2026-03-07 03:11:00
A lot of technical people got really attached to our identities as smart kids. The software industry tends to reflect and reinforce this preoccupation at every turn, as seen in Netflix’s claim that “we look for the top 10 percent of global talent” or Coinbase’s desire to “hire the top 0.1 percent.” I would like to challenge us to set that baggage to the side and think about ourselves as normal people.
It can be humbling to think of yourself as a normal person. But most of us are, and there is nothing wrong with that. Even those of us who are certified geniuses on certain criteria are likely quite normal in other ways—kinesthetic, emotional, spatial, musical, linguistic, and so on.
Software engineering both selects for and develops certain types of intelligence, particularly around abstract reasoning, but nobody is born a great software engineer. Great engineers are made, not born.
I read this article twice last night. I haven't come across any article that spoke to my massive professional anxieties/impostor syndrome as well as this one.
One of my biggest pet peeves with being around smart people is when people explain things using big words. It feels like it takes so much more effort to understand tough concepts when they are saddled with jargon and ACT words.
I also enjoyed this point about building teams:
We place too much emphasis on individual agency and characteristics, and not enough on the systems that shape us and inform our behaviors.
I believe a whole slew of issues (candidates self-selecting out of the interview process, diversity of applicants, and more) would be improved simply by shifting the focus of hiring away from this inordinate emphasis on hiring the best people and realigning around the more reasonable and accurate right people.
It’s a competitive advantage to build an environment where people can be hired for their unique strengths, not their lack of weaknesses; where the emphasis is on composing teams; where inclusivity is a given both for ethical reasons and because it raises the bar for performance for everyone. Inclusive culture is what meritocracy depends on.
2026-03-07 03:05:00
Not all borrowing is the same. Copying is often more about power than propriety. When working with archival material myself, I like to think in terms of the stand-up comedy rule: punching up vs. punching down. Picking up visual motifs from a billion-dollar corporation that’s built its empire on copyright hoarding? That’s punching up. Repackaging the work of a living artist from a marginalised background without credit or compensation? Likewise, using found material for an indie zine is a far cry from pulling from the same source for a corporate client that could easily afford to commission something new.
It takes a ton of effort to digitize art whose copyright is expired. This article does a great job explaining why.
I've said it before, but if I could pick any job for myself, it would be to take as many photographs as possible and release all of them into the public domain. Attending as many Comic Cons as possible to snap updated head shots of celebrities would be so much fun. Also, traveling to areas around me that are on Wikipedia but have no photo of them.
It seems like work that would outlive me, y'know?
2026-02-18 02:21:00
At a conference once, I vividly recall my supervisor—a brilliant mathematician—listening intently as a colleague presented his research, using every polished, TED-style public speaking technique imaginable. He leaned over and muttered to me: “We’re not in a theater.”
The impressive public speaking techniques that were meant to captivate the audience had the opposite effect on him. He could see right through them and suspected they might serve to obfuscate the true substance of the research being presented. I’ll admit, my own skepticism was rising as well. “Just show me the model, the assumptions, and the theorems,” I thought.
It’s a curious and sometimes jarring phenomenon that in mathematics departments, it’s often the least charismatic talks that get the most respect. If your research has merit, it’ll stand on its own, without the need for rhetorical flourishes or slick presentations. System 1 Jedi tricks will get you nowhere; mathematicians are trained in the dark arts of System 2.
Meanwhile, outside the math department, our social media feeds are overrun by System 1 masters who, for the first time in history, have quick and direct access to millions of minds. And it makes me wonder whether it’s a good thing that some of our best academics are ill-equipped to engage on a battlefield they haven’t been trained for. The quiet, unadorned pursuit of truth is noble, but in a world where the loudest voices often win, I can’t help but feel a twinge of unease. What happens when the guardians of reason can’t—or won’t—compete in a game where style often trumps substance?
2026-02-18 02:05:00
I often forget my anxiety isn’t caused by a lack of answers to my swirl of questions, but the swirl itself. I frequently operate as if one more Google search will solve everything, circling around and around the internet, mercifully sedated by information I probably don’t need and will forget next week. Sometimes, I really do find the answer I’m looking for, and then I’ll stop, smug and satisfied. The problem with feeding the beast is it’s not the same as killing it. Soon enough, I’m hungry again.
In addition to being a great resource on how to feel like you've got enough, this article taught me a new term:
In Lauren Oyler’s essay about anxiety last week, she referenced a late 19th century diagnosis known as Americanitis, which described “the high-strung, nervous, active temperament of the American people.” Whether incited by advances in technology (causing loss of sleep, excessive worry) or capitalism (causing long work days, fast pace of life), the result was, according to experts of the time, a rattled population unable to relax. A black mirror of the American dream, Americanitis took the same ideas favored by patriots and recast them as depressing. Here is the land of possibilities—so vast in scale you’ll forever be unsatisfied!
Are we all suffering from Americanitis?
2026-02-18 01:52:00
You ask yourself: What would have made me jump off my chair if I had read it six months ago (or a week ago, or however fast you write)? If you have figured out something that made you ecstatic, this is what you should write. And you do not dumb it down, because you were not stupid six months ago, you just knew less. You also write with as much useful detail and beauty as you can muster, because that is what you would have wanted.
I’m not saying [what I wrote] was a great essay; I’m saying I would have loved it. The essay would have answered most of the questions I had, and it would have given me a new more complex understanding of language models that I could have used to get excited by even more obscure things. And because the internet is big, there were a few thousand people who felt the same way—and I felt really deeply for these people.
A search query doesn’t have to be a 5000-word effort post to work (though the internet does reward that amply). Anything that would have been useful to you sometime in the past will do. Alexey Guzey makes lists, half of which are made up of quotes, and they are incredibly useful and have been instrumental in reshaping his network so that he could start New Science. Most good Twitter accounts can be viewed in the same way.
Life's too short to spend your time worrying about how other people are gonna perceive your work.
Just go do the thing. Make your six-months-ago self proud.
2026-02-17 21:03:32
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, the new workday should be three to four hours. For everyone. It may involve 8 hours of hanging out with people. But not doing this crazy vampire thing the whole time. That will kill people.
As an individual developer, you need to fight the vampire yourself, when you’re all alone, with nobody pushing you but the AI itself. I think every single one of us needs to go touch grass, every day. Do something without AI. Close the computer. Go be a human.
I’m convinced that 3 to 4 hours is going to be the sweet spot for the new workday. Give people unlimited tokens, but only let people stare at reports and make decisions for short stretches. Assume that exhaustion is the norm. Building things with AI takes a lot of human energy.
I’m so glad somebody is saying this out loud.