💭 Thoughts

Here I share some reflections on research, life, and everything in between.

• 2026.01:  The Top Idea in Your Mind

• 2026.01:  How to Do Great Work

• 2026.01:  Superlinear Returns

• 2026.01:  The Right Kind of Stubborn

• 2026.01:  Putting Ideas into Words

• 2026.01:  Founder Mode

• 2026.01:  Do Things That Don’t Scale

• 2026.01:  How to Get Startup Ideas

• 2026.01:  Startup = Growth

• 2026.01:  How to Do What You Love

• 2026.01:  How to Start a Startup

• 2026.01:  How to Make Wealth

• 2026.01:  Mean People Fail

• 2026.01:  Relentlessly Resourceful

• 2026.01:  Before the Startup

• 2026.01:  How Not to Die

• 2026.01:  How to Raise Money

• 2026.01:  How to Convince Investors

• 2026.01:  The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

• 2026.01:  Cities and Ambition

• 2026.01:  Life is Short

• 2026.01:  How to Work Hard

• 2026.01:  The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

• 2026.01:  The Anatomy of Determination

• 2026.01:  Good and Bad Procrastination

• 2026.01:  Keep Your Identity Small

• 2026.01:  Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule

• 2026.01:  You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss

• 2026.01:  How to Disagree

• 2026.01:  How to Think for Yourself

• 2026.01:  Earnestness

• 2025.12:  Startups in 13 Sentences

• 2025.12:  A Project of One’s Own

• 2025.12:  Early Work

• 2025.12:  Being a Noob

• 2025.12:  How People Get Rich Now

• 2025.12:  Write Simply

• 2025.12:  How to Write Usefully

• 2025.12:  The Lesson to Unlearn

• 2025.12:  Schlep Blindness

• 2025.12:  Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

• 2025.12:  Crazy New Ideas

• 2025.12:  Fierce Nerds

• 2025.12:  What I Worked On

• 2025.12:  The Fatal Pinch

• 2025.12:  Beyond Smart

• 2025.12:  Default Alive or Default Dead?

• 2025.12:  Black Swan Farming

• 2025.12:  What We Look for in Founders

• 2025.12:  What I’ve Learned from Users

• 2025.12:  How to Get New Ideas

• 2025.12:  The Need to Read

• 2025.12:  Is There Such a Thing as Good Taste?

• 2025.12:  Heresy

• 2025.12:  The Four Quadrants of Conformism

• 2025.12:  Having Kids

• 2025.12:  Why Nerds are Unpopular

• 2025.12:  Hackers and Painters

• 2025.12:  What You Can’t Say

• 2025.12:  What You’ll Wish You’d Known

• 2025.12:  Beating the Averages

• 2025.12:  The Age of the Essay

• 2025.11:  Great Hackers

• 2025.11:  How to Lose Time and Money

• 2025.11:  Stuff

• 2025.11:  Lies We Tell Kids

• 2025.11:  Taste for Makers

• 2025.11:  Holding a Program in One’s Head

• 2025.11:  Why to not Not Start a Startup

• 2025.11:  Ideas for Startups

• 2025.11:  Mind the Gap

• 2025.11:  Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

• 2025.11:  The Other Road Ahead

• 2025.11:  Copy What You Like

• 2025.11:  How to Start Google

• 2025.11:  When To Do What You Love

• 2025.11:  What to Do

• 2025.11:  Good Writing

• 2025.11:  The Shape of the Essay Field

• 2025.11:  The Best Essay

• 2025.11:  Writes and Write-Nots

• 2025.11:  The Reddits

• 2025.11:  The Airbnbs

• 2025.11:  Billionaires Build

• 2025.11:  What You (Want to)* Want

• 2025.11:  Alien Truth

• 2025.11:  Persuade xor Discover

• 2025.11:  The Risk of Discovery

• 2025.11:  Why It’s Safe for Founders to Be Nice

• 2025.11:  What Doesn’t Seem Like Work?

• 2025.11:  How to Be an Expert in a Changing World

• 2025.11:  Investor Herd Dynamics

• 2025.10:  What Happened to Yahoo

• 2025.10:  The Acceleration of Addictiveness

• 2025.10:  Organic Startup Ideas

• 2025.10:  What Startups Are Really Like

• 2025.10:  Ramen Profitable

• 2025.10:  A Fundraising Survival Guide

• 2025.10:  Be Good

• 2025.10:  The Power of the Marginal

• 2025.10:  Why Startups Condense in America

• 2025.10:  How to Be Silicon Valley

• 2025.10:  The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn

• 2025.10:  Inequality and Risk

• 2025.10:  What Business Can Learn from Open Source

• 2025.10:  Hiring is Obsolete

• 2025.10:  The Submarine

• 2025.10:  Undergraduation

• 2025.10:  What the Bubble Got Right

• 2025.10:  Succinctness is Power

• 2025.10:  Revenge of the Nerds

• 2025.10:  What Made Lisp Different

• 2025.10:  Being Popular

• 2025.10:  Java’s Cover

• 2025.10:  A Unified Theory of VC Suckage

• 2025.10:  After the Ladder

• 2025.10:  How to Fund a Startup

• 2025.10:  The Venture Capital Squeeze

• 2025.10:  Writing, Briefly

• 2025.10:  Hackers and Painters

• 2025.10:  Taste for Makers

• 2025.10:  What You Can’t Say

• 2025.10:  Great Hackers

• 2025.09:  Why Nerds are Unpopular

• 2025.09:  The Other Road Ahead

• 2025.09:  How to Do What You Love

• 2025.09:  Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas

• 2025.09:  The Age of the Essay

• 2025.09:  Undergraduation

• 2025.09:  Succinctness is Power

• 2025.09:  A Plan for Spam

• 2025.09:  Five Questions About Language Design

• 2025.09:  The Hundred-Year Language

• 2025.09:  How to Make Wealth

• 2025.09:  Mind the Gap

• 2025.09:  Design and Research

• 2025.09:  Better Bayesian Filtering

• 2025.09:  Beating the Averages

• 2025.09:  What Languages Fix

• 2025.09:  The Roots of Lisp

• 2025.09:  The List of N Things

• 2025.09:  The Refragmentation

• 2025.09:  Programming Bottom-Up

• 2025.09:  How You Know

• 2025.09:  How to Be Silicon Valley

• 2025.09:  Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

• 2025.09:  Why Startups Condense in America

• 2025.09:  Why to Not Not Start a Startup

• 2025.09:  Six Principles for Making New Things

• 2025.09:  Lies We Tell Kids

• 2025.09:  The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

• 2025.09:  The Equity Equation

• 2025.09:  Good and Bad Procrastination

• 2025.08:  Why TV Lost

• 2025.08:  The Risk of Discovery

• 2025.08:  The Top Idea in Your Mind

• 2025.08:  How to Do Philosophy

• 2025.08:  How to Disagree

• 2025.08:  The Submarine

• 2025.08:  What You’ll Wish You’d Known

• 2025.08:  Ideas for Startups

• 2025.08:  Copy What You Like

• 2025.08:  Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas

• 2025.08:  Writing and Speaking

• 2025.08:  Early Work

• 2025.08:  Relentlessly Resourceful

• 2025.08:  The Island Test

• 2025.08:  You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss

• 2025.08:  A Fundraising Survival Guide

• 2025.08:  The Anatomy of Determination

• 2025.08:  The Future of Startup Funding

• 2025.08:  Cities and Ambition

• 2025.08:  Stuff

• 2025.08:  A Student’s Guide to Startups

• 2025.08:  Organic Startup Ideas

• 2025.08:  Holding a Program in One’s Head

• 2025.08:  A Word to the Resourceful

• 2025.08:  What We Look for in Founders

• 2025.08:  The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

• 2025.08:  Keep Your Identity Small

• 2025.08:  How Y Combinator Started

• 2025.08:  How to Be an Angel Investor

• 2025.08:  The Future of Web Startups

• 2025.08:  How Not to Die

• 2025.07:  Startup = Growth

• 2025.07:  Mean People Fail

• 2025.07:  Do Things that Don’t Scale

• 2025.07:  Schlep Blindness

• 2025.07:  The Hardware Renaissance

• 2025.07:  Investor Herd Dynamics

• 2025.07:  How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub

• 2025.07:  Default Alive or Default Dead?

• 2025.07:  Life is Short

• 2025.07:  The Lesson to Unlearn

• 2025.07:  What Doesn’t Seem Like Work?

• 2025.07:  How People Get Rich Now

• 2025.07:  How to Write Usefully

• 2025.07:  Billionaires Build

• 2025.07:  How to Think for Yourself

• 2025.07:  Before the Startup

• 2025.07:  How to Get New Ideas

• 2025.07:  Write Simply

• 2025.07:  When to Do What You Love

• 2025.07:  How to Do Great Work

• 2025.07:  Weird Languages

• 2025.07:  The Top of My Todo List

• 2025.07:  The Four Quadrants of Conformism

• 2025.07:  Jessica Livingston

• 2025.07:  Economic Inequality

• 2025.07:  Why Arc Isn’t Especially Object-Oriented

• 2025.07:  An Alternative Theory of Unions

• 2025.07:  Airbnb

• 2025.07:  Black Swan Farming

• 2025.07:  Why It’s Safe for Founders to Be Nice

• 2025.07:  How to Convince Investors

• 2025.06:  Defining Property

• 2025.06:  The Patent Pledge

• 2025.06:  RAQs (Rarely-Asked Questions)

• 2025.06:  A Way to Detect Bias

• 2025.06:  After Credentials

• 2025.06:  Charisma / Power

• 2025.06:  Superlinear Returns

• 2025.06:  The Two Kinds of Moderate

• 2025.06:  Heresy

• 2025.06:  How to Lose Time and Money

• 2025.06:  The Need to Read