Hi, I’m a software engineer and work at a startup in Santa Barbara. On Friday, January 27, 2017, I received a small red envelope on my desk with a $1 bill inside…
…along with the accompanying email:
Happy Lunar New Year everyone (well, it’s actually tomorrow)! It’s the year of the Rooster, which happens to be my year!
Western zodiacs (Aquarius or Sagittarius) go by month, Eastern zodiacs go by years.
I hope everyone has a better year than last year. Good luck, have fun, be happy!
Today is the day! This year is the year! Go hustle!
I was touched by the gesture and motivational message. Since one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to prioritize playful enriching experiences over non-playful ones and since I was instructed to go hustle, I started brainstorming ways to do said hustling. Coincidentally, one experiment I had always wanted to try was that of taking a tiny sum of money and doubling it repeatedly. I had wanted to do this with the $20 I was due to win on a bet I had placed on virtual reality in 2014, but I lost that bet, so this seemed like a fresh, new opportunity. The idea of repeatedly doubling my money came from the rice and chessboard problem I had heard as a kid.
Another thing that intrigued me was what form doubling money would logically take as the powers of two got higher. For example, things that make sense when trying to get from $1 to $2 are a lot different from the things that make sense when trying to get from $131072 to $262144. I thought it would be cool to publicize this experiment and get suggestions and insight as to how to best go about doubling money at various stages of the game, and that this insight could benefit more than myself.
I codified the vision and rules on the Vision and Rules page. Each post will document the successive powers of two. Aside from these things, I have no preconceived notions about timeframes or stopping points, so welcome and enjoy this ride with me.