Being a dad in the age of AI
Welcome to Letters to Alfred.
A few years ago, I signed up for my most important job. One that I’m confident no AI can or will replace. I became a dad. We had one, and then two. At the same time, I left the startup I cofounded to build a business around my family.
Since then, I have been surviving day to day. Parenting, business, AI. Everything feels chaotic every day. But I want to do better. I want to thrive and not just survive. I’m writing to help me figure things out one by one.
How do I become a better dad?
How do I think about my kids’ future in the age of AI?
How can I build a business so that I can support my family and be present?
I write about my experiences and challenges as a hands-on dad working to build my business around my family, especially in this age of AI. These will be letters to myself but you are welcome to read them.
Every Friday, I send a long-ish essay, such as developing patience through bedtime and keeping sane through double HFMD.
For the rest of the week, I share my field notes on trying to be a better dad in this tech and AI world. It’s a daily reminder to work on our most important job. If daily emails are too much for you, you can turn this off here.
If you are new here
Hello! I’m Alfred Lua 赖勇德.
I’m currently the founder of Fernsage, a digital commonplace book app. Here’s my public commonplace book.
Previously, I was a cofounder of Pebblely (AI product photography) with my high school friend Lim Swee Kiat. We previously built Booplet (AI app builder), Vispunk (AI image editor and video generator), and Dashibase (Notion-like internal tool builder). On the side, I built Magic Blocks (AI content transformer), Alfie (AI editor for content marketers), and Augment Notes (spaced-repetition-inspired note-taking app).
Before founding a startup, I led marketing at ReferralCandy. Before that, I was a marketer at Buffer for six years (community, content, SEO, product marketing).
I’m also a father of two. I try to be as hands-on as possible but I’m still learning to juggle it all. My children are a big motivation for me wanting to write more (read: figure it out) and, hence, this Substack. Someday they might read these letters and I hope they will realize I haven’t always figured things out (but I try) and they will learn from my mistakes so that they don’t have to make them again.
