Having a clear direction when you’re doing side projects is so important. You have 30 minutes to do something? You want to be able to pick a task and start executing. Maybe the task isn’t the high leverage thing you can do. But it’s definetly valuable. Having a direction requires something akin to product market fit, yet incredibly more basic. It requires momentum, getting over the hump. For you to have direction you need to have built the beginnings of the engine. Read more...

A list of interesting domains to me: Space - launch costs trending towards 0 opens up thousands of possibilities Productivity Software - immense possibility opened by AI, but everyone’s going for it Consumer Goods - robot coolers, beautiful backpacks - the possibilities are endless Infrastructure - I’m obsessed with tunnelz for a reason. Programming Languages - the perfect language doesn’t exist yet, however unknown if I’m the correct guy for the job. Read more...

I’m not a rationalist. I have deep appreciation for the rationalist community but they’re not my people in a way that’s very subtle and difficult for me to understand — Samswara (@samswoora) December 17, 2023 This is a difficult thing for me to stay - I was lucky enough to attend the Rationalist Solstice in Berkeley last night, which was an absolutely lovely event. The performance was stunning, going through an emotional Fall, Winter, and Spring. Read more...

I was lucky enough to spend more time with Matt Palmer. I dug into his past to understand how he did it. Here are some things I was struck by It took him a while When he quite his job, he didn’t find his current manufacturing startup right away. it took him 3-6 years before he landed on it. There were detours He spent a lot of time iterating on seemingly unrelated projects. Read more...

I have a week off around Christmas. Could this be a good time to start something? I’ll want to be exploring California (I’m here for a limited time), but I also will have some downtime. Ideally I start a project, that I can then begin hacking on long term. I need that grain. What do I choose for that grain? I’ll have to think on this, it’s not going to come to me today. Read more...

I recently have gotten to know Matt. He’s building a manufacturing startup. I feel lucky to see him work up close - he has a lot of good traits I’d like to emulate. He’s self-confident - he knows what he has and doesn’t doubt it. When questioned he doesn’t have the reflexive need to defend himself. He knows what he has. He manifests - “were going to win because we’re excellent”. Read more...

I’m tired of compromising on the vision I have. Compromise is natural in a W2 job. This isn’t a “they don’t see my genius” kind of thing. My coworkers are all great. It’s more a class of values - I have a vision for the values I want to see in the software and tools I write. Sometimes I don’t do the best job of building towards those values, and that’s what great about cofounders - they see gaps in your thinking, they challenge you. Read more...

What does a version .01 look like? For something like a infrastructure of hardware company, it can be very hard to imagine a side project that does something. What does it look like for tunnelz? My guess would be the logistics software as a simulation suite. Having a map of robots and orders, and modelling traffic patterns and all that. Basically doing the orders of magnitudes out, and also a V1 of the flight software. Read more...

What programming language should my company use? This feels like a silly question in some ways - I’m sure there’s a Paul Graham essay on how what language you choose doesn’t matter. I don’t buy it though. The right language and framework - Makes work fun and enjoyable - functional programming is almost like playing a videogame Helps you hire talented engineers - hiring pool for Java is going to be very different than Rust Helps you ship faster - I can write complex streaming applications in Akka Streams or ZIO incredibly quickly So what language do I use? Read more...

Yesterday I was at an inspiring demo day from Longshot Space. Watching the CEO talk, seeing the demo - it was insanely inspiring. There building a giant potato cannon! They’re getting paid to build a giant potato cannon! Like always, it makes me realize - I can do this. One of my core takeaways from SF is there is no special sauce, founders aren't cut from rarified cloth, they're just unemployed and focus on a single thing. Read more...