I try to be careful about what I read in the morning as that has a way of setting the tone for the day. I stick to things that are informative or entertaining but don’t need a lot of energy to get into like a long-form essay.
- HackerNews: I read the comments first and then the linked article if it seems interesting. When I was first trying to get into tech many years ago, I thought the go-to places were mainstream outlets like TechCrunch and Mashable (at the time). Turns out, the best place to observe what’s going on is seeing what the people building the software are talking about.
- Dealbook: Maybe the exact opposite is Dealbook. Being a founder makes me more sensitive to the macro market and political landscape because it drives the behavior of our customers, investors, and the industry. It doesn’t matter if consensus macro forecasts are useless, it’s what everyone else thinks (or thinks they think) which helps me avoid being too myopic.
- NY Times: Headlines only—is there anything pressing going to be on everyone’s mind that we need to navigate today?
- Money Stuff: I love Matt Levine’s writing so if there is a topic close to my areas of interest it’s well worth stretching my finance competence and reading it.
- Other: Reddit for pure sugar, heavily curated to avoid rage-inducing content, when I just need to see some pictures of puppies to get the day going. During baseball season, checking updates of my fantasy baseball team (yes, it’s possible to be a code writing tech nerd and love baseball—there are dozens of us).