The Moth is an organization that hosts events made of real stories told live on stage. Every event has a different theme around which story tellers weave their narratives. They’re one of my favorite podcasts. I love listening to the well-crafted stories told by writers, artists, and regular folk.

The stories are about 15 minutes long with simple narrative arcs, but their messages are often complex. Some of the most memorable stories for me are:

I attended Chris Dixon’s Skillshare class “How to Raise Your First Round” earlier this week. It was my first time meeting the entrepreneur and investor. I learned a lot from his class. Here’s a summary.

I told my friends I wanted to run Ubuntu, a flavor of the Linux operating system, on my Macbook Air. But I was hesitant. When they asked why, I said I was worried about hardware-software compatibility and, on a more philosophical level, Steve Job’s death was too recent for me to tinker with a product he made to be a cohesive unit.

My friends dismissed my latter concern and said the installation should be a cakewalk.

The inner populist in me is heartened to see the Occupy Wall Street movement grow and even spread to other countries. It’s about time the penny-wise-pound-foolish policies of careerist politicians and hamstrung governments came back to bite them in the ass.

I received a strange email a few days ago from a man named John. He told me

I’ve always liked to write and decided a good way to share my writing was on a personal blog. Three years ago I registered a free WordPress blog with the url “davidxia.worpdress.com.” I decided the “wordpress” in my URL was lame so I Googled how to buy a domain name. I registered “davidxia.com” through GoDaddy and rented some hosting space. (Unfortunately I rented hosting space with GoDaddy because I didn’t know any better. I’ve since switched to Linode.)

Facebook timeline is bogus. There’s no way Andy Sparks could’ve gotten a girlfriend with that mullet.

Robert Zubrin, an American aerospace engineer and author, wrote the essay The Significance of the Martian Frontier. He argues that the technological and cultural advancements of “Western humanist civilization” were the result of a frontier – a wild and unknown territory of vast resources. The Greeks had the Mediterranean. The United States had the American West (never mind that the Native Americans were here long before).

James

I had the opportunity of meeting James the day he left his law firm to start a company. He’s one of the most affable, able, and ambitious people I know. He told me that he wants to “Go big or go home” and for him its closer to the truth than you might think.

James and I worked very closely for half a year. I’ve never had a peer with whom I had such a close working relationship. How close? I spent more nights at his apartment than his girlfriend and kept an extra toothbrush in his bathroom.

It was six months of engineering and entrepreneurial bootcamp. James and I traveled to Boulder, Colorado to check out the Techstars incubator program. We flew to Vancouver, Canada to roll out our beta in an effort to acquire travel bloggers as our core users. I remember landing in Vancouver the day the city’s hockey team, the Canucks, won the fifth game of the 2011 Stanley Cup. James and I waded through 100,000 drunk, loud Canadians running through the streets with outstretched palms motioning for high fives. (Being from Boston, the city of the opposing Bruins team, I feared for my life the day the Canucks lost the championship and Vancouverites set police cars on fire.)

I met Ben and Nan, two Berkeley computer science graduates, through James. I’m glad to have met such smart advisors and friends who are insightful, patient, and frank. Launching a startup is do-or-die. I needed colleagues whom I could count on to call it like they see it and, when necessary, respectfully say, “You’re doing it wrong. Do it this way.”

Ben

Ben taught me how to build scalable websites, use Vim, and understand Git. He helped me on implementing input box autocompletes to job hunting. He’s a great mentor and genuinely likes teaching. He once said, “Teaching you Vim makes me happy.”

Nan

Nan helped me see why certain services or business models worked. He explained why companies like Tumblr and Gilt Groupe were able to become successful. Tumblr became popular because it created a new type of content by being like Twitter on steroids and having great UI. Gilt took advantage of distressed luxury inventory during the last recession (which I think never really ended).

Even after Shoutbound ended, James, Ben, and Nan have been tremendously helpful. All of them helped me transition to my new position.