Lyla has a viral kickstarter. Sophia is running for NC Senate. This is Yenta: Jan/Feb 2024
Let's make some matches!
Y’all, you should know the drill. This is the newsletter where we highlight offbeat careers, maybe a hottie or two. We connect friends looking to hire/jobs/friends/apartments/roommates/projects/advice. And then I also do a few personal updates.
And, as always, this email is a reminder to go to the latest yenta thread and swap leads directly.
So, let’s meet a couple friends who took at least a few hard turns in their careers. A few big featured projects. The bulletin board items, and my own updates.
Project mini-spotlight: Lyla is a games designer
My friend Lyla is crowdfunding and self-publishing her first ever game: Jukebox: The Karaoke Musical Tabletop Roleplaying Game.
It’s already gone viral and blown past projections. She’s scrambling to find new stretch goals! She’s doing a reddit AMA. This is a success story!
Four days until the kickstarter ends — over 400% past the goal
Lyla and I grew up together! She used to be a SWE (and before that, developer advocate) at Google. Before that — Udacity(?). And before that: the peace corps. I hope to convince her to do a full scale profile soon. But for now — know that she quit the fancy land of being a SWE to learn to be a professional games designer. It’s really impressive. And she’s been blogging her journey at Jar of Eyes.
If you like games, karaoke, or musicals (or know a friend who does!) you should check out Jukebox, live on Kickstarter.
Here's a short blurb:
Jukebox: The Karaoke Musical Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a rules-lite, no-game-master required, roleplaying game for 3-4 players. Over three acts and four hours, you and your friends sing karaoke and create a musical story full of drama, passion, and spectacular showstoppers!
Jukebox is all about:
Singing big, dramatic karaoke songs, and for those songs to be pivotal moments in a musical story.
Creating a character-driven narrative where everyone gets complete, meaningful narrative arcs.
Collaborative storytelling where all players shine, regardless of singing ability or familiarity with roleplaying games.
✨Back Jukebox on Kickstarter!✨
Cool career spotlight: Meet Sophia!
Sophia is running for state senate. She’s had a fancy and fascinating career journey. To be clear, she is a mom with kids and not single. She’s looking for votes and donations!
Sophia is my friend. We’ve known each other for … a decade? Probably a longer. Via StartingBloc. She’s had quite a journey — and, to cut to the chase, she’s running for State Senate in North Carolina!
She recently had an interview with the local alt weekly about her campaign, why she’s running, and so on. It’s a good interview. Read it here.
So how did she get here? What was that weird and unique path? Well, I asked her. (Editing for concision and clarity)
I started in my career on the Obama campaign, but before that, I worked every summer for the PIRGs. I was one of those people on the street who said, "Hey, do you have a minute for the environment?" Every summer I would have some kind of crazy internship — whether it was the DNC or working on a campaign or you name it.
I guess my career now looks linear, but it never seemed that way.
I worked on the Obama campaign and inaugural committee doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I worked at the White House, and then in the Department of Labor doing a briefing book every day for the secretary. Then I went into the charter school world, into the belly of the beast and worked for Eva Moskowitz which was traumatizing for me, but taught me a lot about the kind of manager I wanted to be.
I then spent the rest of my career (or most of it) advocating for public schools and public school students. I worked at a Jewish nonprofit, running an education campaign, and then transforming the organization. And that was like a balagan, but a very good learning experience.
Okay, that sounds like a rocketship early career. What next?
Next, I went to work at the Future Project as their first movement director and then their COO. After that, I started my strategic planning consulting business and worked with early stage startups, tech incubators, massive foundations on anything and everything you can imagine.
During COVID, I went to Durham and the brought the business with me. I was the pro bono, COO of an organization on the board of called At The Well — supporting women's wellness. We were the Jewish voice in the wellness world and the wellness voice in the Jewish world. I've been supporting early stage women's health startups for the past five years as an investor and advisor and incubator.
Fancy! So — what now?
I helped found a company called Tend with my business partner Tamara Day, and that focused on the inner journey of the pregnancy and birth. And I've been very, very deeply concerned about the maternal health crisis that disproportionately affects black and brown people. I have spent the past three years dedicating myself to learning about that crisis, tackling that crisis, putting capital behind solving that crisis and have been working on building North Carolina's first black-owned birth center.
Damn. So — now she’s running!
I'm running for state senate so that we can take some of these learnings about how to improve our public schools and how to tackle the maternal health crisis and how to fix the racial wealth gap and how to put our money behind our values — and then really try to scale that.
Sophia, What’s the weirdest title you’ve had?
I think my weirdest title is Confidential Special Assistant, which is the title I had when I was a political appointee. Like, what does it mean? Is the job a secret?
Those seem like pretty hard to pin down roles/skills. What does it mean to be a strategic planning consultant? What do you do in that role, what skills do you use?
Oh my god, a great question. I didn't know what that meant either, and the reason I became one is because people started to ask me to do it. I didn’t say: “Everybody! I know so much now. I'm going to be a strategic planning consultant.”
So the answer is you use a lot of facilitation skills. That job is 90% facilitation and probably like 10% operationalization and synthesizing. Much of the job is listening, sorting that information, then read it back into concepts that people understand. It's highly relational, and then it's synthesizing really fast on the fly and translating it into plans.
You have to be able to be good at information recognition, relationship management, people management, facilitation, planning, budgeting, staffing, staff development. You have to be able to see the work chart in your brain.
You can check out her campaign here.
No really, perhaps the point of this entire email is to remind you to check out sahar.io/yentathread and swap leads.
Some featured opportunities:
Cayden Mak runs Convergence Magazine. He’s hiring an engagement editor. I’ve also known Cayden for years. He’s very, very, sharp and good-natured. Here’s the info:
I'm hiring in 2024! Our new Engagement Editor will lead reader experiences and subscriber growth in a critical moment for the publication. We’re looking for someone who is aligned with our analysis, excited about online community, and is savvy about the rapidly changing landscape of the contemporary internet.
Plus you get to work with me and our incredible Editorial Board all the time.
About Convergence Mag, in his words:
Convergence is a magazine for radical insights. We work with organizers and activists on the frontlines of today’s most pressing struggles to produce articles, videos and podcasts that sharpen our collective practice by lifting up stories from the grassroots and making space for reflection and study. We are led by a small staff team and an editorial board that guides our ongoing work; in 2024, we have a strong focus on how we might not just defeat MAGA but build long-term power for the Left.
Zachary Hill at the Office of American Possibilities is looking for a founding President for a new org they’re standing up:
I'm launching an initiative called the Promise Prize (an international youth changemakers' fellowship) and we're still searching for a Founding President. It's like a combination of the Thiel Fellowship, the TED Fellowship, and "Rise" from Schmidt Futures — with an emphasis on long-term, industry-leading mentorship. Know of anyone who might be especially awesome?
(Ping me and I’ll connect you)
Bulletin Board:
(As always, you can find the latest stuff here: sahar.io/yentathread)
ES is a great guy I endorse. He’s looking for an engineering manager job.
LP is the doyenne of Pittsburgh and on the hunt for even more friends. (And a new job that involves fewer zoom calls)
AS is recruiting people in the life sciences!
AG looking for a sublettor
SL runs a moving company in the NYC area! I’ve used them; can endorse!
JK looking for interesting people in western new york
NP has a mysterious plan and is looking for a lawyer to sign their name to something
MS looking for friends in Chicago
G asks: “I have a 22 yr old cousin looking to travel (ideally this summer, but flexible) with a group of ppl her age. Know of group trips?”
SW looking for new freelance writing clients
SH looking for a place to live in Crown Heights / Bed-Stuy.
Help her become my neighbor!
Anon looking to learn more about jobs in supply chain management.
I am not ready to officially hire a fundraising/comms person for Integrity Institute. But quite open to leads and advice.
and more people have signed up for the romanceform in a more discreet way
Find it all here — sahar.io/yentathread
Small life updates:
Living and new year resolutions:
It’s been a rough year. I’ve been running around so much that I haven’t had a chance to really enjoy or live life in the last (year? three years?). I’ve felt like I’ve been trapped in my apartment: working remotely is hard.
So now I’m affirmatively looking for ways to live better! And I think part of the answer likely looks like this:
Spending time with neighbor-friends
[Finding regular ways to] leave the apartment
Groups of friends. Community.
This is the most important one.
People who hang out, in a group, even when I’m not around. But I get to be part of it. A stable sense of social scene.
I fear I may have somewhat forgotten how to have fun outside of projects, games, and media. I’d like your help remembering. And maybe help with the above? I’m serious.
Writing:
I started posting in my other substack: growth and what comes next. It’s a place to collect my notes about growing up, and what wisdom I learned. And also my thoughts on the structure of internet platforms, integrity, etc. (see, it’s both about personal growth and user growth.)
Things I wrote on the other substack (subscribe!):
Why I like(d) twitter for news
Update: I think bluesky is just good enough to be a sort of methadone/replacement by now.
Some other small updates or writing:
But perhaps most importantly, October 7th happened.
It’s hard to talk about. And not really something I want to do here. But I’m quite proud of what I have written:
Some thoughts on today (Oct 7th)
The Other Sahars (Oct 13th)
You’re telling me my funeral is inconvenient for your activism (Oct 25th)
A left wing worth fighting for (on Israel) (Oct 25th)
Please read them.
Work (Integrity Institute)
It’s been intense! Growing. We’re starting strategic planning tomorrow, hiring a managing director soon, sorting through new hires. And now we need to figure out fundraising and revenue more urgently.
We keep doing great things. Recently, some members and fellows have really been stepping up to do things on their own, like writing these smart pieces in Tech Policy Press: The Unbearably High Cost of Cutting Trust & Safety Corners and Red Herrings to Watch For At the Senate’s Child Safety Hearing.
I think things might be coming together nicely. But it’s also quite stressful. I need to figure out how to create an organization that has me doing less managing, and more leading. And we need to figure out more funding. Can you help?
The end
Well, thank you! I hope you enjoyed this issue, and as always, please do reply to this email with your reactions, hotties you’d like to set up, jobs you’d like to hire people for, your grandmas secret recipes, or whatever else!