I'm Running for Office

I've been meaning to write you all. Seven weeks ago I launched my campaign for California State Assembly in our 51st district. My launch video went viral on Instagram and X which led to multiple interviews. That one three-minute video has reached orders of magnitude more people than the rest of my podcasting and writing combined. But it is just the top of the pyramid. The intellectual journey of stacking bricks with no gradient has been a hallmark of my life. And sharing my thoughts with my 175 newsletter subscribers and my small podcast audience has been pivotal in honing my worldview. And the logical conclusion of sharing my thoughts with a small audience, one that remained small, is that it forced me to come to terms with the fact that if I wanted to actually effect change on the issues I claimed to care about- I just had to get in the arena.

no gradient began in 2017 with me interviewing people, then realizing I wanted the world to know what I think, then realizing government matters I need to write voter guides, and then realizing there are no good candidates I have to run. In that period perhaps my greatest accomplishment was getting positive feedback from both people on the left and the right. That told me I had something.

The last few years two pieces have been ringing in my ear. The first was the subject of my last podcast episode three years ago. It was a piece by Katherine Boyle titled The Case for American Seriousness and there is a line "It is unserious when young people retreat from public service." This might have been the last podcast episode I did because to me it felt unserious. I was talking about issues, very few were listening, and I wasn't taking action. The second piece was one I wrote later that year titled What Have You Built? And looking at the issues I was writing about and talking about- the reality is I wasn't building solutions to them.

All this to say thank you. Thank you if you ever read any of my writing or listened to any of my podcast or commented on any of it. It kept me going. It encouraged me to cook. It gave me energy. It led me to run.

If you'd like to continue on the journey with me, you can subscribe to my new campaign specific newsletter. Also, you should run for office too.