Hello, friend. This is an episode of Note to Self, but from when we used to be called New Text City. Same good content. Just the old name. Enjoy.

This is your life. This is your life. Do what you love and do it often. If you don't have enough time, stop watching TV. Some opportunities only come once.

Life is simple. Appreciate every last bite. This is your life.

Hi, it's Manu Samarote and this is New Text City. So a couple months back as a New Year's gift, my colleague Alex Goldmark.

Hi, you got this empty wood frame as a gift from a local tech company. And I was like, why would someone send you an empty frame?

And I said, it's for the five by seven version of my Holste manifesto. Yeah, and I said, you're Holste what?

Alex, you then went on to explain that it's a poster with motivational phrases printed on it. Yeah, like getting lost will help you find yourself. Or if you don't like something, change it.

Yeah, and this poster is now so ubiquitous in tech startup offices that it was just sort of assumed that you would be thrilled to get a frame for it.

Now podcast listeners, feel free to open another tab. We've got a picture of the poster at our website. It's new tech city.org. And you know, actually a lot of you have probably seen it, but didn't know what it was.

It's that kind of thing. Picture this montras written in big black bold type all neatly beautifully arranged. Do what you love and do it often.

Stop over analyzing all emotions are beautiful by the end of this podcast. You will have heard all of these montras.

But Alex, when you got this frame in the mail, you didn't actually have a copy of the Holste manifesto. No, but I knew what it was. And I took the gift as a kind of bold presumption that someone thought I was part of their tribe.

And that tribe includes Google, Threadless, Zappos, Path, Airbnb, Ted, General Assembly, Shopify. The list goes on and on startups, tech companies that all have this poster in their offices.

And I had seen it in passing because when I looked at it online, I knew immediately what it was, but I didn't know that it had a name. Holste manifesto. Where did that come from?

It just made me really wonder, is this poster the 21st century version of that one you used to see in the doctor's office? You know, the group of guys rowing crew with the word teamwork printed under it?

Is this poster the just do it of the tech scene? And if we understand how it came about, can that give us a window into what's really driving these people founding all these tech companies?

I wanted to investigate who came up with this incredibly personal and earnest poster that has come to symbolize for some a generation, a quick warning, some of you will really jive with this story.

It gets philosophical into the purpose of life, but some of you are going to consider this a load of elitist nonsense. I'm curious to hear what you think.

The trail brought me back bizarrely to about a block away from my home in Brooklyn to the industrial offices of a company called Holste.

The entire business is accidentally thriving because of this one poster, but hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, meet the guys who knew they wanted to start a company, any company, which is kind of a millennial goal to have when you're in your 20s, right?

My name is Fabian Fortemeler. I'm co-founder. Michael Rabbar, co-founder. David Rabbar, co-founder.

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