Caring Is All You Need

At first, this feels wrong.

Midwestern earnestness means being a little too talkative to the grocery store cashier while Bay Area ambition means building the singularity in typescript.

Why would this combination work?

There is no combination.

It’s the same trait: caring.

The “caring” is just on different scales.

Midwestern earnestness is “small”: The grocery store cashier you just met, the nice breeze, the warm dinner you’re having.

Bay Area ambition is “cosmic”: a grand quest to reach the stars, cure cancer or save the world.

Both matter.

I suspect this is why both regions have bad stereotypes about each other, from the “coastal elite” to the “small-minded rural voter”.

Caring about both scales is hard, rare, and special.

Unsurprisingly, this is also why great taste is so hard.

Great taste, and thus great success, requires caring at all scales: a deep, intense, obsessive caring about both the beauty of circuit boards nobody will ever see and the billions of people that you’ll never get a chance to meet.

Caring is all you need.

So do it. :)

-J