SaaS is dead, long live SaaS
I think about AI product design in terms of degrees of freedom. There are several different kinds of freedom. There is the freedom the user has to express what they want. There is the freedom the user has to configure the product. There is the freedom the model has to decide how to solve the problem. There is the freedom an agent has to use tools and take actions. And then there is the amount of variation an organization can manage between one person’s setup and another’s.So, the question any good product designer asks is, “Is this the right degree of freedom for this specific context?”Now,…
Why LLM writing feels dead
A friend told me recently that LLM writing feels dead to him, while human writing feels alive. I think it’s because an LLM doesn’t learn or live in time and in an environment, the way you and I do. You remember, at least roughly, when you learned something. Stuff you picked up as a kid, different place, different people… it has its own vibe, its own web of associations. It’s totally unlike whatever you learned last week at work. An LLM has no such equivalent. It does not learn in time but all at once. It can tell you which event came first, but it doesn’t experience one as a memory and the…
The real bottleneck for autonomous agents is usable context.
Model intelligence is fine. Execution speed is more than fine. For “taste”, you can imbue the agent with your intent, tacit knowledge, and judgment using skills, code, context docs and workflow design.What actually caps autonomous execution is usable context window. If the effective context window is just 150k – 200k tokens, you can’t trust agents to one-shot work that takes up way more tokens than that.Opus 4.6 advertises 1M tokens but degrades well before that. By around 150k, the agent follows instructions less reliably, grows disoriented and equivocates, picks tools more sloppily, drops…
Hive minds with version control
When production becomes cheap, another cost quickly begins to dominate: coordination. Most organizations run on structures that evolved when work itself moved slowly, when waiting two days for someone else’s input did not feel catastrophic because the ratio of delay to labor remained small, almost negligible, a rounding error in the larger timeline of any meaningful project. But now imagine you’re a PM who builds a working feature in an hour using agents. The code sits in a branch waiting for review. But the engineer responsible for the system can only look at it next week. So, your original…
Differentiation is not a line you write on day one
I have increasingly come to think that unique value propositions and differentiators, as they appear in most strategy documents, are vacuous. Differentiation does exist and it matters enormously, but the place where it actually comes from is so structural, so internal to the organization, that any attempt to compress it into a line vitiates the very thing it purports to capture. The world today metabolizes and commoditizes everything, ruthlessly. Whatever you can articulate clearly enough to put in a deck, a competitor can read, internalize, and approximate within a quarter or two. There are…
On Bakaiti
There is a familiar Indian habit of speaking confidently about matters one does not in any meaningful sense understand. This habit is often dismissed with the word “bakaiti.” The term is informal, but the phenomenon it names is remarkably stable. A person engages in bakaiti when he produces talk whose primary function is not to describe his experience or justify his beliefs, but to sustain the appearance of knowing. This includes people confidently pontificating about geopolitics, economic policy, or the latest tech trends based purely on what they've consumed from the media, without any…
The Custodian of Small Things
It was not merely that the fog was thick; it was that the fog possessed a certain administrative weight, pressing against the wet wool of Herr Blumfeld’s overcoat with the insistence of a heavy, unwanted blanket. It was a Tuesday evening in November, a time of year that seemed to consist entirely of grey dampness and the sound of distant, invisible carriages clattering over cobblestones. Blumfeld walked with his usual measured stride, his left hand tucked deeply into his pocket, his right gripping the handle of his leather briefcase. The briefcase contained nothing of urgent importance —…
Why Durga rides a Tiger
Once, a man was raised on soft gods. Gods who offered comfort, approval, and endless second chances. These gods spoke in soothing tones and asked nothing too costly. The man grew clever in his temple, skilled at saying the right words while hiding the rot inside. He unconsciously worshipped emotional security and called it faith.And then he met the Tiger.There’s a good reason why Goddess Durga rides the Tiger. The Tiger is the symbol of raw, unvarnished, grounded fact. It is the opposite of a fluffy, convenient spirituality.Philosophically, the Tiger stands for aletheia: truth or fact as…
How to build tools you will love using
Often, people who build tools don't end up using them. They build something, maybe use it a few times out of obligation for the sake of dogfooding, then drift back to whatever they were using before. The tool becomes a fancy portfolio project and never really integrates into their workflow. But what I've been mulling over recently is when someone builds something they genuinely prefer using. Not something they're proud of in the abstract, but something that's actually better for their workflow than the alternatives. This is surprisingly rare.Companies may famously eat their own dogfood, but…
Four philosophers walk into a bar
The four men sit around a table lit by candlelight. Wine has been poured. Dostoyevsky sits hunched forward, fingers interlaced, his eyes dark and restless as if wrestling with some internal accusation. Nietzsche leans back in his chair with theatrical ease, one hand gesturing expansively even in silence, his mouth curved in a perpetual half-smile that could be either mockery or delight. Wallace fidgets constantly — adjusting his glasses, running his hand through his hair, tapping his fingers against his thigh in an irregular rhythm that suggests a mind that cannot stop moving. Krishnamurti…
The reluctant case for therapy
I used to argue, quite vehemently, that therapy doesn't help anyone become free from their suffering. I still believe this is largely true. Therapy, at its core, attempts to reinforce and rebuild the very structure — the self — that is the root cause of psychological suffering. It tries to give you a healthier ego, a more integrated sense of identity, better coping mechanisms. But it doesn't question the fundamental illusion: that there is a “you” who needs to go in the first place, that the self is not something to be repaired or strengthened; it's the very thing creating the drama, the…
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
There's a certain type of person you encounter sometimes who has consumed vast amounts of philosophy at a young age, particularly the postmodern variety. They inhabit what I call a perma-ironic stance that colors every interaction they have with the world around them. They see irony everywhere, recursing onto itself in endless loops that spiral deeper and deeper into meaninglessness. They've completely lost the capacity for straight-faced engagement with anything whatsoever and can't process even the simplest statements at face value anymore. Super judgey about it too. These people have…
Brother, may I have some oats?
I'd be surprised if any of these people experiencing ‘moral panic’ over AI videos would be able to tell me what the actual problem they're experiencing is. This is not to say that there may not be any problems with an AI slop feed; rather it is to point out how much this ‘moral panic’ is just a meme at this point and not really rooted in one's understanding of the real problem with it.Most such moral panics are aesthetic reactions dressed up as ethical concerns, and it may very well be the case that most of these people do not really have any problem with the act of short-form consumption…
Writing in service of the idea
When I started copywriting full-time in 2018, i did what most people do when they take their craft seriously — I poured my entire identity into my work. This whole craft notion wasn't something I theorized about or chose so much as fell into, with the predictable self-seriousness of someone who'd decided to make writing their thing™. Naturally, i hated when others edited my writing. If their edits made the piece worse, I resented them. If their edits improved the piece, I turned that resentment inward, berating myself for my oversight, my laziness, my complacency. Meanwhile, the irony was…
Truth is that which leaves no choice.
Most communication today is what I would call marketing-coded; there is always an intention to fit in, to convince, to persuade, to sell, to belong. It is not honest. Every conversation, every social media post, every damn interaction is a carefully crafted performance. We are all walking billboards, constantly trying to sell ourselves, our ideas, our excuses, our agendas. I see many creators today — in fact, most of them — who start by being themselves but at the smallest hint of recognition or validation from the market, start talking about things that appease their audience.They start out…
Play or do not play. There is no cope.
Look at what frustrates you. Look at what problems you have. They will tell you the game you're playing. If you're an artist who claims to create for creation's sake but resents being ignored, that should tell you that you're playing for recognition. If you're someone who's "Above office politics" but bitter about being passed over when it's promotion season, that should tell you that you're playing for advancement. If you think you're too good for the standard mating dance or buying flowers, but then whine about sleeping alone, that should tell you that you want the prize without paying the…
The game is rigged, and spawn point privilege is real.
Capitalism has bad aesthetics and offends our moral sensibilities because technology's scaling effects turn minor advantages into runaway feedback loops. Someone with marginally better starting conditions like talent, money, connections can now leverage those into exponentially growing gaps. What used to be linear differences become nonlinear divergences. But at the same time, technology also provides you with countless micro-niches to hack your own status games on orthogonal dimensions. So it's not that bad. The internet has genuinely flattened access to eyeballs, know-how, and toolkits in…
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
The thing about municipal libraries in 2025 is that they've become these weird hybrid spaces where antiquated reverence for physical books coexists with holographic study pods and AI research assistants that speak in soothing, vaguely British accents — and it was in just such a space, specifically the Harold J. Pembridge Memorial Library on the corner of Vine and Fourth, that Daniel Hoffman first encountered the manuscript that would effectively dismantle everything he'd understood about the foundational architecture of contemporary American neo-traditional society, though of course at the…
Hot take: Every hot take has already been taken.
My MacBook's cursor blinks at me like a judgmental auntie at a wedding: persistent, expectant, slightly disgusted by my inability to perform. I'm ghostwriting another thought leadership piece and my fingers hover over the keyboard like they're performing a séance with dead ideas."The key to scaling your startup is thinking differently about value creation."Delete.Type: "Value isn't created, it's discovered."Delete."Discovery is the new creation."Delete delete delete.I know the right template is there, waiting in my muscle memory. But then I notice that I can't remember the last time I had a…
The Truth about Agency
The hand that you raise "by choice" was raised by ten thousand invisible forces.The glass you throw "at will" was premeditated by every moment that preceded this one.Show me the independent actor.Show me the man who acts outside the web of causation.Show me the woman whose choices emerge from a place untouched by conditioning.Show me an act that stands absolutely by itself, with no prior cause.You cannot.Because there is no such person.And there is no such thing.There is only the one who sees this, and the one who does not.The world is full of people who mistake reaction for action.They live…
Agents of the Simulation
Amara was heating up yesterday's rajma chawal in the microwave at 2:47 AM when Schrodinger started buffering again.The orange tabby sat perfectly still in the living room, one paw raised mid-step, staring at the wall where last month's electricity bill still hung unpaid. His pupils were dilated into perfect black circles, and when she looked closely, she could swear she saw a faint loading symbol rotating in his irises.The WiFi router blinked once, twice, then died.Amara's phone screen went dark. The microwave's digital display flickered to 00:00. Even the Bluetooth speaker that had been…
Are you a poor little rich boy?
Sometimes, escaping society's clutches becomes easier without inheritance. When you come from nothing, society's grip loosens. Less to lose, more freedom. No golden handcuffs. No preset routes. Wealth imprisons through sophisticated means. Golden handcuffs turn privilege into a prison. You get tangled up in what everyone expects, what you owe, and the calculus of what you'd lose by walking away. Try to color outside the lines, try to build something new instead of polishing what was handed down, and you realize the cost. Your kids will inherit the same beautiful cage. The family business is…
The Movie-Brain
Detective Inspector Miles Crankshaw possessed what his colleagues charitably termed "an unfortunate relationship with sincerity." While other members of the Metropolitan Police cultivated the traditional copper's arsenal of strategic dishonesty — the sympathetic nod, the understanding murmur, the tactical promise of leniency — Crankshaw had built his entire career on what he called "radical unfakery." He refused to laugh at the Super's jokes, told suspects exactly what he thought of them, and once reduced a therapist to tears by explaining, in detail, why her "active listening" faces were…
The Solomon Cut
The summons came at breakfast. Maya's hands aged three days just opening the envelope; official Entropy Board stationery always carried trace absorption, a reminder of who controlled the flow. The rice in Lila's bowl turned gray and sprouted mold between one bite and the next. Twelve years old, and her daughter's presence already bent time around her like heat shimmer."Premium sink designation," Maya read, the words tasting like copper. "Immediate biometric registration required."Lila kept eating the rotten rice. At their decay rate, refusing food meant starving. The apartment's east wall…
Vibe-dreaming
The ad said: Earn $10,000. One hour. Medical research.Marcus Chen pressed his thumb against the glass door. The scanner beeped green. Inside, everything was white — white walls, white floors, white ceiling tiles that hummed with hidden ventilation. The kind of white that made your teeth ache."Mr. Chen?" A woman in a lab coat extended her hand. Young. Maybe twenty-five. Ponytail pulled so tight it stretched her eyes. "I'm Sarah. Thanks for coming."Her handshake was damp. Cold."Ten grand for an hour?" Marcus said. "I'd be stupid not to."Sarah's laugh came out wrong. Too high. Too fast. "Right…
Meeting the Buddhu on the road
The morning heat had already settled over Dadar's flower market when Vikram arrived, his white kurta deliberately rumpled in that studied way suggesting spiritual detachment. He paused at the entrance, adjusting his rudraksha beads, then swept through the narrow lanes with practiced serenity.At a corner stall, an unremarkable vendor sat cross-legged behind buckets of marigolds and roses, sorting petals with methodical precision. His face held the weathered quality of someone who'd spent years in the sun, hands moving through flowers as if conducting some private meditation."These marigolds,"…
The Mind Palace
The nicotine floods my bloodstream like liquid lightning. Three patches, perhaps four... I've lost count. The chemical rush obliterates the tedium of this interminable case, this pedestrian murder that Watson insists requires my attention. But now something shifts. The room tilts. My fingers, normally so precise, fumble at my collar.I close my eyes to steady myself, and when I open them, I stand in my mind palace.But this is wrong. Terribly wrong.The mahogany corridors I've constructed over decades of meticulous mental architecture twist at impossible angles. Doorways lead to themselves. The…