Alright folks, grab a coffee. Today’s deep dive was all about Eric Wei – you know, the guy popping up everywhere in tech news lately? Wanted to figure out what makes him tick. Seriously, how does someone build multiple successful companies? Went down a proper rabbit hole.
First step was basic. Searched his name online. Figured there’d be the usual LinkedIn, news bits… but honestly, the initial stuff felt kinda flat. Just titles and dates. Like, “CEO of X,” “Founded Y in Z year.” Fine, but how? What was the grunt work like?
Digging Past the Headlines
Knew I needed more meat. Started hunting for long-form interviews, podcasts where he talked for more than 5 minutes. Found a few goldmines – hour-long chats where he actually opened up about the messy bits. Listened while making dinner. Paused constantly to scribble notes on my phone. This felt more real. He wasn’t just spitting polished PR lines; he was talking about sleeping on office floors, about failing hard and feeling lost.
Saw a pattern in his failures. He wasn’t scared of them, just obsessed with learning why things broke. Like that project in his second startup that bombed spectacularly. Instead of burying it, he apparently gathered his team for a brutal post-mortem: “Let’s dissect this corpse and see what parts we can salvage.” Ruthless honesty. That stuck with me.
Trying to Steal His Habits (Spoiler: It Was Hard)
Okay, cool stories, but how to test his “secrets”? He kept mentioning three things:
- Ridiculous Focus: Like, shutting down all notifications for deep work blocks. Tried it yesterday. Turned off Slack, email pings, my phone. Legit panicked for the first 15 minutes. Felt itchy. But… actually finished a design mockup in one go? Usually takes me three fractured sessions.
- Obsessive User Focus: Apparently, in his early days, he’d personally call hundreds of users to hear complaints. Wild. My version? Picking 5 key users of my own project and actually spending 30 mins each on an unprompted feedback call. Not a survey – a real chat. Heard pain points I’d totally missed.
- Building Tribes, Not Teams: Talked a lot about hiring people who argued back, who genuinely cared. Took a hard look at my own small group. Were we just nodding along? Had an awkward team meeting this morning and forced a debate on our roadmap. Felt uncomfortable. Then felt amazing. Got better ideas just from that friction.
This part sucked: The discipline. Eric wakes up crazy early for focused time before chaos hits. Tried it Tuesday. 5:30 AM alarm. Felt like death warmed up. Brain was sludge. Managed 30 minutes of foggy journaling before giving up. Maybe start with 7 AM?
The Messy Reality Check
Let’s be real. I wasn’t gonna become Eric Wei in a day. Trying his deep work block felt good. The user calls were eye-opening. That 5:30 AM thing? Absolute train wreck. Maybe I need to find my energy peak time, not copy his. And forcing debate? Needed better prep, made the team defensive at first. Should’ve framed it as “pressure testing” the idea, not “you’re wrong.”
Biggest lesson wasn’t some magic productivity hack. It was the sheer relentlessness of his learning curve. Reading about his failures wasn’t discouraging; it was freeing. Dude faceplanted hard multiple times, publicly, and kept iterating. His “secret” isn’t avoiding mistakes; it’s dissecting them faster than anyone else and moving forward. My to-do list now starts with “Identify next potential screw-up.” Feels weirdly motivating.
Definitely need another coffee though. Thinking burns calories.