About 🫠

I like people who take action, so I try to be one.

A lot of this site is me thinking out loud in public. I build software, tinker with AI, chase interesting ideas, and write about what seems useful, true, or worth passing on. The common thread is simple: I like making things, testing them in the real world, and sharing what I learn when they work. Or when they absolutely do not.

To be able to build and sell makes you unstoppable.

Naval Ravikant

That quote stuck with me because it feels directionally right. If I can just tinker on projects I like and be able to support my family, then that's living the dream right there.

These days I think about that through two lenses. The first is technology. I'm having so much fun with AI and software because they let small teams, and sometimes even one stubborn person with a laptop, do surprisingly big things. The second is family. I'm a dad with two kids who are still before school age, so I spend a lot of time wondering what kind of world they're growing up into, what work will look like in an AI-heavy future, and how to raise capable, grounded humans inside all that change.

I'm also very interested in sensible defaults for life. A lot of modern life is convenient, but not always wise. I keep coming back to a simple question: what did small-band hunter-gatherer tribes get right about being human, and what can we modernise instead of discard? That applies to all sorts of things: how kids learn, how families eat, how people move, how we handle tantrums, boredom, attention, and rest. Ancient wisdom still has a lot of signal if you strip away the cosplay.

Outside of work, I like things that feel real. Before young-kid life, I made 4am starts to the rock ledges around Sydney chasing kingfish. Bring them home, fillet them properly, turn them into fresh ceviche. Same story for bream, drummer, and luderick. Grill them, fry them, make something good out of the day, either that or bring home a picture of a sunrise (aka a donut 🤣). I also have a strong opinion about salt and pepper squid: the secret to the light crispy batter is soda water, ice, and sifted self-raising flour. This is not negotiable.

I love snowboarding, especially in Whistler. I used to play badminton every week and still miss the good run around. I hope to do more of snowboarding, badminton and fishing when the kids are old enough to join my wife and I. I'm also firmly pro weight training after 35. It is one of the least glamorous and most effective ways to feel younger, move better, and avoid the slow drift into feeling cooked by 3pm. In general, I think the health stack goes in this order: sleep, exercise, food.

I believe failure is one of the core ingredients in success, I like to call any failure a failed experiment, because how rare would any scientific breakthrough be if you got it first try?! One of my more expensive lessons was trying to build an e-commerce business selling cross-body bags on Amazon. I sourced product from China, shipped inventory to Amazon FBA, tested paid ads, influencers, and SEO, and got a proper look at how brutal that game can be. The margins were thinner than I wanted, the capital risk was real, and it pushed me toward a clearer conclusion: I'd rather build software. Better leverage, better economics, more room to think, and more fun. Although software could be looking like ecommerce soon (in terms of margins) with AI eating everyone's lunch.

So that's probably the simplest version of me: I'm a dad, a builder, a heavy user of curiosity, and someone who likes technology when it helps people do more with less nonsense. This site is where I put those ideas to work.