Articles
Switching to Ghost: Why and How I Did It
I merged 3 digital publishing tools into 1 and this is the story of how and why. This is a rather long article so feel free to skip to the section that matters to you: * My Previous Publishing Setup * The Hassles of the Prior Setup * Considering My Options * Ghost: Built
Startups As Chemical Reactions
Originally written in 2014, updated with a new example in 2021 (Homejoy → Robinhood) I'm sometimes envious of people who studied subjects in college that correspond to their actual careers. Finance majors who become bankers. Computer Science majors who become software engineers. Must be nice to actually apply the knowledge you
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
In Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why [https://bookshop.org/books/deep-survival-who-lives-who-dies-and-why/9780393353716] journalist Laurence Gonzales combines his own personal adventure history with time spent with white water rafting experts, mountaineers, fighter jet pilots, and wilderness survival guides to understand how people survive (or fail to survive) in
Scotch & Bean 025 - Office Perk
Waste not, want not
35
With the exception of 2020 because, well, the world was super weird, I have made it a habit to publish a set of reflections on what I’ve learned in the past year. For instance, here’s 33 [https://www.jasonshen.com/2019/33/], 32 [https://www.jasonshen.com/2018/
Five / Five
How many people do you know who are 5’5″ and can dunk? Brandon Todd is 5’5″ and can dunk a basketball. At that height, you need a 42+ inches vertical leap to have a chance of putting the ball in the hoop [http://dunkcalculator.com/]. This is pretty
Resilience Isn’t Who You Are, It’s What You Do
After living in San Francisco for many years, my friend and her husband decided to relocate to New York City. Jessica (not her real name) is an Asian American woman in her early 30s. She began her first shift as a nurse practitioner at the psychiatric ward of an NYC
Two Feelings You Need Before Starting a Startup
First published in 2013, republished in 2020 with minor tweaks I was talking to some folks about applying to Y Combinator and preparing themselves to found a startup more generally. One point that I found myself talking about, especially in terms of timing, was the two distinct emotions that I
What I Learned from My First (Blunder-Filled) Marathon
This piece was originally published in 2014 on the health and wellness site Greatist but has been lost after the site was acquired in 2019. Republishing it here because it’s a great lesson in humility and resilience. Entrepreneur and former collegiate gymnastics champion Jason Shen had a less-than-awesome experience
The Difference Between a Prototype and a Demo
A lot has been made about Apple’s hardware product prowess – the click wheel of the iPod, the slimness of the Macbook Air, but just as notable are Apple’s standout software like Safari, Keynote, iOS and many more. In Creative Selection [https://amzn.to/3hxpth3], long-time Apple software engineer