nabil laoudji – poetry, prose, design thinking & entrepreneurship

Five Takeaways from “Quantum To Business” 2019

December 20, 2019 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Last week I attended the Quantum to Business (Q2B) conference, an annual event that brings together thought-leaders and stakeholders in the Quantum Computing community.

As a newcomer to Quantum Computing I felt – in the words of a fellow participant – like I was “drinking from three firehoses.” Needless to say, when the smoke cleared from three days of research presentations, product demos, and some incredible chocolate chip cookies, here are my impressions of the current state of the industry.

1. We’ve entered a new era in Quantum Computing. But a lot of tough engineering challenges remain.

With Google’s recent announcement of having achieved “Quantum Supremacy,” there’s a new sense that robust, commercially deployable quantum computers are just around the corner. Not so, seems to be the consensus. A good metaphor for Google’s demonstration is the Wright Brothers’ first flight, which lasted all of 12 seconds. An amazing proof of concept for a new technology, but one with very little practical value.

Qubits – or the induced properties of subatomic particles that sit at the core of quantum computers – are notoriously hard to control. The systems that we’ve built so far are “noisy” – i.e. undisciplined, and spit off lots of inaccurate data. There is a lot of work to be done in reducing errors, or improving the “fault tolerance” of these systems.

Credit: https://towardsdatascience.com/quantum-advantage-b3458646bd9

In fact, the industry hasn’t even converged on how to build a quantum processor. Some teams are moving forward with qubits that need to be supercooled. Others think the trick is using elements that are stable at room temperature. Whereas Google and IBM’s quantum hardware is built using superconducting qubits, Microsoft is taking a different approach, and developing topological ones.

“NISQ,” or “Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum,” is the industry shorthand for the era of quantum computing that we’re currently in. While recent advancements have shifted Quantum Computers from theory to reality, until we overcome the (big) engineering challenges that remain, truly useful Quantum Computers are still a ways off. How far off? Some folks say 5-10 years. The joke is that’s what folks have been saying for the last 5-10 years.

2. Today’s Quantum Computers can in fact perform some operations. However, they’re limited in scope.

While we’re still a ways off from reliable quantum computers, there are indeed some things that NISQ Computers are capable of today. The sweet spot is applications that classical computers struggle with, but where getting a wrong answer is – relatively speaking – not a big deal. Such as providing product recommendations (a la Netflix).

One company, D-Wave, has carved out a niche in this space, creating its own version of a Quantum Computer using a more stable process called “Quantum Annealing.” D-Wave has been selling these machines for nearly a decade, with real customers using them on real problems. For example, VW recently announced a partnership with D-Wave, where they will use their machines to optimize traffic flow in Beijing.

Credit: https://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/VW.pdf

Quantum Computers do their work by executing “quantum algorithms.” Some folks at Q2B were adamant that the industry’s focus should be on finding new applications (“use-cases”) for these algorithms. Others felt the emphasis should be on discovering new algorithms, custom-suited for the “noisy” machines that we have. QC Ware, which hosted the conference, is one of several algorithm-developers in this space.

3. Without a revenue-ready product, everyone’s investment pitch is very creative.

As an entrepreneur, the holy grail for a new startup is product-market fit. What’s striking about the QC space is that, for the most part, the product is still under development, and the market demand is still theoretical. It seems obvious that if someone were to build a functional quantum computer, demand would quickly follow. But with engineering timelines unknown, and few profitable applications of the tech as it stands today, everyone is doing their own unique dance for investment and growth.

Investment in Quantum Computing seems to be driven by two factors: perceived potential opportunity. And fear of missing out (FOMO). Specifically:

Government: A robust quantum computer could enable better traffic flows at ports. Or crack, by brute-force, the highest encryption standards we use today. China recently announced a $10B investment in a national laboratory for Quantum Information Science. The US recently announced the Quantum Computing Act, backed by $1.2 Billion federal grant.

Startups: Given the murky product roadmap, a company building a full-stack solution (a la Rigetti) requires investors with patience, a trait investors are not exactly known for. Startups that build just one part of the stack (e.g. software to better control quantum processors) have a more ready market, however a good portion of this market is government and academia – not the typical customer mix you would expect for a venture-backed tech startup.

Enterprises: Large tech players such as Google, IBM and Microsoft have a natural advantage in developing quantum hardware, as with cash reserves they can afford to be patient. Each is vying to be the trusted partner of industry, and build the “sticky” ecosystem that draws in startups and enterprises. Industry is eager to partner with these companies to develop applications for quantum hardware, though seem unlikely to build any hardware themselves. Honeywell stands out as a “traditional” hardware company that’s gone all-in, taking the wraps off a homegrown Quantum Computing program that’s several years in the making.

Consulting Firms: Consultancies seem to have the most ready source of revenue in Quantum. Accenture, Booz Allen, BCG and McKinsey have each built Quantum Computing practices, positioning themselves as the de-facto translator and integrator of quantum computing technologies for the companies they serve. Consultancies already sell “readiness” audits, similar to what we’ve seen in the AI and Digital Transformation spaces.

4. A lot of thought is being paid to building out the larger Quantum Computing ecosystem.

While advances in Quantum Computing hardware are important, if the industry is to be successful, a lot of other pieces need to fall into place. These include: quantum algorithm engineers; hardware suppliers; integrators; sales people who understand the technology and new programming languages that enable end-users to manipulate a quantum processor for the outcomes they seek.

I was impressed by how intentionally these pieces are being put in place. The larger tech companies stand out in their efforts. Google, IBM and Microsoft have all introduced their own programming languages (Cirq; Qiskit, and Q#, respectively), making it easier for developers to write code for quantum hardware. They have also led efforts to build community among key stakeholders, such as startups who are building a given slice of the quantum stack, customers who are interested in developing use-cases, and university researchers looking to conduct new experiments. Microsoft does so through its Quantum Network; IBM through its Q Network, which boasts over 80,000 users.

I even had a chance to play a Minecraft inspired Quantum Computing game, developed to help students and professionals better understand how Quantum Computing works. Part of a larger gaming effort to get folks interested in this space, and encourage a new generation of students to take up degrees quantum computing.

5. Quantum Computing is diversity-challenged.

We know that technology has a diversity problem. The field of Quantum Computing seems to be no exception. I was struck by the fact that about 90% of the speakers were male. So were most of my fellow conference-goers. The “Global South” was missing as well. The scene seemed to be made up of the usual suspects in tech: the US, Europe, and a few “tech forward” countries in Asia.

I was heartened to see some positive moves to address this imbalance at Q2B. Such as male speakers referring to scientists as “she” when presenting. And inviting a female to moderate the conference’s closing panel. As a first-generation American I inquired about – and was extended – a 50% discount on the ticketed price. A generous gesture from Q2B’s organizing team.

I don’t have an answer to this challenge, I was just struck by it over my time there. One step could be to publicize scholarships for underrepresented communities, a path taken by the organizers of MIT’s upcoming EmTech AI conference. Beyond this, of course, we need to address the root causes of this disparity. Work advanced through organizations that support women in STEM.

New technologies represent some of the best economic ladders our society has to offer, for both underrepresented communities, and underrepresented economies. If the future is to be Quantum, my hope is it will also be more reflective of the societies it will impact.

* * *

Q2B impressed me with how smoothly it ran, and how many different important players in the eco-system showed up to trade notes in a relaxed, friendly setting. I would go again.

If you’re interested to learn more about what transpired at the conference, or dig into some of the slides presented (especially with more technical content), I recommend checking out posts under the Twitter hashtag #Q2B19. And if you want to continue the conversation, come join us on Reddit over at r/quantumcomputing.

// As published on LinkedIn.

What Is The Nature Of Reality? How Quantum Computing + A.I. May Supercharge Our Search For Answers

December 2, 2019 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Quantum computing aims to harness the properties of quantum physics to solve real world problems. Its next job may be to help us understand reality itself.

Growing up, the idea of death frightened me. My coping strategy was to distract myself from it, or tell myself that I’d think about it later on in life. This worked fairly well. Minus the occasional night terror. Or that time when I found myself on the family couch, bear-hugging my mom in an existential panic (bless her heart). Today, this fear still crops up, but I’ve gained some new tools to deal with it. As my therapist tells me: feel your fear. And beneath it, often you’ll find another feeling. For me, underneath this fear lies excitement. And underneath this excitement, is for me, a question: What is reality? What is this thing I’ve been born into and, presumably, am so afraid of leaving behind?

As luck would have it, some very smart people have been investigating this question for a very long time. Physicists, in particular, have devised smart theories, many of them validated through ingenious scientific experiments, as to what the nature of our reality actually is. It’s what brought us “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” or Isaac Newton’s laws of motion. Or “a particle can be a wave, and a wave a particle,” or quantum physics as developed by luminaries such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. Discoveries that spawned new theories about the nature of our reality, such as that it: represents 4 out of 11 possible dimensions; is constantly splintering into copies of itself; or that it’s actually generated by our own consciousness (insert head explosion emoji).

Over the last 50 years, however, our understanding of “reality” – or the world around us as explained through fundamental physics – has slowed. While past discoveries enable many of the technologies we depend on today, the long-term, open-source nature of this research means few institutions have been willing to pony up the investment required to push this field along. Caltech physicist Sean Carrol thinks that today there are fewer than 100 physicists actively working on advancing our understanding of fundamental physics. Is this slower pace of discovery an accurate reflection of our curiosity for the world around us? Thankfully, another path is emerging.

Of the many challenges to testing new theories in fundamental physics, two big ones are time, and cost. The time required to design a test for theory. The cost required to build the experiment and run it. While many effective experiments can be done in the low-million dollar range, the ones that yield the most interesting results can cost much more. The Large Hadron Collider, for example, built to help us discover new particles, took decades to plan and cost a whopping $4.75 billion to build.

Simulations, however, offer a potential workaround. They’re quicker to set up, cheaper to build, and could potentially be as useful to researchers as experiments conducted in the “real” world. The challenge until now has been that our simulations have been – necessarily – basic. Accurately simulating interactions between atoms in matter as small as a molecule is computationally overwhelming, even for our most powerful supercomputers. Simply put, our simulations have not been able to mimic real world experiments. Enter Quantum Computing.

Quantum Computing is a fundamentally different approach to building a computer. At its core, the job of a computer is to process long strings of bits encoded as 0s and 1s. A classical computer (the ones we use today) processes these bits via billions of transistors embedded in a silicon chip. A quantum computer, on the other hand, relies on “quantum bits” – or the induced properties of subatomic particles. These “qubits” have the special property of being able to represent a 0, a 1, or any value in between – at the same time. Because of this feature, they eliminate some of the constraints of (binary) classical computing systems and enable enormous computational outputs in parallel.

Quantum computers may help us run the types of hyper-realistic physics simulations that up until now have been impossible, at a fraction of the cost of conducting those experiments “in real life.” In fact, the very act of building stable, useful quantum computers might give us new insights into quantum mechanics itself.

In addition to Quantum Computers, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may also have a role to play. Today, one common way of building AI is through layered neural networks which, through ingesting large amounts of data (say tagged photos of cats), use increasing levels of abstraction to develop an understanding of how this data “works.” Well, what if instead of making sense of cat photos, we asked this AI to make sense of unexplained natural phenomena, such as Dark Matter? Two physicists at MIT, Tailin Wu and Max Tegmark, have started doing just that. They’ve endowed a machine learning algorithm with four common analytical strategies employed by scientists, and asked it to make sense of increasingly realistic simulations of the physical world. Paired with a quantum computer, we can imagine a rich environment in which an AI might help us make sense of the world around us.

* * *

The rise of Artificial Intelligence comes with a long list of potential dangers. I’m especially wary of how AI can be paired with content to influence our behaviors. AI that – as historian Yuval Noah Harari puts it – “knows us better than we know ourselves.” As with any new technology, at their core Quantum Computers and Artificial Intelligence are tools, which we know from experience can be used just as easily to build, as they can to destroy. The ability for Quantum Computing and AI to help us make gains in areas that are important to us, such a developing better treatments for disease, making our cities less congested and modeling climate change will, I hope, set a clear example of the ways we want to apply these technologies, and a clearer contrast to the ways in which we don’t. And, in the process, maybe even shed light on a question that has sparked the curiosity of humanity for generations: what is the nature of reality?

// As published on LinkedIn.

Silver Tech and The Rise of the Longevity Economy

April 8, 2019 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Which consumers represent the biggest economic opportunity for today’s entrepreneurs? Is it “Generation Z,” just entering the workforce? Or perhaps Millennials, settling down to take care of young families? According to Joseph Coughlin’s latest book, The Longevity Economy, the answer lies elsewhere. Hint: they’re older than we might think.

First, some stats:

In the US 10,000 people turn 65 every day.
By 2035 the number of older people in the US will have grown from 46 million, today, to 78 million.
By 2035 people 65 and over will outnumber those 18 and under for the first time in US history.
By 2050 the worldwide proportion of those over 65 will have doubled from 8.5% today, to 16.7% (roughly the makeup of modern day Florida)

Okay, so the world is getting older. But do older consumers buy things? Again, some figures:

Consumers age 50+ control 83% of US household wealth
The average older adult spends $39K per year (about $10K more than their younger – age 30-44 – counterparts)
In 2015 spending by people 50+ came to $5.6 trillion (vs $4.9 trillion for those 50 and under)
By 2030, BCG estimates that the 55+ population will have been responsible for 50% of the US consumer spending growth since 2008.

It’s numbers like these, Coughlin argues, that makes the “longevity economy” (read: products for older people) foolish for entrepreneurs to ignore. Moreover, these consumers are under-served. Enter the market, and you’ll find competition that’s either missing the mark on what older people want, or simply missing in action. The reasons for this are twofold:

Systemic Bias: Behind many of our generation’s most successful tech products (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Twitter) often sit founders and engineers who are predominantly young and male. As such, he argues, it’s difficult for them to relate to the needs of older people and so they ignore them or, if they do pay attention, they design products based on shallow assumptions of what they want. (Remember: “I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Get Up“?).

Entrenched Narrative: The government and the private sector developed, and then perpetuated, a narrow view of what it means to be an older adult. In short: “needy and greedy.” Government programs such as FDR’s Social Security program – structured around peoples’ age rather than their abilities – solidified the notion that older people are not valuable economic actors (“needy”). Private sector companies, in turn, developed the highly lucrative concept of “golden years” – implying that meaning in old age is derived mainly from consumption, i.e. golf outings and cruise ship buffets (“greedy”). This messaging has created a one-dimensional view of being older, which implies that there are limited ways to serve the needs of older people – if they deserve to be served at all.

The truth, of course, is very different. According to a 2009 Pew poll, only 35% of people over 75 said they felt “old.” A growing number of people elect to “work into retirement” (a beautiful contradiction – and testament to how dysfunctional our narrative around aging has become). Eight out of nine older brains are unaffected by dementia or Alzheimer’s, with perfectly capable cognitive function. Not to mention that as you speak to older people, you find that they have many of the same aspirations that younger people do: to have a sense of purpose. To express oneself. To connect. To learn. And to contribute.

So how do entrepreneurs take advantage of this opportunity?

According to Coughlin, it starts with employing better methods to understand the underlying needs of older people.

One such method is walk-a-mile immersion. The MIT AgeLab has helped facilitate this by developing the AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System) suit. Designed with features such as tinted lenses, reduced range of motion, and trickier footing, it helps younger designers personally experience the physical changes one experiences when they’re older, and design accordingly. This is especially helpful for designing products such as cars or retail spaces, where physical restrictions are most at play. The best designs, Coughlin states, are “transcendent” – they meet the needs of older people so effectively that younger people covet them (e.g. the OXO line of kitchen products).

Another method is to design through a psychological framework, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. With its delineation of needs into escalating categories such as friendship, family, sexual intimacy, self-esteem, confidence, self-expression and spontaneity, it can serve as fodder for a new generation of products not typically associated with older people. Such as Stitch – a social network for adults 50 and over. Or a job matching site to enable older people to put their experience to good use as consultants. Herein lie some of the most interesting possibilities to develop a new class of products.

* * *

As the world ages, Coughlin argues, there’s an incredible opportunity to serve a new class of consumers and rewrite the narrative of growing older. That said, there’s also a risk that we stick with the status quo, and growing older is for many people something that’s dreaded, versus looked forward to. Worse, an older population shut out of the workforce – and thus forced to depend on a shrinking pool of younger people for its well-being – may create a conflict between generations. Evidence of which is already surfacing.

Inspired in part by Coughlin’s book, last weekend I attended the Aging Into The Future summit in LA, one of several age-related events now sprouting up across the country. From call-lines to help older people find connection, to stylish clothing that can be put on and worn even with people with disabilities – it’s clear to me that the drum beat for new products and services for older people is starting to be heard. As these products come into market, and we see older people showing up in society in profoundly novel ways, what an opportunity – I think– to redefine what it means to grow older into something more enriching, sustainable, and dare I say – fun.

// As published on LinkedIn.

Book Notes: “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel

March 21, 2019 by Nabil Leave a Comment

What valuable company is nobody building? It’s with this question that PayPal co-founder and Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel opens Zero to One, a book designed to give the rest of us a peek through the eyes of one of Silicon Valley’s more successful entrepreneurs.

Reading this book, I was curious to see what Thiel zeroes in on when building and investing in game-changing companies. Or in Thiel’s lingo, in companies that are making “vertical progress” (e.g. in a world of ever-faster type-writers, the company that’s first to develop a word processor).

The three themes that I heard most strongly in Thiel’s book were:

Aspire to build a monopoly
Great ideas are reserved for contrarian thinkers
Get ahead of misalignment in your company

If you have a different philosophy towards entrepreneurship, this book certainly offers a lot to pick apart. It can be overly generous in its maxims (e.g. “every startup should start with a very small market”), and Thiel’s staunch advocacy for monopolies certainly hasn’t aged well. That said, I appreciate that Thiel is willing to openly share a strong point of view. As he writes: “Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.”

My notes from the book below. If you prefer video, check out this fun visual summary here, and one of Thiel’s talks here.

* * *

Theme 1: Aspire To Build A Monopoly

Contrary to popular belief, in a capitalist system competition kills the ability for businesses to thrive. “Under perfect competition, in the long run no company makes an economic profit.” Instead, entrepreneurs should aspire to build companies that compete mainly against themselves.
Entrepreneurs build monopolies through several means. One is through doing something so well that “no other firm can offer a close substitute.” This often means a technology that provides value 10X above and beyond the existing alternatives. It can also do so through tapping network effects, economies of scale, and/or branding.
It’s a red flag when an entrepreneur’s strategy is predicated on capturing 1% of a $100 billion market. “In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it’s hard to ever reach that 1%.” Instead, launch said company with a small and focused market (“early adopter “in Lean Startup parlance). Requisite burn: “This is why successful network businesses rarely get started by MBA types: the initial markets are so small that they often don’t even appear to be business opportunities at all.” Ouch.
It’s often better to be the last mover: “that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits.”
Service businesses are hard to make into monopolies: competition is fierce, and scaling is hard.
The “Power Law” dictates that a certain set of employees, or market, will dominate growth and success (e.g. 20% of employees create 80% of the profits). The right strategy is to tap into those (versus hedging your bets).

Theme 2: Embrace Contrarian Thinking

When thinking about starting a company, ask yourself two questions: “What secrets is nature not telling you? What secrets are people not telling you?” Or put differently, what are people not allowed to say? What is taboo? Simply being contrarian is not enough. “The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.”
This method of questioning is hard is because our society, and especially our education system, rewards conformist thinking. It is structured around competitions that have little relationship with success and failure in the real word. It’s also hard because it requires a high tolerance for risk. “By definition, a secret hasn’t been vetted by the mainstream. If your goal is to never make a mistake in your life, you shouldn’t look for secrets.”
Our risk-averse approach to entrepreneurship is reflected more broadly on society. This wasn’t always the case. Our attitudes can be broken down into a matrix, that relates to how definitely we see the future, and what our general attitude is about it:

When America was in its economic prime, we solicited and embraced clear visions of the future, and worked practically to build it (“definite optimism”). Today, we’re optimistic but very indefinite about what the future will bring. Instead of making plans, we are happy to rearrange existing products (incrementalism), the capital structure of existing companies (banking), resolve legal disputes (law), and maximize efficiency from existing companies (consulting).

Theme 3: Get Ahead of Misalignment

When setting up your startup, it’s useful to have a clear perspective on three likely sources of misalignment: “Ownership: who legally owns a company’s equity? Possession: who actually runs the company on a day-to-day basis? Control: who formally governs the company’s affairs?”
To keep the board focused, keep it small. A board of three is ideal. A board should never exceed five people, unless the company is publicly held.
Take company culture seriously. At PayPal, Thiel wanted a culture that was tightly knit versus transactional. They had to be excited about working specifically for PayPal and the problems it was solving, not the benefits they offered.
Don’t underestimate sales. Often engineers look down on sales, because salespeople don’t seem to be building anything. “Like acting, sales works best when hidden.” Selling and delivering a product is at least as important as the product itself. See the failures of Cleantech.
Don’t underestimate the media: “Selling your company to the media is a necessary part of selling it to everyone else.”

* * *

// As published on LinkedIn.

Book Notes: My 5 Take-Aways from Sapiens

November 12, 2017 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Scenes from Goa, India

I recently completed Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, a book that tells the story of modern humans, from our inception in nature among other species, to present day. Three “revolutions” in human history (the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific revolutions) provide the organizing framework for this book, through which Harari weaves in topics ranging from biology, to faith, to psychology, economics, technology, and more in between.

With so much information packed into this tome of a book — recounted through great storytelling no less — to try and capture the main points of Sapiens would entail writing a short book of my own. Instead, here’s how reading this book has contributed to my understanding of the world around me.

Reading Sapiens has helped me to…

…develop an appreciation for our animal nature. From 2.5 million years ago — when modern humans appeared — to 70,000 years ago — when our species began to stand out through the development of “cultures” — there was very little to distinguish us from other animals on the planet. While with the advent of the Cognitive Revolution (more on that in a sec) we began to develop some tricks that eventually brought us to where we are today, in many ways and for many years our species existed as a profoundly unimportant mammal, competing for food somewhere in the middle of the food chain. There’s a certain humility to appreciating how “un-special” we were relative to the rest of nature, and also a wonderment to looking around and noting just how much this species we’re a part of has shaped the world in its image (a real-life “Planet of the Apes”).

…understand the power of myth. According to Harari, research has shown that human groups naturally top off in size at about 150 people. Beyond that, groups tend to fall apart as that many folks cannot intimately know one-another. Our ability to adopt “myths” — or imagined realities that exist only in our collective imagination — hacked this upper limit and allowed us to achieve the (previously) unimaginable: be it stand up corporations that build products with parts sourced from all over the world (e.g. a commercial airliner), or organize millions of people to live in and contribute to a single nation-state. That said these myths, powerful as they are, also drive us to create systems that are much larger than us, with consequences that seem proportionately overwhelming. What powerful myths are emerging today? And how has our myth-making raised the stakes on our ability to thrive and survive?

…appreciate the origins of modern religions. According to Harari, as we went from living among animals and plants, to breeding them for our benefit, our relationship to them went from one of equals (who communicated with one-another), to one of master and property (who did not). As such, a new form of religion emerged, in which a third party (God) mediated between us and our possessions, helping to ensure (or so we hoped) healthy livestock and a bountiful harvest. We see echoes of this in modern day, in offerings of money, gifts, and devotion to a higher being in exchange for personal blessings. We also see the way in which popular practices in older religions continue to play a role in modern ones. When Catholicism came to Ireland, for example, rather than dispensing of the existing pagan Godess “Brigit,” the Church instead Christianized her as “St. Brigit,” the form through which she continues to be revered to this day.

…grasp the cosmic significance of our genetic engineering. For four billion years, or as long as life existed on our planet, evolution has been driven by nature. 10,000 years ago, during the Agricultural Revolution, we began stepping into nature’s shoes through selectively breeding better livestock for the cull. That said, it’s only in the last few years that we have witnessed something entirely different: humans delving into the “source code” of another, and creating something that nature likely wouldn’t have produced on its own (i.e. a bio-fluorescent rabbit, or a mouse that grows a human ear on its back). For the first time, a creature has stepped into the seat of “creator,” and is beginning to design how life unfolds as we know it. A milestone on a truly cosmic scale.

…and to have some humility for how we will be perceived by future humans. It’s so easy for me to label as ignorant the millennia of human beings that have come before us; to cast aspersions on their unsophisticated ways — be it believing that the Sun revolves around the Earth, or trying a neighbor for witchcraft. And yet as Harari describes how we might evolve in the future — increasingly augmented by technology, designed for feeling a specific range of emotions, able to instantly access a collective consciousness — it’s hard not to ask: what will future Homo Sapiens, if we can still call them that — think of us? It’s easy to imagine them poo-pooing our limitations in the same way we might someone living in the 16th century (Worried about mortality? Dealing with depression? Need to physically move between places to experience them? Ha!). If, that is, they stop to think about us at all.

* * *

I think it’s noteworthy that Harari ends his vast recounting of the story of our species with ominous words. He writes (spoiler alert): “We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction. Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?”

For me, this book was a reckoning with the improbability of our story, and the degree to which, with all of our accomplishments, we seem to be hurtling towards an unknown that is bigger than any one of us. What does this mean for how I live the present day? I’m thankful to this book for leaving me with this question. If you have a chance to read it, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

// As published on Medium.

You can’t fire me, I quit! How I learned to go bald in my 20s

March 25, 2017 by Nabil Leave a Comment

I was 23 years old when I found myself stuck in the men’s room of a bar in Charlottesville Virginia, trying to get the timing of the door just right. Door closed, door opened. Door closed, last guy left and, finally with the bathroom to myself, I whipped out a pocket mirror, flipped it to the crown of my head and — there! With a quick swipe, I redistributed a few wispy strands of hair and my bald spot was once again… hidden. Relief. Slowly I made my way out of the bathroom, and rejoined the party.

So how exactly did I go from being a fun-seeking college kid, to sneaking into bathrooms with a mirror?

In my early 20’s I realized I was losing my hair. While visiting my parents on college break, on a hunch I checked out the back of my head and saw the unthinkable: my bare scalp. Clear deforestation. WTF! My life has just begun. Just gaining the confidence to talk to women, just growing into my own. And before I had even gotten the ball rolling, my scalp was telling me (or so I thought) game over. In a flash, from young stud to old man, the halcyon years of my youth unceremoniously skipped over.

In the years that followed, I went from panic about my balding head, to a low-level anxiety. I tried all sorts of tricks to make my balding less obvious. I grew it out, thinking more hair might conceal it. I used “volumizing” shampoo and after-shower mousse to make it look thicker. I got special haircuts. I avoided the rain (wet hair was the enemy to my mop). I looked into meds and surgery (ultimately holding off because I didn’t like the side-effects). And so here I was, relegated to shuffling around follicles on my increasingly barren crown. Partying with a pocket mirror.

Today, about a decade later, I’ve given up the game of “hide the bald spot.” I choose to wear my hair as it is, balding crown and all. I buzz it down because I think it looks more kempt, but I’ve grown to accept the underlying condition. A couple things happened along the way to help me get here.

The first was the realization that I had a say in the matter. After years of trying to hide that I was going bald, I noticed that it took a lot of my energy. Energy I knew I could use for things that gave me (or others!) more pleasure than concealing a patch of skin on my head. The game I was playing was exhausting, and nobody was asking me to play it but me. I also like the idea of making the most of the cards you’re dealt (rather than wishing you had a different hand), and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to put that philosophy into practice.

The second is that, along the way, I was lucky to run across some men who inspired me to think differently about balding. There was the guy at my company gym — a charismatic fellow who took good care of his body — who joked, unprompted, about his hairline “running away from his face.” Or the bald co-founder of a startup I spent some time at who had an infectious sense of humor. And a beautiful wife — inside and out — to boot. In the larger picture of who these men were: gregarious, energetic, charming, I realized that their hairline was so… inconsequential. What if the same was true for me? As my fellow (bald) friend put it: “Ultimately, I just decided that my worth was measured more by my character than anything else and once I accepted that it was most empowering.”

This shift — from being fearful of balding to accepting it — has for me made all the difference in the world. It’s helped me worry about it a lot less. No doubt, I’m still conscious of my bald spot. What’s changed, though, is that I own it. I do have a cue-ball (on its way to a power donut!). To help me continue to own it, putting into practice a few new habits has also been helpful. For example:

I poke fun at my own balding head: at work, with friends, on dates. Being first to point it out — I realized — helps take the sting out of it.
I’ve gotten to know my bald spot: literally placing my hand on it, feeling it. Affirming that it’s part of my body, and accepting it the way it is.
I remind myself to practice gratitude: I may not have a full head of hair, but I do have a lot of other things to be grateful for, such as my health, and good friends and family.

* * *

So why was this journey so hard for me? Maybe it’s because I’m caught up in how I look. Or too hard on myself. That said, it’s also true that we live in a society that — when it comes to hair — delivers a loud and consistent message: keep it. Or else. From Rogaine commercials, to highway billboards for hair transplants, to an endless stream of panic-inducing web ads (google “men’s hair loss” if you dare) our media keeps hammering into us that if we men are losing our hair, we are somehow flawed. Not terribly surprising given our age-conscious culture, but not terribly helpful for those of us trying to grow into a balanced self.

To my fellow balding brothers — especially young men — who feel as frustrated as I did that afternoon in my parent’s house: know that you’ve got a full life ahead of you: of being smart, sexy, confident, whatever it is that you aspire to be. Your hair (or lack thereof) is as big a deal as you make it, no more. I started balding in my early 20’s and I’ve done just fine. And I’m no exception. And if you happen to be reading this in the bathroom stall of a bar, pocket mirror in hand, I encourage you to toss the mirror in the waste bin. Give yourself a pat on the back. And proudly reenter the world armed with a pickup line that only you can truly deliver:

// As published on Medium.

How I established a daily meditation practice. And made it stick.

March 7, 2017 by Nabil Leave a Comment

Meditation Log, Day 1: Can’t wait to meditate. Found a nice cushion, good spot in my room, I can see it now. Me 2.0 here I come! Oh and today’s session was so great. I feel so balanced and centered.
Day 2: Is it time to meditate again already? Huh, that snuck up pretty quick. I made it! Two days in a row!
Day 3: I’ll make up for it with an extra session this weekend.
Following week: Let’s not talk about.

If you’re anything like me, this song will sound familiar. Be it meditation, or any other long term habit I try to form, if it takes sustained effort, at some point (for me) it has a tendency to fall apart.

I sincerely wanted to keep a daily practice. When I meditated I noticed how much better I felt throughout the day. When I was feeling anxious or stuck, I wished I had stuck to my practice. And yet sooner or later the number of days I skipped grew larger than those on which I sat. Thinking a new angle might work, I dove into the meditation “deep end” and committed to a 10-day silent meditation retreat. If I can make it through this — I thought — a daily practice will be peanuts in comparison. Well, I did make it. And after the retreat I indeed managed to meditate daily. For less than a week. There goes that theory!

In March of 2016 I completed a roughly two year stint of meditating every day. With a few exceptions, my track record was close to 100%. As I reflect on how I (of all people) was able to establish a daily practice and make it stick, here are a few of my lessons learned

Designing A Practice That Sticks

My approach to meditating daily was essentially based on sheer will. When that continued to unravel, putting in place two elements did the trick:

1: Set an achievable goal (no matter what)

Eyes heavy, body spent from a full day of traipsing through the city: how am I going meditate today? Alarm buzzing, full day of travel followed by dinner with friends or family: when am I going to find the time? I often ran into such quandaries, all of which seemed to conspire to push meditation off my schedule. Knowing that moments like these would keep coming up, I asked myself: what is the minimum amount of time I can sit no matter what my day looks like. For me, the answer was 15 minutes. Whether I was sick, traveling, or it was New Year’s eve, no matter how busy I was, I knew that if it was indeed a priority, I could make room for a quarter-of-an-hour in my day. (Note: at this point I had been meditating — on and off — for a while. If I were just starting off, I may have set that time to something that felt like less of a haul — say 5 minutes).

2: Don’t “break the chain”

Now that I had an achievable daily goal, how was I going to stick to it? For some folks peer pressure works well (buddy system!). For others, some sort of punishment (20 bucks for every day skipped!). For me, the trick was positive reinforcement. The don’t-break-the-chain technique (as described by Jerry Seinfeld) works like this: Get a calendar (or print one off your device). Put it in a visible place (e.g. fridge, bedroom wall). Every day you complete your chosen task, mark it with a big X. The more days in a row you complete said task, the longer the “chain” of Xs will become. Don’t. Break. The Chain. After a few days, I grew proud of my unbroken chain. A couple of weeks in, and the disappointment I anticipated from breaking the chain outweighed my desire to skip that day. I was eager to keep the chain going. It worked! Thanks Jerry

Making It Work Day-to-Day

As my practice became more consistent, I began to run into some unexpected obstacles. To help keep my practice going, and get deeper into it, I learned some tips and tricks along the way. Among them:

Be scrappy

When on the road, I sometimes struggle to find a spot to meditate. Over time, I’ve learned how to make do with what’s available. Staying at a hotel or friend’s house and missing a cushion to sit on? I stack a couple of pillows and slide them under my butt (sorry friends). On a bus, plane, train, and no cushions or pillows nearby? I’ll grab a seat in a chair, keep my back straight (if I lean back I have a tendency to doze off), and I’ll go for it. Out and about with no private space to sit? Park benches and grassy areas can be great. I’ve noticed that when traveling through airports, some now have spaces for prayer or reflection. Score. And it’s a nice way to get out of a noisy terminal — double score.
The double-stack (left); meditation spaces-a-plenty, if you’re okay with being that oddball with their eyes closed (center, right)

The double-stack (left); meditation spaces-a-plenty, if you’re okay with being that oddball with their eyes closed (center, right)

Experiment with time of day

When first starting my daily practice, I found that evenings worked best for me (I had trouble getting motivated in the mornings). Today I’ve grown to prefer mornings: I find it easier to focus because my mind hasn’t yet fully “spun up” with all of the day’s thoughts. It kicks off my day with a nice sense of accomplishment. And it gives me a “touchstone” when I face a challenge that day. Maybe that’ll change in the future, and experimenting with when I practice has kept it feeling workable and fresh.

Noise can be a friend (and so can earplugs)

A dog barking. A car honking its horn. A conversation down the hall. Depending on the time and place, these sounds can be hard for me to escape, and can made it difficult for me to meditate. A teacher once shared that rather than fight such distractions, I could use them to help me. Just as challenging our muscles through lifting weights strengthens them, meditating in a noisy environment can help sharpen our focus. Today I try to welcome these sounds. That said, when I’m feeling particularly distracted, I’ll throw in some earplugs. I’ve found that playing some white noise on a speaker helps too

Use a timer

When meditating I often have a poor sense of time. Was that 10 minutes or 15? When I first began sitting I would find myself distracted by that question, especially if my sit fell on a busy day (and I really needed to get going once my time was up). Using a timer helped solve this problem. The basic smartphone app will do. I’ve enjoyed using a meditation timer (one of many on your app store) which gives me some added features: a 30 second “warm-up” to get in place before the time starts. A nice chime to ease me into and out of my sit. And a helpful log of my past sits.
So many bells

Do it with others

I always thought of meditation as a solo activity and, while 99% of my practice is by myself, I’ve been surprised at how practicing with others shifts me into a lower gear. Maybe it’s the “energy” of being in a group. Or just the shame of getting up and quitting before anyone else (I’m outta here!). Time and again I’ve found that group sits have upped my game (Meetup is a good resource for finding them). Also, when meditating in groups they’ve generally gone longer than what I was used to practicing on my own, which, painful as it was in the moment, made my daily 15 minute practice feel shorter and easier.

Some years ago, while working a project for a client in the Middle East, in the middle of the day my office would clear out. Where had people gone? One day one of the employees took me a few floors up and showed me: a large room, chairs pulled to the side, where employees would gather to conduct their afternoon prayers. How interesting, I thought, that there existed a place where, in a professional setting, taking time for self-reflection was built into the daily schedule (and into the office space!).

In the US some of the companies we work for (and public spaces we cross) are getting better at accommodating quiet reflection. That said, in my experience, to make it work no matter what we still often need to be scrappy. On the plus side, as I think back to the moments when I felt I had an excuse to skip a day — because the space wasn’t easily available, I was embarrassed to do it in front of a family member, I was dealing with a mosquito, or my ears were ringing from a night out on the city — it’s the moments where I pushed through that in retrospect most strengthened my practice. And sustained my commitment to it. An experience that has — incidentally — bled over to some new daily habits, such as curbing my sweet tooth or avoiding social media.

Today my practice continues to take work, and I’ve got my work cut out for me to stay focused when I sit, and continue to go deeper. In the meantime, flipping through my meditation log gives me a sense of accomplishment, and boost of encouragement to keep it going. Here’s to your practice doing the same for you.

Happy sit.

// As published on Medium.

So how do entrepreneurs take advantage of this opportunity?

Designing A Practice That Sticks

Making It Work Day-to-Day

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