The Thing (Newletter) #1
Well shit, we're doing it!
incase you signed up and forgot (hi Dad), we're Madisen and Renee at The Thing.
There's a video (below) about what we're doing- but to be brief- we're a non-profit media company that is focusing on storytelling, community and events.
What to expect from us
we aim to post at 8am EST on Friday’s, but hey… we’re humans.
Sometimes other things take priorities. We’ll aim to update you weekly on the following items, but don’t be too surprised if we’re late, early, or you get the occasional Rick Roll or something.
In all seriousness, we value quality over quantity.
So we want to make sure we’re putting out our best content, crafted intentionally to add value, not noise to your inbox.
Our publish date of Friday is with the intention that our content is fun, engaging, and keeps you lively… even if/when you’re ready to log off for the weekend (you legend.)
Founders Blog
We have thoughts.. AND FEELINGS MATTER OF FACT.
And we’re learning.
Renee and Madisen will post some of their thoughts, share expertise (whatever that means) and findings. Sometimes we’ll write it together, sometimes separate, sometimes it’ll be a video, song, poem, photo.
Sometimes you won’t hear from us at all, because we’re not always the face of this project.
Madisen is excited to write about some of her findings in the ML space. She’s worked her entire career in the operations and community-building role. Taking stops in AI policy and governance, urban planning, the creator economy, open source world, and tech education. She’ll share some reflections there.
Renee is excited to write about learning in public, attention economy, psychology and tech and non-linear careers.
Building in Public Updates
We’re building a Thing. Yes, we’re embarking on the founder’s journey and there’s plenty to learn. We’ll share the week’s latest and greatest updates, highs and lows, and key pointers.
This plays into one of the overarching themes of our project in general, which is #1: transparency and #2: archiving, building a meta-repository that serves as a trading post and tells our ongoing story at the same time.
Community Cool Stuff
We want to share cool humans with you, and hope that our cool humans will contribute as guest posters as much as they’d like to.
We’ll leave space for this every week.
Special thanks
There's lots of people that are helping us "birth this baby". We want to acknowledge our friends/ inspiration/guides @
Austin Carson- SeedAI
Victor- Victors other vector
Nav - The perfectly cromulent swe
Zach Mueller- HF tech lead
Ellie- Y3ksystems
Ecosystem shenanigans (in human speak)
We’ve got a pulse on the ML industry (as much as one can) and we’ll share it with you.
Hopefully this section bridges the gap we’re trying to fill, so that a top ML engineer finds it interesting (or funny) and a non-tech person can understand it.
Something to make you smile, or cry, or…
We’ve talked about this before but like… where does anyone SOURCE good memes anywhere besides our friend networks and own weird minds?
A lil token from us to you.
Conscious consumption tips
If we’re asking you to look at a screen to view our content, we’re going to support you in making sure you do so consciously.
We’re in full support of you as a full human. Part of our project is to battle the unspoken forces that are sucking us into this ‘attention economy’ back and even though we’re currently bootstrapping, we’re determined to robinhood this sh** and BUY YOUR ATTENTION BACK.
We’ll educate you as we educate ourselves on how to battle digital overwhelm.
(in conjunction with @Josh Czuba)
If you've been sent this and you aren't feeling the vibe- please opt out/ unsub. No hard feelings, we don't want to clutter your inbox!
Ways to stay in touch
Join our Slack
Twitter and Linkedin
Tiktok and Youtube shorts (clips)
Email us @
hello@thething.co
Member discussion