To my beloved readers, happy Valentines Day!
On the topic of loves, let's briefly talk discovered passions and discovered loves. How we think is influenced by what we love, naturally. This week has been particularly fascinating for that!
Some background on me. When I started out writing mobile apps (and then websites), it was more blind grit than anything - I built for startups that I enjoyed in one sense or another, but eventually, the product or team would sputter and fail. This is expected: VC-funded startups tend to have a success rate of around 5%, where success is defined as a liquidity event or some other exit that doesn't involve the company shutting down. Non VC-funded startups, depending on the team/operators, much more variable - and often even lower. This meant lots of pain, and lots of reps to figure out building good product.
Something, naturally, has to happen for a person to keep coming back to that environment - of reps, of building, of non-guaranteed success, of uncertainty. For me, it was the fact that I could mold my understanding of the world into the shape of software, into behaviour modifiers made manifest. The amount of intellectual expression I could form into existence far surpassed anything I got studying finance, and this taste I got when I saw my first mobile app successfully run.
One of my favorite images of all time is linear warriors, quadratic wizards. This is a trope commonly used in video games, but it is essentially applicable to the life of a software engineer: at the beginning of your journey, you can make pretty blinky lights, but that's about it.
Linear warriors, quadratic wizards
Someone wielding an Excel spreadsheet could probably outdo you in five clicks (or a well-written macro). However, the magic happens when you put enough reps into your skill: your ability to write programs and scripts matches that Excel guru sitting across from you. Eventually, you become unrecognizable to the average person in terms of your skill: for all intents and purposes, you are Magnus Carlsen playing chess drunk and winning from a losing position.
My love for the ability to express my mind, to see the world underneath our world, kept me coming back. Still does, without fail.
This week, I found myself shipping more wildly varied software than I had in the past several months - example: normally, when you build software, you have a database or two that contains all your data. I'm building an AI agent product that spins up hundreds of databases. In lower level conceptual play, if you asked me years ago, that would be wild to conceive.
The conversations I'm having with other people in my orbit (engineers and product persons alike) have also elevated, probably not unlike advanced chess players discussing gambits with others. This, I'm extraordinarily grateful for.
Love, passions, etcetera, do not mean everything will always be sexy or euphoric. What they do mean is that you keep coming back because the world, your world, is shaped through them: you see a new way of life and thinking from them that validates your own ideal self and means of expression. This can be love for a person and who they are, how they think and feel, or it could be any worldly topic. Find any love, of any kind, and give it your all.
What keeps you coming back to your reps?
Be well,
Michael Kirsanov