Jake LaCaze

This is my first blog/newsletter post in six months; and my last post was about why I haven't written much lately1, which feels so meta.

I've been silent on this newsletter for a while.

I'm not really in the prediction game, but 2026 got me feeling a little frisky.

I can't tell you if I reached most of my goals in 2025, for one simple reason: I forgot what goals I even made at the beginning of the year.

For much of my adult life, I’ve been focused on self improvement, a noble cause as I’ve had plenty to work on: awkwardness in social settings, emotional intelligence, communication of needs, and so on.

Are we living in a Multiverse?

In case you ain't heard, I'm writing a novel.

What if what frightened you could instead motivate you?

Hey there, Jake here.

Hey there, Jake here In this edition of the newsletter, we talk about when hoarding data goes wrong.

What to expect...

What to expect...

What to expect...

What to expect...

What to expect...

Are humans more than math?

What does the future hold for those who see themselves as landmen and little more?

The 21st century has seen America losing faith in institutions.

I’ll never understand how a ninety-nine cent pack of low-quality noodles became a gourmet experience in America.

I’m no idiot, but I wouldn’t call myself a remarkably intelligent person either.

I've been eating the hell out of these mandarins my wife got recently.

The worst professor I ever had was an economics professor.

Some creatives worry that having kids will distract them from their art.

On a long-enough timeline, none of this matters.

In business, growth is a hell of a drug. 21st-century American businesses must grow at all costs.

Not so long ago, getting a hold of someone was hard.

Too many of us love a good promise.

I haven’t historically thought of myself as a visual artist.

Curiosity is an underrated business asset.

Efficiency isn’t always the goal.

In American business, efficiency typically emphasizes two points: Do something as cheaply as possible.

In the movie T2 Trainspotting, Mark Renton tells Spud: You’re an addict!

Why do insecure people believe things they know not to be true?

How much is any one item worth?

Details are like salt.

Time was on Twitter’s side back in the network’s early days.

Business communication is broken.

What qualifies as creativity?

We’re on the fast track to THE END.

I recently finished listening to the audiobook version of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux.

If I were a single-issue voter in 2024, I’d vote solely on how I felt the presidential candidates would handle antitrust cases against Big Tech, not because I think tech antitrust is America’s greatest issue but because it’s one of the few issues we have…

So many of us love tech yet have fallen out of love with the companies which comprise the tech industry.

In a clip that starts a recent episode of the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, Sam Altman acknowledges generative AI’s Achilles’ heel: energy.

Economic growth is a hell of a drug.

21st-century living is complicated.

Writing by hand is the best.

Why is business so hard?

What will be your life’s sweetest dessert?

If there’s one thing I’ve come to value after the last 16 years full-time in the workforce, it’s simplicity.

My son is in his final year of reg-league baseball.