Marcus’s Friends and Family Update #2
Xin Chào, Friends and Family 🌍
I write this update from Surry Hills library, in-between inspections of rental properties. In many ways, I feel like this month has been an in-between month. It feels like I have spent the majority of my time setting up what I will be doing for the rest of the year rather than actively focusing on the present. Thats not to say there haven’t been highlights either, but those highlights have been future oriented rather than present oriented.
Atlassian Internship Recap 📘
I have one more week left at Atlassian. I had a lot of expectations coming into the internship, most of which it lived up too. I feel like being an Atlassian PM is possibly the best corporate job in Australia. It has a lot of elements of what I would want in a job, however, its too safe of a company for me to work at right now. I believe age and risk tolerance should be inversely proportional. To join Atlassian feels incongruent with what I’m prioritising in a job right now. Namely, accelerated growth & learning. Atlassian for its part does an amazing job at outlining a clear career path for its employees. Its a highly process driven enterprise company, but it’s not really that exciting. At this stage of my career I believe I should be chasing more interesting things.
As an intern I felt like there were some really good learnings about how to run effective customer interviews as well as how to break big strategic goals down into meaningful chunks of work that can be done in sprints. I feel like Atlassian is Australia’s version of the Google retirement home, where the people getting the most utility out of the job are those who are relatively senior at the company, have families and are able to enjoy all the remote work and flexibility benefits. The real highlight of my internship for me was actually the amount of ping pong I got to play with Hawkins, Niel and a few other Atlassian interns. I would routinely play upwards of an hour a day for at least 80% of the days I worked in office.
Below is a video I recorded to sum up the work I did while I was at Atlassian.
Updoc vs Vana ⚕️
My two major wins of the last month were that I received two different job offers for full time product management roles at early stage companies. The first being an offer for an associate product management position at UpDoc which is one of Australia’s fastest growing startups (thanks Darcy for referral). I also got an offer for a Product Management position at Vana (crypto company I worked at for a month before Atlassian) where I would effectively be their lead PM.
Interview Process for UpDoc & Vana 💻
For UpDoc, the interview process consisted of only three rounds, however, this is slightly misleading as I feel like I laid a lot of groundwork over the last couple of months chatting to Cliffe the cofounder. The three rounds were:
- 30 min chat with Cliffe and Dylan (Co-founders)
- 1 hour chat with Cliffe and Dylan presenting Take Home Assignment.
The Vana interview process was only a 5 minute phone call with the Co-founder.
Why I’m picking UpDoc over Vana 🚀
There is a infamous quote by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, that goes:
“Don’t be an idiot. Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”
Eric Schmidt talking to Sheryl Sandberg
Despite Vana offering to pay significantly more than UpDoc (like a lot more), I legitimately believe UpDoc is a rocket-ship. I also have the opportunity to work in person alongside multiple ex-UQIES members which is pretty cool. The Vana offer was for a fully remote position which would be great if I wanted to do a digital nomad lifestyle. However, given I am prioritising personal growth and learning right now, it makes more sense for me to stay in Sydney and be in person as much as possible. I’m in the midst of negotiating my UpDoc offer at the moment but I’ll most likely start on the 24th February.
One Random act of kindness ☕
- On way home from picking up a package from the post office I stopped by a coffee shop. I ordered a matcha and walked home. Unknowing I took my matcha and walked home without my package. A couple hours later a stranger shows up at apartment with my package in hand. My apartment was about a 10 minute walk from coffee shop. I offered to pay him something but he simply said pay it forward.
- To Pay it forward I put out a general appreciation reddit post for the guy and it ended up being one of the top reddit posts on r/Sydney for the week with over 159K views.
Reading 📖
Finished The Second Mountain by David Brooks. Did you know that Abraham Maslow, later in life rescinded that self-actualisation was the highest state of psychological development? He later asserted that self-transcendance was the higher goal.
I think Uncle Iroh sums it up well:
“Perfection and power are overrated, I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JObb2BYmp2w
In The Second Mountain, Brooks outlines how we can move beyond individualism and towards commitment and interdependence. He outlines 4 key commitments a “second mountain” person makes:
- Vocation
- Spouse/Family
- Philosophy/Religion
- Community.
I feel like its a book with similar themes to Lost Connections by Johann Hari & Fully Human by Steven Biddulph.
Some Banger quotes from the Book:
“Good fiction tells us what we know, but don’t quite know that we know”
“You don’t really want independence you want interdependence”
Values 💌
A friend asked me this month what my values are and I replied with the following:
- Growth
- Truth
- Family/Relationships
Reading
The Liberated Mind has made me realise how important it is to live life in accordance with some value set. Even if those values are inevitably going to change, your life can be meaningfully improved by defining some values to try to live by.
Some other Interesting reading:
https://fs.blog/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/
https://medium.com/things-ive-written/the-elephants-182870501589
Looking Ahead 🐒
- I’ve committed to spending 5 days at Wat Buddha Dhamma which is 2 hours north of Sydney from the 8th to the 13th. No phones allowed so don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me during that time.
- I’m still figuring out what I should do with the 10 days I have between finishing at the Wat and starting at UpDoc. My thinking right now is just going to Japan and skiing solo but I’m open to recommendations.
One request 🙏🏾
- What should I do in those 10 days?
That’s all for now! Catch you next month 🙂
Marcus