First Week at Network School.
Believe it or not, some crazy people in this world want to start their own city, religion, or even a country. One such guy is Balaji Srinivasan. He’s a tech billionaire (ofc) who decided to start Network School, a startup society that’s meant to be a community for people to fly in from all over the world to live together while they work on their startup, project, job or whatever, while meeting more techno-optimists like themselves in an environment where you can lock in but also socialise with others along with eating clean food and working out everyday. It’s essentially a society meant to level up together, while you don’t have to take care of things that waste your time, like preparing the food, cleaning the dishes, laundry, etc.
So if you know me, basically my mecca. Exactly all the values I stand for. It was a no-brainer for me to sign up for this. And yes, here I am at Network School. (will call it ns or NS in the essay going forward) Right now, I am sitting down for a “Writing Club” event where a bunch of us have gathered to write and publish something in the next 2 hours, and I thought, this has to be the best time to talk about my first week here.
I am going to keep this essay structured to WHAT has happened in the last 7 days and not go deeper into everything I have learnt, people I have met, and ideas I have discussed since that deserves a whole dedicated essay.
Day 1
Landed at Changi Airport around 9:30 AM
Met others at the meeting point, casual introductions, and exchanged pleasantries
Bus to Forest City at 12 PM
Crossed immigration twice (Singapore exit, Malaysia entry)
Arrived at the hotel around 3 PM, checked in
Took part in the “Combine” test to check our baseline fitness metrics
Weight measuring (77kgs, 27.5% body fat)
25 pushups in one go.
2 pull-ups (record is 35)
33.5 grip strength (weak)
46 seconds one-leg balance with your eyes closed.
Bleep test: 9.4 (record is 13.4)
Orientation session on guidelines and how to get the most out of the month
Sleep by 8 PM (after a red-eye flight and 10km run on Sunday)
Day 2
Morning “Burn” session at 7 AM sharp — warm up, basic strength training exercises, mobility, cool down
Breakfast — Scrambled eggs, bread, and black coffee.
Em from “Principals You” (an organisation run by Ray Dalio) took a psychometric test for us to learn more about ourselves + social activities to meet others like us, AND others who are not like us.
Highly recommend everyone to take the test here.
Balaji’s opening talk about Network States and why he started Network School (same as his last year’s talk at NS conference 2024)
Got some deep work in at the co-working space.
Ate clean and healthy food and was in bed by 1030 PM.
Day 3
Another 7 AM “Burn” session, getting into rhythm now
Same breakfast again
Get ready and get down to work early morning
Work till lunch, go for a session on “This week in AI”
Tried Comedy Improv in the evening for the first time, already one of my highlights here.
Day 4
Did a 6K run instead of a burn session. Ran at a pace of 6:18, which is back to my original pace (pre-injury). Running with faster runners just does that to you. Ofc I finished last but was still great run. (Planning to run every Wednesday now.)
Same old breakfast, but this time I met some folks with whom I had some really mind-bending conversations ranging from transhumanism, AI, robotics, China, and Languages. This truly is what NS is all about, to be honest.
Attended a 5-hour-long vibecoding learnathon where I shipped my first app in production.
Came back and went to sleep on time, but my mind just wanted to improve my app, so I got up, vibecoded for another two hours to ship something useful for the NS community, and slept at 2 AM (fucked up my schedule)
Day 5
Got up late and missed the 7 AM burn session, but just in time to get a solo workout session in before breakfast.
Attended a “ZK for dummies” session, didn’t really understand too much because Chris (the speaker) went kinda deep into the math behind ZK
Worked a bunch and then joined the social mixer that the NS team had organised, really great icebreaker questions like
What’s one contrarion take you have?
What would your “one commandment” for your society be?
What is one thing you don’t see changing in the next 10 years?
and more
Got some more work done and then went to the room at 7 PM to rest, but somehow I was so tired from the week and had enough of a sleep debt that I just crashed at got up at 7 AM.
Day 6
Got another 7 AM burn session. Did not do a self-guided extra pump add-on because there was another “combine” session for those who missed it on day 1. Since I was tired from all the travelling on day 1, I wanted to do another combine to see how I can do when fully rested.
4 pull-ups (up from 2)
34.7 grip strength (up from 33.5)
9.4 bleep test (up from 8.6)
2 kgs weight loss + 0.3 lower fat %
Did an ice bath for recovery, which was way harder than I thought it would be cause the water was at 3 degrees plus the water keeps rotating because of the machine, unlike when you do it with ice.
Grabbed lunch and met some new people, walked around the island with them and went to the “mall” (it was meant to be a mall, but its just an empty lot), and also went to the forest city sales office where they have the entire floor plan and mock of the project that this island was supposed to be before it got abandonded midway.
In the evening, I learnt how to play “go”, if you don’t know, go is a mathematical game famous in China and considered one of the oldest board games in the world. I love NS for exactly this reason; there are so many people with so many interests that can teach you so much.
Day 7
Sundays, so no 7 AM burn session, but a friend of mine, Caroline, who is a new pilates instructor had organised a Pilates and Match event at 930AM. Participated in that and then had matcha for the first time. (It sucked, a waste of $4)
There was an 11 AM burn session that was again a recovery and stretching day. I think sunday stretch days need to be a part of my routine, even back home.
Played some cards and ping-pong with a bunch of folks, and planned a trip for the next weekend
And now, I am at the writing club, where I am getting this recap of my first week here done.
Day 7
Excited for what’s in store for Week 2, which I think will be a lot more structured and hopefully a lot more work and locking in will happen. I do want to write another essay where I can dive deeper into the kind of conversations and ideas that I have discussed in my week here, and also write down some concrete goals to get out of by the end of my month here.
I don’t know how to end this, but all I can feel right now is grateful. Grateful to be here, grateful to have a life that allowed me to be here, and grateful for this to exist.