A few months ago, I listened to a podcast interview of Ashley C Ford where she laid out the details on how much money she makes, and from which sources. Iâve thought about it a couple times since then and found it very grounding and reassuring whenever I did, even though I am not on the same career path as Ford, and I had never heard of her before the interview. (I have since started following her on twitter though and highly recommend it).
If you follow me on twitter, you know I am brutally honest on all kind of intimate topics. Itâs because I believe in the strength behind transparency and the impact it can create. Transparency is particularly powerful with salaries and compensation, and that is why we had transparent salaries at Pinch. Well, thatâs my motivational vibe.
So I am posting my complete salary history here in the hopes that it is interesting or helpful to other people.
2007: ~$25,000 in wages
Spock hired me as a summer marketing intern: $2,500/month salary (with potential for a $1,500 bonus at end of summer).
I was 18 when I started at Spock and had my 19th birthday there. I adored working for Spock â it taught me that being excited about the internet could be a career. And my boss Jay was the first person who really believed in me, and was willing to give me enough rope to hang myself. He told me not to tell people I was 18 because they would underestimate me, that I should tell them I was 27. I told most people I was 27 until I actually was. At the end of the summer I decided to take time off from college and continue working for Spock. They brought me on full-time, at a $75k salary.
I had spent the summer living in Redwood City (where Spockâs office is) and renting a room for $800. After the summer I moved to San Francisco and sublet at different places, paying between $600 for a room and $1000 for a studio apartment.
2008: $28,307 in wages
Most of my friends left Spock, so it seemed like the right thing to do. I emailed SeeqPod because I thought they had the coolest product in all of tech at the time â a web app that streamed music from the internet on the iPhone! (this was before there were 3rd party apps on the iPhone). I told them I was really excited about what they were building and would love to contribute however possible and would come on as an unpaid intern. They interviewed me and I did a take-home project: writing a Product Requirements Document for a Hi5 App (Hi5 was the third largest social network after Myspace and Facebook at the time). SeeqPod hired me as a product manager, I think with a $60k salary. My boss Mike was the second person (in an infinite stream) to believe in me and take a big chance on me.
I didnât have an iPhone, just a flip phone, but I was so excited about the idea of posting photos on the internet from a mobile phone that I set up a tumblr called https://www.maiaeats.com/ that would post new entries every time I texted it a photo or text. I recorded everything I ate in this way.
I went back to college for my sophomore year in the fall. When I left, the CEO of SeeqPod said âMaia, you are the most diplomatic person Iâve ever had work for me. I watch you in meetings help people take their foot out of their mouths and start espousing your idea as if it was their ownâ. SeeqPod said they would keep my equity vesting over the school year, and we planned for me to transfer to Berkeley the next year as a college junior, to keep working for them. SeeqPod got sued out of existence though, so I stayed on at Olin.
2009: ~$10k in wages
In summer 2009, one of my former colleagues had been impressed with my work at Spock and wanted me to run marketing at his startup, Archivd. I did, but unfortunately his company went under about a month after I started when his cofounder couldnât get a work visa.
For the rest of the summer, I picked up a half-time job running social media at a startup called NationalBLS in San Francisco. I got another half-time job doing front-end web development for Sprowtt, in Palo Alto (like Kickstarter + AngelList). I lived in a basement in Oakland and had a terrible commute.
That fall, I lived in Cambridge and got a part-time internship at HubSpot while in college. It was magical to live in Cambridge and work for HubSpot⌠the best time I had during college. I think they offered me $14/hour and I surprised them by negotiating to $15/hour.
2010: $1,800 in wages
I worked full-time for Hubspot ($15/hour) for the month of January before I went to study abroad in Copenhagen for Spring semester. I stayed in Europe that summer and did not work the rest of the year.
2011: $0 in wages
I graduated college in May 2011, sort of⌠having spent the spring busy trying to convalesce from a horrible car accident in January 2011, I was behind on my school work and so I walked on stage at the ceremony in May but technically hadnât graduated yet. My generous professors let me make up the work in summer/fall, and I got my diploma at the end of the Fall 2011 semester.
I sold stock I had bought during college with my income from my year off to pay for my life this year.
2012: $61,988 in wages
Desperate for a job, my friend Richa helped me find a role at the consultancy she worked for in January 2012, where I wrote XSL-T (itâs like CSS, for XML documents). I made $60k salary (less than I had made when I was 19), but I was grateful for the opportunity (and for the health insurance!). They originally offered me $55k, and I negotiated up a smidge.
At the end of the summer, I met Meg who was starting a new company, Rocksbox. She hired me as her first employee, a UX designer. I think Meg asked me âWhat do people like you make?â and I said âSomething like $75k,â and she said âOk, that seems fine.â My salary was $72k.
2013: $22,416 in wages
Meg invited me to join on as cofounder & CTO of Rocksbox. As a cofounder, I took no salary for much of the year.
I lived in a two bedroom apartment with several other people â my friend Katie and I technically shared a bedroom together with one queen bed and both spent most nights at our respective boyfriendâs apartments. The household hosted people from Airbnb in our dining room and I made an additional $5k on top of my $22k salary to put towards my rent.
I remember being exhausted, flipping Airbnb rooms. My boyfriend asked âThis seems really terrible, why do you do it?â I said ââŚ. for the money, obviously.â He said âOh but you donât need the money,â and I sat there quietly, thinking, what does it mean for one to need the money?
2014: $66,323 in wages
Meg raised $1.5M for Rocksbox, and I was able to take a higher salary â I think back to $72k!
We still hosted Airbnbs in our dining room from which I made an extra $3,300.
My lawsuit against the guy who hit me with his truck settled for $100k. My lawyer took 1/3 and transferred me $66,000: the most humiliating, exhausting, painful, least worth it money I have ever âearnedâ in my entire life.
2015: $84,725 in wages
I was making more from Rocksbox â my salary increased from ~$72k at the beginning of 2015 to about ~$150k towards the end of the year.
My roommates and I moved to a big fancy house with a separate bedroom where we could host people on Airbnb. Technically my rent was $2,400/month but with the Airbnb it usually netted out to $1,400. I made $2,400 from Airbnb this year.
2016: $67,769 in wages
I left Rocksbox (and my $150k annual salary) to start Pinch, where we paid ourselves $50k. Rocksbox bought back my unvested equity for $780.
This year, with the separate bedroom on Airbnb, I made another $9,220. In September my roommate and I moved to a different apartment and stopped hosting on Airbnb. My rent was $1,500.
2017: $58,686 in wages
Towards the end of 2017, our $50k salary at Pinch was really starting to hurt. We raised a bit more and upped our salaries to $100k. The money from my car accident dwindled. I moved to my own apartment for the first time, and my rent was $2,000/month.
2018: $121,277 in wages
In summer 2018, we sold Pinch to Chime. My job offer at Chime was for $175k.
Some of our offers for Pinch came with a signing bonus. I wanted to evaluate offers based on the people and the culture, so I told myself I would act as though I had received a signing bonus even if I technically hadnât. When we joined Chime (no signing bonus), I bought myself a scooter online. It never arrived, and I eventually did a chargeback on my credit card.
2019: $195,834 in wages
My salary at Chime was increased to $200k early in 2019 as a market adjustment, where it remains today. In October 2019 I moved out of my $2,000/month apartment to couch-surf with plans to eventually move to New York.
Conclusion
I was really excited about the idea of writing this post and bringing transparency. The process of writing it out and reliving it all though⌠it feels bad. I think of myself as a happy person, but when I read this now, I feel for my younger self. I worked and scrambled and stressed out about everything.
Iâve tweeted before that my biggest regret of my 20âs is that I didnât spend more money. It wasnât received well by the financial responsibility crowd on twitter, but my guess is that theyâve had a different (and more stable) career history than I have. I do regret that I saved any money in my 20's â I should have spent it all, spent freely on frivolous creature comforts, used money to make my life easier whenever possible and worried less about the future. But of course, hindsight is 20/20.
I read a ton of books in 2018. Most them were fine. Five of them were great though. I find myself continuing to bring up in conversations with friends, so I decided to share with you, my e-friends.
Educated by Tara Westover [amazon]
Wow. Educated is a WILD memoir: Westover grows up in a survivalist fundamental Mormon household in rural Idaho without a birth certificate, school, or ever seeing the doctor. Her collection of stories feel like a back-to-back onslaught of situations that caused my jaw to drop more than once. Her chapters donât necessarily make up a tidy narrative arcâââbut true stories rarely do.
Dreamland: The True Tale of Americaâs Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones [amazon]
Dreamland is many interweaving storylines around the opiate epidemicâââeach chapter bounces between Mexican black tar heroin dealers, epidemiologists, pharmaceutical salespeople, parents of children whoâve died from overdosing, pill mill doctors peddling to West Virginians, and more. Rather than cherry-picking evidence to place blame in one place, Quinones paints a rich canvas of all the different players acting independently that have combined to create the disaster weâre inâŚ. and the epic scale itâs reached.
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan [amazon]
On Chesil Beach is a novella about a coupleâs wedding night, so indulgently written that it sucked me in and I finished all in one setting. By limiting to just one scene and just two characters, we learn every little detail of the room, every inner thought of each character, the interplay of their thoughts and actions, their vulnerable and clumsy communication, the extremely cringeworthy misunderstandings, many assumptions born out of insecurity and emotional baggage, and more. It feels like getting to spy inside of someone elseâs private life. Oh and itâs a movie now! But the movieâs not as good.
How to Be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky [amazon]
I saw a tweet by Havrilesky about her new book, What if This Were Enough?. I bought it and loved it so much I bought her other books, How to Be a Person in the World, Disaster Preparedness, and then I read all of her Ask Polly answers. For a sample of her writing, I love her House of Mirrors answer. Her writing is so direct yet compassionate. I tweeted that I was disappointed How to Be a Person in the World wasnât an instruction manual and so she replied with one!
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [amazon]
The Black Swan is not a new book, but I had never read it before. Iâm often frustrated about how insistently people try to predict events and how they focus on whatever trivial thing they happen to know, when itâs clear the most important events will come as a surprise. Taleb has a less fatalistic view and champions how to act and best prepare yourself, in a world where what you donât know is more important than what you do.
Cross-posted to Medium:Â https://medium.com/@maiab/top-5-books-of-2018-f7f52753db2b
Maia Gift Guide 2018 for hard-working badass women
Hey women have historically been ignored (or, more commonly and worse, extremely patronized) as a target customer demo but it is 2018 baby and we have had a cambrian explosion of direct-to-consumer startups empowering women to be smarter, more efficient, more relaxed, more beautiful, and, most importantly, MORE COMFORTABLE.Â
Theyâre also mad busy though so maybe you can help get them a gift this holiday season. I am so here for this industry and so Iâm sharing with you my favorite products from startups youâve never heard of, for women you know who are doing an amazing job at life and donât have time to scroll through instagram ads:
Air Daughters [Radically comfortable sexy stilettos]
I worked closely with Chanel, the founder of Air Daughters, for years at Rocksbox. She invented stylish shoes so women can look good all day and feel good all day. I have the nude pair đ They fit nothing like high heels Iâve ever worn before, and it took a minute for me to settle in them... but now I cringe putting on any other heels. $145 a pair: airdaughters.com
Underclub [Luxury underwear every month]
I know Underclub because the founder, Katie, cold-emailed me when I worked at Rocksbox. I answer a lots of cold emails and am glad I did, because weâve been friends ever since. This was years ago, so at this point basically all the underwear I have is from Katieâs company. I havenât shopped anywhere else - it shows up each and every month in a cute package, curated to fit my size and style. My boyfriend says we can never stop having Underclub. Gift subscriptions start at $39: underclub.co
PS: Underclub is only bottoms - I get bras from super comfy new brand Lively
Bon Temps [Wildly feminist tea]
I know Will, a founder of Bon Temps, from his days as a founder of a subscription personalized perfume company. Now, he and his female cofounder sell clean, organic, super tasty tea. Read this description of the white tea (my favorite): âWe designed it for moments of self care, reflection and female intuition. Think: witchy vibes, bubble baths.â How dope is that? 3 boxes of tea for $48: shopbontemps.com
Spire [Bluetooth-connected breath detector]
Iâve had a few female friends rave to me about this device to me âIt tells me if I havenât breathed for too long!â (???) and I didnât understand it. Finally I borrowed one and now I canât live without it. It has a bunch of features but the critical one for me is that it silently vibrates when it detects Iâm stressed out. Frankly, Iâm never surprised when it vibrates - and as someone whose biggest flaw is taking pride in how much I can put up with, it buzzes more than Iâd like. I use the Spire going off as justification to walk out of situations that are unhealthy for me to be in because anything that is physically affecting my body isnât worth it. Itâs $129 for the Stone (the model I have) and they also have some new clothing tag thing I donât know anything about. Stay in tune with your feelings out there folks:Â spire.io
Fancy Hands [Remote personal assistants]
Yâall know I LOVE these guys. I first wrote about them in 2014 and have been meaning to update, because they continue to have a radical positive impact on both my productivity and bank account. Help women do more - itâs a good gift for the lady in your life who never answers your email, or (this is sad but...) if sheâs recently had a major medical event and might be overwhelmed by medical scheduling and bills. Every âtaskâ costs about $6 - but gift subscriptions are 15ish% off: fancyhands.com
Littlefund [$$ for babies]
Mimi started Littlefund after struggling through keeping track of monetary gifts for her newborn - so she built a solution. Conveniently, I hate buying toys for kids because I feel like they all have too many toys already! So I gift Littlefund, so that they have a chance of paying rent in SF (or anywhere) when they grow up. Itâs super super easy to create an FDIC-insured bank account to stash the funds in, and it automatically earns compounding interest - the eighth wonder of the world, according to Albert Einstein. Free for recipients and no fees if you fund your gift via ACH: littlefund.co
Paradox [Beauty oil]
My friend Elise - who is probably the most beautiful person I have ever met in person - decided to start sharing some of her beauty secrets with us. Paradoxâs first product is Pure Moroccan Argan Oil - I use it on both my face and my hair. Highest quality ingredients (no toxins, chemicals, etc.). A bottle is $65 and looks amazing on your #shelfie: shopparadox.com
Oars + Alps [Menâs personal care]
Ok technically this company is intended for men but it is founded by women and Iâve never been beholden to cultural norms like that anyway. Their âPower Cleansing Face Stickâ ($18) is AWESOME. I travel a ton, hotels never have facewash, and the last thing I need is something leaking in my bag so I carry it with me often. I use their deodorant too đ¤ˇââď¸: oarsandalps.com
Disclaimer: I obviously have personal relationships with the founders of many of these companies; in addition I am an investor in Underclub and Littlefund.
How to Travel for 12 Days with Just a Little Backpack
I recently went to Japan for 12 days and posted a photo of my luggage:
Everyone said âHOW???!!!â and I said âItâs easy, I only packed one outfitâ but this wasnât a sufficient answer, so hereâs the detailed post of what I packed, how it worked, and how you might do the same.Â
(People didnât really ask WHY but the reason is my back is fucked and I canât lift or carry much).
Itâs pretty clear if you look at my photos from Japan that I wore the same clothes all the time:
How to make this work
1. All of your clothes need to work with each other
I wore one outfit on the plane and packed one, but I actually had closer to eight outfit options with a tank top, sleeveless blouse, long-sleeve blouse, and sweater. Everything was black, white, gray, or red.
2. Everything needs to be really, really small and light.
If you look at my photos below, everything is SMALL / travel-sized. I have a super short iPhone charging cord. My deodorant is like .3 oz. My floss is teeny. I have like 4 q-tips not a million. My spare shoes weigh like 8 oz and can fold up. I have Airpods - not noise-cancelling headphones. Even my choice of pajamas - menâs briefs - are kinda the smallest option.Â
I also donât have many organizing containers: q-tips, hair ties, and bobby pins float at the bottom of my toiletries bag, my glasses and sunglasses shared a bag, my ibuprofen shared a container with all the other pills.Â
3. Spend money to avoid carrying things
Buy consumables at your destination I bought sunscreen in Japan and then left it there so I didnât have to carry it back and forth across the Pacific.
Also, lots of toiletries are free at your hotel! I didnât bring a razor because I knew I could just shave with the hotel razor.
Mail heavy souvenirs home I love fancy notebooks so I bought a ton and mailed them back to myself instead of carrying them. It was $9 to mail a 2 kg package of notebooks from Tokyo to the US.
Do laundry so your clothes stay clean! I did laundry twice in Japan: the first time myself at an Airbnb we stayed at in Tokyo, and the second time by our hotel in Kyoto. Laundry at our Airbnb was intimidating (see below) but free and sufficient, our hotel washing everything in Kyoto cost about $25 and was super nice since everything came back clean and folded.
4. Throw things away!
I lessened the integral of amount of weight carried x time carrying it by throwing things away: books, magazines, daily contact lens cases, q-tips. By bringing individually wrapped q-tips, or daily contacts, I could throw away the contacts as I wore them, instead of having to bring the much heavier contact solution and a case.Â
5. Most importantly, lessen your dependance on specific physical goods to be comfortable and happy while traveling.Â
Just kidding, do whatever you want, this is what I do!
Exactly Everything I Packed
The first outfit is the one I wore on the plane. Plane outfit:
underwear and waxed denim pants
bra, tank top, long-sleeved blouse with birds, cashmere sweater, rain jacket
warm socks and comfy tennis shoes with insoles
Hereâs all the clothes I packed:
7 extra pairs of underwear; 4 extra pairs of socks, sports bra, menâs briefs (for pajamas)
sleeveless blouse, white shorts
extra shoes that look a bit dressier, tote bag to use during the day
For toiletries, I brought: toothbrush, hairbrush, contacts, foundation, moisturizer, bronzer + brush, lotion, ibuprofen etc, deodorant, face wash, toothpaste, eye brow gel, hair ties, bobby pins, q-tips, floss, shout wipes.
They mostly fit in this little bag, except my hairbrush and toothbrush đ
I didnât have much else, just: sunglasses, glasses, glasses bag, Airpods, passport, wallet, cell phone charger. Oh and my phone, but that was never out of my hands đ
Thereâs quite a bit of space left in my bag. I actually brought a book and 3 magazines to Japan, but as I finished reading them I threw them away or left them behind. Everything fit in a smaller backpack I normally travel domestically with, but I wanted to take the larger bag so I had room for souvenirs.
Last week I was back at my alma mater, Olin College of Engineering, and someone mentioned they were trying to follow my transcript as close as possible. I have a self-designed degree in Engineering: Cognitive Science. That got me curious about what classes I did take in college, so I looked them up, and have reprinted them here for your enjoyment. I cross-registered - a lot - and so the college I took the class at is also listed.
Design
Design Nature [Olin]
User-Oriented Collaborative Design [Olin]
Human-Computer Interaction [Wellesley]
Tangible User Interfaces [Wellesley]
Product Design & Development [Olin, RISD, Babson]
Sustainable Product Design [Ingeniørhøjskole i København]
Neuroscience
Behavioral Neuroscience [Brandeis]
Visual Cognition [Brandeis]
Computational Cognitive Science [Brandeis]
Engineering
Engineering: Modeling & Control of Compartment Systems [Olin]
Engineering: Modeling & Simulation of Distributed Systems [Olin]
Principles of Engineering [Olin]
Computer Science
Introductory Programming [Olin]
Software Design [Olin]
Linux Networking & Security [Ingeniørhøjskole i København]
Computer Networking [Ingeniørhøjskole i København]
Network Security [Ingeniørhøjskole i København]
Math & Science
Calculus [Olin]
Vector Calculus [Olin]
Physics: Mechanics [Olin]
Physics: Electromagnetism and Waves [Olin]
Materials Science and Solid State Chemistry with Lab: Thermal & Mechanical Properties [Olin]
Probability and Statistics [Olin]
Principles of Modern Biology with Lab [Olin]
Linear Algebra [Olin]
Olin Self Study in Mathematics: Investigating the Theory and Application of Matrices [Olin]
Linguistics
Intro to Linguistics [Wellesley]
Phonology: The Sounds of Language [Wellesley]
Sociolinguistics [Wellesley]
Business
Independent Study in Business and Entrepreneurship [Olin]
Foundation of Business & Entrepreneurship [Olin]
Real-Time Business Analysis [Olin]
Consumer Behavior [Babson]
Senior Consulting Projecting in Engineering [Olin]
Etc
Passionate Pursuit in Cheese [Olin]
History of Technology: A Cultural & Contextual Approach [Olin]
These are the books I read in 2017 - I recommend the ones in bold. Unusually prominent are books about/taking place in London (I visited in March) and books about credit and American personal finance (for Pinch). In terms of author gender, I was almost equal: I read books by 23 male authors and 22 female authors overall. The female authors do skew more fiction than non-fiction though đ
Book Club
In my book club, we read a book every month that is less than 500 pages, not published in the last year, and never been read by a member of book club. I read 10 of the 12 books:
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider
Where'd you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline LâEngle
The Handmaidâs Tale by Margaret Atwood
Non-fiction
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
A Room of Oneâs Own by Virginia Wolf
The Minto Pyramid Principle - Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving by Barbara Minto
Expecting Better: How to Fight the Pregnancy Establishment with Facts by Emily Oster
Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld by Jake Halpern
What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
London: Gruesome Guides by Terry Deary
Perfect London Walk by Daniel Curley
Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by John E. Sarno
Deep Medicine: Harnessing the Source of Your Healing Power by William Stewart MD
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Conspiracy of Credit by Corey Smith
The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives by Lisa Servon
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People by Vanessa Van Edwards
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert KiyosakiÂ
High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
Orbiting the Giant Hairball - A Corporate Foolâs Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie
The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness by Jill Filipovic
The All-or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work by Eli J Finkel
Bay Area Cocktails by Shanna Farrell (my friend!)
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Fiction
Ship of Theseus by JJ Abrams (given to me by Becky & Jona)
Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, and Last Friends by Jane Gardam (based in London, recommended by Sierra)
Bridget Jonesâs Diary by Helen Fielding (based in London, recommended by Sierra)
The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion (sequel to The Rosie Project, a 2016 book club book)
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (given to me by Lisa)
Ducker and I wrote up a guide on how to move. Itâs specifically focused on San Francisco, but many of the suggestions work nation-wide. Best piece of advice? How to get a permit to block off the street in front of your apartments for the moving van to park in!
I like notebooks, I like them to be size A5 (~5âx8â), 150-200 pages, with dot grid paper sewn into the binding. Because I use a new notebook at the start of every project, Iâm always casually looking for new notebooks I might like and I pick up candidates whenever I run across them.
Designerâs Notebook by Andrew Schapiro and Brad Mead 6âłx8.2âł | 176 pages
The Designerâs Notebook is my favorite to date. The cover is durable, it lays flat when youâre writing, and each page contains a header for project title and date. I purchased mine at the SFMOMAâs museum shop. Some downsides include gimmicky reference material and the elastic band on mine has worn out, but these are overshadowed by the biggest hinderance - Â I can no longer find it available for purchase.
Confidant by Baron Fig 5.4âłx7.7âł | 192 pages
Baron Figâs Confidant notebook is wonderful - lays flat, dot grid paper, right size. I purchased mine from their campaign on Kickstarter. For me, the largest downside is the fabric cover - with a life of coffee shop spills, and living in the bottom of my backpack, my cover got quite dirty.
Notebook MINIMALIST GREY by Bindewerk A5 | 144 pages
I love the look and feel of Bindewerk notebooks: the hardback cover is stiff and durable, and the notched elastic slot makes it easy to keep things together. I got mine from a letterpress shop I canât remember the name of near the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. Unfortunately, they only come in blank or lined paper.
My Essential Notebook by Clairefontaine A5 | 96 pages
Clairefontaine is similar to Bindewerk, though without the notch for the elastic is feels less sophisticated. Also only available with lined paper.
MD Notebook - A5, Grid Paper by Midori A5 | 176 pages
I recently picked up this Midori notebook from The Aesthetic Union in San Francisco, and Iâve yet to try it.
Miro Journal, by Franklin Mill Ltd. 5âłx8âł | 160 pages
The Miro journals lack any nice touches - the construction (elastic, binding) feels cheap, the pages are lined, and it doesnât distinguish itself in anyway.
Leather Look Journal by Miquelrius A5 | 200 pages
Miquelrius notebooks are no-fuss -- Iâve used many. Like many cheaper notebooks, thereâs no header at the top of pages, and I find it somewhat unnerving to have the dot grid pattern just run off the page.
Notebook Medium A5 Hardcover by Leuchtturm A5 | 250 pages
Leuchtturm makes reliable notebooks that come in fun colors and are easy to find - many bookstores carry them. I wish that they would lay flat.
EcoQua by Fabriano A5 | 90 pages
The EcoQua dot grid notebooks have the pages poorly glued in - they fall out within a day of writing on them and turning past them. I actually like using these for my to-do lists... the thought of losing the page before I finish my tasks pushes me to work faster. Theyâre also only like $4, and come in lots of fun colors.
A5 Recycled Notebook by Muji
Simple notebooks, but cheap binding, and too few pages.
Now that you know my notebook preferences in excruciating detail, please feel free to let me know of any notebooks that youâre fond of or that you think I might like!
In June 2015 I bought an Amazon Echo, after being wowed at a friendâs house. Now, almost two years later, I donât have any other devices in my home that integrate with it. But I once did - hereâs that story.
Iâve long hated screens, voice is the interface of the future, and I want to be a part of it! So when I first got my Amazon Echo, I decided to set up a voice-controlled smart home of the future. I started with a simple, but impactful project: connect our dining room light to the Echo. Our dining room table was a bit too big for the room, so it was really obnoxious to squeeze around the table to get to the light switch on the other side of the room.
There is no room to walk around the left side of the table and only a few inches on the right. Iâve highlighted the switch and the light for you. Alfie the cat, weighed about 27 pounds at this time.
I bought the âWeMo Light Switch, Wi-Fi enabled, Works with Amazon Alexaâ from Amazon. (Now not all smart home devices play nice together, but I felt very good about the compatibility prospects here, so it seemed the obvious choice.)
Of course you should turn off the power to anything electrical before messing with it -- but thereâs no breaker in my apartment that controls this switch.š I felt good about my amateur electrician capabilities and moved forward (at a time when my roommates were around to rescue me if need be). It was quick: unscrew the screws, pull the wires out, then reverse the process with the new wifi switch.
Before adding the wifi, I tested the mechanical switch capabilities. Instead of turning the light off, it just dimmed the light. Huh? I turned it off and on a few times, and it would just toggle between brighter and dimmer. Shit, my roommates are going to kill me, now the light isnât just just hard to turn off, itâs impossible to turn off!Â
Maybe updating the firmware would help? As the new firmware was installing, the light got progressively dimmer. Probably how itâs supposed to go, maybe the switch restarting. Finally the light went completely out -- hooray! The firmware update must have worked, and now we wouldnât be stuck with a permanently-on light! I switched the switch back on... and nothing happened. I couldnât get the light to turn on.Â
Shit! this is worse than the light being permanently on!Â
I unscrewed the lightswitch and put the old one back on -- and the light STILL didnât work. I desperately changed the bulb and it still did not. Because of our breaker-less apartment, I appear to have permantently destroyed the connection between the switch and the light.²
Fortunately, Iâm really smart, and an engineer. I could probably fix this before my roommates needed the dining room again.
In a rush I ordered three things from Amazon - a cheap plug-in lamp, a new WeMo Plug-in Switch, and a strange plaster circle.
I took down the dusty, old lamp from the ceiling and tossed it onto our porch. I superglued the plaster circle over the new hole in the ceiling that had wires hanging down from it and set up the new light.
Iâve highlighted the new lampâs socket, and the lovely new hole in the wall where the lightswitch used to be.
Amazingly -- it worked! Now we had a lamp over the dining room once again, and you could turn it off and on with the WeMo switch! My roommates, as always, tolerated my antics and used the new, equally inconvenient light switch. The last step was just to hook it up to the Amazon Echo, and we would have a slick integration (no squeezing around the table necessary).
3 weeks go by with me fiddling with it. It just doesnât work and I donât really know why. My best guess is itâs something to do with WiFi bandsÂł, and Iâm annoyed at everything. I have a hole in the wall where the light switch used to be, a hole in the ceiling where the light used to be, a tacky plug-in light strung up, and a $50 WeMo switch that is not much better than the âdumbâ light switch that came with the apartment. My dining room looks like a construction site, not a modern house from the future.
But my god if I cannot use Amazon Echo to turn off my dining room light I am really going to feel like a real failure here.Â
Last ditch effort: IFTTT has an Amazon Echo integration and a WeMo integration. Maybe I can hook them up that way and it may be a little slower since any command would need to cruise through the IFTTT servers, but it should work for our needs. I look at IFTTT - and there are only like seven different Alexa interactions that you can use to trigger an action: you can add a thing to your shopping list, ask whatâs on your shopping list, set a timer, ask for a conversion, ask about the weather, and ask for a sports score.
I carefully considered which of these I should use to toggle our dining room light. I decided the best criterion was which of the interactions we were least likely to use normally otherwise, so that no one would use it and be surprised when the light toggled.Â
The end result? Iâm sure all my friends are all quite impressed when they see me just say âAlexa, whatâs the Giants score?â, she replies âThe Giants arenât playing right nowâ and then, 30-60 seconds later, the dining room light turns off.Â
š I know itâs hard to believe, but there really are many circuits not controlled by a breaker box. Weâd had multiple electricians look for one, throughout our apartment and all of our neighbors. Some electricians refused to work, saying it was illegal for them to work in conditions that were so far from being to code.
² We got our full apartment deposit back, CAN YOU BELIVE THAT
Âł Hereâs what I think. The WeMo device needs a 2.4 GHz wireless network to connect to. Our fancy mesh Meraki routers are dual-band - they have both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. There is an option to only use 5GHz, but theyâre so fancy - no option to only have 2.4GHz only. Amazon Echo, of course, prefers 5GHz if available. So the WeMo switch could connect to the WiFi but not talk to the Echo.Â
I love the Mission District. Climate reports say it is San Franciscoâs warmest, sunniest neighborhood, but its vibrance extends far beyond the weather. Whenever I have friends visit from out of town, I take them on a walking tour of the Mission. I wrote the first version of the post in an email to a friend who needed something to do with an out-of-town guest. I fleshed it out to share publicly, in case anyone shares my love of history and standing in line for food. (Please leave questions, comments, suggestions!)
In red is the Mission tour, but you can easily see Bernal Heights and The Castro too by adding the blue parts.
#1. Dolores Park: 20th St. & Church St. Dolores Park has a crazy history. First, see one of the best views of downtown San Francisco from this top corner. Look over the park. In the late 1800â˛s, Dolores Park was a Jewish cemetery. Around 1900, land in SF was deemed too valuable for dead people and they DUG UP ALL THE GRAVES and moved them to COLMA. Then, in 1905 Barnum & Bailey graded the land for their circus, in 1906 it served as a refugee camp for earthquake victims, and now it's a pretty segmented park that becomes crowded with locals whenever the weather breaks 70°.
Wander through to park to 18th st. In the morning, youâll find the controversial buses from Google, Facebook, etc. picking up tech workers from 18th & Dolores to truck them down to campuses in Silicon Valley. Â If itâs warm out, stop at one of the best ice cream shops: Bi-Rite Ice Cream (you can skip the line if youâre buying a pint!). If itâs cold out, stop at #2. Tartine for a pastry and a coffee (sadly, I have no tips for skipping the line here). Tartine is famous for baking the best bread in America.
Meander down 18th St, admiring the Womenâs Building on the way. Arrive at #3. Clarion Alley. The Mission District is famous for its murals and street art, mostly driven by the Latino movement. Clarion Alley is newer than Balmy Ave (which weâll visit later) and is dedicated to using public art as a force for the marginalized. The featured artists are regularly rotated through, as managed by the Clarion Alley Mural Project. Clarion Alley is always a great way to view the current hot-button topics -- right now, itâs  around evictions and gentrification.
Cruise back to Valencia St. The lights on Valencia Street are timed in both directions so if youâre cycling 13mph, youâll have green lights the whole stretch. Itâs called the Green Wave.
Valencia has been described as a pinterest strip mall -- but I prefer to describe it as the longest shopping street in the US with no chain stores. Â Between 18th & 19th streets youâll find strings of expensive hipster storefronts. The highlights are Dandelion chocolate (single-origin chocolate! is that important?), Craftsman & Wolves (famous for their Rebel Within muffin which contains a softboiled egg), and Mission Bicycle (owned by my landlord!)
On to the next block, where thereâs #4. three wonderful shops to explore: Paxton Gate, 826 Valencia, and City Art Cooperative Gallery.
Paxton Gate is a store for ânatural curiositiesâ. Make sure to read the labels, and make it all the way to the garden in the back.
826 Valencia is Dave Egger's tutoring center. He bought an empty store front on Valencia to create a tutoring center for low-income kids. San Francisco was like "You can't do that; Valencia is zoned only for retail." So he was like "Fine, you need a retail store? I will make a retail store." So it's a half-joke pirate store that serves as a front for the tutoring center. Since then 826 has expanded to run many tutoring centers around the world, but their name pays homage to the address of their first one, here on Valencia St.
City Art Cooperative Gallery is a co-op that showcases wonderful local artists. For example, I adore the hyper-local work of Jessica Joy Jirsa - she paints so many scenes I walk past every day. The gallery is staffed by the artists, so go ahead and ask whoeverâs around which art display is theirs!
Go back to Mission St. Itâs obvious that both Mission and Valencia are major streets - despite being only one block apart. A brief history is in order. Youâll notice as you walk down Mission that there are many decrepit, old theaters. In the 1940â˛s, San Francisco had over 100 movie houses -- today, there are 5 theaters from this era on Mission street between 19th and 23rd.
Majestic theater turned Tower theater turned church turned semi-abandoned
Their demise was a combination of several forces. In the 1950â˛s, the home television set started reducing traffic to theaters. Then, in the 1960â˛s, construction started on BART, which tore up Mission Street. Entertainment seekers were diverted to Valencia street, instead of construction-filled Mission street, leading to the development of the shopping and restaurant area now. I think the theaters are easy to miss if youâre not looking for them so I make a point to notice their former glory. Itâs so sad... some have been turned into parking garages!!
El Capitan - 2,500 seat theater + 85 room hotel turned into a parking garage in 1965
The good news, is that Alamo Drafthouse recently purchased and restored the New Mission theater.
Ok, next walk down to 24th St -- Calle 24. The whole Mission District has a reputation for being Latino, but there is some more nuance here: itâs a large neighborhood and constantly changing. The population first became predominately Mexican when California was a part of Mexico :) Ok but the next time was during the 1940â˛s-1960â˛s, as Mexicans were pushed out of their homes in the Rincon Hill neighborhood during the construction of the Bay Bridge. The west side of the Mission (the part weâve seen so far) quickly changed in the 1960â˛s-1990â˛s to house a community of artists, LGBTQ, and punk musicians. Now, theyâve largely been displaced by severely Caucasian and very boring tech workers, like me!
Mission Street, Calle 24, and the eastern/southern parts of the Mission have a different history. They were predominately Mexican communities until the 1970â˛s-1980â˛s, when Central & South American started to fall apart. Many immigrants from politically unstable countries came to these microhoods, imbuing them with the Latino flavor that the Mission is now famous for. The 1970â˛s-1980â˛s also saw the rise of gangs in the Mission, and low-rider culture. Itâs inconsequential, but as we walk South this is where we switch from SureĂąo gang territory to the NorteĂąo gangâs territory.
Walk down 24th St. Everything here is great. My favorite part are the Lucha libra masks, but there are many wonderful shops, bakeries, community centers, and restaurants.
More murals down #6. Balmy Ave. These are more historic (and, I think, more famous) than the ones on Clarion Ave - they focus on the Latino history of the neighborhood, protests on US involvement in Central American, and the Chicano/Latino movement. All artists have origins from Mexico or Central America. Then, for a quick sharp contrast, visit hipster ice cream shop #7. Humphrey Slocumbe to try the Secret Breakfast ice cream.
That's the base tour - if you want more, start at the historic gay neighborhood of the Castro and 17th st and Market st before heading to Dolores Park. If you want even MORE, continue on to 8. Precita Park, #9. Bernal Heights (even better views of downtown) and #10. The Epicurean Trader in Bernal Heights neighborhood, SFâs historic lesbian neighborhood.
Traditionally, investing was composed of a small number of guys with a lot of money. But there are many more women who are excited to invest a little bit of money -- particularly in women-led companies. This has led to women running the majority of successful Kickstarter campaigns.
Your Facebook photos arenât as private as you think.
A dear friend of mine who has been dating on Tinder lately taught me about this great/terrifying new way to stalk people online. Itâs called Facebook Graph Search.
Oh, your Facebook profile is private, you say? Iâve got news for youâthereâs...
Airbnb launched their rebranding today! I've been an Airbnb fangirl since the beginning, and so my friends who work at Airbnb were so gracious as to show me the logo and colors months ago. I like thinking about websites more than I like thinking about brands though, so I was eagerly awaiting to see what they had up their sleeve for the new site. It was high time for a refresh since much of Airbnb's site (as of yesterday) was identical to when I first rented out my Copenhagen apartment over four years ago. Lots of other people have covered the new hobo-sign-inspired-and-maybe-sexual logo; I'll leave discussion of that to them. Instead, here are my first impressions of Airbnb's new site.Â
Homepage (main)
There were two things about the earlier versions of their site that I loved: the main heading and the design.
Design
Starting around 2012, Airbnb has pioneered a distinct design style that has become the standard. Its hallmarks were beautiful full-bleed images, a simplified call-to-action, and input fields to immediately start your personalized experience with the app.
Main Heading
I've long been inspired by their commitment to having a user-centered focus. I often pointed out how their main heading since 2009, "Find a place to stay", was about the user's mindset instead of being an ego-driven description of the company. It immediately conveyed the message of what Airbnb was for, and hundreds of websites copied their refreshing design (e.g. Getaround, Vayable, peek, Getyourguide). The new heading "Rent unique places to stay from local hosts in 190 countries" is a step backward in this regard. Â
Auto-play video
Behind the main heading of the new site is an auto-play video. Auto-play videos on homepages are super trendy right now. But I expect Airbnb to be pushing the edge of digital design forward -- not tagging onto to existing trends. Even the dinosaur of a company Paypal has an auto-play video on their homepage, and they beat Airbnb to it by 6 months! I was hoping that today's site launch would be a preview of the next generation of design on the web, but this feels like a look backwards instead of forwards.
Homepage (secondary)
Scrolling down a bit to reach the bottom section of the homepage. Previously, this was where Airbnb featured their neighborhood guides. The neighborhood guide had amazing content, but it was hard to figure out how to use in a meaningful way. Well, the neighborhood guides have been replaced with a new Discover section, which is a big upgrade.Â
Airbnb has always had a skilled editorial hand and showcased their finest listings around their site, app, and social media. However, I've always thought there was a sad disconnect between the crazy treehouses they'd post and the places I might actually book on Airbnb. The new Discover section does a fine job at bridging that gap. Using a masonry layout, it grabs location data and other meta data about the current user to curate a smart selection of activities and attractive destinations. If one sounds appealing to you (I was drawn to "Carmel this weekend"), you click on it and are taken to a set of appropriate listings you can book.
It's very slick. I like the diverse combination of different types of content: specific listings are included next to locations, suggested trip themes, and weekend getaways. I expect Airbnb to build out this section even more in the future, potentially allowing user-generated lists. And, I think they'll only get smarter about using data to customize what's shown to each user. Exciting times! Â
Listing Page
From the new Discover section I clicked through to a listing. I love the new listing page. Photos on Airbnb listings have been growing steadily larger and larger over the last several years, and they're now the full-width of the screen. (I hesitate to say they've reached the limit).
My favorite part of the new listings page is the icons indicating, e.g. "Entire home/apt, 4 guests, 2 bedrooms, 2 beds". These are some of the most important details about a listing - more important than the neighborhood, the host, or even the photos. Previously, it was buried in a table lower down the page, competing with the free form text description for attention. It lead to a confusing user experience: just a few weeks ago someone canceled their reservation in my room because they missed these details.
The new layout is much better suited towards allowing guests to view easily view the information that is most important to them.Â
Host tools
Finally, since I host much more than I travel on Airbnb, I had high hopes that the hosting tools would be updated. Sadly, the flow of editing your listings' information, checking your inbox, and viewing existing reservations is all the same, and the new branding is just a skin change. Since host onboarding is so critical to their growth, I was hoping that these tools would see some innovation as well. Because there haven't been many updates, I'm questioning my assumption that making the hosting tools easier to use would add more hosts. Perhaps Airbnb is banking on selling the experience of using Airbnb to travelers, and then gradually introducing the idea of being a host to them?Â
PS: If you're coming to San Francisco, my Airbnb room still has two days open that you can book it for :)
Believe it or not, I've actually been looking for a cupholder for my bike for a while now. This innovative one is made by Bookman uses a spring to securely / temporarily attach to handlebars. Normally $40, I just got it on sale from Madewell for $12. If you want to get coffee and ride around the Mission with me, use coupon code HIGHSUMMER to get your own :)
I think California has a way of knowing exactly when I'm about to forget how amazing it is, and makes sure I see something incredible right before. Today, it was an 800 year old Cistercian chapter house, shipped here from Spain and currently residing as part of a rural Trappist monastery/brewery/vineyard.
More information:
Abbey of New Clairvaux
Crazy history of Chapter House stones since 1098
Tasting room at New Clairvaux winery
Ovila beer (collaboration with Sierra Nevada brewing company)
