Hello there, reader, and welcome to issue number.. checks notes.. three hundred and sixty seven of Kat’s Kable. 367! Wow. As we’re nearing the end of the year, it’s time to do some reflection and I’m filled mostly with gratitude for this newsletter as a guide for my curiosity and as a way to build my own community.

I’ve gotten quite confident over the past few months in the quality of stuff I’m sharing - so here goes another great list of ten widespread, deeply thought, and eclectic pieces of writing.

1. Sea of Crises (Grantland):

“A sumo wrestling tournament. A failed coup ending in seppuku. A search for a forgotten man. How one writer’s trip to Japan became a journey through oblivion.”

Do I need to say any more?

2. I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display (Ben Holmen’s blog):

This satisfied the nerd in me so much.

“TL,DR: I built the world’s most impractical 1000-pixel display and anyone in the world can draw on it”

3. What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life? (The Atlantic):

Very America-focused but pretty refreshing perspective from 2020 by Rhaina Cohen.

Their platonic partnership fits Godbeer’s description of how Americans viewed friendship centuries ago, that it “not only conferred personal happiness but also nurtured qualities that would radiate outward and transform society as a whole.” Though Tillotson and West’s relationship serves these broader purposes, they choose to be bound to each other primarily for the joy and support they personally receive. Tillotson thinks of her romantic partner as “the cherry on the cake.” She and West, she explained, “we’re the cake.”

4. Heart, again (Letter From the Desert):

Lovely piece by Chris Clarke about his relationship with his dog, Heart, and her health struggles. Touching.

5. Tom Cat (Longreads):

Jennifer Thuy Vi Nguyen writes about “duality, detachment, and life and death decisions.” She explores her relationship with her family, in particular her dad as well as her sister’s cat, Tom, who “excelled at being beautiful but failed at being healthy”.

6. Joyas Voladoras (The American Scholar):

Beautiful, beautiful essay by Brian Doyle about hummingbirds.

_So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must.

You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children._

7. Crazy is You or Me, Amplified (Buttonslives):

“My personal story of recovery from the brain disease model of mental illness.”

8. data-driven VC is over (State of the Future):

An interesting article that says that advent of AI deep research means venture capital is not about technical insights anymore, but about being contrarian, having wisdom and fundamentally, human.

This evolution doesn’t diminish human investors but rather clarifies their unique value: the courage to be wrong for the right reasons, the vision to see potential where data indicates risk, and the conviction to back founders whose ideas challenge conventional wisdom. As we enter this new era, perhaps the greatest irony is that AI research tools, designed to make us more data-driven, may ultimately elevate the most distinctly human aspects of investment decision-making to new levels of importance.

9. How China Out-Deployed Everyone in Robotics (Technicaly Speaking):

I love sharing posts written by my friends! Alysha writes about how China’s robotics leadership is a result of long-term and consistent state policy and prioritization, as well as securing manufacturing sovereignty. It reminds me of CATL: The Missed Empire and the Playbook for the Next Industrial VC which I shared in issue #358.

10. Why I Run (The Atlantic):

“I took up the sport to be like my father. I kept going because he stopped.”

I learned, through practice, how to stay calm under stress. There were some deeper lessons, too. To improve at running, you have to make yourself uncomfortable and push yourself to go at speeds that seem too fast. The same is true in a complicated job. Our minds create limits for us when we’re afraid of failure, not because it’s actually time to slow down or stop. Which has done more to shape my mind: running or work? I don’t know. But I do think that those two parts of my life are now deeply intertwined.