Living Between Time Zones

The math of nowhere

When people ask where I’m from, the honest answer is a timezone spreadsheet. Childhood in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, university in Russia, work stints in Switzerland, New York, and the US — and now Southeast Asia, where the wifi is fast and the coffee is strong.

What the road actually teaches

Async is a lifestyle before it’s a tool. When your team spans four time zones, you stop writing meetings and start writing documents. The teams that survive distance are the ones that write things down.

Jet lag is a product problem. Light exposure, meal timing, a hard rule about caffeine after 14 local — treat your body like a system with an SLA.

Every country is a user interview. Payment flows in Thailand, super-apps in China, crypto rails in Singapore — living somewhere for a month teaches you more than any market report.

The part nobody romanticizes

Loneliness compounds. The antidote isn’t more travel; it’s returning to the same places, the same coffee shops, the same people. Sixty-five countries, but my map has maybe ten gravity wells.

Build from anywhere — but belong somewhere.