(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)
केल्याने होत आहे रे । आधी केलेची पाहिजे ॥
य़त्न तो देव जाणावा । अंतरी धरिता बरे ॥
~ समर्थ रामदास स्वामी
My translation of this couplet is as follows:
Things get done when you do them, you must take action first!
The work itself is the worship, internalise this you must!
~ Samartha Ramdas Swami
2024
Work: I am working as a consultant!
I want to better understand the problems that other builders face, and I think I can help them. Personally, I want to apply my skills to solve different kinds of real-world problems!
Learn: Things I want to learn this year, in no particular order:
- Automerge (continuing exploration of CRDTs)
- Computing on the edge (Workers, Databases, Super-powered static sites?)
- At least two Frontend ecosystems from (React, Svelte, HTMX, Elm)
- Some system programming to go along with edge-computing
- LLMs: what are they and how do they work?
Do: My brother is getting married at the end of the year! I want to lose 10 kg by then and get in shape!
2023
Work: 2023 was all about Salher Trails!1
Praj, KK and I worked hard to get it into the hands of students and help them, and we learnt a lot about why the Ed-Tech space is so difficult.
But more on that in some sort of retrospective piece someday later.
Learn: I learnt a ton about business and felt all grown up.
In a nutshell, Technology is the least important part of what I was attempting. It is a Marketing, Operations and Sales game. I viscerally understood the importance of these bits in 2023.
Do: I didn't do anything other than work in 2023. I put on a lot of weight. I did enjoy it though!
2022
Work: I quit Helpshift in March 2022, and did the Spring 1 batch of the Recurse Center2 from Mar 2022 to July 2022.
My journal from the time is full of incredible ideas, projects and lessons I learnt from some deep experts. I'm grateful for that time and the joy I felt was something I will cherish for years to come.
Learn: 2022 was the year of experimentation and learning!
I absorbed a lot of data and experiences over that year and it made me a better person.
Do: Living in New York for 3 months with Kaushal, Pooja and Anjanay was an absolute privilege! I loved it, and I'm so grateful that I experienced it!
This was followed by a month with Aditya, Shraddha and baby Aarush in Chicago and another month with a motley crew of friends in the Bay area.
I wonder why Neha and I waited so many years before treating ourselves to a vacation like this!
2010-2022
The Helpshift years (and the ones before) are lost to the fog of memory! Very briefly, I helped design and write some of the code that runs Helpshift.
I'll create archives of my writing from these years and update this page with the appropriate links eventually :)