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Software developer at a big library, cyclist, photographer, hiker, reader. Email: chris@improbable.org
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CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred for Deceiving Students and Hiding Loan Costs | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 4:52 PM

Newsroom | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an order against BloomTech and its CEO, Austen Allred, for deceiving students about the cost of loans and making false claims about graduates’ hiring rates. The CFPB found that BloomTech and Allred falsely told students the school’s “income share” agreement contracts were not loans, when in fact the agreements were loans carrying an average finance charge of around $4,000. BloomTech and Allred lured prospective enrollees with inflated promises of job-placement rates as high as 86 percent, when the company’s internal metrics showed placement rates closer to 50 percent and in some cases as low as 30 percent. The order permanently bans BloomTech from all consumer-lending activities and bans Allred from any student-lending activities for ten years. The CFPB is also ordering BloomTech and Allred to cease collecting payments on income share loans for graduates who did not have a qualifying job, eliminate finance changes for certain agreements, and allow students the option to withdraw without penalty. BloomTech and Allred must also pay over $164,000 in civil penalties, which will be deposited in the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

“BloomTech and its CEO sought to drive students toward income share loans that were marketed as risk-free, but in fact carried significant finance charges and many of the same risks as other credit products,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “Today’s action underscores our increased focus on investigating individual executives and, when appropriate, charging them with breaking the law.”

BloomTech is a for-profit vocational school that is headquartered in San Francisco and owned primarily by Allred and various Silicon Valley venture-capital funds. Allred founded the company as the Lambda School in 2017, and rebranded it as BloomTech or the Bloom Institute of Technology in 2022.

BloomTech operates short-term, typically six-to-nine-month training programs in areas such as web development, data science, and backend engineering. Since 2017, BloomTech originated at least 11,000 income share loans, with most of BloomTech students funding their tuition with these loans. Under almost all these loans, students who earn more than $50,000 in a related field are required to pay BloomTech 17 percent of their pre-tax income each month until they make 24 payments or hit a “cap” of $30,000 in total payments.

The CFPB found that BloomTech students were lured with false promises and deceptive marketing. BloomTech and Allred:

  • Hid the cost and true nature of students’ debt: BloomTech falsely claimed its “income share” agreements were not loans, did not create debt, did not carry a finance charge, and were “risk free.” In fact, the agreements are loans with an average finance charge of $4,000. The loans carry substantial risk, as a single missed payment triggers a default and the remainder of the $30,000 “cap” becomes due immediately. BloomTech further hid the cost and nature of the “income share” loans by not disclosing key terms like the finance charge and annual percentage rate, as required by law.
  • Tricked prospective students with inflated job-placement rates: BloomTech advertised on its website that 71 to 86 percent of students were placed in jobs within six months of graduation, when its non-public reporting to investors consistently showed placement rates closer to 50 percent. Allred tweeted that the school achieved a 100 percent job-placement rate in one of its cohorts, and later acknowledged in a private message that the sample size was just one student.
  • Misrepresented their financial interests by selling loans to investors: BloomTech’s marketing represented that its own interests were aligned with students, through claims such as “We don’t get paid until you do,” and “Because we invest in you, instead of the other way around, we only make money when you do.” In fact, the company was selling many “income share” loans to investors and thus often got paid long before a student finished the program and started earning a salary.
  • Engaged in illegal contract practices: BloomTech violated a federal consumer protection known as the Holder Rule, by failing to include a required provision making any owner of the loan subject to the legal claims and defenses that students could assert against BloomTech. Students were therefore deprived of rights they should have had when their “income share” loan was sold to an investor.

Enforcement Action

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), the CFPB has the authority to take action against institutions violating consumer financial laws, including engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices. The CFPB found that BloomTech and Allred used deceptive statements and took unreasonable advantage of consumers’ reasonable reliance on BloomTech to act in their interests.

Under the CFPB’s order, BloomTech and Allred must:

  • Cease collecting payments on certain graduates: BloomTech must not collect any additional payments on “income share” loans for graduates who did not have a qualifying job in the past year.
  • Amends “income share” loan contracts: The order reforms “income share” loan terms to eliminate the finance charge for consumers who graduated the program more than 18 months ago and obtained a qualifying job making $70,000 or less.
  • Allow students to withdraw without penalty: Current students will have the option to withdraw from the program and cancel their “income share” loans or continue in the program with a third-party loan.
  • Pay over $164,000 in penalties: BloomTech will pay over $64,000 and Allred will pay $100,000 in penalties to the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

Read today’s order.

Consumers can also submit complaints about financial products or services by visiting the CFPB’s website or by calling (855) 411-CFPB (2372).

Employees of companies who they believe their company has violated federal consumer financial laws are encouraged to send information about what they know to whistleblower@cfpb.gov.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive. For more information, visit www.consumerfinance.gov.

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jepler
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> Allred tweeted that the school achieved a 100 percent job-placement rate in one of its cohorts, and later acknowledged in a private message that the sample size was just one student.
Earth, Sol system, Western spiral arm
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Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S. - The Washington Post
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 4:49 PM

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document.

In a classified addendum to Russia’s official — and public — “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States.

“We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states,” states the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a European intelligence service. “It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.”

The document for the first time provides official confirmation and codification of what many in the Moscow elite say has become a hybrid war against the West. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power.

Using much tougher and blunter language than the public foreign policy document, the secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony.” The document says the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order,” a clear indication that Moscow sees the result of its invasion as inextricably bound with its ability — and that of other authoritarian nations — to impose its will globally.

The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, which was published March 31, 2023, and approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, deploys bland diplomatic language to call for “the democratization of international relations,” “sovereign equality” and the strengthening of Russia’s position on the global stage. Though the Foreign Policy Concept also charges that the United States and “its satellites” have used the Ukraine conflict to escalate “a many-years-long anti-Russia policy,” it also states that “Russia does not consider itself an enemy of the West … and has no ill intentions toward it.”

Russia hopes the West will “realize the lack of any future in its confrontational policy and hegemonistic ambitions, and will accept the complicated realities of the multipolar world,” the public document states.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it did not comment “on the existence or nonexistence of internal ministry documents” and on the progress of work on them. “As we have stated several times on different levels, we can confirm the mood is to decisively combat the aggressive steps taken by the collective West as part of the hybrid war launched against Russia,” the ministry added.

Russia’s recent veto against extending U.N. monitoring of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program, effectively ending 14 years of cooperation, was “a clear sign” that the work contemplated in the classified addendum is already underway, said a leading Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats. The academic spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations in Moscow.

“Russia can create difficulties for the U.S. in many different regions of the world,” the academic said. “This is about the Middle East, northeast Asia, the African continent and even Latin America.”

The creation of the Foreign Policy Concept and the classified addendum followed a call to Russian academics for policy suggestions. One proposal submitted in February 2023 to the Foreign Ministry by the deputy head of Moscow’s Institute for the Commonwealth of Independent States, which maintains close ties to Russia’s security apparatus, laid out Russia’s options more bluntly still.

The academic, Vladimir Zharikhin, called for Russia to “continue to facilitate the coming to power of isolationist right-wing forces in America,” “enable the destabilization of Latin American countries and the rise to power of extremist forces on the far left and far right there,” as well as facilitate “the restoration of European countries’ sovereignty by supporting parties dissatisfied with economic pressure from the U.S.”

Other points in the policy proposal, which was also provided to The Post, suggested that Moscow stoke conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan to bring Russia and China closer together, as well as “to escalate the situation in the Middle East around Israel, Iran and Syria to distract the U.S. with the problems of this region.”

Zharikhin declined to discuss his proposal.

Western officials have warned that Russia has been escalating its propaganda and influence campaigns over the past two years as it seeks to undermine support for Ukraine. As part of that, it has sought to create a new global divide, with Russian propaganda efforts against the West resonating in many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

“I think the U.S. was convinced that the rest of the world — North and South — would support the U.S. in the conflict with Russia and it turned out that this was not true,” Zharikhin told The Post in an earlier interview. “This demonstrates the single polar world is over, and the U.S. doesn’t want to come to terms with this.”

For Mikhail Khodorkovsky — the longtime Putin critic who was once Russia’s richest man until a clash with the Kremlin landed him 10 years in prison — it is not surprising that Russia is seeking to do everything it can to undermine the United States. “For Putin, it is absolutely natural that he should try to create the maximum number of problems for the U.S.,” he said. “The task is to take the U.S. out of the game, and then destroy NATO. This doesn’t mean dissolving it, but to create the feeling among people that NATO isn’t defending them.”

The long congressional standoff on providing more weapons to Ukraine was only making it easier for Russia to challenge Washington’s global power, he said.

“The Americans consider that insofar as they are not directly participating in the war [in Ukraine], then any loss is not their loss,” Khodorkovsky said. “This is an absolute misunderstanding.”

A defeat for Ukraine, he said, “means that many will stop fearing challenging the U.S.” and the costs for the United States will only increase.

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Arizona Republicans again quash effort to repeal 1864 abortion ban
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 4:27 PM

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PHOENIX — For the second time in two weeks, Arizona Republican lawmakers rejected an attempt to repeal a near-total ban on abortion from 1864 that was upheld by the battleground state’s Supreme Court.

The move to again block the Democratic-led effort came amid mounting pressure on state Republicans to repeal the ban, including from former President Donald Trump and Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake.

Still, Democratic lawmakers have faced an uphill climb in repealing the ban, as Arizona Republicans hold a narrow two-seat majority in both legislative chambers. On Wednesday, only one Republican joined state House Democrats in their effort to repeal the abortion ban.

Moments into the highly anticipated state House legislative session on Wednesday, Democrats introduced a bill to repeal the Civil War-era ban and filed a motion to Republican House leaders requesting an immediate vote.

Under Arizona House rules, a majority of the chamber must vote to suspend the rules to hold an immediate vote and that majority must include the House Speaker. Republican House Speaker Ben Toma has repeatedly expressed his opposition to repealing the ban.

The vote failed, prompting Democrats to move again to force a vote, which also fell short.

"The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and reaffirmed by the Legislature several times," Toma said following the first vote to kill advancement of the ban.

"And I would ask everyone in this chamber to respect the fact that some of us believe that abortion is in fact the murder of children," he added.

Democratic Assistant House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos said that the chamber was simply "exercising its constitutional authority to adopt a temporary rule" for "us to take a vote on an incredibly important issue."

"This issue is very simple," he said. "Do we support or do we oppose an 1864 territorial abortion ban that includes no exceptions for rape and no exceptions for incest."

State Rep. Matt Gress, who previously told NBC News he was "very confident" a repeal bill would pass the state House Wednesday, was the lone Republican to join Democrats. Another Republican, Rep. David Cook, had signaled he supported a repeal, but told the Arizona Republic following the vote that suspending the chamber's rules wasn't the "right way" to do it.

The state House adjourned for a recess following the second vote. It remained unclear whether lawmakers would entertain further votes or debate regarding the ban later Wednesday.

The state Senate is scheduled to gavel in its own session later Wednesday afternoon. It remains possible that lawmakers in that chamber, where Republicans also hold a two-seat majority, could try to advance a bill to repeal the ban.

Wednesday's proceedings marked the latest chapter in the fight over abortion rights in the crucial battleground following the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling last week that allowed a Civil War-era law in Arizona to stand.

That law made abortion a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs one or helps a woman obtain one. The law — which was codified in 1901 and again in 1913, after Arizona gained statehood — outlaws abortion from the moment of conception but includes an exception to save the woman’s life.

Following that ruling, Republicans across Arizona and the country called on state legislators to repeal the ban as the party has continued to deal with blowback on the issue of reproductive rights in the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

The bombshell decision also added the swing state to the growing lists of places where abortion care is effectively banned — and set off an explosion of political activity. Democrats furiously undertook efforts to repeal the ban, while Republicans scrambled feverishly to offset the political fallout by discussing a series of possible contingencies.

Those options include pushing alternative ballot measures to compete with a proposed constitutional amendment to expand abortion rights in the state, according to a leaked strategy document circulated among Arizona Republicans obtained Monday by NBC News. 

The document made no mention of repealing the ban. Arizona House Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats during their session last Wednesday to repeal the ban.

There were no items on the state House's calendar on Wednesday that would allow lawmakers to debate those strategies on the chamber floor.

Wednesday's vote came in a packed chamber, while protesters on both sides of the abortion issue gathered outside the Capitol.

The post-Roe political landscape has put Republican lawmakers and candidates at every level of government on the defensive on where they stand on limiting abortion access.

Arizona has been no exception. Following last week's state Supreme Court's ruling, numerous Arizona Republicans who had previously celebrated the end of federal protections for the procedure sought political cover by distancing themselves from the decision, including Lake, as well as U.S. Reps. David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani. All three face tough races this fall.

Despite the failed repeal efforts, voters are likely to have the power this November to decide on the future of the ban themselves.

Abortion rights groups in the state are likely to succeed in their goal of putting a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would create a “fundamental right” to receive abortion care up until fetal viability, or about the 24th week of pregnancy.

If voters approved the ballot measure, it would effectively undo the 1864 ban that now remains law in the state. It would bar the state from restricting abortion care in situations where the health or life of the pregnant person is at risk after the point of viability, according to the treating health care professional.

Adam Edelman
Alex Tabet
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The Household Cost of Transportation: Is it Affordable? | Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 4:24 PM

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Transportation cost burden measures the percent of income a household spends on transportation. The cost of transportation, as well as the modes of transportation available and used, impact the total dollars that households spend on transportation. Transportation cost is a measure of transportation affordability. This analysis looks private and public transportation spending as a share of after-tax income, which best represents what a household has available to spend.

In 2022, transportation was the second largest household expenditure behind housing, accounting for 15% of average household spending. The cost burden of transportation fell hardest on households in the lowest fifth by household income. Income quintiles uses household income to divide households into five equal groups. The income range for each quintile is specific to the distribution of household income in each year. In 2022, the lowest income household had an annual before-tax income of less than roughly $25,000.1 In 2022, the household making less than $25,000 (the lowest income quintile) spent 30% of their after-tax income on transportation while those in the highest fifth by household income spent 12% (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Percent of After-tax Income Spent on Transportation by Income Quintile, 2001-2022

NOTE: In 2022, average after-tax income by income quintile: $16,337 (lowest income quintile), $39,300 (2nd income quintile), $63,676 (3rd income quintile), $99,891 (fourth income quintile), and $196,794 (highest income quintile).

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics calculations from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, Quintiles of Income Before Taxes table, available at https://www.bls.gov/cex/tables as of September 2023.

For more information and further breakouts of household spending on transportation, see the Bureau of Transportation Statistic’s (BTS) website on transportation cost burden Spending on Transportation by Income Quintile.

Households who own or lease a vehicle spend more of their income on transportation and that trend is most pronounced for low-income households.

With lower vehicle ownership, households in the lowest fifth by household income make fewer trips by personal vehicle. In 2022, those households owned the fewest number of vehicles on average (1.0 vehicle per household compared to 2.6 owned by households with an annual before-tax income over roughly $245,000) and a larger share did not own or lease a vehicle (30% of low-income households did not own or lease a vehicle in 2022 compared to only 3% of households with a before-tax income over roughly $245,000).

Transportation expenditures for households with at least one vehicle are much higher than for households with no vehicles. In 2022, households with income lower than $25,000 who owned at least one vehicle spent 38% of their after-tax income on transportation; while households with the same income who did not own or lease a vehicle spent 5% of their after-tax income on transportation (Figure 2). This trend was seen across household income groups.

Figure 2. Percent of After-tax Income Spent on Transportation Expenditure by Households with No Vehicle vs. Households with One or More Vehicles by Income Quintile

NOTE: No vehicle means households do not own or lease a vehicle.
SOURCE: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, available at www.bls.gov/cex as of September 2023.

For more information and further breakouts of household spending on transportation and vehicles owned, see the BTS’ website on transportation cost burden, Transportation Spending by Household Income and Vehicles Available.

Rural households spend more on transportation due to longer distances traveled but the difference is not statistically different from urban households.

Differences in costs due to density can be seen through spending differences between urban and rural areas. In all groups by household income except for the lowest and the second highest, households in rural areas have a higher transportation cost burden than households in urban areas (Figure 3). This follows from greater daily vehicle and person miles traveled in rural areas than in urban areas, despite nearly identical daily vehicle and person trips. In other words, rural households spend more due to the longer distances traveled. The differences in the share of after-tax income spent on transportation, are not statistically significant in any of the household income groups but the average vehicle miles traveled is statistically different between rural and urban households for all income groups, which implies the longer distances traveled do not translate into statistically significant larger transportation costs.

Figure 3. Percent of After-Tax Income Spent on Transportation (2022) and Average Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled (2017) by Urban vs. Rural

NOTE: Average daily travel is by household. Percent of income spent on transportation is by consumer unit. See https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/bpj8-8amm for household consumer unit definitions.
SOURCES: Spending on transportation: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, available at www.bls.gov/cex; Daily travel: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from National Household Travel Survey 2017, available at https://nhts.ornl.gov/downloads

In the lowest income group, households with an earner2 spent 36% of their after-tax income on transportation, whereas households with no earner spent a statistically significant, smaller share (25% of their after-tax income) on transportation. This is due to making fewer trips and traveling fewer miles per day than households with an earner. This trend is seen in all household income groups except for the second lowest group, but it is only statistically significant in the lowest and highest income groups.   

Figure 4. Percent of After-Tax Income Spent on Transportation (2021) and Average Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled (2017) by Households with Earners

NOTE: Average daily travel is by household. Percent of income spent on transportation is by consumer unit. See https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/bpj8-8amm for household consumer unit definitions.
SOURCES: Spending on transportation: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, available at www.bls.gov/cex; Daily travel: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from National Household Travel Survey 2017, available at https://nhts.ornl.gov/downloads

See Percent of Income Spent on Transportation for daily travel and percent of income spent on transportation for additional household types.

Many household types experienced a decrease in their transportation cost burden from 2019 to 2022; the largest drop was for married families in the lowest household income group with their oldest child between the ages of 6 and 17.

When looking at the data by family type, within the lowest household income group, single person households and married couple households with a child between 6 and 17 years old saw a statistically significant decrease in their after-tax transportation burden from 2019 to 2022 (Figure 5). Married couples with children between 6 and 17 years old saw the greatest drop in that time period falling 87 +/- 34 percentage points.

Figure 5. Share of Income Spent on Transportation in Past Four Years by Family Type in the Lowest Income Quintile

SOURCE: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, available at <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cex" rel="nofollow">www.bls.gov/cex</a> as of September 2023.

Households headed by a person retired from work have lower transportation cost burdens than households headed by a working person. In all but the second lowest income group, single person households, where the head of household is 65 or older, experienced statistically significant lower after-tax transportation cost burden and traveled less per day compared to other types of households that do not include a person 65 or older. In the lowest income group, only households with no persons 65 years and over experienced a statistically significant change in their after-tax transportation cost burden from 2019 to 2022 (9 percentage point decline) (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Share of Income Spent on Transportation in Past Four Years by Households with 65+ in the Lowest Income Quintile

SOURCE: Calculations by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics from U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey microdata, available at <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cex" rel="nofollow">www.bls.gov/cex</a> as of September 2023.

For more information on the composition of household income groups by select characteristics, percent of income spent on transportation and average daily travel categories by select characteristics,  and change in share of income spent on transportation by select characteristics, see the Bureau of Transportation Statistic’s website on transportation cost burden page, Transportation Expenditures by Selected Household Characteristics and Income Quintile.

1Less than $25,807.

2BLS defines an earner in their Consumer Expenditure Survey, as a consumer unit, 14 years or older, who reported having worked at least 1 week during the 12 months prior to the interview date.

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AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 4:01 PM

Citation Needed
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Embrace the weird by Matthew Haughey
Wednesday April 17th, 2024 at 3:50 PM

A Whole Lotta Nothing
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Embrace the weird

The other day I was complaining to a friend how I've been spinning my wheels lately, having trouble finding any projects or gigs I could work on.

He came back with a quick, short, smart response:

Who cares? Just make weird shit.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Over the past year I've told my spouse, my therapist, and my friends how I couldn't find any fun existing projects to work on, or worse, I'd find one but I couldn't figure out a way in. Everyone responded to me in a similar way: why not go make your own stuff you like?

I love a thought technology, and "Just Go Make Weird Shit" lit a fire under me. I rolled the phrase over and over in my head for days and lo and behold one idea and opportunity after another started coming my way soon after.

Maybe it's just another year of saying yes (or of saying no). But after I morphed the phrase into a mantra of "Embrace the Weird" everything suddenly got easier.

This week I'm working on three projects that I've never attempted before. One is a book proposal for a weird, niche topic that I love and I plan to self-publish it completely (more about that in a future post). Another is I started recording my first audiobook narration (something I've always wanted to try) and it's going well. Lastly, I'll be a guest on a podcast I've never heard about a subject I stopped following years ago.

Why? Because: why not do these things?

In my friend groups we often warn each other to be careful of what you're working on, because people will expect you to do those same things forever. We tell each other to focus on our end goals first, and backtrack to find a way to get there that checks all the boxes along the way.

For 2024, I'm going to embrace the weird. I'm saying yes to things I normally wouldn't when they don't fit in any existing boxes. I don't know where it will take me, but in the days since I've made the change, a lot of things have started to go right.

Embrace the weird

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