Paulina Vo, The Digilogue / Highnote
Paulina Vo, The Digilogue / Highnote
💭 Thoughts on being an optimist (even when it’s hard), The Pudding, and her favorite childhood comfort foods.
Paulina Vo is a first-generation Vietnamese-American, born in New Orleans, LA and raised in the southern half of the states. She’s a Co-Founder at Highnote, an audio collaboration platform and the General Manager and Co-Founder at The Digilogue, an organization dedicated to music and tech. Paulina has led and scaled Stevie Award-winning customer support teams at Squarespace and Teachable, and has focused her efforts on building more diverse, inclusive, and equitable spaces for overlooked communities in both music and tech. She’s also a vocalist, songwriter, & producer who lives in Brooklyn, NY, and loves video games, an excellent kebab, and bun bo hue.
🎯 Current focus
My team at The Digilogue just launched DigiLabs, a boutique marketing arm of the incredible work we already do. Additionally, Highnote is in the midst of reaching out to our community through remix opportunities and partnerships. Personally, I've been quietly working on my music publishing business and I'm so excited to share more later this year.
🗯️ Being an optimist (even when it’s hard to be)
I'm an optimist, I believe in people and I know that's hard, especially in the era we live in. Community and connection drive us all, even if it's within a small group. So, what's on my mind is this— tell that friend you think about them, call up your family (blood or chosen), go make some art or that thing you've always wanted to try to create, and be present when you can!
📺 Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
I'm really putting myself out here but I'm watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and totally get why it's an amazing show. The storytelling is consistent, the character arcs are very interesting, and I love the fanfare around it.
🕉️ “If I'm scared to do something, I should probably do it”
I've always told myself if I'm scared to do something, I should probably do it. I continue to keep this in mind as I navigate my career and it's made my life feel fulfilling and interesting. Outside of this, I'm a fan of boundaries and transparency, so I like to live my life through that lens as well.
👀 Long-form media FTW
I’m fully on the YouTube and reading long-form articles train. I found myself watching 20-30 minute videos about generally anything from social topics, history, to production breakdowns a few years back. For fun, I watch video game streamers and they’re all on YouTube. But I’ve also been a fan of long-form articles since I started commuting. It’s less easy to find the time since I work from home but I still love diving into a New Yorker article about someone or something I didn’t know about!
🗞️ Pudding.cool
The Pudding calls themselves “visual journalism” — they are amazing at what they do, their ability to communicate ideas and phenomena through data is visually interesting and informative as hell.
Green Tile Social Club is a New York-based mahjong community that just popped up recently but has really been able to capture the young AAPI generation through the way they showcase a traditional game within our culture.
🤤 Favorite childhood comfort foods
One thing I can’t live without is food that reminds me of my childhood! I don’t know if that counts but I used to joke that I had to eat phở at least once a week. These days, it’s really being able to eat or cook anything I grew up eating – bún bò Huế, thịt kho, hủ tiếu, or even Canto dishes that my mom or uncle would cook are on the menu at least a few times a month. I’ll even settle for the soy sauce I ate growing up plus some braised or seasoned tofu!
Follow Paulina on Instagram & Linkedin check out her companies’ websites here and here.