Writing

Patrick Collison's advice resonates because it cuts through the noise of conventional wisdom with refreshingly direct insights. His emphasis on going deep on multiple things early feels particularly relevant in our age of surface-level engagement - the compound benefits of early expertise create optionality that's impossible to replicate later. What strikes me most is his point about status lagging by a generation; I've seen this repeatedly in tech where the "safe" career paths of previous generations become tomorrow's dead ends. The advice to make friends over the internet and leverage global networks feels especially prescient given how remote collaboration has fundamentally changed what's possible. His warning about following traintrack paths versus charting your own course is perhaps the most valuable insight - the biggest career risks often come from playing it too safe rather than betting on yourself.

Performance is something that we will give more time; behavior we won’t. And that’s because behavior is a choice, not a skill set.

We constantly have conversations around prioritization. We can’t do everything, so we have to choose. Not choosing is the worst thing you can do because now you’re compromising everything.

Larger companies … tend to become their own worst enemies. It’s not what the world does to them; it’s what they do to themselves.

Where does ambition come from? It is a lack of adjustment because if you were a perfectly balanced person, you wouldn’t have any ambition. You’re so happy with where things are, you barely have a reason to get up in the morning. But maladjusted people, they just have this disparity between where they are and what they want to do and what they want to prove.

I like people that have attitude, that have a chip on their shoulder, that have a burning need and desire to prove something.

The thing about sales is that great salespeople can’t sell a bad product, but lousy salespeople can sell a great product.

I’d rather hire more slowly but better instead of faster.

“Legacy” is not a word that I use, okay? I find … a lot of self-absorption around that stuff, like I need to live beyond the grave. I really don’t need to, and I don’t want to feel so important that that’s even a question.

AI coding agents yield 20% productivity gains, but their true value is democratizing development - enabling non-traditional developers to ship 130+ PRs annually. This force multiplier effect across the team is the real productivity breakthrough, not just faster coding for experienced developers.

A very nice this documentary about Fatboy Slim talking about UK DJ culture

I feel there is a lot of confusion and frustration arround the use of 'use client' and 'use server'. Dan explains this as clear as possible:

"The server needs to send code to the client (by sending a <script>). The client needs to talk back to the server (by doing a fetch). The 'use client' and 'use server' directives abstract over those, offering a first-class, typed, and statically analyzable way to pass control to a piece of your codebase on another computer:

• 'use client' is a typed <script>.

• 'use server' is a typed fetch()

The messy, fascinating world of turning lat/lon coordinates into human-friendly addresses.
What sounds simple quickly unravels into questions about user experience, data trust, and the real purpose behind OpenBenches.

A useful guide on building AI agents based on OpenAI's recommended approach