Cold plunges and Oura rings

Give me something to hold on to

It is a dizzying time in Silicon Valley.

Trump’s tariffs have thrown a wrecking ball into any sense of certainty we previously had about the economy.

AI is evolving at a rapid pace - disruptive new models, players, and use cases showing up what feels like every other week, well past when many of us predicted this particular AI summer would conclude.

It feels like I can’t keep up.

And for the first time a few weeks ago, I felt paralyzed by the world outside of me. Unable to do the things I set out to do. Like I was sitting at a table of brilliant people spewing ideas left and right, talking so fast my mind couldn’t produce the words needed to interject before the conversation changed course. I shift my head back and forth like a ping pong ball, eager and ready to participate, before I reach for my tongue and realize it’s no longer there. A nightmare!

I read an article this past weekend about the HF0 Hacker House. A few blocks from my apartment in San Francisco, it’s a self proclaimed “monastery for hackers.”

The venture capital-funded, bougiefied hostel in some ways encapsulates the ironies of contemporary elitism. Residents are told to tell their families they’ll be “unreachable” while they’re there. Hackers partake in daily cold plunges, and are served with a private trainer, chef and laundry service. All at no cost - well, some equity in your startup, of course.

Reading about the HF0 House triggered the same reaction I had when I first read the articles on Founder Mode last summer. Don’t take a day off. Don’t allow your teammates to move forward with anything you haven’t fully reviewed first. Do track your health metrics religiously and optimize your sleep performance with your Oura ring.

Gahhh. Some rich techies spewing the “answers” to success no less shallow than an airport memoir. Why not just write a book if you’re going to be that prescriptive about it?

But, unlike the feeling I had last summer, something intrigued me this time.

And I don’t think it’s the House. I think it’s me.

I found my way out of my paralysis a few weeks ago by reaching for the closest stable thing in front of me. Mundane tasks that had been sitting on my to do list for months. Accounting, reporting, expenses.

To be paralyzed while building a startup is the most certain path to failure. You don’t know what path will work, but there’s one path you know for certain will not work: doing nothing.

And with all that’s going on - the easy highs of 2021 replaced by a stomach-churning concoction of who-the-fuck-knows-whats-happening - maybe we’re all looking for something to grab on to.

Something prescribed, something that needs no instruction manual. Something stable.

And if cold plunges and Oura rings are the things that do it for you, who cares.