2026 Nascent Neuroplasticity

This quarter I had a lot of fun and I felt like I grew in different dimensions as a person. Most notably, having to deal with Claude Code changing the way we work and opening myself up to more social activity.

The biggest two ideas that I thought about this quarter are:

• Focusing on neuroplasticity and adaptation as the most important skill in a fast-changing world where we constantly have to revisit previous assumptions.
• Opening myself up to more micro-opportunities or chances for unknown unknowns to happen, like meeting a new friend or partner.

Work

It’s pretty clear that the way we work is going through a transformation. Claude Code has democratized the fundamental units of intellectual work in our industry—the skill of writing basic code is no longer valuable. What remains? I guess what was previously known as soft skills: decision-making for what to work on (taste), connections, trust, branding, et cetera. These will be hard for AI to automate, and so it will be even more important to lean into those things. Organizational skills, research taste, and convinction are now even stronger levers for outperforming the market.

Badminton

As a way to get in weekly cardio and also learn something new, I started badminton lessons with Kenny Leung at the Synergy Badminton Academy next to my apartment in Menlo Park. There are interesting differences between badminton and tennis, and I like analyzing what causes those differences.

• Because the time between shots is a lot shorter for badminton, strokes are small, quick, and optimized for recovery. In tennis you can have a big stroke because there’s a lot more time between shots.
• Because shorter time between shots means that opponents have less time to recover from deceptive shots, deceptive movements are much more effective in badminton.
• Tennis it can be possible to hit a winner almost anywhere from the court, but in Badminton this is not possible because of the drag from the birdie caps the max speed that the birdie can travel.
• Because recovery time is more important and power is neutralized by the drag of the birdie, the wrist and arms are used more because moving and recovering quickly is a lot more important in badminton, where as tennis you want to generating power by striking with your body rotation.

Some AI-related analogies that I had about the game:

• Just like other sports, your body time determines the best badminton play style. For example, against an older opponent, a good strategy is to tire them out. Against a taller opponent, direction changes are effective. The AI analogy is that the best trajectory depends on the capability of the policy model.
• Having a teacher helps a lot compared to trying to learn something by yourself. Imagine if I had to learn badminton just with the rules of the game and without anyone to play with, it would just be like trying to do RL on math with a random init. So often, SFT can help a huge amount.
• I enjoyed unlearning concepts from tennis and rewire my brain for badminton. This is analogous to how in AI, we have to unlearn things from a previous era in order to perform most effectively in the current era. This ties into neuroplasticity generally.

Amangiri

I went with a John, Linda, and a few other co-workers to Amangiri for three days. One of John’s friends hosted us at the grand villa. The first day, we got settled in, explored the grounds (gym was amazing), and had a nice dinner at the villa. The second day, we went for Via Ferrata, where there were great views. Then, we got lunch where we got drunk and shopped at the villa. After dinner, we had a fun time stargazing. The third day, we went to Broken Arrow Cave, and then went horseback riding in the afternoon, and played cards in the afternoon. On the last day, we went for a short climb on the canyon in the backyard of the villa.

The thing that makes Amangiri special is the landscape and the privacy. Obviously the amenities and service were top notch, and the way architecture disappears into the landscape makes it feel like you’re one with the environment. It was quite romantic.

Left, the pool at Amangiri with a Native American performance; middle, the villa at Amangiri; right, horseback riding.

Health

I started using Function Health pretty seriously, taking four blood tests.

I found out that at the beginning of the year, my cholesterol was incredibly high! It was almost unbelievable, so I retested, and indeed it was high. I felt like my lifestyle was already relatively healthy before so there wasn’t too much to change, but I asked ChatGPT and I made the following changes:

At first I didn’t believe the Feb 23 test result because it looked too good, but the March 09 test result confirms that it’s not a fluke. I didn’t stay consistent with the cardio as work and social life picked up so we’ll see when I retest whether the results hold or if I need to continue doing cardio.

Left, running with Shuchao after work at Meta; middle, getting a prenuvo scan; right, a hike at Stanford dish when Yi was visiting.

My running that I did in the first two months didn’t last long as I got busy, and for weightlifting I mostly maintained progress.

Adventures in the SF bay area

I continued to build up my acquired taste for the bay area via various short excursions not too far away.

• Hiking around the presidio with Kevin, Anna, and Megan was such an adventure.
• Devil’s slide is a very peaceful hike with a touch of American history.
• Ridge Trailhead offers a dual view of a sunset in the distance in addition to the eastern city view.
• Atef and Megan’s wedding was my first and I am so happy for them, they had such a cool wedding in SF city hall. Megan’s social ability really inspires me.

Going to these places with friends (or dates) are such great memories and a great way to lose myself in the nature.

Left, a hike in the presidio; middle, Ridge Trailhead; right, Devil’s slide.

Left, Megan’s wedding; middle, making dumplings at Megan’s for new years; right, hike in Presidio with Anna, Megan, and Kevin.

Social

I opened myself up to a lot more social activity. It was good for meeting people for dating and also just to have fun while I can when it’s relatively acceptable as someone younger than 30. I think the key here is making friends that are social and enable me to meet more people. Some fun events that I went to:

• Jack Morris’s welcome to SF party
• Steven’s birthday party: we snuck into a random undergrad party, and I became friends with Leo here
• Leo and took Kevin and I clubbing for the first time at Monroe
• Stanford match-making event: Nik pitched me and it wasn’t super lucrative but I met Stela and Michael and reconnected with Kritika!
• Party at Jerry’s and then karaoke after with Leo, Stela, Michael
• Karaoke at PP’s
• Fuhuihua and drinks at Trick Dog after
• Tug of war and then Stela’s birthday party at Stanford
• TJ reunion with Kritika and Nik

Left, dinner with Tengyu after he lost a bet to me about when AI would solve the hardest IMO problems; middle, at Linda’s room with Michelle, Megan, and Andrew; right,

Conclusions

Moving forward, I hope to expand my social circle more and work more intentionally on neuroplasticity.