One of the core tenets of FountainHead RI is about diversity and international collaboration among young leaders, which falls exactly in line with your personal story. Could you please share more with us?
I strive to build RadReads into a vibrant and diverse community. My parents immigrated to the United States with nothing more than a couple hundred dollars and their college degrees. They instilled the core values of openness, generosity, and humility in my sister and I. As my life has unfolded, I’ve tried to stay true to these principles academically, professionally, and personally. It can be challenging, as society tends to cluster and self-select around people with similar backgrounds, interests, and occupations. Having an acute understanding of this tendency is challenging but critical, and I try to bring that into the RadReads community each and every day.
You have been referred to as the Oprah for Millennials which is something to be very proud of. When did you realize that your work as a hedge fund manager was no longer fulfilling and that a change was needed.
I worked on Wall Street for 14 years. I enjoyed my job analyzing hedge funds, in fact, I had the privilege of meeting regularly with some of the smartest investors in the world. There were three factors that ignited the change from within. First, I realized that I was becoming hyper-specialized. I knew so much about the very narrow world of quantitative investing, but yearned for other challenges, such as recruiting, marketing, and building technology. Second, I found Wall Street to have a very zero-sum game mindset – while I couldn’t pinpoint it, I had this deep-seated belief that businesses could be built in a way in which “a rising tide would lift all boats.” Finally, I had so many “side hustles” – organizing events, an email newsletter, playing around building products, and writing. I felt a strong pull to explore them in greater detail.
Tell us a bit more about RadReads and what made you create it.
RadReads originally started as an email newsletter amongst friends. I love reading esoteric content from across the internet and have a knack for sifting through and discovering the gems. Over time though, I realized that there were so many core life lessons to be learned from different fields, individuals, and others’ stories which evolved the content evolved into that direction. I then got the courage to write very personally and was overwhelmed by the response. RadReads continues to evolve to into new mediums, both digital (podcasts, video, chatbots) and an in-person (community building, speaking, and peer learning).
Daily/weekly routine, do you have one?
I don’t have too much of a routine outside of the “book-ends” of my day, which are committed to cultivating mind, body, and heart. I wake up at 5:15 daily, meditate and then work-out. In the evening, I do a quick online Yoga session, meditate, and try to read for a minimum of 10 pages from a physical book. As an entrepreneur, the time during the day varies tremendously, but I try to earmark two hours to write without distraction.
To be a millennial leader today what are some of the key characteristics you look for and additional skillsets you recommend acquiring.
Compassion, uncomfortable introspection, stillness, and authenticity. I detail all four in the following blog post.
What is your vision for the coming years? What big events or other personal conquests do you aim to execute on?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think of goals or conquests. I’m very much focused on the belief that if individuals create a practice (i.e. daily set of behaviors/habits) of looking within, a tremendous amount of compassion and self-awareness will be unleashed into the world. And so each day, I check-in with myself to see if I am working towards that.
Who do you look up to?
I’m careful to avoid looking up to specific individuals as there is a temptation to emulate their lives without knowing the full back story. But I love learning from and surrounding myself with people who are kind, mission-oriented, great listeners, and always default towards sharing vulnerably.
About:
Main Links:
E-mail Newsletter: tinyurl.com/RadReads
Blog: RadReads.co
Twitter: @khemaridh
Instagram: @khemaridh
Snapchat: @RadReads
Quartz: https://qz.com/author/khyqz/
photo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dr8gqvfvzoedbod/DSC05321.jpg?dl=0
Bio
Khe is the creator of RadReads and Quartz’s first Entrepreneur in residence. He spent 15 years in the financial services industry researching hedge fund investments. From 2007-2015 he was a Managing Director at BlackRock where he oversaw the New York Research Team.
Khe left Blackrock in 2015 to explore projects focused on introspection, generosity, and communty. RadReads emerged out of the desire to answer the question “What does it mean to live a fulfilled life?” RadReads, a Blog and e-mail newsletter takes an interdisciplinary approach to answering this question, drawing on fields ranging from neuroscience to eastern philosophy, then sharing stories to empower its community to take action. RadReads has expanded to include keynotes, executive coaching, and writing. Khe has spoken at Northwestern Mutual, Knight Capital, IEX, TEDx and Yale University. The newsletter has over 15,000 subscribers and is comprised of leaders, investors, academics and change makers.
Khe resides in Brooklyn with his wife Lisa and daughter Soriya
April 2017 – The Autism Project
One of the core tenets of FountainHead RI is about diversity and international collaboration among young leaders, which falls exactly in line with your personal story. Could you please share more with us?
I strive to build RadReads into a vibrant and diverse community. My parents immigrated to the United States with nothing more than a couple hundred dollars and their college degrees. They instilled the core values of openness, generosity, and humility in my sister and I. As my life has unfolded, I’ve tried to stay true to these principles academically, professionally, and personally. It can be challenging, as society tends to cluster and self-select around people with similar backgrounds, interests, and occupations. Having an acute understanding of this tendency is challenging but critical, and I try to bring that into the RadReads community each and every day.
You have been referred to as the Oprah for Millennials which is something to be very proud of. When did you realize that your work as a hedge fund manager was no longer fulfilling and that a change was needed.
I worked on Wall Street for 14 years. I enjoyed my job analyzing hedge funds, in fact, I had the privilege of meeting regularly with some of the smartest investors in the world. There were three factors that ignited the change from within. First, I realized that I was becoming hyper-specialized. I knew so much about the very narrow world of quantitative investing, but yearned for other challenges, such as recruiting, marketing, and building technology. Second, I found Wall Street to have a very zero-sum game mindset – while I couldn’t pinpoint it, I had this deep-seated belief that businesses could be built in a way in which “a rising tide would lift all boats.” Finally, I had so many “side hustles” – organizing events, an email newsletter, playing around building products, and writing. I felt a strong pull to explore them in greater detail.
Tell us a bit more about RadReads and what made you create it.
RadReads originally started as an email newsletter amongst friends. I love reading esoteric content from across the internet and have a knack for sifting through and discovering the gems. Over time though, I realized that there were so many core life lessons to be learned from different fields, individuals, and others’ stories which evolved the content evolved into that direction. I then got the courage to write very personally and was overwhelmed by the response. RadReads continues to evolve to into new mediums, both digital (podcasts, video, chatbots) and an in-person (community building, speaking, and peer learning).
Daily/weekly routine, do you have one?
I don’t have too much of a routine outside of the “book-ends” of my day, which are committed to cultivating mind, body, and heart. I wake up at 5:15 daily, meditate and then work-out. In the evening, I do a quick online Yoga session, meditate, and try to read for a minimum of 10 pages from a physical book. As an entrepreneur, the time during the day varies tremendously, but I try to earmark two hours to write without distraction.
To be a millennial leader today what are some of the key characteristics you look for and additional skillsets you recommend acquiring.
Compassion, uncomfortable introspection, stillness, and authenticity. I detail all four in the following blog post.
What is your vision for the coming years? What big events or other personal conquests do you aim to execute on?
To be perfectly honest, I don’t think of goals or conquests. I’m very much focused on the belief that if individuals create a practice (i.e. daily set of behaviors/habits) of looking within, a tremendous amount of compassion and self-awareness will be unleashed into the world. And so each day, I check-in with myself to see if I am working towards that.
Who do you look up to?
I’m careful to avoid looking up to specific individuals as there is a temptation to emulate their lives without knowing the full back story. But I love learning from and surrounding myself with people who are kind, mission-oriented, great listeners, and always default towards sharing vulnerably.
About:
Main Links:
E-mail Newsletter: tinyurl.com/RadReads
Blog: RadReads.co
Twitter: @khemaridh
Instagram: @khemaridh
Snapchat: @RadReads
Quartz: https://qz.com/author/khyqz/
photo: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dr8gqvfvzoedbod/DSC05321.jpg?dl=0
Bio
Khe is the creator of RadReads and Quartz’s first Entrepreneur in residence. He spent 15 years in the financial services industry researching hedge fund investments. From 2007-2015 he was a Managing Director at BlackRock where he oversaw the New York Research Team.
Khe left Blackrock in 2015 to explore projects focused on introspection, generosity, and communty. RadReads emerged out of the desire to answer the question “What does it mean to live a fulfilled life?” RadReads, a Blog and e-mail newsletter takes an interdisciplinary approach to answering this question, drawing on fields ranging from neuroscience to eastern philosophy, then sharing stories to empower its community to take action. RadReads has expanded to include keynotes, executive coaching, and writing. Khe has spoken at Northwestern Mutual, Knight Capital, IEX, TEDx and Yale University. The newsletter has over 15,000 subscribers and is comprised of leaders, investors, academics and change makers.
Khe resides in Brooklyn with his wife Lisa and daughter Soriya