A roundup of stories, ideas, projects, and tools

From shipping one of the most significant projects of my career in April, to visiting Barcelona and Amsterdam for the first time, to getting laid off in October—this year was fucking wild. I also built three apps. I said goodbye to my grandfather, and, for the first time, broke a pattern in my life, the root of my depression, anger, and habitual chaos.

Good news: I’m joining Ramp to lead their brand.

This post is a roundup of what I loved this year: a book, a magazine, a few podcasts, a couple of tools, things I’ve built, and a ritual that provides so much fulfillment.

On frequency: What I look for in a collaboration. A feeling. A vibe. An understanding. This can extend to relationships.

Clear thinking: If you want to make better work, start by thinking better. Read and write more.

Learners will inherit the earth: warning: this is one of my spiciest takes about AI and its impact. I don’t expect you to agree.

The defense against slop and brainrot: my most popular piece this year, with over 30,000 reads. Thank you, Jason Kotke, for featuring it.

Start the next one tomorrow: the one piece of creative wisdom that will sustain a long career.

Product, brand, and marketing teams are collapsing onto themselves: my industry is changing, and almost no one seems to have an answer for what the future looks like.

Why brands can’t be built like monoliths anymore: the era of creating brands like Apple or Nike is long gone. How will brands earn trust in the age of AI?

You are what you believe yourself to be: why self-delusion is vital for leading a creative life or doing anything worthwhile.

Develop a point of view: in my circle, the word 'taste' keeps coming up.

This year, I read more slowly and intentionally, really chewing on books and sitting with them.

One book that truly blew my mind was The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. The writing is flawless. I remembered the movie Troy with Brad Pitt. It follows that story similarly, but told through Petroclus. The storytelling is astounding. Masterful.

Other good reads:

• Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod

• Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott

• The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou

Inque: Created by designer and Pentagram partner Matt Wiley, this project publishes one large literary magazine each year. Once a year, for ten years, and the project ends. It is currently on issue three.

Ephemeral. Beautiful. Craft. More of this, please.

Ridd does a phenomenal job of highlighting young stars, up-and-coming designers, and OGs from the industry. Whereas other Design podcasts are more like audio biographies of the guest, Ridd’s episodes get insanely practical, digging into the process, the thinking, the tools, and output. What Lenny’s Podcast did for product managers and entrepreneurs, Ridd is doing for designers and builders alike.

Ed Elson and Scott do a great job highlighting trends in financial markets, bringing in smart experts, and sharing their insights. I appreciate that they reflect on their takes, whether right or wrong.

I am very late to the rabbit hole of YouTube; I’ve been actively ignoring it forever because I knew I’d get sucked in.

I’ve been obsessed with people like Luke Nichols of Outdoor Boys. Vanwives and their off-grid home project.

Food shows like Dooby and Matty Matheson.

Paulie B walks with street photographers in NYC.

I’m so out of it, I didn’t know DJing was so big on YouTube. ZouZoua has an incredible range.

The perception around AI is not great, skewing towards typical ragebait that journalists need to keep their paper empire alive. This documentary with Demis Hassabis, the genius behind Google DeepMind, was fascinating.

My favorite video of the year is the drummer Chad Smith hearing a song for the first time and then just slaying the set. Mohini Dey is another example of god-tier talent. But also, this drummer playing Cowboy Bebop’s intro song makes me very happy.

ARIatHOME produces live beats while walking around NYC and getting strangers to rap or sing. Just the amount of talent he comes across is astounding. I love NYC.

1. Cursor: AI coding.

2. MyMind: save notes, images, and websites with one click.

3. ScreenStudio: a tool to record demos with video (all videos in this post used this software).

4. Granola: a notetaker for your meetings.

MyMind became my replacement for Pocket (RIP). It helps me easily save articles, images, websites, etc. I also trust the founder and believe he will build this long-term, thoughtfully, and morally.

Cursor is an AI coding tool. I’ve tried to learn to code in the past, but I've failed repeatedly. This has become my primary tool. I’m creating things I genuinely couldn’t build if I could freeze time and get a 10-year head start in learning to code.

My ChatGPT had a nice summary about me.

Here are some things I built with Cursor.

• Find beautiful color combinations rooted in Japanese color theory or Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours.

• Easily add gradients to frames using the combinations.

• Develop an accessible (AA or AAA) color system for your brand and product, aligned with Radix's color accessibility guidelines.

• Analyze Sales/Gong calls and find patterns in customer feedback, frustrations, ideas, requests, etc.

• Drop a recording of your team's conversation to validate the ideas.

• Easily create briefs based on customer validation.

• Use the brief to generate copywriting, trained on the company’s tone of voice, strongest writing examples, and brand strategy.

The goal was to build a personal tool that I would use daily for image editing. A tool that would save me endless hours on Photoshop while still delivering quality output. It still blows my mind that I built this and it works.

I do have one more thing to share, but that will require a longer post. These were all warm-ups for a larger, data-intensive project that I spent months building. Stay tuned!

I have two dinner groups with close friends. Four people each. Once a month, someone picks a restaurant and a time. We typically order the entire menu. We tip well. Servers love us. Three hours feels like ten minutes. We rarely, if ever, post about it.

Four people is the right number. Reservations in New York City are impossible with larger groups, and the conversation stays intimate. No one hides. Everyone talks.

If there are two bites I can share that I still think about from time to time.

I love my friends. Thank you, Katie, Mark, Ryan, Bobby, and Dave, for all the heart-to-heart conversations and unforgettable moments. Thank you to my partner Marta, my brother Peter, and my friends—Matej, Gui, Chris, Pedro, Grace, Zuzanna, Sam, Samer, Brandon, David, Amy, Maria, Dom, Iva, and so many others for supporting me this year on everything from job transitions, negotiations, just holding space for me to rant, and helping me on learning new skills like coding.

Thank you for reading! Happy New Year.

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