In the age of AI, finding "just right" is challenging. Our UIs are over-engineered, our backends are vibe-coded, and our emails are overly verbose, only to be summarized by AI anyway. We've all felt that satisfaction from a piece of writing, maybe just an email, which could have been written with AI but clearly wasn't.
I met Oscar Hong at xAI's hackathon last year. Judges were circling the floor, and excited students were yammering on about their projects. You could feel the energy in the air, like most tech gatherings in SF. I struck up a conversation with Oscar, and we talked about his project, something about a tool to automatically sort X bookmarks. He shared his contact info, a couple of things about his undergrad at Duke and his time working at Plaid, and we parted ways.
Later that night, I stumbled upon his personal website: Oscar Hong.
The UI was minimal, drawing me directly into his words, yet it was clever and robust. Clearly, it had been crafted with care to serve a specific purpose in his life. It was designed as a place for him to share his thoughts on his own terms—no social media, no likes or views, just pure creation. I've had his website bookmarked for over a year now, and I still check it every couple of months to read his blog posts. It's not easy to find someone whose ideas are novel and consistently elevating, not made for production or mass markets. If you have some time this afternoon, I encourage you to take a look at his article, Believe One Thing Deeply.
Today, I'm happy to share my own personal website, inspired by the authenticity and detail of Oscar. It's not robust, it's not flashy or AI-supercharged, it's just right.
#lifeadvice #friends