Good morning, friends!

In February 2021, Simran Bhatia messaged me on Twitter introducing herself and offering to help me with The Profile. At the time, I wasn’t yet sure what I’d need help with, but I told her I would evaluate and take her up on the offer in the future.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and it was me who cold messaged Simran at 10:19 p.m.

I wrote, “Hope you’re doing so well! I haven’t forgotten about your message from last year, and I’m happy to say that I’m (finally) looking for someone to help me a little with The Profile in a research capacity.”

Would she be interested?

I knew she was the right person because she responded within the same minute I sent the message with a simple: “100%. When do I start?”

I hope this story serves as a reminder to take action and then leave a little room for serendipity: Send the DM, and let the universe take it from there.

In the last two months of working together, Simran’s role has evolved beyond just research. She recently wrote her first article for The Profile, and I’m really proud to share it with you guys today.

She interviewed Simone Jardim, an athlete often regarded as one of the best pickleball players of all time. (Below is a short excerpt, but you can check out the full Q&A here.)

And of course, I’d love it if you extend a warm welcome to Simran for joining The Profile family 🙂 You can find her on Twitter here.

—

If you think of the most successful athletes you’ve played against or coached across both tennis and pickleball, what common traits do they share?

JARDIM: They hate losing more than they like winning. Defeat is unacceptable. Although inevitable, it is unacceptable. When you step on the court, your mentality is that no matter who you play against, you believe that you can win. It’s something unique. Not everybody has that mentality because a lot of people don’t believe that they can beat somebody potentially more talented than them.

Often, people focus so much on others than themselves. I think for somebody to be great at something, you have to look within. I’ve always tried to not compare myself to anybody. If I lose, there’s something better that I can do.

It’s about coming back home, training, doing something different, learning something new, and not being afraid to put myself out there and try again. The will to win goes hand in hand with that. Never believing that you’re done or that you’re defeated.

Read the Full Q&A Here

PROFILES.

— The box office king [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The PayPal co-founder waging war on credit cards
— The men whose photos are used for catfishing
— The VC firm that wants to conquer the globe
— The tech behemoth who wants to seize the skies

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The box office king: It’s been 13 years since James Cameron released Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time. Now, the director is back with a deeply personal sequel—and the reasonable expectation that it could be the biggest thing he’s done yet. Cameron asks, “What do two characters who are warriors, who take chances and have no fear, do when they have children and they still have the epic struggle?” Fascinating profile. (GQ)

“I like difficult. I’m attracted by difficult. Difficult is a fucking magnet for me. I go straight to difficult.”

The PayPal co-founder waging war on credit cards: Max Levchin is a billionaire who founded fintech startup Affirm, which uses a “buy now pay later” model to allow consumers to finance their online purchases. Levchin says Affirm’s machine learning algorithms will prevent overly risky loans. In this longform Q&A, Levchin talks about the drawbacks of credit cards and how they are increasingly intertwined with the technologies and ideologies of Silicon Valley. (WIRED)

“We offer consumers this magical mix where you can borrow money but not feel like it’s an accelerating snowball.”

The men whose photos are used for catfishing: In 2014, James Scott Geras started to receive a flurry of Facebook messages from confused, mostly female strangers who thought that they knew him personally. A number of women were convinced that they were in an online, romantic relationship with Geras, despite the fact that he is openly gay and had never been in touch with any of them before. That’s because Geras is one of a small subset of men whose real photos are stolen from their social media accounts and used by con artists to lure in victims in romance scams. The women taken in by these schemes may be the primary targets, but the men whose images are used to lure them are the unseen collateral victims. (VICE)

“Beware of the perfect gentleman.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The VC firm that wants to conquer the globe: By the end of last year—a decade after Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, was founded—the firm was riding high with $55 billion in assets under management. That sum, massive by the standards of Silicon Valley venture capital firms, represented an accumulation of shares in startups and crypto tokens during the best time for tech investing since the dot-com boom. Nearly a year later, Andreessen Horowitz is navigating the worst market for tech since its founding. Now, the firm is looking beyond the venture business, taking steps to become a more versatile financial creature that can tap new pools of capital and weather changes in the startup funding climate. (Fortune; reply to this email if you can’t access this article)

“I admire that they take big swings; they really embody the cowboy capitalist ethos.”

The tech behemoth who wants to seize the skies: Amazon Air is Amazon’s air cargo delivery service, which operates a fleet of planes and plans to expand its services worldwide. The company has invested heavily in the business and continues to face challenges as it expands its reach. Amazon hopes that this venture will allow them to move goods faster than ever before and become an even bigger player in global logistics. But one question remains: Is it sustainable? (WIRED)

“You know how you become a millionaire in the air business? You start with a billion dollars.”

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