Peaks Season 4?
After the book reports, we were done with organised group activity for the day, so after some bewilderment and discussion on what we would do, we split into two groups, those who went to Fisherman's Wharf yesterday, and those who didn't. Those who didn't decided to go out to see the Wharf, while the rest of us decided hiking sounded nice, and set out to climb to the top of Twin Peaks, the two hills/mountains (I'm not quite sure what the difference is) in the middle of San Francisco.
I'm absolutely bragging
Pictures really can't capture how stunning the view is
Again, pictures don't do it justice.
#squadgoals
Not pictured: the sheer drop on the other side of the rocks
"Take my picture while I look heroic"
After we got tired of sightseeing we finished our walk back to the house, thoroughly exhausted. By the end of the hike, we had climbed the equivalent of 97 flights of stairs and walked 4.58 miles, according to Tyler's Fitbit. We were all so exhausted, we actually managed to take naps before heading off to get supplies for dinner. We took the roughly mile-and-a-half round trip walk to Safeway to pick up hot dogs, brats, and sides for dinner. Once we got back, Jacob was kind enough to grill for us, and we enjoyed some good grilled meat, which was good, because after the hike that afternoon, we were all pretty hungry. After dinner, we all continued lounging around and trying to rest our aching feet. We also took some time to introduce Katie and Claire to RWBY, an animated show from Rooster Teeth. Much to my surprise earlier in the trip, I discovered that I am far from the only RWBY fan in the group, so Tyler, Kari, Joey, and myself all worked to spread the fandom. (If you're interested in watching the series, it can be found here)
Tomorrow holds more book reports and a visit to the Exploratorium! Should be a good time!
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