recently I stopped using my ZSA Voyager , a $365 ortholinear split keyboard (I bought it second hand in new condition for €300 in February). all the cool kids are switching to split keyboards, swearing they'll never switch back, so why did I? it mainly comes down to one reason, and it's that it's all too much, man . I already have enough efficiency boosts in my interactions with the computer. I…
Even though I haven't posted in a while, I still enjoy keeping up this yearly tradition of writing a post on my birthday. This time I'll keep it simple and share a few things I did in the past year: Left Tesla to work on robotics at a startup I've been learning daily. Reminds me of my first few months at Google where everything was so new to me. I'm glad I made this pivot Travelled more than…
last week I shared that I left Tesla to pivot into AI and robotics at Yaak AI . naturally, people were curious as to how I'm planning to learn these new topics, because I've never formally studied them before. most of my work as a software engineer hasn't required any formal knowledge in maths, nor knowledge in AI to use LLMs. some background on me: I didn't go to university, started learning to…
after almost 2 years at Tesla, I decided to part ways ~2 weeks ago (my last actual day was Jan 30). my first day, April 2024: I'm grateful that they allowed me to move from London to Berlin, which in itself has been one of the best decisions I made. I'm glad to have worked on a bunch of interesting problems related to scaling Gigafactories globally with the software I wrote with a team of amazing…
I do these yearly, see 2024 and 2023 . I think I'm starting to get the hang of my Fuji XT-20 camera with the 35mm lens. February Munich this was my first time visting, and I love it. it's even more beautiful in the snow. always a pleasure visiting Cyrus . April Rimini, Italy I went to Rimini with my friends to help with the ultimate frisbee tournament Paganello . I had an incredible time with the…
welcome to the second edition of cool things. you can check out the first edition if you missed that one. My Approach to Building Large Technical Projects - Mitchell Hashimoto - big fan of Mitchell's work on Ghostty , and I found this post to be a good reminder that perfection can be the enemy of progress. Getting the demo out is more important than anything else to validate an idea. David Lynch's…
I love the open web, and by extension, I love what RSS stands for: Really Simple Syndication freedom. To put it simply, RSS allows you to synthesise everything into a single feed. Lets say you enjoyed reading a blog post and want to see more in the future, you would add their RSS feed, like parsam.io/rss.xml (great guy), and see future posts. The beauty is that it's a standard format, so you have…
I’ve been inspired by Thorsten Ball to share my own form of joy and curiosity . Read to Forget - I read a lot, and always find myself sometimes shuffling around to remember the details. But I like this frame of thinking, and it reminds me of how I've been reading Taleb's books by letting the thoughts marinade in my head over a long period instead of highlighting everything. iPhone dumbphone - one…
Update (Jan 2026) : After posting this I realised how hard it is to write about dating apps without sounding whiny or like you can't get no hoes. Most people agree that apps are genuinely shit since a lot of them don't take them seriously, but I still think I was being too rigid about them which was ignorant of me. Reading Black Swan made me realise I should be exposing myself to upside risks, and…
Today, I turn 22 years old. Wednesday is also the day I was born. Every year I slowly get closer and closer to the age people always guess for me (usually off by 3 years), which is insane because I don't even think I look that old. Some people even thought I was almost 30! My Persian genetics in the western world probably plays a part. Anyways, I'm quite optimistic for this segment of my life. I…
Boredom is one of the most important states you should get comfortable with. In the common case of standing in a queue, most people just feel the need to pull out their phone and start filling their brain up with junk. So, next time you're faced with it, learn to embrace it. Don't just reflexively pull out your phone the second you feel the boredom creeping. Observe what's going on around you,…
I recently migrated this site from Next.js to Astro , and I wish I did it earlier. As much as I love Next, it was just overkill for a static blog like mine. I shouldn't be shipping all of this js junk to render some text and images. I'm not exactly an expert with Next to know why all of this needed, but I don't think I need to be. If I specify my pages are static, then it should be as it says on…
4 years ago, I started my software engineering career at 17. During this time, I've had the rare opportunity to work at two innovative companies: Google and Tesla . You might think I'm some educated wiz kid, but I never went to university. I had terrible grades in school, and my worst grade was ironically in computer science. I don't come from a wealthy family either. With that background, no one…
Great news for the 2 other people who read my blog – you can now read my posts via email! I tried using Substack as a way to just get my posts in peoples inboxes, but I didn't like how decoupled it was from my personal website. I don't like the idea of my posts lazily being posted around the internet, I want them to be in one canonical place. But thanks to Buttondown , I have a solution that…
With Thomas Paul Mann (CEO of Raycast ) With Paul Skallas aka LindyMan Warsaw, Poland Loved Warsaw. Italy Naples Pompeii Rome Misc Excited for 2025 :)
before I joined Google in 2021, I was 17 years old, barely knew how to program and had no connections whatsoever in the tech industry. but early on I learned the immense value of building a strong network, especially from scratch with complete strangers. this also went hand in hand with learning that having a referral (at least in the case of the tech industry), greatly improves the chances of…
I watch a lot of films ... not as much as I wish but a good amount to say that I think it's so much more enjoyable watching movies alone in the theatre. you can really immerse in the filmmakers world, since you don't have to worry about making comments to your friends next to you. I can just let loose and let the film take me away. (pic of me watching films alone) I mean yeah you get some loud…
I'm starting a new series on my blog where I share some of the interesting things I've come across. It's kinda a bookmark dump, but you might find some value in it :) Brave Browser (and vertical tabs) I've toyed with the idea of switching to vertical tabs before, but it's not natively supported in Chrome. I'm fully aware of the benefits of using vertical anything, like I've always used a vertical…
Today I turn 21 years old, which if you didn’t know, is the one after 20. Crazy, I know. I think 20 was the most formative year for me so far. I’m generally becoming more well rounded in the important aspects of life. I feel the stakes for my decisions getting higher as I age, and this year was eye-opening for that. I’ve been learning a lot from my mistakes, and am constantly self aware of where I…
I'm pleased to share I joined Tesla! This will be a huge leap in my professional life as a Software Engineer, as well as my personal one as I've moved from London to Berlin, where I've started working from their Gigafactory . Two years ago, I got my first ever job as a Software Engineer at one of the best tech companies in the world - Google . I genuinely can't believe I worked there, especially…
I like to watch a lot of YouTube, and I also like to watch a few great shows, one of them being an absolute masterpiece which is Succession . I won’t go on a passionate ramble in this post about how much I love this show but let me just say that this show is perfection. The soundtrack is powerful , dialogue is clever, cinematography is beautiful, characters are unique, and have I mentioned how…
The 2024 Oscar's are happening this March, and I thought I'd share my predictions. I'll be doing this for every year, including the Golden Globes and Emmys (which I just missed out on sharing my thoughts with, oh well). Best picture American Fiction Anatomy of a Fall Barbie The Holdovers Killers of the Flower Moon Maestro Oppenheimer Past Lives Poor Things The Zone of Interest Watched Barbie,…
Canal boat trip In July, my mates and I sailed a canal boat from near Napton on the Hill to Foxton , with the trip consisting of 7 days. We got to Foxton Locks and back in 4 days, and spent the last 3 days in the Marina. Was such an amazing trip. Pic with Sundar Pichai, pretty funny story of how I got to this point. Pic with Demis Hassabis. That time when me and Ilyas (left) infiltrated the Google…
I recently saw a clip of Tarantino saying he watches his own films, and when asked why, he said something that is just perfect: Ah I love them! I love my movies! I'm making them for me - everyone else is invited. Anytime my movies are on TV I'm like "oh hey", I guess I'm now watching Jackie Brown for a while. (not the exact quote, but you get the point) I resonate with it since I think more people…
I've been into watches and horology for almost 3 years now, where it all started during the pandemic with an abundance of time, and an internet to surf. I don't really remember who got me into the hobby exactly, but I think I can safely blame someone on YouTube. Over the years I’ve built a small collection (with 3 watches I don’t know if you could even call it a collection at this point), and I…
Summary Everyone goes through life with unique experiences that shape their view on money. I might make a financial decision that seems odd to you simply because I'm playing a different financial game. Getting money is one thing, but keeping it is another. Getting money requires you to take risks, whereas keeping it requires some form of paranoia. It's also important to understand that gaining…
A habit I've stuck with for a couple years is where I leave my phone on my desk overnight. Pretty much the main reason I started doing this is because I had to get out of bed when my alarm went off. So, it meant I was less likely to jump back into bed, which happened far too often since my phone was arms length away when I was comfortably in bed. So yeah, that's the main benefit from doing this I…
Turned 20 years old today, it's quite scary how quickly time is passing by now. I think up until now I was able to get away with a lot things given my age, so now I need to start acting like an actual adult. Also, I want to make it a yearly thing to write a short post on my birthday just sharing some thoughts. So grateful for the people I met from 19-20, look forward to 20-21!
I feel like at some point in my life I should pause on seeking out the next self-help book and instead invest that time and energy into reading the classics that have stood the test of time. I won't go over those "classics", but I have a general idea of them that includes books from authors I find to be influential. The idea behind why I feel this way about self-help books is mostly because so…
I was inspired by this post to share some of my favourite photos from 2022. 🇪🇸 Tenerife, Spain This strange looking plant is a Echium wildpretii . 🇨🇭 Zurich, Switzerland Misc
Recently I realised that writing posts has become a chore for me. Clearly this is the case as my track record with publishing reflects this. I never wanted this to happen, but as I took on more responsibilities my current writing process was too time consuming. I'm not a company who writes perfectly crafted blog posts with hours of research put into them. I'm a guy who wants to document what he's…
You. Consciously or not, I think we all are actors in different parts of our life. Everyone talks or dresses a certain way when they are put in a set environment. I recently had the privilege of speaking with Ali Eslami , a Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind . He was a major factor in my success joining Google , so I'm grateful to be able to call him a friend. We spoke about many topics, but…
With all of these social media platforms, it's becoming so polluted in the digital world. These platforms come and go, but you know what never does? The core web with pure HTML and CSS. I understand that not everyone wants to go through the hassle of building a website from scratch, hence why these sites are so big. You sign up, create a profile, maybe add a link to another social media and there…
After many months , I finally managed to launch a personal project that helped me learn a bunch of technologies I was interested in. MechKeebs is (in short) a clone of r/mk where users can post their mechanical keyboard. It wasn't intended to solve any problems, but I've learnt from a few great engineers that solving problems at my stage shouldn't be the focus. I should still obviously solve a…
Book in 3 Sentences Deep Work is a state of distraction-free concentration pushing your cognitive capabilities to the limit. Cultivate this skill and you will thrive, as focusing in the modern era with all the unnecessary noise in the world is like a superpower that allows you to work towards your personal and professional goals. Context switching from a shallow task (scrolling social media) to a…
As you might know, I’ve joined an apprenticeship at Google 5 months ago. I completed my 3 month bootcamp in December last year, with an additional 3 weeks of internal training. So, when January 2022 started, I was assigned to a team of incredible people which has been really exciting to be a part of. I thought it would be valuable to share some thoughts and observations I've made from working in a…
Book in 3 Sentences Steve Jobs was a man obsessed with perfectionism and minimalism. He had a unique ability of intense focus, which allowed him to eliminate the unimportant tasks and focus on what's at hand. As a minimalist, he wasn't really materialistic and always had the goal of building something for society, unlike the other business leaders that competed with him at the time. The success of…
Hi, I just wanted to make this short post sharing that I've joined Google as a Software Development/Engineering Apprentice! My official start date is on 6 September 2021 and I'll be taking a 3 month bootcamp beforehand at Makers . Then, when 2022 comes around I'll be working in their head office in London which is pretty cool. Just for some context, I applied back in late June at the last minute…
Book in 3 Sentences Instead of listening to the vague cliché "follow your passion", you should first instead master rare and valuable skills, and then cash in those skills for the work you love. The craftsman mindset is crucial for building a meaningful career. It focuses on what you can offer the world, whereas following your passion focuses instead on what the world can offer you. First you…
Book in 3 Sentences In order to gain wealth, give society new things that it does not know how to get yet. Provided it's within your capabilities and natural for you to accomplish, take the risk with your name and reap the rewards. Avoid following whatever is making money right now, explore your genuine curiosity and don't force yourself to fit in with the other monkeys. Doing it for social…
I've been journaling since late last year, and there are a lot of things I've learnt about myself. But the thing is, I know this isn't the case for the majority of people. It's hard to build the habit since it's so boring and looks like it takes up a lot of time. But in reality I found a way that helped me and might help you. I'll be sharing some of my past experiences of how it's benefited me,…
Book in 3 Sentences Gain control of everything by using the five steps - Capture , Clarify , Organise , Reflect and Engage. Our minds aren’t as smart as you might think - we can only hold so much in them, get stuff out of your head and into a system you can trust. When you have a system you can trust, it frees up both time and also removes stress since you aren’t constantly worrying about…
Book in 3 Sentences Success isn't reached after making a breakthrough moment, instead it's just the result of doing daily things that compound over a long period of time. A lot of things that benefit us are boring, but the most successful people often just get through that boredom regardless and get shit done. Instead of focusing on what you want to achieve (like losing 5kg), focus on who you want…
Book in 3 Sentences You don't have to be an expert in a particular role in order to teach. It's better to be an amateur as you understand how a beginner thinks, unlike a master who won't really remember how it was being a complete newbie. Don't worry too much about the numbers, worry about the quality of people that follow and how much they care. Then focus on putting out work of stuff you are…
Book in 3 Sentences Finding the right people to work and grow with is an important aspect of creating a successful business. It's shown throughout the entire memoir with Phil bringing along many people on the journey. Open yourself to as many opportunities so that luck (which somewhat plays a role) can finally reach you. Phil networked with talented athletes and saw something in them where his…
Book in 3 Sentences You don't need a crazy amount of professional expertise or funding when creating a business. In fact, it's better if you don't- 9/10 people aren't that bothered to care about the legal things. Focus on your product/service and your customers - you don't have to be serious all the time, provide that level of human interaction with your consumers at-least and cater to them as…