Thread by @jposhaughnessy

1/🚨New Colleague at Infinite Loops🚨

I'm delighted to introduce you to my newest colleague at Infinite Loops: Vatsal Kaushik (@antilibrary_vk) who, in addition to being an incredibly talented man, demonstrates the emerging power of the Digital World

2/ Time, Space and Geography are collapsing--Vatsal lives in Bangalore, India, but that no longer matters in the digital world.

We've already established an easy working relationship via text, emails and Zooms. Yesterday, I marveled this would have been impossible just a

3/ few years ago, but one of the positives of the global lockdown is it accelerated trends that might have taken years absent our need to adapte.

It's now clear to me that geography no longer matters--if you have access to high speed Internet,

4/ you can work with anyone, anywhere at anytime.

From my point of view as an employer, that means hundreds of millions of incredibly talented, creative and intelligent people just became available as potential colleagues.

5/ For talented people like Vatsal, it means the world's opportunity set just opened up a massive new set of potential careers where they can pursue roles and opportunities that geography denied them in the past.

The leverage inherent in this new world is stunning.

6/ And for all its faults, Twitter is emerging as the new scouting zone--like my colleague @InvestorAmnesia, I discovered Vatsal on Twitter.

He didn't want to wade through all of my GIFs (can you blame him?) to get to the threads I write,

https://twitter.com/antilibrary_vk/status/1164959690234593280

7/ so he created a master thread of my threads. I still use it to find threads I've written (insert "okay boomer.gif) but it made me start watching him and his posts.

He also created an online "antilibrary" filled with book recommendations, did threads on things that

8/ many people had difficulty in understanding, simplifying them and allowing others to more easily use the process.

He used Twitter as his "proof of work" and, in aggregate, it became his living resume that made me want to work with him.

9/ And he's already taught me a lot.

When offered a title, he replied "Why don't you just call me Mr. Meeseeks? (that he's a @RickandMorty fan was a big plus for me)

More seriously, he said "I find titles to be limiting. I'd work as effectively (or maybe even more) without

10/ a title. Once acquired, (many) people only (shallowly) try to game the metrics attached to that title and nothing more."

He wanted to create as many opportunities for me and himself and felt that could only be achieved with an organic expansion of his responsibilities.

11/ I see this as an example of his openminded, positive sum attitude that suggests baking more pies rather than fighting over some arbitrary "fixed" pie.

His mindset is one of expansion and discovery and he wanted to be able to use his many talents, not just a few, in the role

12/ This is the new world--if you're talented and motivated, the "Big Bang" just happened to your opportunities, as the chains of time and place have been shed. I think what's coming is spectacular, but you're worldview will determine how far you can go--think big.

13/ In the meantime, please join me in congratulating @antilibrary_vk on his new role and watch for lots of cool new improvements to Infinite Loops (and other projects we're working on.)

14/ Learn, Build, Share, Repeat, authentically, in public will take you places unexpected and maybe impossible under the constraints of the physical world.

To quote @patrick_oshag "The change and experimentation we are about to see is 🤯"