The Monday Media Diet with Kelley Arena

Kelley Arena (KA) is an investor focused on women founders. She covers this topic in her new newsletter. Check it out here. Have a great week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and now I live in New York, and after twenty years here, I still can’t believe I made it to the big city.

I am the founder of Golden Hour Ventures. I invest in women founders, and help others do the same by creating low-minimum syndicates that add up to a significant investment for founders. My mission is to help move the venture gender disparity gap by creating an “angel army.”

I have a newish newsletter called Golden Hour: The Flow that supports that mission, I co-run an accelerator with my work-wife Annie Evans of Dream Ventures, and deploy capital via syndicate (this is where the angel army comes in).

My background is in corporate finance and investment banking, I took a ton of time off to learn how to be a mom, and consulted for start-ups while figuring out what to do with my life. My work now really is the culmination of my finance background mixed with the realness of being a woman in this industry. 

I live in lower Manhattan with my husband and two sons, 10 and 12, but dip into LA a fair amount.

Describe your media diet. 

I lean on newsletters a lot because I love news curated through the lens of someone smarter than I. This one (meaning Why is This Interesting) is so great because it brings me rabbit holes I didn't know I needed. I love Feed Me (no one does it better than Emily), After School by Casey Lewis, Andrea’s spicy CPG takes in SnaxShot, The Stanza, and Strictly VC.

I religiously read Business of Fashion and NY Times online, and am currently on my 14-day free trial of Puck. Check back in 9 days to see if it stuck.

I complete Wordle and Connections daily as a superstitious predictor of whether my day will be great or not.

I down a lot of podcasts while nurturing my 20k/day step-count goal. I love Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, but only Experts on Expert, where they interview experts in their field, heavily focused on psychology and why people are the way they are. I love Jenny Mollen’s podcast called All the Fails, Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History, Philosophize This, Founder’s Journal, How I Built This, and 20 min VC.

This is embarrassing, but I love me some TikTok. Oren John makes incredible content around creative brand building, I love Kira MacKenzie’s content as a consumer investor, Emma Apple Chozick’s brand dives, and Nicole Wishchoff gives great insight into early stage VC life. 

My algorithm is my best friend and worst enemy- it has also taught me that I need to increase my protein intake RIGHT NOW, it has diagnosed me with lots of learning disabilities and maybe a personality disorder, and has alerted me to my fascial adhesions. 

What’s the last great book you read?

The Bee Sting really did a number on me- the last 50 pages caused me such physical dysregulation that I lost a full night’s sleep. Brilliant!

Also this year: We read Wellness in my book club and that created the most fun after-book conversations, and Demon Copperhead really had me in a chokehold during our time together. 

What are you reading now?

I am reading Miranda July’s All Fours, which I am pretty sure is required reading for my demographic. 

Miranda July can do no wrong in my eyes- I have had a crush on her for decades. She is exactly the kind of weird I am in my brain but haven’t summoned the self-acceptance to be out loud.

My cool girl’s club dinner party fantasy includes her, along with Elif Batuman, Sheila Heti, and Jane Bowles. At least one attendee brings a gelatin based dessert. I spend the dinner trying to earn their respect, and of course it backfires, because of all the trying, but afterwards I have a good story to tell.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

Every Sunday, I gather my printed subscriptions (which I have whittled down to NY Times Weekend Edition, The Atlantic, NY Mag, and WSJ but let's be honest I am really only reading WSJ mag). I let my kids read the approval matrix first, which comforts me, because that’s what I did when I was a young. The rest is digested slowly, along with copious amounts of coffee, of course. 

I probably learned and subsequently romanticized this routine from Miranda on Sex and The City when I was a college-aged girl practicing being a grown up, but it stuck.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Anything written about death, or from people at the end of their life. It sounds grim, but nothing de-stresses me faster than remembering we are all going to die super soon. Just try to read When Breath Becomes Air and then worry about school admissions or the weird thing you said at the party.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

I like the B the Method app for fitness on the go. To be honest, I don't do it that often, but I ALMOST do it a lot, and when I do, I feel great. And we all want the posture and body composition (and face) of Lia (the founder, also a friend).

I also LOVE Poker Power to sharpen my poker skills, Tjime, which is apparently helping me avoid burnout by monitoring my calendar, and Simply Piano. 

Plane or train?

A train is pretty romantic, especially with the right song in your ear buds, but I'll never get over the fact that I can have lunch in NYC and still make dinner in LA.

What is one place everyone should visit? 

We have a home in Bucks County Pennsylvania, which is pretty underrated, especially if you live in New York. It’s lovely, farmy, has great vintage shopping- but most importantly, it’s an hour and 15 mins from the city, without ever touching the Long Island Expressway.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Rabbit holes are my favorite. Happily, I get to rabbit hole for my job as part of due diligence. Recently, my diligence rabbit holes have consisted of: fashion's impact on the climate (it’s pretty bad), the regulatory and political environment surrounding women’s reproductive rights (also pretty bad) and the romantic/erotic fiction market (massive)!

My kids became pretty invested in the Kendrick and Drake beef, so I took it upon myself to rabbit hole/educate them the great rap beefs of yore, with special emphasis on Tupac/Biggie, Nas/Jay Z, with extra special emphasis on trying to find the clean versions of diss tracks. I’ve also had to explain to them what a BBL is, which is a rabbit hole I wish i could take back. (KA)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Kelley (KA)

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Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) with editing help from Louis Cheslaw about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing.