Hi, I’m Jacob Adler. I’m currently on a sabbatical. I spent the last few years working on data teams for startups. Before that, I started my career as a data scientist at Caesars Entertainment (owner of Caesars Palace and dozens of other casinos) in Las Vegas.

I made it a whole three sentences before saying I went to Wharton, where I officially concentrated in Statistics and Operations, Information, and Decisions (OID) but really spent more time studying marketing, consumer behavior, and decision science.

That seems like enough credentials for now. If you’d like to see my SAT scores as well, fine. You can find them on my LinkedIn.

Before we dive more into what this blog is about, some notes about some previous writing of mine.

My Writing Background

I went into college thinking I might become a professional writer (specifically, a journalist). But it was probably early in my junior year where I had the realization that I was in the midst of some true writers – folks who had a mastery of storytelling and the English language built on top of incredible natural talent. And I was not one of those writers.

I could write, but I wasn’t A Writer. Being able to apply some heuristics and quickly churn out a bunch of words was good for a few things. One, I tended to get good grades on essays in school despite usually not reading the book. Two, I was able to write on topics that interested me (as you’ll see, all sports-centric) for a few cool places, including:

1. The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s independent student newspaper where I covered mainly football and women’s basketball
2. JJ Zachariason’s numberFire
3. A site started by Zack Weiner (now the President of Overtime)
4. An SBNation blog

Most of the writing was for free, some paid. I wrote because I enjoyed it, and because it felt rewarding to write articles and publish them, especially when there’s readership and engagement. Like most writers, I imagine, I look back fondly at the act of writing and not as fondly on the actual content I produced. It’s a natural part of maturing, I think.

Even though I spent hundreds of hours writing in college and didn’t become a journalist, I don’t regret it. Writing is an incredibly valuable skill in life, and being a Guy Who Can Write has absolutely made me more effective in the work I ultimately pursued.

Why I’m Writing Now

I’m not a writer, but I’ve missed writing. Before starting this back up in 2022, it had been almost five years since I wrote something not intended for work.

I previously said here that I don’t like to speak up unless I feel I have something good to say. But sometimes I have something good to say and don’t speak up. So this is a low-stakes way of writing it down and putting it out there.

I write infrequently, usually when I’m feeling angsty. I haven’t figured out what mood is best for editing. Usually I just force myself to batch edit several posts.

What I’ll Be Writing About

When I started writing again, a few people suggested thought-leadership-type stuff about data. Maybe it was a good idea, but not something that was going to hold my interest.

Although it would probably more lucrative for me to write into a niche, I’m happy writing about a few different areas that interest me. These include sports, games, tech, and careers.

A lot of what I write about is based on my own experience. That’s how I feel most authentic as a writer. I try to disclose when I’m touting something I haven’t or wouldn’t actually do myself. Some of it is thoroughly-researched and some of it is writing off-the-cuff into Google Docs.

Feedback

Want to see more or less of something? Drop a line, I’d love to hear from you.

Here it goes. Hope you enjoy.