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The Month After Leaving Big Tech
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20 September
Systems and developer-tools engineer at Cloudflare as of 2026, on durable infrastructure for AI agents; worked on React and PartyKit before that. Writes at sunilpai.dev.
overwhelmed by the response to this, I knew it was common but didn’t realise how badly people needed to see it acknowledged. fwiw, I learnt this most deeply on the react team; I joined what I thought was my dream job, and immediately failed in this fashion, leaving in a year. Quoting @threepointone new post: the senior engineer death spiral https://t.co/xzgU1jVBRh a friend just started a big job and asked for some advice. so I braindumped a monologue about a super common failure mode I see with engineers and posted it here, hope it helps whoever it can. JavaScript Related
18 September
Canadian full-stack web developer who makes JavaScript and CSS video courses and co-hosts the Syntax podcast.
iPhone duo simulator just released: No sign of the viewport segment or device posture API in Safari folded view safari adds toolbars to both the bottom AND the right of the viewport leaving very little room for website Related
16 September
Austrian developer. Created the libGDX game framework, and more recently the pi coding agent, which moved with them to Earendil — Armin Ronacher's company — in April 2026. Writes at mariozechner.at.
thought i joined a serious, good company. but they haven't refilled the manner stack, so my only way out is to quit. Related
15 September
Forecaster, founder of FiveThirtyEight, author of The Signal and the Noise and On the Edge. Writes Silver Bulletin, where the predictions come with numbers and the numbers are later checked against what happened.
14 September
Theoretical physicist and philosopher, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Writes the Preposterous Universe blog and hosts the Mindscape podcast.
YouTube just served up what might be my new favorite drum solo of all time. Carl Palmer at age 75! youtube.com
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Technology writer of Spyglass, a newsletter about technology and media. Previously a reporter at TechCrunch and an investor at GV.
Leaving SF, people in airport talking about AI regulation. Arriving in London, radio in black cab talking about AI regulation. Related
11 September
Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY; co-author of Rework, Remote and It Does Not Have to Be Crazy at Work.
A really lovely GRID VIEW is coming to Basecamp 5 shortly. We had a grid view in 4, but it wasn't any good and I didn't want to drag it into 5. Had we done that, we'd have called it done and never revisited. By intentionally leaving it out, we allowed pressure to build to bring it back. And with no legacy to battle or revamp, we were able to return to the drawing board and make something so much better, from scratch. Coming to a Basecamp near you. Soon. Related
9 September
Cognitive scientist and long-standing critic of deep learning's claims; writes Marcus on AI and wrote Rebooting AI.
3 September
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.
2 September
Chilean web engineer building web experiences since 2006; co-founder of Media Creators and writes at iolivares.com.
Llevo un tiempo usando cmux, y solo les voy a decir: Usen cmux, después me agradecen. English, from Spanish I've been using cmux for a while now, and I'm just going to tell you: Use cmux, you'll thank me later.
cmux.com
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British designer and technologist; co-founder of the design studio BERG, which made Little Printer, and writer of the blog Interconnected.
what's going on with spam calls? I'm now getting two calls/day from random mobile numbers (not on the usual "who called" sites) and they're not leaving any kind of call screening message or voicemail. last couple of weeks, big uptick Related
Professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business, known for his work on valuation. He publishes his data, spreadsheets and classes free at Damodaran Online and writes the Musings on Markets blog.
1 September
Chilean web engineer building web experiences since 2006; co-founder of Media Creators and writes at iolivares.com.
Creator of Homebrew, the macOS package manager, and a Swift developer.
My Chrome has required me to force quit whenever I open it and then reopen it in order for it to load for almost a year now. This is not a dig at the Chrome team. Chrome is among the most used software in the world. What this indicates to me is that: software is hard. Related
General partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of The Cold Start Problem. Previously led rider growth teams at Uber; has blogged on growth, network effects and marketplaces since 2007.
Before AI: - hardware is hard - teams > solo founders - technical founders only - PhDs build tech in search of a problem - hot SaaS startups get 100x ARR multiples After AI: - hardware is the only thing AI can't build - solo founders are 100x engineers - anyone can build - PhDs building AI infra name their price - SaaSpocalypse Am I missing anything? SaaS startups Related
Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra Klein, a staff writer at The Atlantic from 2008 to 2025, and host of the Plain English podcast.
31 August
Writes jvns.ca, turning "hard and scary" topics — networking, debugging, Linux internals — into plain explanations and hand-drawn comics. Publishes Wizard Zines, illustrated programming zines. Software developer based in Montreal.
I'm working on phase 2 of Project Improve Git's documentation and I need beta readers! Here's a signup form: https://forms.gle/swn1jhCULndnCxG87 The first topic is going to the docs on merge conflicts. I'd love signups from anyone who uses Git on the command line and who would be interested in reading the current version of some man pages and leaving feedback about what's confusing. Especially if you're not 100% comfortable with Git! documentation Related
Bootstrapper and investor. Founder of TinySeed and MicroConf, host of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast, and author of several books on self-funded software startups.
One of the biggest copes I hear from solo technical founders: “I don’t need to validate it. I’m building it for myself, so even if nobody else uses it, it’s still a success.” No. If you want to build something for yourself, great. That’s a project. If you want to build a product, you should do the work: talk to customers, validate demand, think about positioning and marketing, and work to build something people will actually pay for. You don’t get to skip all the hard, boring, uncomfortable parts of building a business and then redefine success as “well, I use it.” Build for yourself or build… startups Related
Co-founder and CEO of 37signals, makers of Basecamp and HEY; co-author of Rework, Remote and It Does Not Have to Be Crazy at Work.
Just built my first Omarchy plugin! This also happens to be the first piece of software I've ever made solo entirely with AI. Back-and-forth over English and nothing else. So two firsts for me. Super fun experience. Here's a quick little tour. Hope you dig it. Omarchy Related
Founder of Trilogy Software and principal of Alpha School, the private school network built around two hours a day of AI-delivered mastery learning.
Their words
The key to developing a child is that they struggle and fail on their road to success supported by a caring adult. And you just want to run that loop.
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youtube.com
29 August
Economist; former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.
There were some long (too long) tweets earlier which stated it carefully. The basic point is that the decrease in interest payments is offset by a decrease in transfers from the central bank, leaving the deficit unchanged. This is the sense in which it makes no difference, except accounting. Then, there is a thousand caveats, which Quentin and others have discussed, and then the psychological/political effects that make things worse. But the basic point is the basic point. :) Quoting @JohnHCochrane Olivier: I know tweets are short, but you really should qualify “makes no difference”. To what—and not to what else? Inflation? Can all countries and banks default on all assets held by ecb with “no difference?” You don’t mean that of course. Don’t let them misquote you! interest rates Related
28 August
American novelist and critic, author of Real Life, The Late Americans and Minor Black Figures; writes the newsletter sweater weather on literature and culture.
17 August
Mathematician at UCLA, working mainly in harmonic analysis and partial differential equations. Writes What's new, a long-running blog on their research, open problems and expository notes.
14 August
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.
3 August
Professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus at Yale. Author of Against Empathy, The Sweet Spot and Psych, and writer of the Small Potatoes newsletter.
1 August
Ruby and Rails core committer known online as "tenderlove"; maintains Nokogiri and works on Ruby performance.
Found a certificate I'm actually proud of for piano solo. This one was actually very hard to get Related
25 July
Swedish open source developer; creator and lead maintainer of curl and libcurl, and a co-founder of the Rockbox project.
21 July
Full-stack developer, creator of Tailwind CSS; writes at adamwathan.me and makes courses and screencasts for web developers.
Solo trip to @ShopifyDevs DotDev for the day, say hi if you see me 👋 Related
24 June
Makes NeetCode, the structured practice list and video walkthroughs people use to prepare for coding interviews; a former Google engineer.
21 June
Writer and former McKinsey/BCG strategy consultant; author of The Pathless Path and Good Work, about leaving the default career track. Publishes the Boundless newsletter and podcast.
Short But I realized I didn't quit just to make more money, or make the same amount of money. I wanted to Related
18 June
Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.
the best part of Dialectic was observing how meticulous and intentional @jacksondahl is about *his* craft he spent this pod pressing me on every single "why" behind what I do: why quit my job, why longform, why legacy journalism, why AI. the guy asks hard questions!! Quoting @jacksondahl Jasmine Sun quit her tech job to tell the world about what she's seeing up close in Silicon Valley. Dialectic 49: @jasminewsun! I talked to her about the depth behind SF's memes, why quitting her job wasn't risky, and her "AlphaGo" moment--and why she'll keep writing anyway. Jasmine writes independ… Related
12 June
Software engineer, Wikipedia editor and crypto critic; writes Citation Needed and runs Web3 is Going Just Great.
2 June
Scottish software developer on the Statamic core team; runs a one-person business maintaining Statamic addons such as Runway and writes at duncanmcclean.com.
Just run `laravel new` on a side project idea. Solo by @aarondfrancis is busy creating to-dos, spinning up agents, creating sandboxes and running my dev stack. All while I'm sitting back watching YouTube! Related
29 May
Software engineer and writer; worked on Mapbox and built Placemark and Simple Statistics, and blogs at macwright.com.
Their words
Editor: neovim with LazyVim. I can't quit it.
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macwright.com
18 May
Product designer and entrepreneur; author of Mobile First and Web Form Design; formerly a product director at Google; now building AI products.
28 April
American writer and long-term traveller. Blogs at tynan.com about travel, owning few possessions, habits and the gear he carries; author of Superhuman by Habit and Make It Big.
Co-founder of Superlogical, started in 2026 to build server-side terminal infrastructure; creator of Ghostty. Co-founded HashiCorp and created Vagrant and Terraform before that.
9 April
Pseudonymous writer; posts careful, funny investigations of everyday questions — air quality, seed oils, arguing, chess — usually by reading the studies.
1 April
Developer and podcaster; created Instapaper and Overcast, co-founded Tumblr, and co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast.
27 March
Writer and technology executive; blogs at anildash.com, was CEO of Glitch, and helped build Movable Type and ThinkUp.
19 February
Founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and led it until stepping back from control in 2022. Author of Principles, The Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke; publishes economic analysis at economicprinciples.org.
2025 Naturally, as a systematic global macro investor leaving 2025, I reflected on the mechanics of what happened, particularly in the markets.
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25 January
Founder of WP Engine and Smart Bear; writes A Smart Bear, long essays on strategy, pricing and how startups actually fail.
Their words
What you want to do is say what made you cancel? In other words, what about the product or situation or whatever caused the cancellation? Just phrasing it that way, you get much better results.
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youtube.com
16 January
Software entrepreneur who bootstrapped and sold FeedbackPanda and now builds Podscan; writes The Bootstrapped Founder.
9 December 2025
Writer of the newsletter bookbear express, on psychology, relationships, non-attachment and taste; based in San Francisco.
Their words
NARS soft matte concealer. This is the BEST concealer. I've used this for many years and I will never quit it. There is no comparable one for acne.
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avabear.xyz
5 December 2025
Computer performance engineer working on datacenter performance at OpenAI, previously Netflix and Sun/Joyent. Author of Systems Performance and BPF Performance Tools, and creator of flame graphs.
4 December 2025
Computer performance engineer working on datacenter performance at OpenAI, previously Netflix and Sun/Joyent. Author of Systems Performance and BPF Performance Tools, and creator of flame graphs.
3 December 2025
Professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business, known for his work on valuation. He publishes his data, spreadsheets and classes free at Damodaran Online and writes the Musings on Markets blog.
26 November 2025
Writer of kottke.org, one of the oldest blogs on the web, published since 1998 and supported by its members. He writes about art, technology, science, design and visual culture.
Their words
Leaving America. This is a 12-part podcast on the logistics, benefits, and challenges of leaving the United States. Oh, no reason. (B+)
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kottke.org
26 September 2025
Reinforcement-learning researcher; co-wrote the field's standard textbook, wrote The Bitter Lesson, and shared the 2024 Turing Award.
Their words
then we're entering the age of design where because our AIs are designed our our our all of our physical objects are designed our buildings are designed our technology is designed and we're we're designing now uh AIs things that can be intelligent themselves and that are themselves capable of design
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youtube.com
21 March 2025
Writer and former McKinsey/BCG strategy consultant; author of The Pathless Path and Good Work, about leaving the default career track. Publishes the Boundless newsletter and podcast.
Their words
An unconventional guide to the craft of indie consulting and life in the gig economy, mixing philosophy, pattern language, and very practical guidance for building a client-based solo career.
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pathlesspath.com
20 February 2025
Social scientist at King's College London; writes The Great Gender Divergence on why societies differ in how they treat women.
13 January 2025
Labour politician. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 2024 to June 2026, and MP for Holborn and St Pancras from 2015 until standing down in 2026. Director of Public Prosecutions before entering Parliament.
government
Their words
We shouldn’t just focus on safety and leave the rest to the market… Government has a responsibility to make it work for working people…
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gov.uk
16 December 2024
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.
18 October 2024
Professor of economics at George Mason University and Bartley J. Madden Chair at the Mercatus Center. Co-writes the blog Marginal Revolution and co-authors the textbook Modern Principles of Economics with Tyler Cowen.
20 September 2024
Runs global health R&D at Open Philanthropy; writes about the science and medicine that could exist and does not.
Effective nonprofits The most striking fact about philanthropy to me is how little money rich people give away. It is well known that we all die, and that leaving overwhelming wealth to your children can make their lives worse not better, s…
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26 March 2024
Marketing author and daily blogger; founder of the altMBA and the Akimbo workshops, and author of books including Purple Cow and This Is Marketing.
Their words
a new relationship is like fresh powder. It is new and shiny and exciting but it will not be a new relationship for long. And then you're still stuck with an old relationship and the question is will your old relationship a year from now be better than your old relationship that you currently have is? And if the answer is yes then yes sunk costs completely apply. But if the answer is no then what you're really doing is shopping for novelty not ignoring sunk costs.
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youtube.com
30 January 2024
Science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist; writes the daily blog and newsletter Pluralistic, and coined the term enshittification.
17 April 2023
Journalist; wrote We Are Eating the Earth on food and climate, and writes the newsletter Emissions.
1 February 2023
Software engineer and writer; former CTO of Wave, now at Anthropic. Blogs at benkuhn.net on attention, engineering management and doing hard things well.
11 October 2022
Economist at the University of Houston; wrote Fully Grown, on why a slow-growing economy is a sign of success, and blogs at Growth Economics.
20 January 2021
Writes Nintil, long researched essays on metascience, biology, economics and whatever he has decided to read the literature on.
Their words
I have reviewed before the effectiveness of peer review at figuring out "what's good" in the context of grant awards, finding that peer review as currently practiced does substantially better than chance at predicting future impact, especially for the most impactful of the papers; but at the same time is is far from perfect, leaving plenty of variance unexplained.
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nintil.com
8 January 2021
Writes Nintil, long researched essays on metascience, biology, economics and whatever he has decided to read the literature on.
Their words
This is a fortunate conclusion, because it means that it's possible to use bibliometrics to select a candidate set of sufficiently good scientists, and then use human reviewers to select among them.
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nintil.com
2 July 2020
Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.
Their words
USB Audio Interface to take the feed from the mic to the computer (Focusrite Scarlett Solo)
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3blue1brown.com
1 June 2020
Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.
Their words
The strength of this book is the central role it places on problems. Its aim is to teach you about inequalities, which are the backbone of analysis. But it's all too easy to teach the statement of an inequality without conveying the intuition for when and how you'd use it. By focusing on well-chosen puzzles, this book does an admirable job circumventing that risk and leaving you with the feeling of having trained a skill, rather than having learned a list of facts.
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3blue1brown.com
24 June 2019
Creator of the Zig programming language; president and lead developer of the Zig Software Foundation.
7 June 2018
Creator of the Zig programming language; president and lead developer of the Zig Software Foundation.
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What is a korrent?
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