Hello, I’m Sasha Podolsky

I build

• Building product (taking an idea → design → prioritizing -> coding). Completed! See iCantSpell, my first Chrome Extension

• Building an audience to distribute product and find users. Doing now via Twitter, this Notion document, etc

• Building product that has PMF for $$ for said users. Doing now via validating problems → shipping → iterating towards solving a problem users will pay for

• Run a reading community called BYOB (bring your own book) in Brooklyn, and co-working community called WFF (work from Friday). Message me if you’d like to join

I previously

• Product manager at Bardeen.ai

• Launched my own AI Chrome extension for contextual spelling the names of people and companies in G-mail called icantspell

• Product Manager and Engineer at Google and Instacart

I surf

• Surfing is the ultimate blend of things I care about in a sport: risk-taking, creativity, craft, persistence, beauty community.

• If you also are crazy and like to surf year round in New York City (yes you can surf here), follow me on Instagram to join the fun and I’ll invite you to the NYC surf group chat

I read

• Barbarian Days

• The Convenience Store Woman

• Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

• Novelist as a Vocation

I like

• Building
• software
• interior design
• systems (content generation, delegation etc)
• community

• Speaking Spanish

• House music (I curate from dozens of playlists and DJ’s on the web). Running playlist of last 1k songs I’ve found here updated daily using Soundizz, and SmarterPlaylists.

I think

• Humans underestimate their medium-term agency

• The user-experience of most software is still terrible

• The future of search will be the best information across medium (podcast, Youtube, text), and language

• AI is a tool. Like any tool (take a cutting board), it can be used very effectively for some things (cutting vegetables) and useless for others (making a bed).

• We are transitioning away from institutional credibility (nice college, FAANG company) to globally distributed community using Twitter, Podcasts, Youtube etc

• Cooking is improperly taught. We focus on recipes over techniques and foundation, i.e how to use a knife, how one cooking technique works, and the science of Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat etc. You should also buy a bench scraper (5$) if you want to cook better

• To learn a new language start with the pronunciation, not grammar and vocabulary; this way you build your language ‘sky scraper’ standing upright, and not lopsided, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa

• Dating apps make no economical sense

• In-person community is the best investment of your social energy

• Sasha.p.podolsky@gmail.com

• Twitter