a leap year

as the team shouted over each other about product market fit and copyright infringement laws, he got the idea for their next app.

as the team shouted over each other about product market fit and copyright infringement laws, he got the idea for their next app. Lyrx would crawl the listening history of a targeted individual and generate messages tailored to illicit a positive emotional response from them.

but they found out that with a minor tweak, users were using Lyrx to output insults. this was made possible by uncovering a person’s insecurities through their music history. his team could limit this ability but instead chose to integrate it once they found out more active users were using their app for this purpose. “our app can be used for love or hate, empowering users to make a choice,” he would say in his pitch to investors.

that year, their company brought home eleven million dollars. that year, he took their three kids out of school to travel and see the world. that year, they got food poisoning eight times. that year, they became a real unit, and he learned about leadership from his wife sheila.

while they had a lot of adventures during the day. they seemed most close when they sat next to each other quietly on their phones in the evening. their devices would buzz in unison, their youngest noticed. that christmas, they all got blue light-blocking glasses, doing away with having to enforce screen time.

but putting phones away became important again once sheila got diagnosed with cancer. they abruptly halted their travels and returned home. that year, dinner time became sacred. that year, they prayed together before sleep. that year, they planted two hundred trees.

“beat cancer’s butt, mom”. it was tough not to be angry at the cancer, but she had so much to be grateful for. it were moments like this that she cherished so much. she held close her children, “the cancer loves me too. it just doesn’t have the nicest way to express it”.

they held off moving into their new house. the kids were happy to be reunited with their friends. for a little while, they had lots of stories to share, but slowly and gladly they became one with their peers again. that year, they learned the importance of returning to an equilibrium.

around the same time, their father would learn about a reversal to the mean. suddenly the nice-to-have novelty apps weren’t bringing the same amounts of money. but that was a welcomed change for him as he was already set on solving real problems.

as the team shouted over each other about the macro forces and lay offs, he got the idea for their next app. “Offset helps people measure their carbon footprint and provides them with solutions to offset it”, he felt more confident this time around. he was determined to write the code himself. he brought on a nimble team to help with integrations and partnerships. their beta testing was already getting them lots of positive press.

sheila started showing signs of improvement faster than any of the doctors expected. one doctor said it was a miracle. only then she confided in him that she believed karma from her past lives manifested her illness. he found it to be untrue but said nothing.

what made them a happy family was their ability to listen to one another with great impartiality. when he first told her about Lyrx she thought his talents could be put to better use but said nothing because she had faith in his ability to recognize it on his own.

they similarly held their children with high regard and trust. their three, soon joined by a fourth were to grow into adulthood with a deep sense of security and warmth as they felt genuinely seen in their family.