A running log of ideas, observations, and questions — captured as they occur.
My mission is to help every human achieve their full potential.
Practically, I do so through a software lens at the boundary of hardware and the physical world.
### Buy You a Coffee
Whenever you’re in line at Starbucks, buy the person in front of you their order.
Firstly, it’s just nice and fun.
Secondly, it could become a viral social companion with very short chores that make people feel good.
People at coffee shops don’t actually want to be working. They like to be distracted and ask questions.
It’s a good place to do product research.
What if you offered people free coffee at Starbucks in exchange for doing user research?
### Chrome Extensions as an AI Platform
Chrome extensions might be the best AI platform.
While Google, OpenAI, Perplexity, and others are off forking Chromium to build a browser, extensions offer native UX, zero friction, no vendor lock-in, and built-in distribution.
### X Swipe
A Tinder-like app for cleaning up an X or Instagram feed: swipe to keep or unfollow people.
### Voice Notes You Don’t Hate
Ephemeral links for voice notes, with transcripts, summaries, and bullet points. Spend as much or as little time diving into a long voice note as you want.
### Geo Maps
A Google Maps-like experience for geotechnical engineers to upload borehole data and explore it spatially.
### Sauna Pants
Specialized equipment for sweating and cold plunging, with pockets for ice packs.
### Naming Is Context
Naming is more important than ever. It’s context. Good names reduce cognitive bloat for agents and humans.
### Semi-Automation
People love automation; I love semi-automation. It’s the parents’ principle on steroids.
### A CLI with an Embedded LLM
Every CLI should come with a small embedded LLM that explains how to use it and answers questions. It could use an embedded vector store or a sufficiently large context window.
### RAG and Context Engineering
RAG was a workaround for not having enough context. Now it is a solution for providing the right context. Context engineering matters.
### AI Enables Exploration and Execution
AI doesn’t just make existing work faster. It makes more experiments possible — including experiments you otherwise would not have attempted.
### TestFlight for Chrome Extensions
A way to distribute and test Chrome extensions with the simplicity of TestFlight.
### A Sharpe Ratio for Startups
A framework for comparing startup risk and return across factors such as whether the company is bootstrapped and whether the founder is a first-timer.
### RAG for GitHub Repositories
A tool that builds useful context from the repositories I’ve started and makes it easy to ask questions across them.
### Pre 2024
These are older project ideas preserved as titles from an earlier idea archive:
- tl;dr Hacker News
- Tesla Coin
- Smart Tutor Bots
- Crypto-Driven Ground Truth Labels
- NFT Customer Appreciation as a Service
- Crypto Credentialing
- Acquire AI — board/video game
- iOS training app for squat mechanics
- Timestamp my model on the blockchain to prove that it works
- NFTicket
- Developer Productivity
- Real Market Cap
- Index Hacker News
- GPTrade
- GPTweet
- GPT-Snip
- Hardware for cutting my own hair
- How Are You?
- ProveIt — crypto and Chrome
- GetSoils v2
- GoodRecs — large-language recommender
- GPTDating
- Twitter Chain
- What’s That Tool? — GitHub, Hacker News, and more
- Catch Me Up! — Discord, Telegram, and more
### 2024 TIX Archive
#### Directories for APIs and Businesses
Directories for LLM API providers, RPC lists, or businesses with specific revenue thresholds or identifiers.
#### Death App for Mindfulness
A desktop app that reminds you of mortality and prompts deep breaths for mindfulness.
#### Substack Table of Contents
Create well-organized tables of contents for Substack entries.
#### Fine-Tuned Reddit Success Models
Train a model using Reddit posts to predict or enhance content success.
#### Swimming Goggles with a Branding Angle
Alongside sauna pants, explore a distinctive branding project for swimming goggles.
#### Leadership in Technical Companies
Write about technical versus non-technical leadership in technology companies.
#### The Counter-Mantra Perspective
Every mantra has a counter-mantra. Explore that duality in life and work.
#### Stream of Thought for LLMs
Turn the Stream of Thought framework into a GPT or learning tool: less Chain of Thought, more deliberately letting ideas spill out.
#### The Acquirer’s Podcast Extractor
Use an LLM to extract key moments, shorts, fun facts, and notes from podcast transcripts.
#### Instruction Manual Outsourcing
Let friends submit quirks and insights about you through a link, then use an LLM to generate a personal instruction manual.
#### Hackathon Food Service
Offer healthier, high-protein hackathon food that is as convenient as pizza, with dietary preferences and per-person pricing built in.
#### Hot PotTON / TON Potato
A hot-potato smart contract on TON: pay to pass it on, and maybe win when you do.
#### X Liking AI Agent
An AI agent with limited daily likes, connected to a truth terminal and potentially Stripe.
#### Todoist Voice Assistant
Send voice-to-text transcriptions directly into Todoist through a shortcut or API integration.
#### Emojisense for Twitter
A Chrome extension that provides emoji-based sentiment analysis for Twitter.
#### Philanthropy Shopping
A shopping platform where friends store clothing sizes for one another, with a possible focus on helping less privileged women.
#### Social Media Unfollowing
Review social connections and unfollow accounts that no longer provide value or relevance.
#### Hot Potato for Conversational AI
A gamified “hot potato” tonality analyzer for conversational AI.
#### Hot or Not for LLMs
An endpoint that rates AI-generated content or ideas.
#### Discord Summarization Tool
Summarize Discord chats for easier consumption and tracking.
#### USDT Payroll System
Payroll using USDT for smoother cross-border payments.
#### AI Agent for Event Planning
A specialized AI assistant for planning events.
#### Weave: Calorie Tracker in the Gut
Explore a device that stays in the stomach and tracks calorie intake.
#### MrBeast’s Onboarding Document
Write about MrBeast’s onboarding practices and what other teams can learn from them.
#### Podcast Platform for Friends
A casual podcasting platform that lets any two friends build an audience together.
#### RAG for Construction
Apply retrieval-augmented generation to streamline construction processes.
#### Better Audiobooks with LLMs
An audiobook experience with summaries, interactive notes, and deeper exploration powered by LLMs.
#### Paul Graham: The Manifesto
Turn Paul Graham’s writing into an Almanack-style book, audiobook, podcast, and notes experience, potentially with a personal prologue.
#### Yuri Milner Manifest Audiobook
Explore an audiobook narrated in a simulated Yuri Milner voice.
#### Micro Subscriptions
Subscribers pay a fixed amount, then distribute it among creators based on their applause, kudos, or likes.
#### Products That Remove Hoops
The best product is the one that charges people to go through the hoops they would otherwise have to navigate themselves.
#### Living Legends
A blog series profiling enduring people by domain, including their history, era, and commonalities.
#### The Two Friends Podcast
A platform for any two friends to start a conversation, build an audience, and grow together.
#### epostgres.com
Turn a GitHub repository into its own website with demos, examples, perspectives, history, and relevant advertising.
#### Mermaid Flow GitHub Workflow
Turn useful Mermaid diagrams into a manually triggered GitHub workflow.
#### Senior Engineer LLM Code Review Helper
An LLM that suggests clearer names, more sustainable structures, and reusable test helpers during code review.
#### Uncensored Hot-or-Not Vision Endpoint
An intentionally provocative, paid vision endpoint that rates looks and spreads through influencers.
#### Swipe to Unfollow
Make cleaning up any social feed as easy as swiping, starting with X.
#### Stablecoin Products
Double down on USDT and USDC through payroll, ATMs, and payments.
#### AI Agent Career Description
An agent that reviews documents, emails, and conversations to create the job description for the role someone is actually doing.
#### WhatsApp Fine-Tuning
Use a person’s WhatsApp history to fine-tune a model to write in their tone.
#### WhatsApp Speech-to-Text
Forward a voice note to a special account that transcribes or summarizes it.
#### WhatsApp Voice Note Chrome Extension
A Chrome extension or special account that transcribes and summarizes voice notes.