Nathanael Yellis

15 years ago, I sat in a group of b-school students trying to explain to our skeptical professor that social media was useful. He wasn't just a curmudgeon: a successful entrepreneur (oil, business schools), he wasn't interested in fluff but in what actually works. We tried to talk about how views would lead to engagement which would lead to ... leads? The case was weak. We sounded like those social media mavens giving talks to your chambers of commerce through the late aughts and 2010s.

In January of 2022, I skied a new hill for the first time in at least ten years. Our home mountain, Sugarloaf, is a crown jewel of east coast skiing. For the first years we skied there, I was living in DC, and just getting ski days in was a feat. Since moving back to Massachusetts, skiing has been primarily about getting my kids into the sport. Staying at our home mountain, especially a great one, made sense. But then, I finally took advantage of our access to Loon Mountain, in New Hampshire, and skied a few day trips with some friends.

When a non-religious person hears the word testimony, they think about courtroom settings: the rat's testimony puts the capo away. When people like me hear it, the reaction is visceral. Testimony? I cringe. My physical discomfort comes from one of two scenarios, both from church events.

Since coming back from the time away, I've been noodling on some ideas. I think there might be two longer-form pieces in my drafts that will see the light of day, or at least the thin blue light of the internet. Writing them has been tough. It could be because I'm reading Raymond Carver and John Updike and they set a high bar, or, more charitably, that I'm trying to say something a little more complex than my usual. Either way, the drafts are beginning to linger.

History may not repeat, but it rhymes. It's not hard to see the echoes of the 1970s today: inflation, foreign wars, recalibrating political coalitions, one-term GOP presidents... there may be lessons to learn from what happened then to what might happen now.

This week has been a pretty busy one for me: I spent the week doing the normal consulting of my HubSpot customers and preparing my team to cover that work during my 30-day sabbatical, which starts today. It's part of the fairly cushy benefits you get when working for a software company: after five years of unlimited vacation, I'm granted a 30-day sabbatical.

Who can forget the invasion of Afghanistan in the months after 9/11 or the ignoble end to it in August 2021?

Whenever you see hockey-stick growth, you have to wonder why. In 2010, why did everything need to be a daily deals website? Why did every category suddenly need new luxury DTC brands? Why is everyone on Tiktok?