Writing

Trust me bro.

AX = Trust.

My writing is useless.

Don't quit.

Quoth the Raven

Don't make me fill out forms.

Forms are gross.

My bet on the future of design.

From least to most exciting.

STRONG OPINIONS

You are trapped.

We're stuck in rectangles.

Powerpoint is not a teleprompter.

A slide deck is a crutch.

Ask me.

Think better by having AI ask you.

No more excuses for sloppy design.

Good UI is table stakes.

Cloudflare outages.

Go offline.

Rebuilding my brain.

Switching to Obsidian from Notion

Allow me to reintroduce myself.

Writing elevates thinking.

Bullying is not innovation.

Personal agents are the future.

Fail.

Spartan Race

What is love?

Baby don’t replace me.

Large Type Footers.

I like em.

Peanut butter jelly time.

Break tasks down for agents.

Light em up.

You can choose the lights on the Empire State Building.

Don’t outsource your thinking.

Thinking is your edge

If the internet went down permanently tomorrow, what would you download today?

Why I don't keep my personal stuff on SaaS products.

Designer Error.

We used to blame users instead of the design.

The problem with summaries.

It isn't effective unless you summarize it for yourself.

I miss my friends.

Social media is toxic.

'If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.' - Carl Sagan

We're getting better at rendering intent.

Confirm Humanity.

Human language feels real.

The Psychology of Money.

Money is a tool. Are you using it effectively?

The death of...

The shift of UX

GitHub.

--

I hired someone that I never met.

Product Management is dead.

Action is all that matters.

The gold rush.

Sell tools.

Hand-painted branding.

Imperfection is refreshing.

UI + AI Patterns.

New patterns are coming.

The best UX.

And my favorite interview question.

Honestly, I'm not in love with Dia.

Who will win the browser wars?

YOLO Portfolio.

tl;dr: put your money in index funds only.

I want AI to replace me.

Automate busywork, not creativity.

Deadlifts are the best workout.

And why I stopped.

MCP for dummies.

It's basically a USB-C connector.

No Bullsh*t AI.

Human-first software.

Dumb interns.

Who's responsible when AI fails?

Free oil change.

Experts save time and ensure quality.

You're so fake.

Online presence is a show.

I bullied Windsurf.

Models are sensitive.

Human software.

The best AI is boring.

UX → AX.

UI will disappear.

3 ingredients you need to build good agents.

Discovery, evals, and prompts.

UX. DX. AX.

You need all three.

How much 💰 do you make?

Ask

My grandmother made bombs.

A Multimodal and Multi-Model future.

The future is both.

Document, don't create.

But still generate quality content.

I want to be lazy.

Software should make that possible.

Vibe Shaving.

The coder's rabbit hole.

You can't design something to be easy.

You can only remove the hard parts until all you have left is ease.

I want my words to turn into money.

Why I write.

Stop making candles.

The age of the app is over.

Figma is an excuse not to learn code.

Get closer to the source code.

Agentic UX isn't a trend.

AI is already rewriting the rules of UX.

The future of design is agentic

We need to make bad designs before we get to better ones

I would not hire my younger self

Agency > Momentum

I’ve crossed Mount Stupid

Dead ends in vibe coding

Vibe coding is dead

AI is more than just hype.

The best compliment I've ever received

It's satisfying to see an expert use a tool well.

No more slide decks

Alignment docs should be rich with context.

Be first, be smarter, or cheat.

Don't cheat.

AI forgets

Stateful agents are the future.

Noise

The web sucks.

I’m not a designer

I'm a builder.

Potholes

Experience beyond software

Become unfireable

Be like water.

What would you do if you had $100 million?

Design is life.

Ambient Intelligence

The best tech does the job quietly and then gets out of the way.

I want quiet tech

Think legos, not apps.

Informal copywriting

It's like, friendlier.

Make phones smart again

The future of design is multimodal.

Design’s future feels scary. It’s not.

Action is the antidote to anxiety.

LinkedIn is cringe

My learnings from one year of writing

2024 Year in Review

This year's theme: Scattered

Resume Candy

Leveling yourself up is better than having FAANG on your resume

The ugly truth: design is optional

Nobody needs rectangle makers

How companies die

A company needs to be strong in all of its three functions: Sales, Operations, and Finance.

The best UI: talking to people

Form fields are a primitve method of transferring information

'This design still kinda sucks.'

Success is increasing your rate of failure

What is your favorite font?

It better not be a system default.

Burn it all down

Fire isn't always bad.

Design = painkillers 💊

Business has a fever, and the only prescription, is more design.

Visual design is the most important part of design.

Great design not only works well, but also communicates well.

What the heck is design?

Design should serve your team, not the users

I'm going to die

Life is short. Avoid BS.

Good design = 💰💰💰

Sell good design, because good design sells

Writing makes you a better designer

Clear writing exposes sloppy thinking

I completed my MBA

Teaching myself how to business

How I took down a billion-dollar trading platform

Don't let designers push to prod

Design is in a rude awakening

We're caught between tooling vs thinking

Debt is leverage

Design debt isn't always a bad thing

How to maximize your luck

Create serendipity vehicles

Luxury is boring

Experiences > Things

Good enough

Ideal design inspires

Nobody likes Switzerland

Avoid ruinous empathy

I don't feel like writing

But I must be consistent

I'm opening a bakery

Cake slices > Atomic Design

Indian mangoes are better than Pakistani mangoes.

Create memorable experiences.

Figma has peaked

We're turning into pixel pushers again.

Your life is scrolling by

Infinite scroll is a nefarious UX pattern.

The Messy Middle

Dreams are cheap.

White skin matters.

Desis are mad racist.

I bankrupted my multimillion dollar business.

Operating the first escape rooms in North Jersey.

Catnip for Builders

Tinder for knowledge.

I don’t want my designs to accidentally kill people.

Building digitally is a lot less stressful

I don't hang out with poor people.

And that’s a problem. It makes me less grateful.

Design has an identity crisis.

Our primary job is to visualize possibilities

Working in-person has its benefits.

Plan in person, execute remotely.

Let me feel insignificant, dammit.

Solar eclipse 2024

Scale is a dirty word.

If it only benefits a few.

It's ok to slip.

As long as you get back on track.

Why I write publicly.

Confronting my two biggest fears.

The design process is broken.

Map it out.

Can you retire with $90,000?

Yes. Live small.

Your ideas are bad.

Creativity: generate a bunch of ideas, then pick the best ones.

Design is dead.

Dashboards are the future

3 powerful words for a designer

Unlock your design influence

I was perfect.

My framework for growth

Wtf is strategy?

Make good bets on solutions

I will judge you for your messy design files

Think in prod, not in pixels.

Customers don't care about your documents

It's cliche, but, solve customer needs

Your brain sucks at remembering things

Let your second brain do it

Should designers code? (AI edition)

Yes.