The Five Year Mark
Thoughts on 5 at 25
LinkedIn does this lovely thing, where it sends you unsuspecting timely reminders about consequential life events. I got one such notification yesterday. I have now completed five years building Network Capital.
For someone who loves and studies history, this is not even a blip in the larger scheme of things. No one looks at five years. For someone who is twenty-five, it’s one-fifth of my life.
Utkarsh has some interesting writing on work anniversaries —
When are people most likely to quit their job?
Turns out, it’s about a year after they start. Some people might attribute this to the myth that we have to spend at least one year in a role before moving on to something better (at least if we want to look like responsible human beings to future employers). But if you dive a bit deeper into the data, you will find a more fascinating pattern.
Job hunting actually spikes on work anniversaries, along with milestone birthdays, major life events, and oddly, high school and college reunions. Researchers believe this happens because what we consider “the end of an era” or “a momentous life event” inspires us to reevaluate our present situation and consider a fresh start.
I suppose, I did not necessarily think of my work anniversary like that. To be honest, I did not think about it at all. Till the eventful LinkedIn reminder
I am writing this newsletter from Lyon. I am here for the Taylor Swift concert with my childhood friends. I have reached a day before them, and spent my day writing and sipping on coffee with this view.
It is interesting to look back and think, I only started to write for NC two years into building NC. The first piece I wrote was on Kant and the War in Afghanistan.
Since then, of course, I have done a lot more working and writing. My favourite one continues to be —
One part of this newsletter is selfish. It is me using my writing to make sense of the five years at NC. If I think about the person I was at twenty when I started, to the person I have now become, I would say it is surprising and predictable in equal measure.
It initially started as ‘fun thing to do’, and gradually became something that consumed most of my thinking hours. It was never a conventional choice. I have never had a the vocabulary to explain why I do this. It’s always been an intuitive realisation — I have to do this. If you’re thinking through something like this — I am always there to chat.
Thankfully, beyond this selfish-narcissist part to the newsletter, there is also something I stumbled upon that I thought might be helpful. I have always been vary of ‘career advice’ and ‘life lessons’. It is funny how you often end up becoming what you don’t like. So in the spirit of reflection and honesty, here are my three lessons from the five years at Network Capital.
[Full disclaimer, you will see more advice from me in the near future. The book comes out in December 2024. I hate it and I take no guarantee of it.]