2025 Summer of TBD

7 minute read

Published: September 30, 2025

With a new job, moving to Menlo Park, and being recently single, this summer felt like the start of a new journey for me. It’s exciting because new journeys are where I feel like I grow the most.

Work

To address the elephant in the room: it was a big decision to leave OpenAI and join Meta. I think there were two main factors. First, although I really enjoyed the work and people on the health team at OpenAI, most of the people who I was really excited to work with when I joined OpenAI, like Barret and Liam, all had left to do new things. Second, Meta is a great opportunity to do something new and out of my comfort zone, and it made financial sense to diversify from OpenAI.

At Meta, it was interesting to see a new lab come together, and from what I saw, things were very smooth. The first month or so was a bit slow since the infra was not really working and we didn’t have any data, but work became busy once we had a lot of things in the pipeline. To focus on work, I haven’t been tweeting much, which is unfortunate because I think writing my ideas in public is one of the best feedback loops. But I hope to get back to it one day!

Life

Birthday party. I threw a joint birthday party with Jerry, and it was great to see all my friends come together. We had it at the FutureHouse event space with a speakeasy, which was an amazing venue. I think people had a lot of fun. Because it was a SF party, I brought Bryan Johnson’s blueprint Longevity powder and protein mix, and it turned out to be a huge hit! The fact that the event was so fun made me want to invite more people in the future.

Left, me with Jerry at the bar; middle, Blueprint drinks; right, with Hyung Won and John Ling.

AI race. With Liam and a few other friends, I did an “AI race”, which was a short relay race in addition to a one rep max bench press and a pull up competition. There is something so fun about a bunch of guys competing in various exercises, especially AI researchers!

Menlo Park. Moving to Menlo Park was a big change, just as I was settling into my life in Mission Bay. Although I used to always think I liked South Bay more, once I moved here I realized that I miss the energy of the city. However, Menlo Park is really good for focusing on work, and it’s a nice area and commute so I can’t really complain.

Left, AI race hosted at the Canyon; left middle, dinner with Mom at the Vasara rooftop; right middle, hanging out with Kevin and Yifei and Bedwell Bayfront Park; right, with Hyung Won at Meta.

Health

Septoplasty. I had a septoplasty with Dr. Johnson. The first few days of recovery were horrible! I had a headache and had to breathe through my mouth, which was extremely uncomfortable. Overall, I believe I feel a bit better typically, but not in a “game changer” sort of way. So I’m leaning positive on the procedure overall. In terms of actual measurable metrics, there did seem to be a positive improvement, though sometimes my right nostril is still a bit congested at the nasal valve (outer) area.

PNIF metrics before and after septoplasty.

Intermittent fasting. One thing I tried doing at Meta to improve productivity was to skip dinner. It was an easy choice to make because the dinner at Meta doesn’t taste very good and the lines are long. I need to get my blood checked at some point, but so far it seems that removing the additional burden of a dinner has really improved my productivity, and I tend to feel pretty good. I also started eating a lot healthier food, because the salad bar at Meta is pretty good.

Exercise. I did various exercises this quarter which was a lot of fun, but I didn’t go deep in any of them. I enjoyed working out at the gym at Lume, my new place, a few times with Tianfu, who taught me some more advanced exercises. I went to the Meta soccer with Megan and Shashank, which was fun but a little bit crowded and I feel like I need to level up my skills. I did some freestyle juggling practice and finally did an around the world! Finally, I went to a few times was beach volleyball at Stanford with Niklas, Rishi, and Kevin Yang which was fun even though I wasn’t as good as the people who really play.

Left, clean around the world; right, Jianzi at Baylands Nature Preserve with Jerry.

Thinking more about Chinese culture

The teams I was on are predominantly Chinese, and I began to develop an appreciation for the Chinese work culture. People really work hard and see work as a virtue, and don’t seem to pursue extracurricular activities or hobbies as much. I think this culture around work will enable Asia to be a big player this century.

I also started to spend a bit more time trying to learn Chinese, even though Alex Wang technically banned speaking Chinese inside TBD. One suggestion that Shuchao gave me was to watch Chinese TV shows that have subtitles. I watched two that I liked: 爱上特种兵 and 照亮你. I noticed a few patterns that perhaps subtly hint at differences in Chinese dating culture:

A macho guy (soldier/firefighter) and a sterotypical girl (reporter/doctor)
Someone telling the other person to fck off and never come again, but they end up dating (Liang Muze & Xia Chu, Xu Lai & Jin Shichuan, Lu Fangqi & Zang Qiu, Yu Shishi & Huo Yanzong)
A rich guy who secretly likes the female lead but doesn’t say his feelings (Zhuo Ran and Huo Yanzong)
Pressure from parents to get married soon
Having fake relationships for ulterior motives (Liang Muze & Xia Chu, Yu Shishi and Huo Yanzong)
Woman being very passionate about their career and independent
Some nationalism in the men (soldier + firefighting)
Characters don’t kiss until like 10 episodes in (c.f. Greys Anatomy when they hook up in the first episode)

Conclusions

Change is good and where growth comes from. I worry about being too influenced by South Bay and becoming antisocial, so I should make sure I stay in touch and go to SF frequently to meet my old friends. Somehow I started going to more parties and drinking occasionally (maybe once every week or two). This was probably a function of hanging out with John Ling more lol.

Left, with John Ling and Daisy; middle, Jerry’s housewarming party; right, Great Gatsby party with the cousins.