The Technical Co-Founder Burnout Nobody Talks About
Technical co-founders face unique pressures: irreversible architecture decisions, constant translation duty, recognition gaps, and always-on responsibility....
My Web Crawler Crashed a Server at Los Alamos
How a homemade web crawler in 1993 crashed a Los Alamos server, the birth of robots.txt, and why AI companies are breaking the web etiquette that held for 30 years....
What Text Adventures Taught Me About Software
How text adventure games like Zork shaped my understanding of software design, interface thinking, and the power of constraints to fuel creativity....
Why I Spent $0 on Patents for 20 Years - Then Filed Everything
When patents matter (defensive portfolios, M&A leverage, licensing revenue) and when they're a distraction....
When CompuServe Was the Internet (1985-1995)
CompuServe pioneered email, forums, and real-time chat for three million users a decade before the open web. The platform-as-internet pattern keeps returning....
Crypto Is Bad in All Sorts of Ways
Environmental destruction, greater fool economics, regulatory arbitrage, and ransomware's favorite payment method. The SEC was right all along....
The Inventions I Never Shipped
Over 45 years, I noticed a pattern: I keep building things that later become billion-dollar companies....
The Best Code I Ever Wrote Was Deleted
The hardest skill in software engineering isn't writing code - it's knowing when to delete it. Stories of systems that improved by subtraction....
What the Navy Taught Me About Perspective
I joined the Navy at 18 and got deployed to Desert Shield right out of boot camp....
I Evaluated Dozens of Blockchain Startups in 2018
What I learned doing technical due diligence on blockchain startups seeking funding. The technology works - for exactly one use case....
The Day Netscape Changed Everything
Netscape's IPO established the template for modern startup culture: growth over profit, massive early valuations, and boom-bust rhythms....
Why ICQ Died: Lessons From the First Instant Messenger
ICQ invented instant messaging and reached 100 million users. Then it died through corporate neglect, software bloat, and missed mobile transition....
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