One great rock show can change the world

I’ve never been particularly precious. I’m more of a spaghetti-at-the-wall type - enthusiastic, fast-moving, wildly optimistic. “Impossible” isn’t really in my vocabulary. “Delusional” is definitely in my vocabulary. But I’ve decided that’s a feature, not a bug.

Take the time I decided - on four days notice - to throw a lesbian punk rock concert at an indoor skate park in Bushwick. What could go wrong? (Answer: literally everything.)

Naturally, I kicked things off by walking straight into a turf war. The venue had a history of excluding “quad skaters” - exactly who I’d partnered with to draw a crowd. So I spent hours on the phone, mediating years-old tension in a corner of skate culture I hadn’t even known existed.

While smoothing over that drama, I was also trying to source and rig a generator so the band could play from the half pipe.

The whole thing should’ve fallen apart in ten different ways but the opposite happened. We sold out. Moonkissed, the band put on a career defining performance. The show was iconic & defiant. It even got a feature in The New York Times.

I came out of that night high on possibility - reminded by the idea that you could pull something off just by deciding you would.

So when I was introduced to Krish Shah in a group text a few months ago and he asked if I wanted to throw a robotics hackathon, I didn’t hesitate. It didn’t matter that I’d known next to nothing about robotics. Or that I’d never hosted a hackathon. I said yes. It was time to learn. Next thing I knew, I was ordering robot arms from China in the middle of a tariff spike, vibecoding our website, raising $15K in sponsorship, and balancing the needs of half a dozen collaborators - all while juggling my day job.

The hackathon was a hit. People flew in from across the country to build together. It never would’ve happened without an incredible team - shoutout to Krish and Krish Mehta, who had the vision and refused to let us give up.

While planning both the concert and the hackathon, I hit the same panic loop. I questioned everything - my timing, my judgment, why I insisted on doing this to myself. I turned to my wife: Should I keep going? Should I cut my losses?

Somehow both times, one small push at a time, I kept going - until fear/ anxiety gave way to momentum. It helps when you’ve got the right people in the trenches with you.

So when my friend Chris called not long after and said, “Let’s host an AI x Culture retreat this summer” I said yes without hesitation. Some people you’re just meant to build with. Chris is one of them for me.

And of course, three weeks out, it felt shaky. Costs crept up. Logistics were still unsettled. But Chris is the kind of partner who makes it easy to keep going in the face of fear. We trusted the vision and had faith in the potential.

Our retreat was a huge success. We brought 18 investors, founders, and technologists to Hudson for 24 hours of conversation and reflection. It became more than we planned - actually better than I could have imagined. And I already want to do it again.

Ultimately, the risk/reward dynamic is at the heart of every creative act and every big swing. It’s a tension between what might go wrong and what could go right. But if you trust your gut, lean on your partners, tinker, get really scrappy, compromise, stay open - and believe - you just might pull off some pretty epic shit.

And when you do? It’s electric.