June 19 TiE Chai & AI + 8-20 AI Workshop + 8-21 BBQ + 8-27 Chat | AI Collective | AI Safety 8-27 + AI Deck Cub 8-28 + TiE Pitch | JC Walk 9-3 + NJFAST 9-8 + Rise of Rest 9-15 + Princeton Innovation, CoreWeave pod replays

Here’s a reminder that the JT+I website offers many resources for entrepreneurs and innovators; there is also a LinkedIn page, so please follow.

Entrepreneurial Support
Government/EDA/SIC Hubs
Capital Resources
University Innovation

Hope to see you soon!

Jim Barrood and the Jersey Tech + Innovation Team

*Good perspective, courtesy of Sahil Bloom:

Broadly defined, a side quest is any pursuit outside the main quests of your life.

I think most people have two main quests:

So, a side quest is really anything that exists outside of those:

Telos is an Ancient Greek word meaning purpose or goal. Telic activities are those done for a purpose or goal, while atelic activities are those done with no specific end in mind. Importantly, side quests are inherently atelic.

Or at least they begin that way.

They start with a simple spark of interest or curiosity. A pull that draws you in. They feel inherently nostalgic. Like a return to the youthful beginner’s mind. A new puzzle to solve. A rabbit hole to go down.

And while they may not seem important, they are. These side quests open your field of vision. You see new things. Expose yourself to new, unexpected stimuli. Inputs you didn’t plan. Ideas and people you’d never encounter.

None of that is inherently or immediately valuable, but a broader field of vision promotes an awareness of the doors that exist all around you.

Sometimes, the side quest reveals a door worth opening.

It certainly did for me, though perhaps not in the way I’d have guessed. The newsletter you’re reading is a byproduct of a side quest that became the main quest.

I had barely written before 2020. I took a creative writing class my last year of college as a credit filler. I had never published a single piece of writing. Frankly, I didn’t even know I liked writing. Stuck at home when the pandemic started, I drafted a short story to try to explain what was happening in financial markets to a few friends who had asked. It was fun. I enjoyed solving the puzzle. So, I did it again the following weekend. It was fun again, so I came back for more.

Fast forward to today and it would be easy for me to paint some lovely picture of a grand strategy behind all of this. A plan to leave the path I was on, start a newsletter, write a book, and become an author. But that doesn’t do justice to my lived reality.

I had been blind. I was going to blink, wake up in 40 years, and have spent my entire career in finance. It was all I knew and all I could see. My environment, my friendships, my entire life was built out around it. In my free time, I worked. When I hung out, it was with friends in finance, and we talked about, you guessed it, finance.

The side quest opened my eyes to a vast array of potential pathways available to me that had nothing to do with the one I was on.

It wasn’t grand strategy at all. It was just a simple side quest.

You need to become a beginner again. Join a run club. Learn the piano. Take up painting. Try woodworking. Plant a garden. Teach yourself to cook. Whatever. It slows you down. It’s a small atelic rebellion in a world that wants you to do everything with some purpose in mind.

You need a side quest. You need a puzzle that has no purpose at all. You need a new challenge.

Not because it will cascade into something life changing. Though it might. Not because it will unlock doors. Though it could.

But because it will open your eyes to a reality that’s been hiding in plain sight:

A reality that being subject to physical gravity is mandatory, but being trapped by life gravity is optional.