Hey there, welcome to the second season of the podcast, which starts today! You can find the full lineup in the announcement post.
Today’s guest is Daniel Vassallo, engineer & creator of the Small Bets community.
Daniel has had an incredible professional journey.
He has been a Software Engineer at AWS for 8+ years, and then he left to pursue all kinds of personal projects. This chat was a refreshing story about unconventional careers and how to pursue successful (side-)projects.
🎙️ Episode
You can watch the full episode on Youtube:
Or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, Overcast, or your podcast app of choice.
🏅 Interview Summary
If you are a 🔒 paid subscriber 🔒 from now on you will find my own summary of the interviews below.
It’s the 5-minute, handcrafted takeaways of what we talked about, with timestamps to the relevant video moments, for those who don’t have time to sit through the 1-hour chat.
Here is the agenda for today:
🪴 Daniel’s story — we walk through his time at AWS and his multiple projects afterwards
💰 Small bets vs all-in — how Daniel refined his unique, survivalist approach.
🏡 Lifestyle-first mindset — switching from seeking prestige and impact, to actually enjoying your life.
🗓️ How Daniel works — (not) working on a schedule, doing many things, and setting constraints.
🚀 How to get started — Daniel’s advice to start projects on the side.
Let’s dive in!