The Piano Lab

Romantic relationships seem pretty similar to startups, imo. There’s a journey of one’s ‘becoming’ and in that spiritual sense, relationships can represent the Earth in a cold universe. A place of life and nourishment, that fuels, nourishes and pushes you in a pretty symbiotic way. (I say symbiotic because I can’t rule out that the Earth has inherent colonizing ambitions, progressed through humans lol). People in a relationship are in a conspiracy to create a very specific little corner of the world, at the very least (even if sometimes the power to shape, is given away). Ironically this too is derived from another Silicon Valley archetype, Peter Thiel. Anyway. I came across a couple of things on the internet about startups, that I think also apply to relationships/love.

1. Treating a relationship/love as your life’s work – If you believe this love/relationship is helping you become you, there is a higher likelihood for you to put in the work in the harder times. Paul Graham said this in context of startups, but applies to romantic relationships (Not this tweet I think, but I can’t find the one that made me think of it). In my experience/perceptions, a lot of parents see their children as their lives’ work. Indira Nooyi’s famous letters to parents provides anecdotal pattern evidence of this.
2. Best kinds of relationships in my life (including friendships) are ones that’ve sees me kindly beyond who I’m able to be in a certain time/period. This includes both my potential, and also, importantly, what I’ve already shown I can be in different moments of time. As such, we’re always a superposition of various personalities, collapsing to one depending on surrounding. Bringing out different parts of people is a skill and one that can only be imparted via such a friendship/relationship, and being aware of it while it is happening – in that sense, such people, are actually very rare. The best people look out for us beyond the ‘relationship’. They think beyond the relationship. Brian Chesky also said it for mentors. I think Steve Jobs also commented about taking the long view on people once.

I think they both follow from doing things all the way in some way.