A Few Life Updates (March 2024)

Pivoting to AI, moving to San Francisco, and a trip to Saudi Arabia

Midjourney generated image of Medina, Saudi Arabia

Hi friend, 

The last few weeks since my last newsletter issue have been incredibly eventful and crazy. Life is certainly a lot more colorful as an entrepreneur than in corporate, as almost every week there are surprises that I couldn’t have anticipated. 

So today, I wanted to update you on what I’ve been up to and what I’m excited for in the next few weeks including:

• lessons from pivoting back to AI

• moving to San Francisco

• and an upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia

Pivoting Back to AI

I decided to focus on AI again. After trying for a few months to niche down into supply chain, I had trouble securing any projects in the space. So I decided to turn my attention back to AI just to see what the market response would be like, and I got feedback instantaneously.

I was able to win a few AI projects almost immediately after focusing on AI, my content on AI performs better on LinkedIn, and there’s just more excitement from clients and the general market about AI than supply chain.

I’m even publishing an article in Catalant soon on how executives should implement Gen AI. 

It’s clear that AI is here to stay, and that perhaps now is an even better time than last year to start focusing on it. It’s likely also a better fit for me skill-wise than supply chain.

I learned from these pivots that the market wants what it wants, and it’s better to give the market what it’s looking for than to force anything on it.

If you look at Google Trends below, you can see how AI has actually surpassed the popularity of “mobile” recently, and has more than double the interest of crypto at its peak in 2021.

I compared it to other ERP implementers like “Odoo” and popular technology like “AWS” and it makes even those popular technologies look small.

It’s clear that the market wants AI.

I feel confident about this shift, so look out for more AI related content coming up in this newsletter soon!

Moving to San Francisco

I’m also moving to San Francisco soon as well. After living in Palo Alto for 3.5 years, I wanted to reduce expenses and be closer to family and friends. 

While apartment hunting, I visited 10 different places, and used Craigslist and Apartments.com to search for listings before finally making a decision. From my research, the most desirable areas in SF to live in include Pacific Heights, Noe Valley, Inner Sunset, and Marina.

Apartments.com is best for high-rises and apartments managed by large real estate companies. Craigslist is where smaller private landlords post listings. I would highly recommend looking at Craigslist, however there is a scam going around where people will ask you to pay money to do a “credit check” before meeting in-person or visiting the place.

Anyone asking you for money before meeting or visiting is a SCAM, including these “credit check” requests, so please don’t fall for it!

Apartments.com is for high-rises managed by large real estate companies. Craigslist is for privately owned properties.

Anyways, from my research, it seems the market rate in San Francisco has 1 bedrooms in the $1.5k-3k range, and 2 bedrooms in San Francisco in the 3k - 4.5k range. If you really want to reduce expenses, it’s possible to rent rooms in a house for under $1.5k.

Moving is always sad, but I feel the reduction in expenses and better connection with friends and family will more than make up for it.

Mentoring a Hackathon in Saudi Arabia

Lastly, I’m gearing up for a 2-week work trip to Saudi Arabia in late April to early May. I’ll be mentoring two hackathons in the region, one related to sustainability tech, and the other on….Generative AI (of course).

It seems these initiatives are all related to Saudi Arabia’s recent push in Generative AI with them earmarking $40 billion dollars of investments in AI.

An NYT article discussing Saudi Arabia’s investment into AI

It’ll be my first time in the Middle East, and I am incredibly excited! I even have some friends there, so I might just make a trip out of this since it’s practically a whole day's worth of travel just to get there.

This trip justifies to me both 1) my choice to focus on AI and 2) leaving corporate.

Opportunities like this would’ve never happened had I stayed at Netflix. Life is certainly a lot more vivid and memorable as an entrepreneur, and I hope to keep these wins rolling with this new direction.

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Anyways, in the mean time, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where I post daily content on AI.

And, if you have any referrals for folks interested in building anything related to AI, let me know!

I offer a 10% referral bonus (up to $1,000) for every opportunity that closes.

Thanks,

Michael