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Making a product that Marl loves

February 15, 2026April 5, 2026Paras ChopraMental Models, Psychology

This essay is part of the series in which I talk about my learnings and insights building a habit coaching app (Nintee) in 2024. It didn’t ultimately work out because an app has marginal influence in a human’s life (v/s that of friends, family, culture and immediate environment). Most apps that work in the category operate like gyms (charge upfront when the motivation is high, and be okay with high churn). I had raised VC funding for it and later it became clear to me that this wouldn’t be a VC scale business, so I shut it down and returned the remaining funding. Hope the insights learned along the way would turn out to be valuable to others. ... Read the entire post →

[2025 review] Life is a holiday!

December 31, 2025December 31, 2025Paras ChopraPersonal

Ok, this was a phenomenal year for me. The vibe of the year is cleanly captured by what I had scribbled on a whiteboard on Jan 3rd, 2025.

To my amazement and giddiness, the feeling still holds up as the year wraps up. Let’s see what all kept this spirit alive.

Brief interlude: the yearly review has become a sort of an annual tradition for me. In case you’re interested, you can check out previous years’ reviews too: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and the entire decade before that.

🫡 Exited Wingify

I had started Wingify in 2010 (when I was 22) and in Jan 2025 (when I was 37) exited my stake to Everstone, a private equity firm. As you can imagine, Wingify consumed the entirety of my early youth. It taught me about startups, business, leadership, human psychology and put me in contact with an incredible set of people who I’m proud to have worked with (especially my co-founder Sparsh and CTO Ankit Jain). ... Read the entire post →

Human behavior is an intuition-pump for AI risk

November 17, 2025November 17, 2025Paras ChopraBook Summary, Notes and Summaries

I just finished this excellent book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

This book influenced my opinions on p(doom). Before reading the book, I was uncertain about whether AI could pose an existential risk for humanity. After reading the book, I’m starting to entertain the possibility that the probability of doom from a superintelligent AI is above zero. I’m still not sure where I would put my own p(doom) but it’s definitely non-zero.

The question I’m interested in is this: ... Read the entire post →

Do you know what GDP is?

May 1, 2025May 1, 2025Paras ChopraEconomics

I thought I knew! But the more I introspected, the hazy my understanding got. Is GDP amount of stuff produced or consumed? Does it include imports or exports? What does it have to do with well being? Why does it keep increasing?

So, I fired up Claude and started understanding what GDP really is. This post contains my notes on the same.

But before we start, it’s worthwhile to reflect how many such concepts that we think we know, do we really know. Often there’s a gap between what we think we know, and what we actually know. It’s worthwhile to question your understanding of commonplace phenomena. Do we know what life is? What does productivity mean? How do greenhouse emissions warm the Earth, and so on. For so many such things, our mind convinces us that we know stuff when upon probing, it turns out to be a vague miasma. ... Read the entire post →

Don’t compete

March 22, 2025March 23, 2025Paras ChopraPersonal, Philosophy

The Internet is full of people winning all the time. Someone is traveling to exotic locations, someone else is raising funds, and another person is winning awards. Essentially, everyone around you is succeeding while you do spend your days as the nature intended – sleeping, eating, smiling, chatting with friends, and spending time with your cat.

But, who here is really winning?

Imagine our society as a living and breathing organism with its own agenda. What would be on its agenda? First of all, like you, society would want to not die. Second, like you, it would want to thrive. ... Read the entire post →

2024 wrapped

December 31, 2024December 31, 2024Paras ChopraPersonal

This year’s review is going to be shorter than 2023 (and previous years) because I’m in Goa right now for a holiday and I don’t feel like being in front of a screen for long.

I mean, just look at this view and tell me that you’d rather be in front of a screen writing a review.

But traditions must be upheld, so here’s a quick review of my eventful year.

🫡 Shut down Nintee

Earlier in the year, I shut down my startup Nintee and returned (the remaining) ~75% of funding back to investors. Everyone in my team got 6 months salary as a severance and an open offer to join my other company Wingify. ... Read the entire post →

How to be a messy thinker

May 12, 2024May 15, 2024Paras ChopraBook Summary, Notes and Summaries

I love thinking about thinking. Give me a research paper on rationality, cognitive biases or mental models, and I’ll gobble it up. Given the amount of knowledge I’ve ingested on these topics, I had always assumed that I’m a clear thinker.

Recently, though, it hit me like a lightning strike that this belief is counter-productive. That’s because is you “know” that you’re a clear thinker, you’re less likely to suspect that you might be missing something big in your thought process. After all, if you are convinced that you think clearly by default, why would you put in any extra effort to scrutinize your thought process? ... Read the entire post →

Why time seems to pass faster as we age

February 27, 2024February 27, 2024Paras ChopraPersonal, Philosophy

1/ I’ve been mega-obsessed with this feeling.

A year as a 36-year-old seems so much shorter as compared to when I was a kid or even as a teen.

It seems cosmically unfair – we have fewer years to live, and each year flies by faster.

2/ But, why is that happening?

My tentative conclusion is that it’s an unfortunate outcome of how evolution shaped our brain to be an efficient storage device.

3/ Our brain is a prediction device.

Its top job is to construct a model of the world so that we get a survival and reproductive edge. ... Read the entire post →

Review of 2023

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries, Reading Recap

Time is strange – 2023 simultaneously felt too long and too short. It was short because I remember recently writing my 2022 review, and it was long because I ended up packing a lot of stuff into it.

✅ Train 5 days a week (including Mixed Martial Arts)

I did manage to train 5 days per week (at least for the latter part of the year). Training every weekday has become a habit now, and it’s something I wish to never give up on.

And yes, it’s three days of strength training and two days of MMA!

✅ Got myself a tattoo!

I’m endlessly fascinated by the concept of time, and how one can never grab it still. Time starts when we become aware of it, and ends with death. So, in many ways, we’re nothing but time. ... Read the entire post →

Notes from the book “Hooked”

December 28, 2023December 28, 2023Paras ChopraBook Summary, Notes and Summaries

I re-read the book Hooked by Nir Eyal and these are my notes.

1/ The key question that the book answers is: how to make habit-forming products. And its answer is a model that involves four stages: a) trigger; b) action; c) variable reward; d) investment

2/ Why should products be habit-forming? It’s because only those products that become part of someone’s daily life go on to become valuable. So, whether a product has habit formation potential is a leading indicator for whether the product will turn out to be valuable. ... Read the entire post →