Stories

I’ve been reading about Frank Sprague who contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators, and his impact on cities. While he was perfecting the electric motors usage to power early subway systems, he was simultaneously applying the electric motor to elevator systems in tall buildings. Sprague literally laid the foundation for our modern cities reaching for the skies by allowing peo...

I’ve spent considerable time talking about my mental health publicly and privately. I’ve never been diagnosed with any particular condition, but as the person who is most familiar with what is going on in my head, I can tell you it is a far-out space roller coaster. You’ll have to read my blog, as well as my alternate blog if you want to understand more about how I see things. However, in this moment I am looking to zoom in on a statement from my wife Audrey that echoes in my head whenever...

One thing I find fascinating about myself is that up until about 40 years of age I was steeped in an apocalyptic prepper culture frame of mind. The world was always and perpetually going to end. It was always right around the corner and there was no denying it. It was just a fact. In this reality you are always stocking up, hoarding, and prepping for what is to come. It was just a fact of life. You had guns, a garden, and a pantry full of food you most likely will not eat. I was not alone...

It is easy to see the output of work we do each day as the value. Capitalism has taught us to value the tangible results of capitalism, not the incremental inputs from human beings along the way. I get caught up in this really quite often and think that the resulting blog post from some research is what matters, or the talk I give using a presentation. I am regularly reminded, and humbled when the real value reveals itself to me in the research, process, and hard work that goes into the re...

The more I study the early years of the automobile between 1890 and 1960s, the more parallels I see between the automobile and the Internet. While the car has brought an immense amount of change in the world, once can easily argue not all of it was good. I am already seeing the similar signs of strain of human beings when it comes to the Internet that were there in the early days of the automobile if we had been paying attention. Despite these signs, I am afraid we seem determined to strik...

I consider my bullshit skills to be pretty refined through performing as the API Evangelist over the years. I like telling stories. I like spinning yarns. I do embellish and bullshit quite often as part of this storytelling and yarn spinning. I am not a liar or con artist. So there is always a line. I don’t like feeling like I have taken advantage of someone or tricked them into believing one thing, only to be meaning something else entirely. This is why I struggle in the world of business...

I had the best Ramen I have ever had last night at a place appropriately called “Kin Ramen”. Like so many things for me in this moment the meal was a sort of milestone reached in a much longer journey that began as it does for many youth in this country with Maruchan Ramen, but it was also the accumulation of meaning, purpose, and flavor in other richer ways over the last 40+ years.

The week ended on a thick note. Audrey was sitting in her office and she caught what she said looked like a large bird flying by. It wasn’t a bird. It was a person. She texted me what just happened, and thank god, because of her poor eyesight, she couldn’t see details of this beautiful human being lying on the garden rooftop 30 floors below. I hesitated in writing this post and sharing this story, as it is a very dark one. However, this is my domain. My space. I won’t be sharing outside on...

I was programmed from an early age that New York City is bad. I fully understand that in the 1970s and 1980s New York was a very different place, but as I see the same programming flowing from my elders on social media in 2024, I’ve learned this has very little to do with New York City. I lived in New York City in 2017 and 2018 for the first time, which I enjoyed, but this time living here, I am falling deeply in love with the city I’ve spent a lot of time fearing. As I rode the 1 from Col...

I am here. I reached that place I saw in my minds eye all those years ago. Those undeniable images I had in my head back in the 1980s have been realized. I live in NYC. I enjoy my career. I get to tackle large scale problems. I make good money. I have savings. I am married. I have a kid who is getting ready to graduate from University, which I was able to pay for. I am there. I am writing this post to remind myself that I need to accept that I have made it. Breathe. Breathe.

I have recently started a new ritual where I begin my Sunday mornings off listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Before I look at my cell phone or flip open my laptop. As the kettle is cooking water for my tea–I turn on the album. I find that the album listened to from end to end to be a soothing end (or start) to my week. While listening to the album has end to end experience provided to me by the band, it is also my personal experience with the album over the years that soothe ...

I asked Audrey for her latest thoughts on the groundswell of artificial intelligence (AI) fever everyone is suffering from right now. She has always been my grounding rod in technology, and while I still find myself swept up in currents from time to time, she can almost always see through the stories. When I asked about why the AI story is being told right now, she answered simply that it was about labor in this moment. It isn’t that AI is a thing, or the average people’s lives are being s...

I find it hard to continue working in tech and taking things seriously. I genuinely want to use technology wisely, make a good living, and live my life. I historically have gotten caught up in doing things the right way, where many around me seem fine with riding the waves of the day, cycle, and latest trend. As I watch the FTX trial wrap up with a verdict of guilty on all counts, I can’t help but think people will once and for all see through crypto hustle. But no, it is the opposite, the...

I regularly fall into the belief that work is real. I end up caring too much about some technology, corporation, or other capitalist song and dance. I do not love money. I really enjoy what it can afford me, but I don’t dwell on it and chase it like many other people do. I refuse to live each day focused on getting rich, scamming or taking from others, but I do enjoy making good money, and enjoy having a top-tier hustle to keep me living the best version of my life. I first learned to hust...

I went to bed pretty early last night. It was about 8:30 PM when I laid down, and about 10:00 PM before I fell asleep. As I was waking up at about 5:45 AM, I laid there thinking that going to bed was just preemptively sleeping in. I love to sleep in. I am not a morning person, although in the second half of my life I realized that I am a better person when I get up. So it makes sense for me to also begin to retire earlier in the evening.

About 3-5 times a week I get overwhelmed with the scope of things in my work. Things are just big. There is a lot going on. There are many moving parts, people, all built on a whole lot of history. I find myself feeling like I am drowning in the details and escape multiple times a week. However, thankfully, each time, within hours I am able to find a solution to whatever led to me feeling overwhelmed, and I was able to connect the dots in a way that resolved things for me. While the feelin...

I love writing. I need to write. But once again I find myself unable to write. Well, I’ve been writing in my notebook, fleshing out some ideas, but I haven’t been publishing anything on any of my domains. This is mostly due to recently recovering being chewed up by the content factory that is expected within tech startups, but it is also the shift in the social media landscape, forcing me to ask the hard questions regarding why I publish stories. I am brutally honest with myself about thes...

I recently saw a meme on social media from a friend about how backwards it is for us humans to work inside in offices under fluorescent lights. I’ve seen several variations of this meme over the years from people I know who live in small town America. I want to workshop this concept because work in a skyscraper in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, but also because I am in the Contrafabulist business, I want to understand, explore, and call out w...

I have read more books in the last five years than in the previous 40 years of my life. I have always loved to read, but have always managed to come up with a range of excuses why I couldn’t. Television, movies, and the Internet just don’t cut it for me like they used to, and honestly there are way more nutrients available via books, than anything I can find online today. Reading is nourishing, but it also has really helped me deprogram much of ...

I have long struggled and written about the people I leave behind in my life. There are a long list of people I have moved away from, severed communication with, and just evolved beyond over the years. Honestly, very, very, very few people can keep up with my mercurial approach to living, my appetite for travel and learning things, and more recently my determination to do the hard work of unraveling the programming of my youth has left even more people behind.

I’ve done a lot of thinking lately. The 3rd anniversary of Isaiahs death has me reassessing everything around me. The last three years have been surreal. The covid pandemic dictated the shape of how I see the world around me, but it was something in which Isaiah’s death had taken to new levels. The world always has seemed a little off to me, but in May and June of this year, everything seemed off and in need of shaking up. So I did just that—I shook the Etch A Sketch with all of the powers...

During my recent wanderings in Oakland, I came across a parking sign that promised a “Contactless” experience, which got me thinking about the concept of contactless in our world today. It’s a term we hear quite often, either explicitly stated or implied by barriers, plexiglass, or the absence of human presence. As usual, I have some questions about this phenomenon:

I have been thinking about the storytelling surrounding the recent collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) a lot lately. I just gave a talk at a company retreat about the importance of storytelling, and how all dimensions of the SVB situation is about telling and believing in stories. From our belief in money, markets, banks, to our continued belief in technology and venture capital, the recent goings on was all about stories. A significant part of this storytelling involves how we see t...

I am struggling lately. I made it through the kid passing, covid, and managed to quit drinking, lose a bunch of weight, and get healthier, only to be really, really struggling in this moment. I want to make sure and document this moment in the calendar, if nothing else just to be able to look back and remind myself of the ups and downs of being Kin Lane. I have a well-paid job, amazing team, and yet I am struggling with showing up to work and giving a shit. It has been about 3 weeks now, a...

I was watching a documentary on Fat the other night on PBS. They were conducting a study on a tribe in Africa to better understand why they don’t struggle with obesity and heart disease. The long story short is that our challenges with obesity is wrapped in a mix of our genes, processed foods, and our sedentary existence. The tribe in Africa is just always on the go, and they aren’t eating food that is as processed as ours is, and they have been doing this for many, many generations. I am ...