A friend in China recently asked me how to improve her English. She’d struggled with it for years as a student, labeled herself “bad at languages,” and now wanted to try again for her career. But she couldn’t sustain her efforts. I asked how she’d been studying. She said she bought grammar books, pronunciation guides, … Continue reading To learn anything, first unlearn school
Why we built TLDW
I’m excited to launch a side project I’ve been building with two friends: TLDW (Too long; didn’t watch), a tool that helps people learn from long YouTube videos. TLDW was inspired by my own pain points when learning from YouTube. Over the past year, I’ve noticed a shift in my content consumption habits, where I’ve been spending … Continue reading Why we built TLDW
Build for one: AI and the age of personal leverage
Not everything we build needs to scale. The cost of building is dropping fast. And for the first time, it’s normal to create things that only need to serve you.
Six lessons I learned from volunteering at the Computer History Museum
Recently, I started volunteering at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View as a docent (tour guide), where I guide visitors through tours covering the past 100 years in computer history. This has been one of my most intellectually fulfilling experiences, and here are the top lessons I learned.
Beyond the AI tutor: What AI can do for language learning
I've been an avid learner of foreign languages my whole life. It's not just what I do; it's who I am. Learning English as a girl took me from a small Chinese city to Harvard. While most people consider language learning tedious, I consider it an indulgence, a hobby. I collect words like Pokémon cards, … Continue reading Beyond the AI tutor: What AI can do for language learning
Why I’m not breastfeeding (and feeling awesome about it)
A week ago, I gave birth to my daughter Sonnet. When I was pregnant, I made the decision to avoid breastfeeding entirely and exclusively feed my baby formula milk from Day 1. Like, not "let's try breastfeeding and switch to formula if it doesn't work", but "I'm not going to produce a single drop of … Continue reading Why I’m not breastfeeding (and feeling awesome about it)
7 habits of highly effective cross-border collaborators
Let's face it; collaborating across time zones sucks. But if managed properly, it can also have enormous potential and benefits. How do we maximize the benefits and minimize the downsides? Here are 7 habits I distilled from my own experience.
Remote work sucks: Why I love going to the office
Personally, I'm a staunch supporter of going to the office 5 days a week, and doing away with remote work altogether. Here's why.
Why I’m not learning to code (and why tech needs more humanists)
I would like to challenge the assumption that "To be in tech, you need to know coding". Tech needs more humanists.
Why I don’t make long-term plans
I'm philosophically opposed to doing any long-term planning. Here's why, and what I think we should do instead.
Zara Zhang 