— GeistHaus

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Mar 6, 2026

<figure><img alt="A room with lots of records in it. And a very sick looking plant. I fucking suck at plants." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/a66c172b-2b23-41f3-8ca4-31426e170721.jpeg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> This week’s question comes to us from YuYu Schatz: I recently got my first record player. What records should I get? Congrats. I’m sorry. I tried to talk everyone out of buying vinyl not too long ago. It’s expensive. It’s a pain in the ass if you move. It takes up way too much space in your home. It warps in the heat. You’ll forget you already have something and buy it multiple times. People write about it when they’re trying to avoid writing about all the terrible things happening in the world. Worst of all, it introduces terrible people into your life: audiophiles. We covered all of these things. And yet, you did it anyway. Congrats. I’m sorry. Well, as long as you already bought all the equipment, it’d be a sin to see it going unused, so let’s go buy some records. Here’s the thing: I get really uncomfortable imposing my taste on others. Then again, I have most of the records I have because at some point someone handed me an unfamiliar record and said, “Here, listen to this.” And I’ve always appreciated that people were willing to share something they loved with others. Also, you asked. Still, the question remains, what records should you get. Which is not the same as deciding which records I would get, if say… I suddenly found myself living in a foreign land, far from the reaches of fascism, and starting over. What records would I immediately need to replace? What’s the starter set? Here’s the ten records I would immediately need to replace if I suddenly found myself living safely outside America, in a small apartment containing a really nice turntable, but no records. I’ll try to keep it somewhat eclectic. And again, these are cornerstones. Load bearing records, not deep cuts. And I’m listing them in the order they came to me. Chaos. Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime If I had to pick one record from my punk youth, it’s definitely this one. 45 songs, all very short, all very simple, but it’s got range like you wouldn’t believe. Punk, funk, jazz, spoken word. Topics ranging from Vietnam to Reaganomics to racism to class struggle to philosophy. I remember first listening to this record and it made me compile a reading list, that’s how amazing it is. And mind you, this came out in 1984, before you could get online and search for “how is Reagan’s policy in Central America destroying the inner cities of the United States.” This is the kind of record that sends you to the bookstore. This record is the answer to “how did you first become radicalized” for a lot of people my age. Also, the songs slap. Should you buy it? Probably not. It’s a record of a time, and for those of us whose little brains were forming at that time—it’s a cornerstone. In your younger life there will be a Double Nickels, but it won’t be Double Nickels. X, Los Angeles Ok, I can’t pick just one record from my punk youth. So we might as well get this one out of our system. Where the Minutemen taught you to think, X taught you to fuck. (So did The Cramps, by the way. In fact, maybe that line works better with The Cramps. X was what you put on after sex. After it had all gone wrong. When you were throwing someone’s clothes out of a third story window, or pawning someone’s guitar to pay for an abortion, or walking out of a thrift store wearing two coats under the coat you walked in with, or it was three in the morning and you were out of cigarettes. This is a long parenthetical.) Also, I remember seeing X on stage for the first time and they were just different from other bands of the time. Instead of raging with teen boy testosterone and rage they… they were cool. Suave. Like they had their shit together. Which of course, they didn’t. They were a mess, like the rest of us. Should you buy this record? Mmmmm, I wanna say maybe. But probably not. New Order, Movement This is a mourning record. And as far as I’m concerned it’s still a Joy Division record. New Order wasn’t New Order quite yet. They’d get there. But Movement is a wake. They’re still grieving. They’re not quite ready to let go yet. This record is the process of doing that. This is the record I put on when shit goes south, not because I want to keep feeling that way, but because I want to feel it, and I want to respect that I’m feeling it, and maybe I’m willing to sit and stew in it for a little bit, but also know that this is a bridge to be crossed. A bridge between something that has ended, and something new that you can only get to if you’re willing to cross over. Should you buy this record? You should probably get Power, Corruption, and Lies instead. Prince, 1999 If I suddenly found myself living safely outside America, in a small apartment containing a really nice turntable, but no records, I would very much hope that Erika was also there with me, which means we’d need some records that we both like, and this one would be on top of that list. This is my favorite Prince record, which is not the same as it being the best Prince record, because that’s not an argument I’m willing to have with anyone. I get to have my favorite, you get to have yours. The world continues revolving to a sexy funky beat. Also this list needed at least one Minneapolis record on it because fuck ICE. Should you buy this record? Absolutely. IDLES, Joy as an Act of Resistance This came out in 2018, but I don’t think I became aware of it until a full year after it was released. My daughter Chelsea, who’s amazing at recommending new music to me, did just that. I put it on and immediately loved it. Here’s what the IDLES are like. Imagine you’ve been living in the same place for twenty years. You genuinely like living there, and you especially enjoy the view out the window. You get to watch your neighbors walking by, you get to see the train zip through every fifteen minutes, you’ve got a good view of the dog park, and you’ve got afternoon sun. It’s everything you want. But then the landlord decides he’s gonna do a proper window washing, which hasn’t been done in twenty years. All of a sudden everything you already loved is sharper, clearer, and brighter. You can see farther, the sky is bluer, and you can see not just trees but the leaves on the trees. The IDLES are like that. Everything I’ve ever loved in a band, but that much more. My favorite record every year is whatever record The IDLES put out that year. Should you buy this record? Yes. Will you like it? Maybe not right away. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme Sixty-two years ago, on December 9, John Coltrane walked into Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. New Jersey is cold in December, so John Coltrane was probably wearing a winter coat. Most likely a hat. Possibly gloves. He probably took a moment, once inside, to warm himself up. Maybe he had some coffee. Maybe he sat on a couch with his eyes closed thinking of what he’d be doing that day. Maybe he wished he’d worn a different shirt. Maybe he said hello to the other musicians as they walked in. Maybe they were already there when he walked in. I’m guessing at these things. There may or may not be a record of what John Coltrane did before recording A Love Supreme. I haven’t seen or read it. Most of the small moments in our lives just happen. We wash the dishes. We walk to the store. We ride the bus. We burp a baby. Those moments get lost in time. But what John Coltrane did next… in one fucking session… on December 9, 1964… we have a record of that. The exact moment when John Coltrane spoke to God? Yes, we have a record of that. Should you buy this record? You should start a church based on this record. <a href="https://www.coltranechurch.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">You would not be the first</a>. Nina Simone Sings the Blues In 1969 the Harlem Cultural Festival put on a show at Mount Morris Park (which is now Marcus Garvey Park). Actually, they put on six shows. Six Summer Sundays in a row. I know this because Questlove made <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Soul?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a movie</a> about it. Summer of Soul. It’s great and if you haven’t seen it you definitely should. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Soul_(soundtrack)?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The soundtrack</a> is great too.) Questlove weaves the movie together like one amazing afternoon concert. Mahalia Jackson. Stevie Wonder. Sly & The Family Stone. Mavis Staples. So many more. And you’ll be watching this and thinking holy shit this is amazing music and every band is bringing it and the audience shots let you know this is 100% true. You are watching a moment that can only happen in that moment and in that place. (How come my white ass never heard about it until Questlove made a movie about it?) (See also Tulsa.) Every band on that stage is phenomenal. And then Nina Simone comes on, and she shows you that as amazing as everything you’ve already seen was, there was another level. Nina Simone was another level. By the time she is finished with Backlash Blues you are ready to flip a cop car and light the White House on fire. Should you buy this record? You should buy any record with Nina Simone’s name on it. Madonna, Like a Prayer At some point in 1989 I walked into 3rd Street Jazz in Philly, bypassing the main jazz floor because I was not ready to appreciate it yet, and walked down into the basement, where they kept shit for the weird white kids. And it smelled funny. Not weed funny. The whole neighborhood smelled like weed. The smell was more like one of those new-fangled soft nuns who brought an acoustic guitar to class to do Cat Stevens sing-alongs. The funny smell was coming from the new Madonna album on the back wall. Like a Prayer was infused with patchouli when it was first released. It took over every record store it was in. If Like a Prayer was in stock, you knew it. You smelled it. It was a genius marketing campaign. It is also her best album. When I was coming up with marketing ideas for my new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Die (and other stories)</a>, I briefly considered spraying it with patchouli as well, as an homage to Madonna. Erika told me she would rightfully murder me if I made the office smell like patchouli. Which is very fair. (By the way, sneaking a book promo into a review of something completely unrelated? Madonna taught me that.) Should you buy it? Absolutely. Although new copies don’t smell like patchouli anymore, which is a shame. Bowie Bowie, Low What do you do after defeating Nazis? (A question I am hoping will be relevant again soon.) During WW2 a larger portion of the world got hyperfocused on defeating Nazis, which was both hard and great. (Honestly, I bet it feels amazing. Let’s try it.) After doing so, which was exhausting, and took a lot of energy, the world decided that they were really happy the Nazi menace was over forever (In horror movies, this is the scene when you prematurely turn your back on the monster while the audience screams “Turn around! Turn around!”) and went back to everyone doing their own separate crimes. Except for Berlin, which sat there in pieces like a carved pie in a test kitchen that the world powers were using to speed run future wars on a city wide scale. Berlin was a mess, and into this mess walked David Bowie and his friend Iggy Pop, who very much wanted to do all the drugs and fuck everything that moved. Which they did. They also made Low. Should you buy it? Yes, and you should also buy Heroes, and you’ll probably like Heroes more. The Clash, London Calling I honestly tried to keep this record off this list. I mean, audience-wise, it’s kinda sorta covered by other albums already on the list. I kept thinking I should give this last slot to something more unexpected. Honestly, it’s a little cliché to add this album to a best albums list. But then you remember that clichés exist for a reason. There’s a reason expectations exist. There’s a reason bikes have brakes, and beds are soft, and tacos are great, and people love dogs, donuts are amazing, and The Card Cheat is the greatest song ever written. (Seriously, I have never heard The Card Cheat and not immediately lifted the needle, or hit rewind, and listened to it again. Doing it right now.) There’s an undeniability to this record. And because The Clash is The Clash, they followed up “the greatest record ever made” with Sandanista, which is somehow even better, and yet… people fight about this. Should you buy it? You should buy both. You can, and should, argue about everything on this list. (Except Nina.) Music is incredibly subjective and loving music even more so. I could answer this same question tomorrow and list out ten completely different records, and that list would be as right—or as wrong—as this one. And while I consider myself to be a pretty eclectic listener, that just means I’ve spread out a bit beyond my comfort zone. I have no idea what music is directly behind me. I don’t know what I don’t know. And by rule, you should get no more than 5% of your musical recommendations from a 58-year-old white guy, even one who thinks he has good taste. Our own biases will always pull us back toward the mean. Hopefully, you live somewhere where there’s a record store. Records should be bought in record stores. My final piece of advice is to always listen to what’s playing in the record store. And if you hear something that interests you ask the clerk what it is. If they roll their eyes at you, turn around and walk out. A place that doesn’t reward curiosity doesn’t deserve your dollar. But if their eyes light up? And they get excited because they’re about to share something they love with you? That’s when you know you’ve found a new home. <hr/>🙋 Got a question for me? Ask it! 💰 Enjoying the newsletter? <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Join the $2 Lunch Club</a>! 📓 Buy my new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Die (and other stories)</a>. Pre-orders are now shipping. And people are actually heisting mail trucks to get their hands on it! (Long story. <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/monteiro.bsky.social/post/3mgdxeskoyc2z?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Check Bluesky</a>.) 📣 If you are interviewing for jobs, or having trouble navigating stuff at work, I can actually help you with that. My workshop, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1984157517547?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a>, does exactly what it says on the tin. It’ll help you walk into a room like you belong there, because you do. Next one is March 19&20. 🍉 The ceasefire is a lie, <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gaza still needs our help</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans people need your love AND <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-start-a-record-collection" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">your money</a>.

How to eat pizza

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Apr 17, 2026

<figure><img alt="A photo of two books scissoring. The books are laying on a bed of pink styrofoam hearts." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/a8ee1ebd-b063-4f51-989a-ac4b638e3e45.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>I did a photo shoot with the new book and things quickly went south.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Michael Walsh: Can I eat the last slice of pizza in the box? This is the wrong question to be asking. The better question is “Am I hungry?” An even better follow-up question is “Am I the hungriest person here?” And, if you wanna get all Marxist about it (and trust that I do), an even better questions is “Who the fuck ate the other seven slices?” Pizza etiquette is a fucking war zone, so let’s get the easy shit out of the way: Are you the only person in the house? Eat the last slice. Are you the last person left awake? Eat the last slice. (Morning pizza is great, but anyone left awake on the day the pizza is ordered has first dibs.) Have you gone around and asked everyone if they want the last slice? Eat the last slice. Did you just help someone move? You can eat the last slice. (Tell the friend you helped to order more. Helping someone move means endless pizza.) Are you the only person in the kitchen during a party where the pizza was left unattended? Fuck it. Eat the last slice. Did you have an exceptionally shit day? Eat the last slice. Are you super fucking high? You should probably eat the last slice, and then see what else might be in the fridge. Is it a kid’s birthday party? No, you cannot eat the last slice. Is it an intervention for your friend Steve? No, you cannot eat the last slice. Are you at an exorcism? Last slice goes to Elijah. Are you treating your kid’s t-ball team to post-game pizza? No, you cannot take the last slice. As someone who’s hosted events and ordered pizza for people, I always appreciate when the pizza boxes are empty at the end of the night. Finding that last remaining slice in a box is a pain in the ass. I’m now thinking I should eat it just so it doesn’t go to waste. Sure, I could save it for tomorrow, but I’m trying to clean up. I’m in the zone. I’m ready to run these boxes down to the recycling bin (because me recycling four pizza boxes is definitely going to offset the carbon emissions from your “make the boobs bigger” Claude prompts) and now I’m stuck with this lone slice of pizza, which is both a problem and delicious. I will probably end up just eating it, which means I’ve eaten a slice of pizza I most definitely didn’t need, and will probably end up sleeping like shit. So if I invite you to something at my house, please just eat the last slice in the box. Speaking of events at my house, I used to be the guy who’d walk around and ask what kind of pizza people wanted. And because I know both meat-eaters and vegetarians, I’d usually end up with a couple of vegetarian pizzas, and a couple of pepperoni pizzas. And here’s where we go Stanford Prison Experiment. If you put both kinds of pizza out for people at least half the meat eaters will say “oh, that veg (they always say just “veg,” by the way, because saying “vegetarian” is too exhausting and they need to save their energy to, I dunno, hunt?) looks really good” and then taking a slice. Which meant that they were dipping into the resources of people who they knew wouldn’t dip into their pepperoni resources. Their pepperoni resources were safe from counterattack. I’m sure there’s a Marxist name for this, but I’ll just call it violence. This would usually end up with the vegetarians getting understandably upset for being shorted, and the meat-eaters using my bathroom in ways that guests should not. (We should do a newsletter about that soon.) I eventually solved this problem by ordering vegetarian pizza for everyone, and if meat-eaters complained I’d just say “but doesn’t the veg look really good?” Also, I just stopped inviting people over because Covid broke me. Let’s talk about crusts. Some people like pizza crusts. (I am one of them.) And let’s be clear, I’m talking about standard crusts that are just dough, they’re crispy, they’re wonderful. Not some suburban nightmare crust that’s been injected with cheese. (Seriously. Just order mozzarella sticks if you need more cheese.) But some people do not like pizza crusts. They will collect crusts on their plate like the spoils of war. Bones of vanquished enemies. And that is perfectly ok. What is not ok, is taking the crusts from someone’s plate and eating them, no matter how much you like crusts. In the privacy of your own home? Between partners and/or roommates? Sure, go nuts. But I was once in a social situation where someone reached over to someone else’s plate and just grabbed their crusts. Please do not do this. Yes, I’ve got some trauma around this. I was raised in a culture where your plate was everybody’s business. From making comments to how much or too little food was on it. To making comments about which things you seemed to be enjoying and which things you weren’t. (No one wants a carrot that’s been boiled for two hours, mom.) To being raised by a father who would toss whatever he didn’t want onto my mother’s plate like it was the bin. Yes, I admit to having trauma around this. But I’m a firm believer that everyone’s plate is their private space, and even the threat of entering someone’s plate airspace should be viewed as a breach of diplomacy, if not outright war. Also, my dog loves pizza crust. So we’re happy to let him have it. He’s eighteen. He gets to eat what he wants. Yes, I have strong pizza opinions. For reasons. I grew up in Philadelphia. A shitty slice from a Philly corner pizzeria will always soothe my heart more than a wood-fired pie at some fancy restaurant. And your fancy pie might be amazing, but that shitty slice is touching parts of my heart, and awakening memories of thousands of shitty slices that had to be folded to eat. When I was in high school there was a pizza parlor across the street. They made a great shitty slice. If I remember correctly a slice was two dollars. I think it was called Bruno’s. Google Maps tells me it’s still a pizza parlor, but the name has changed now. Bruno is long gone, and it’s quite possible that Bruno was gone way before I ever stepped into Bruno’s. It’s quite possible that everyone running the place just inherited the moniker. It’s cheaper to assume an identity than it is to get new signage. We were strictly prohibited from crossing the street and getting a slice during the school day. Which we of course did anyway. School pizza was not as good as Bruno’s. My last forbidden trip to Bruno’s happened during spring semester of senior year. A point at which everyone had long stopped caring about anything high school related, most especially rules that made zero sense. We walked in and ordered our slices, only to hear a voice from the farthest booth call out our names. Not Mike, but Mr. Monteiro, which was always a sign of trouble. Our principal had decided to set up shop at Bruno’s to bust us for going off-campus. He made us sit in the booth with him as our slices were delivered to our table. Slices he happily ate. It was here that we learned truth and power are very different things. Of all the foods, pizza is the closest to the human heart. Philadelphia has both the best pizza, and the biggest heart. I am being both metaphorical and literal. Every Philadelphia child has walked through a human heart. We have all walked through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute. We are knowledgeable about how it works. We’ve stepped through its valves. We’ve chased our friends through the ventricles. We’ve sharpied our initials in the vena cava. We’ve snuck sloppy kisses in the chambers of the heart. And because we know the ways of the heart, we are uniquely qualified to judge pizza as well. San Francisco, where I live now, has an uneasy relationship with pizza. I’ve heard it’s something in the water. We have great water, but we apparently don’t have great water for making pizza. And we have a tendency to upscale what doesn’t need to be upscaled. But catch me on a good Saturday, after an afternoon of playing Addams Family pinball, and I’ll stop for a slice at Escape from New York, which is pretty good pizza for San Francisco. It’s too crispy to fold. It’s never quite greasy enough. But if I close my eyes, I can almost make it work. Traveling back in time to neighborhoods that are long gone, shared with friends who are no longer here, eaten on nights that are long past, when we were all so much prettier, and the world was less awful. Eaten on the still-warm hoods of Chevy Novas. Coming home from punk shows in the basements of abandoned warehouses. Staring out into empty lots of West Philly and North Philly. Watching lightning bugs dance on sticky summer days. And washing it down with a bottle of RC Cola that still has a styrofoam wrapper around the bottle. Wiping pizza grease off our pants. Wondering who was going to eat the last slice. <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>! 📓 If you want more stories (with less typos!) my new book <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to die (and other stories)</a> will satisfy that craving! 💰 You can support this newsletter by joining the <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 Lunch Club</a>. 📣 Do you enjoy asking questions? Erika (who also likes pizza) is doing a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lets-do-design-research-right-tickets-1987575625199?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">research workshop</a> on April 30. You should go! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy pins</a> are back in stock! 🍉 Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide. Please donate to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans people are here. They’ve always been here. They’re amazing. And they could use our help. Please donate to <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-eat-pizza" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>.

How to love comics

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Mar 13, 2026

<figure><img alt="Captain America punching Hitler, by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/e148f2af-e094-4537-b81b-edf34d6c9c79.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Had to. (Wanted to.) Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Betsy Streeter: What is the most powerful artistic medium and why is it comics? Because it’s the most accessible. When I was a little kid growing up in the Logan section of Philadelphia there were two stops I’d make on my way home after school. First was the public library. It was a majestic red brick building with columns on the front. It looked important. And for me (and I assume for many other people) it was. Having a place where I felt welcomed was everything. (It still is.) And there were books. So many books. They let you borrow them! Libraries are fucking magical. But we’ve already written about the library. Today I want to write about the second stop, which at the time was called Mister Grocer. Mister Grocer was your standard grocery store, closer to a 7-11 than a corner bodega. It was a free-standing building and had a parking lot. It was WaWa for neighborhoods that WaWa avoided. (Real Philly will understand what I mean.) Mister Grocer was where you stopped for a drink (remember those little juices that came in plastic bottles shaped like barrels) (juice is a kindness in that description) (they were 80% sugar, 10% water, 5% Three Mile Island runoff, and 5% lead because in Pennsylvania everything contains at least 5% lead), candy, and comics. Mister Grocer had comics. The comic stand was one of those rotating wire things, next to the magazine rack. (I miss magazines. Yes, I know there are still magazines, but there aren’t magazines in the same way that there used to mean magazines) (no, I don’t mean porn) (I kinda mean porn) Anyway… the comics were in a rotating wire thing, and they were to the left of the front door where the high school kid working the counter could keep an eye on them. Amazingly, the counter was to the right of the front door. Which meant if you really wanted to steal a comic you had a greater than 50/50 chance (since the kid behind the counter had to either leap the counter or go around the corner to stop you and minimum wage makes athletes of no one) of making it through the door before you got stopped. Not that I ever stole a comic, but that was less about an ethical dilemma and more about being a fat kid. I would’ve gotten caught before I made it to the door. (Nothing in this paragraph advanced our narrative. Deal with it.) Comics were 25¢ when I started going to Mister Grocer after school. Which meant all I had to do to get a comic was to find a quarter somewhere. And quarters were kinda magical as a kid. They didn’t come around every day. But every few days you’d come across one in between the couch cushions, or just minding its business on the kitchen table, or left on the edge of the bathroom sink by my father as he prepared to go out for the evening. Quarters weren’t given. They appeared. And they quickly disappeared. Into my pocket. To be traded for a comic at Mister Grocer the next day. All of which were neatly stacked in the closet of the bedroom I shared with my brothers. In a box. With a pile of sweaters on top. Not because they weren’t allowed in the house, but because I was afraid that my parents would discover that I cared about something. Growing up, caring about something (or someone) made it a target of my parents violence. But that little stack of comics was an amazing escape from my young shitty life, which is why I guarded it so carefully. The Avengers. Spider-Man. Batman. Swamp Thing! Doctor Strange! Fantastic Four. Captain America. Howard the Duck absolutely fucked me up in ways that it took me years to understand. (This is a positive.) The Inhumans. And Jack Kirby, wtf? Jack Kirby made me want to draw like Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby made everyone want to draw like Jack Kirby. I spent so much time as a kid copying Jack Kirby artwork. Badly. I absolutely loved/hated/loved every minute of it. I was so bad at it. (I was nine years old.) But every failed attempt sucked a little bit less than the previous one. I’d spend hours just trying to draw Black Bolt’s wings. Medusa’s hair (ok, not just her hair). Lockjaw was fucking impossible. And I was terrible at it! Until I got, if not good, then serviceable at it. And there’s a feeling that washes over you as you do that. A feeling of… capability. Competence. Achievement. Or as Loki would say… glorious purpose! The idea that you can sit down and try to do something, fail a hundred times, and then get to a point where you realize you didn’t fail a hundred times, it just took a hundred steps to get there. And the journey was worth it cause the current feeling is pretty good. (Yes, this is about what AI is stealing from our children.) For a kid that had to find his own joy growing up, those moments were everything. Comics are the most powerful artistic medium because they’re the most accessible. Human beings love to tell stories, and human beings love to hear stories. Comics are the perfect vehicle for both. It’s easy to make a comic. Anyone with a piece of paper, or the inside of a shopping bag, or a piece of cardboard, and a pencil, or a crayon, or a marker, can make a comic. You don’t even have to be able to draw like Jack Kirby to do it. (None of us ever will.) And a comic is generally meant to be passed to another human being. To be shown. To be shared. They are communal. And everyone can make them. Comics are human-scale. Some of our greatest comics are made of <a href="https://xkcd.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">stick figures</a>. Some of our greatest comics are made from <a href="https://archive.org/details/getyourwaroncomi0000rees?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">recycled clip art</a>. And yes, some of them are very elaborate. But our attraction to comics tends to be more about the vibe than the execution. We like Garfield because we like Garfield. Not because Jim Davis is a particularly great artist. I mean, he’s absolutely fine. He’s a great storyteller. What draws us to Garfield is that in three panels we get a full story that resonates with us. Maybe not in a profound way (you need <a href="https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Garfield Minus Garfield</a> for that). But we enjoy these little vignettes into a lasagna-eating cat’s life. Human beings love being told a story. Especially a pocket-sized story that we can enjoy for a minute while reading the paper before we move on to the pocket-sized story below it. (God I miss reading comics in the paper. Especially on Sundays. It was a whole section. And it was the absolute best way to start a Sunday morning.) Movies and television—which I also love—are just comics going very very fast. One sequential image after another at a speed where the human brain grants them the power of movement. But at heart, they’re also comics. (Marvel proved as much.) In their soul, deep down in their soul, all artistic mediums are a way for me to tell you my story, and for you to tell me yours. We are engaging with one another. We are sharing a world that we’ve created and our audience is saying yes, that looks like a fun/terrifying/safer/more exciting world. Tell me more! We are working through our feelings on a thing and our audience is saying yes, I also feel that way, or I had no idea you felt that way, or knowing how you feel has changed the way I feel! We are documenting our history in a way that gives that history the audience it needs. We are bearing witness to joy. We are <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/palestine-hardcover?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">bearing witness to horror</a>. We are bearing witness to the human experience in a medium that makes it accessible to as many humans as possible. Comics taught me it was <a href="https://screenrant.com/captain-america-punch-hitler-best-marvel-moment/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">OK to punch Nazis</a>. Over the years comic books went from 25¢ to 35¢ to 50¢ (to this day I vividly remember the Marvel Comics starburst that said STILL ONLY 35¢ and can probably draw it from memory) and eventually they made their way to a dollar. (They are much more now, of course.) And in time, the little spinning metal stand at Mister Grocer turned into a proper comic book shop in downtown Philly, Captain America turned into <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/new-this-month/products/locas-the-maggie-and-hopey-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Maggie and Hopey</a>, Gotham City turned into <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/palomar-the-heartbreak-soup-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palomar</a>, The Incredible Hulk turned into a dozen different angry <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/the-complete-hate-volume-1?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Peter Bagge</a> characters, Jack Kirby turned into <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/simon-hanselmann?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Simon Hanselmann</a> and <a href="https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/dirty-plotte-complete-julie-doucet/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Julie Doucet</a>, Marvel and DC turned into <a href="https://www.fantagraphics.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Fantagraphics</a>, <a href="https://drawnandquarterly.com/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Drawn & Quarterly</a>, and a hundred other comics publishers that have come and gone. Even the grumpy Simpson’s comic guy, based on so many actual comics shop owners, gave way to a bunch of genderqueer kids running their own shops, making their own comics and zines, running their own distribution networks and making sure their stories are told and read. And one day your daughter is handing you a copy of <a href="https://www.juliakaye.com/superlatebloomer?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Super Late Bloomer</a> because she has a story to tell, and she understands there’s a medium for telling it perfectly. At heart, deep in their soul, comics have always been the medium where the marginalized could share their voice the loudest. Anyone can make a comic. Anyone can mail a comic to someone else. That means you. That means me. I love comics. <hr/>❤️ If you’re sharing this newsletter online, and I hope you are, please include some of the great comics I’ve forgotten to include in here—ESPECIALLY if you made them! <hr/>🙋 Got a question for me? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I promise to give a rambling answer. 📣 I’ve got a few spots left in next week’s <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1984157517547?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a> workshop. If you’re dealing with the shitshow of applying for a job this workshop will do wonders for your confidence. Promise. 📓 Buy my new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Die (and other stories)</a>, directly from me and get a secret story, stickers, and I personalize it! 💰 If you’re enjoying this newsletter WHICH IS NOT ON SUBSTACK and want to support it, you can join the <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 Lunch Club</a>. 🍉 Israel is insane. The ceasefire is a lie. <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Please support the children of Palestine</a>. 🏳️‍⚧️ Please support <a href="https://translifeline.org/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-love-comics" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Lifeline</a>. And if their is a trans child (or adult!) in your life please remind them they are loved. ❤️ Not gonna lie, I had a shit week. So if you wanna hit reply and <a href="mailto:mike@muledesign.com?subject=Everyone%20sucks%20but%20you" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">just say hi</a> it would mean the world.

How to usher in an era of abundant donuts

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Apr 10, 2026

<figure><img alt="Box of donuts. Half are iced to look like the Artemis logo. Half are regular glazed. I think they're from Krispy Kreme." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/287bcbf8-520c-4faa-9b86-6848314d4d89.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>photo of Artemis donuts by Mark Jacquet, Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us anonymously: What would you say to someone who proclaims, “I want to be a donut maker,” but has never actually made a single donut in their life? You say “That’s awesome. What can I do to help?” Look, I’m going to be totally honest with you. Every week, I go through my bin of newsletter questions, looking for something I want to answer, and I get incredibly depressed. The vast majority of them are from people getting laid off, or being in their sixth month of looking for work, or justifiably freaking out because they heard layoffs are coming to their company. It’s a world of despair and a world of shit which, sadly, only appears to be picking up steam. Meanwhile, half the people I know are wondering how they’re going to pay their rent and go to the doctor, and the other half are proclaiming this the “Era of Abundant Intelligence.” (For who?!?) All they need is half the world’s money (the half not going to bombing school children), half the world’s land, half the world’s water, all of the world’s microchips, and they will eventually deliver [checks notes] something in exchange for all this, just don’t ask them what because it’s really hard to say, but it’s right around the corner. (I promise this newsletter will turn positive soon.) Meanwhile, if I am stupid, sad, or desperate enough to go on LinkedIn for a minute, it’s a sea of people writing letters in praise of the leopard, proclaiming it has always been their dream to work for the leopard, asking the leopard not to eat their face, or hoping to get one of the few jobs at the face-eating factory where they feel like they’ll be safe from the face-eating leopard, which of course they’re not. So, yes, there are a fair amount of questions in my inbox from people upset that the leopard ate their face even though they were happy to help the leopard eat everyone else’s face. (Or I may spiral out of control.) Seriously though, era of abundant intelligence for who?!? Let’s talk about your friend who wants to be a donut maker. Because they may be the smartest person here. First off, everyone loves a donut. Secondly, no one has ever reacted badly to the news that someone is making donuts. But most importantly for us today—not a single human being has ever been born with the ability to make donuts. Like all skills, you learn it, you do it badly for a while, then you do it better. Some people will get amazing at it, and most people will reach some level of competency. So while there’s an incredibly slim chance that your friend will become the world’s greatest donut maker, there’s an incredibly high possibility that your friend will learn how to make good, even great, donuts. Which you will benefit from. And which you should be incredibly grateful for. For the last week, Erika and I have been glued to Artemis updates on the NASA site, because it’s become such a joy to watch people be good at something, and enjoy doing it, and all of this while being incredibly human about it. Seriously, these people sound positively giddy to be in space! And they’re rocking it. It feels like such a luxury to watch these people do their thing, and do it well, and with joy, at a time when we’re surrounded by a government who is very bad at what they do, and does it in the cruelest way possible, and an industry that’s trying to convince us that we are incapable of doing the things we love, and we’re doing them inefficiently anyway. (Because the problem was always that we weren’t breaking the world fast enough.) Competence should not be a luxury. Competence should not be something that we look at with nostalgia. We’re lucky that we get to watch the Artemis crew do their thing, which they can do because they practiced doing it a thousand times. And you know that they made a lot of bad donuts, before they finally made a good donut. You know there was a Day One of learning to be an astronaut, just as there’s a Day One of learning to be a donut maker, or learning to be a designer, dentist, farmer, or teacher. And the only way to get to Day Thousand is to start at Day One, do it 999 more times, and get not just better, but confident enough that you decide you can do it in the confines of space. Confident enough that you can say to yourself and to everyone around you that you want to be a donut maker. Meanwhile a friend who’s deep into a job interview is being asked to bring a passport to their next scheduled remote interview because their skillset shows a level of competence that has the potential employer worried they might be interviewing a deepfake. With one hand they force the slop down our throats. With the other hand they defend against us using the tools against them. Human competence has become a source of distrust. If you don’t trust the results of the tool, stop demanding we use it. The era of abundant intelligence is actually the era of abundant theft. First they stole your work, then they stole the confidence you needed to do the work. This is violence. Your friend is going to make some pretty crappy donuts to start. That’s to be expected. And then the day will come when they’ve gotten all the crappy donuts out of their system and they’ll hand you a good donut. I think you’ll be genuinely happy for your friend when this happens. And for yourself, which is fair. But can’t you just get donuts at the corner bodega or at the donut shop? Yes, you can. And they are good. Donuts are good at every price point. From the waxy little chocolate ones at gas stations, to the funky ones you can buy from someone with a liberal arts degree and a polycule at Voodoo Donuts in Portland, to the boujie made-to-order (lord) donuts at Coffee Movement in SF, all donuts are good. (Bob’s Donuts are the best.) But your friend doesn’t want to buy donuts. Your friend wants to be a donut maker. And that is a very different thing. Human beings crave making things. We make things out of wood. We make things out of wool. We make things out of steel. We make things out of folded paper. We make things out of flour, salt, and sugar. We make zines. We 3D-print whistles. We draw. We paint. We make instruments out of brass so we can make sounds. There is no more flexible word in the English language than “make.” We can make donuts, we can make plans, we can make someone dinner. We can make our cities more walkable. We can make bike lanes. We can make it around the moon. We can even make up our minds. Making is an act of sharing, it’s an act of using our joy, our labor, or expertise, in the service of adding to what’s here. Hopefully, in the service of improving what’s there. We make things so that we can bond with others. And while the sloplords might reply to this by telling me that they enjoy making money, I’d happily reply that the making is actually done with our labor. It’s not the making that drives them, it’s the theft of labor. The theft of joy. And now the theft of competence. You can hear it in their language. They do not make. They disrupt. They extract. They colonize. Their joy is not in the giving, but in the taking. They are so broken, their only recourse is to attempt to break everything else around them. In their psychosis, they call this abundance. I know very little about your friend, in fact all I know is that they want to be a donut maker and they’ve never made a single donut in their life. From this I can safely extrapolate that your friend isn’t currently a donut maker. I can also reasonably extrapolate that whatever your friend is currently doing isn’t what they want to be doing. And from there I can go out on a limb a little bit, from extrapolation to conjecture and guess that your friend isn’t happy doing what they’re currently doing. Happy people don’t generally dream about doing something else. Turns out the Era of Abundant Intelligence isn’t coinciding with an Era of Abundant Happiness. And here’s the thing about donuts: you want one. And the more I mention donuts the more you want one. Maybe you’re thinking of a custard donut, or maybe you’re thinking of a pink frosted donut with sprinkles, or maybe you’re thinking of an old-fashioned, or maybe you’re thinking of a gluten-free donut because everyone deserves donuts, but no one has ever had to be convinced to eat a donut. (The harder part is stopping, trust me.) Donuts are not inevitable, they are anticipated. When you make something you love, and other people also love, and it brings about as much joy as a donut does, there’s very little convincing that needs to happen. No one needs to declare that it’s the Era of Abundant Donuts because it’s apparent anytime you walk into a donut shop. The result of human competence, human labor, human joy, all laid out on baking sheet after baking sheet. Boston Cream. Glazed. Powdered. Chocolate Sprinkle. Jelly. Crullers. These are real. They exist. And they’re fucking delicious. Trust that we are all closer to a good donut shop than we will ever be to AGI. Trust that we are all closer to a good donut shop than we will ever be to AGI, and we should be taking full advantage of what is close to us, and what is possible, and what brings us joy. And that when the sloplords tell us that the thing we need might be right around the corner, maybe consider that they’re right after all. If there’s a donut shop around the corner. We are in the Era of Abundant Donuts. If we want it. We should want it. Because a donut is amazing, and it’s right there for the taking. I hope your friend succeeds in becoming a donut maker. I hope their donuts are amazing. I hope there are lines around the block for their donuts. I hope you end up helping them at the donut shop and loving it so much that you decide you want to become a donut maker too. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s not the donuts that get your attention as much as it is your friend’s joy. Maybe you decide you want the joy, but your joy is found in something else. Maybe it’s making tacos, or opening a bookstore, or knitting, or opening a bar, or designing shoes. I hope that when this happens someone says “That’s awesome. What can I do to help?” <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I will try to answer it. 📣 Trust me when I tell you that you are competent. But they may have stolen your confidence. I can help you get it back. I’ve got a few seats left for the upcoming <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1986010061556?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Presenting w/Confidence</a> workshop. You should grab one. 📕 My new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Die (and other stories)</a>, is actually uplifting as fuck and you should get a copy. And if you’re in The Bay Area, come see me and Annalee Newitz talk about it at <a href="https://booksmith.com/event/monteiro26?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Booksmith on May 11</a>! 🧺 <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/gilly-amp-billy-enamel-pin-fpbpz-y2d7t?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gilly & Billy</a> enamel pins are back in stock. 🏳️‍⚧️ <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/fix-your-hearts-pins?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Fix Your Heart</a> pins are here. 10 pins for $20, with $5 from each sale going to Trans Lifeline. 🍉 The ceasefire is a lie and Israel is insane. Please donate what you can to the <a href="https://www.pcrf.net/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-usher-in-an-era-of-abundant-donuts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund</a>.

How to grow strawberries

Mike Monteiro’s Good News Feb 27, 2026

<figure><img alt="Wall of new paintings. Three green paintings that say GO BIRDS, FUCK ICE, and FREE PALESTINE. Three purple paintings that say FUCK ICE. All the paintings have sticks attached so they look like protest signs." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/ffdc4bdf-02a0-4626-b3f7-551e6cbb597c.jpeg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Feels so good to have a studio again.</figcaption></figure> <hr/>This week’s question comes to us from Anthea Tawia: I came to San Francisco to visit the company I work for—sadly I was let go the first day I visited the office. I’m early in my career, worked there about 5ish months and really felt this was my big break. It’s disheartening to find yourself searching again after thinking you found what you’re looking for. How do you face a future that feels so uncertain? First of all, I’m incredibly sorry this happened to you. It’s unforgivably brutal. Secondly, I fear you’re about to be deeply disappointed in my answer because there is no easy answer to what you—and so many other people—are currently going through. I also refuse to engage in the type of toxic positivity that would tell you this is a good learning experience, or that it will all be alright. Because the former is a straight-up lie and the latter is questionable at best. I’m sure other people have told you this, but it bears repeating not just for you but for anyone else reading this who might’ve recently lost their job: It’s not your fault, and there is nothing you could’ve done differently to change the outcome. I’ll say it again: It’s not your fault, and there is nothing you could’ve done differently to change the outcome. I’m assuming, just playing the odds here, that you work in tech. Probably in some design or design-adjacent capacity. My own design and tech journey started under very different circumstances, at a very different time. I accidentally joined up almost at the very beginning, when things were more driven by curiosity than profit motives. And by “accidentally,” I mean that I had no clue this could be a career. None of us did. We had no idea what it was that we were making or how it would slot into the world, but either through naivete, hubris, prescience, or a combination of the three we felt this was something important, and overall positive. Words like “democratization,” “netizens,” and “new economy” were being thrown around with wild abandon. We were right about some things. It did change the world, but that was a massive monkey’s paw. We were wrong about other things. It was not overall positive. And we were ignorant about more things than we were right or wrong about combined. But by and large, there was the sense that the industry was attempting, if not always succeeding and certainly mired in the biases of white men, to make the world a better place. It did feel, for at least a while, that we were doing a fair bit of solving problems, and making things that people enjoyed. Online banking and bill paying is nice. The iPod was cool. Cue cat? Very cool. Social media could’ve worked, maybe with different people in charge. 3D printers are cool. (I’ve made about 500 anti-ICE whistles this week!) Video cams were cool when we were pointing them at coffee pots and not our neighbors. Borrowing books from the library on an e-reader? Amazing. Eventually, the industry did well enough to make a lot of people accidentally rich, which attracted people who were now expecting to get rich, and as with every new industry that eventually matures and goes into maintenance mode, a group of people who were pissed off they weren’t getting rich as quickly as the last group. And that’s when the problems that we were trying to solve switched from “what do people need” to “I’m not rich yet.” And eventually to “Ok, I’m richer than I ever need to be, but there is still some money, land, and water, over there that I want.” But when I think back to myself at the start of my career, and the things that pulled me towards this industry, I don’t see myself making that same decision if I were making it now. This is not a place of honor. As Pavel Samsonov so clearly and succinctly said <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/spavel.bsky.social/post/3mf7yuq4ngs2q?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">recently on Bluesky</a>: “Once, technology solved problems. People liked having problems solved, so they liked technology. Tech execs started to think of that sentiment as their due. So when they stopped solving problems, and people stopped liking them, they became outraged. ‘How dare you not love whatever we give you?’” We do not love the surveillance. We do not love the slop. We do like paying rent and going to the doctor though. So we keep trying to do the work. I think we need to open our eyes to the fact that the current industry many of us work in, not only doesn’t care about their workers, it actively resents them. In their eyes, we have gone from being the people who made things possible, to an unnecessary burden on the bottom line. They hate that we charge money for our labor, and see that money as something we are stealing from their pockets. Which are very large, are already more full than they will ever be able to use in a lifetime. They don’t want you to improve, they don’t want you to be more productive, they don’t even want you to be more pliable. They just want you gone. As I was writing this sentence I got an alert from a friend that Block, Jack Dorsey’s latest chewtoy, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/block-laying-off-about-4000-employees-nearly-half-of-its-workforce.html?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">has laid off 4,000 people</a>. Which made its stock rise 24%. When 4,000 people lose their livelihood, their ability to pay their rent, their ability to go to the doctor, their ability to look out for their children, and the system that we live under cheers that on… That system needs to be destroyed. Capitalism sees workers as a bug, not a feature. They are dying to eliminate us. Capitalism is not a system of honor. If you are looking for a sliver of positivity in those last few paragraphs, it might be that five months into your career you still have time to walk back out and try another door. I realize that this is neither easy to do, nor uplifting, nor the answer you were looking for. But I feel like I am duty-bound to tell this industry is not a place of honor. CEOs are <a href="https://www.advocate.com/news/tim-cook-donald-trump-gift?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">handing out lucite to fascists</a>. Companies are building <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/cybersecurity/why-ring-s-feel-good-super-bowl-ad-freaked-people-out/ar-AA1Wmo4r?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">massive surveillance networks</a> to make kidnapping our neighbors easier. The world’s richest idiot has turned Twitter into <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/5/eu-flags-appalling-child-like-deepfakes-generated-via-xs-grok-ai?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a child pornography factory</a>. VC firms are hiring partners <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/nyregion/daniel-penny-hired-andreessen-horowitz.html?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">whose only job qualification is that they’ve murdered Black people on the subway</a>. And an industry that senses its own decline is now stuffing every product and service we’ve adopted with slop like slop is <a href="https://gizmodo.com/ai-added-basically-zero-to-us-economic-growth-last-year-goldman-sachs-says-2000725380?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the only lifesaver left on the Titanic</a>. To make it even more depressing, as if that were necessary, when I look out at the evil bastards doing these things, celebrating the murder of my neighbors, I see many of the same faces who were talking about tech as a force for good when I first started. I see many of the same faces who were posting letters about the importance of diversity to their corporate sites in 2020. I see many of the same faces who promised to “do better,” after the brutal murder of George Floyd now <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/letter-salesforce-employees-sent-after-marc-benioffs-ice-comments/?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">calling for a bigger ICE presence on our streets</a>. These are not people of honor. Anthea, I am so far away from answering your question. So here I will attempt to do so, but I fear that you will not like my answer. However, I have too much respect for you to lie. Your last sentence was about facing a future that feels so uncertain. But I feel like a career in tech at this point is far from uncertain. In fact some things are more certain than uncertain. You would most likely be working for someone who doesn’t value you. You’d most likely be building something that is not improving the world. You’d most likely be forced to either spend your time babysitting the slop machine (and secretly fixing its mistakes) or actively working on the slop machine (and secretly pretending it was not full of mistakes). You’d be surrounded by over-eager 9-9-6 techbros who feel they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires who don’t want the boot off workers’ necks as much as they envision their own foot inside the boot. I know none of this feels good to hear. But I don’t think this industry deserves you. You deserve to work at a place that treats you with respect. A place that gives you the room to learn and grow, while cherishing the expertise you’re already walking through the door with. A place that pays you well and provides medical benefits for you and your family. A place with set hours, so you can flourish outside of work as well. A place where your opinion is not only welcome, but encouraged. A place where you feel safe. A place where you and the other workers can collectively bargain with management, because they understand that you are where the value comes from. I say these things not because you are special—although I’m sure you are!—but because all workers deserve these things. Sadly, I fear those things are close to impossible to find in the tech industry at the moment. As you found out from direct experience. So I’d suggest asking yourself what you would be doing right now, if not for tech. Not because you don’t deserve to be here, but because it doesn’t deserve you. If you decide to persevere in this industry, I’d walk into every interview with your head held high and remember that you are interviewing them, as much as they are interviewing you. You are deciding whether this is a company you want to sell your labor to. And I wouldn’t hesitate to walk out of any interview where you didn’t feel safe or valued. I’d walk the floor. I’d talk to other workers. (Outside work if possible.) I’d read up about the company. And I’d walk into that interview like I was doing a deposition. And of course, remember that none of this is a guarantee that they wouldn’t pull the same shit as your last company. There is an uncertain future in front of you. And for that I am very sorry. Again, none of this was your fault, and there is nothing you could have done to keep it from happening. But in that uncertain future you may start finding things that you didn’t expect to find, maybe behind doors that you’d previously closed off. And maybe, hopefully, one of those will lead to a life full of joy and love. Keep in mind that a job will take up a huge percentage of your life, and this is not a practice life. It deserves to be amazing, not spent working for assholes. Life is wild, it doesn’t always go where you’re expecting it to. Shit sucks. Shit is unfair. Shit is brutal. Shit also makes strawberries. And whatever else we may do with our lives, we are all, at heart, strawberry farmers. And for any tech leaders who are reading this and believe themselves the exception? Great. Show me. Instead of sending me the “not all tech leaders” email you’re already crafting in your head… do something to prove to us that it’s “not all tech leaders.” Take a stand. Call out your brethren. Refuse to work with Nazis. Stop licensing your software to Nazis. Start treating your workers with the respect they deserve. Every dollar in your very large pockets came from their labor. Share it. And if you are running a company that respects its workers, and treats them honestly, and fairly? Hire Anthea. She seems awesome. You’d be lucky to have her. <hr/>📓 Some book news: If you’ve pre-ordered the new book, <a href="https://www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to-die-and-other-stories?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to die (and other stories)</a>, thank you! I originally planned on getting all the pre-orders shipped out in February, but my printer has been sloooooooooow in getting books to me. Some orders have gone out. And there is a large shipment headed my way. I am sending books out in the order I received them. Fun fact: I asked a friend who works at a bookstore why things were slow and he told me every press in America is swamped right now, printing Heated Rivalry. Which honestly? I can’t get mad about that. I appreciate your patience. I love you. <hr/>🙋 Got a question? <a href="https://www.mikemonteiro.com/ask-a-question?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ask it</a>. I might meander myself into a useful answer. 💰 Join the <a href="https://buy.stripe.com/fZe2c81Kn2gE4DK6oq?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">$2 Lunch Club</a> and help me pay my rent. 📣 The next Presenting w/Confidence workshop is scheduled for <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/presenting-work-with-confidence-tickets-1984157517547?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">March 19 & 20</a>. It’s a good workshop for folks interviewing. 🏳️‍⚧️ This week we are funneling all our help to the <a href="https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/ab0d171c-cf60-425d-ace5-e805b00f9388?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trans Continental Pipeline</a>. They’re busy getting trans people the fuck out of Kansas, and into Colorado. Because, yes, <a href="https://www.advocate.com/politics/states/kansas-revokes-transgender-drivers-licenses?utm_source=monteiro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how-to-grow-strawberries" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">it’s come to this</a>. Fuck these fascists.