Writing
Essays
31 pieces on building, focus, leadership, and AI. Newest first. The 2025 onward work is where my current thinking lives.
01 Eighteen years, then two in a row: RCB and the IPL RCB won the IPL again on May 31, back-to-back after eighteen years of winning nothing. On the encore, Kohli loyalty, and what the IPL became. 02 What we chose to patent, and why: inside ERPClaw and TailTest We filed patents on two products and not the rest. What was novel enough to protect, how a small studio thinks about IP, and what a patent really buys you. 03 AI on top of fifty-year-old systems: what utilities taught me The real frontier of enterprise AI is layering assistants onto legacy utility systems without ripping them out. Why that unglamorous work matters most. 04 How my co-founder and I actually split a company Ten years in, how Varun and I divide a company between a CEO and a CTO, where we overlap, and how we settle the arguments we cannot avoid. 05 What seven days of AI-assisted coding changed about how I build I built a server tool in a week with an AI pair. The build was the easy part. What it permanently changed about how I scope, delegate, and review. 06 Why we build and run the AI we recommend I am a founder who ships, not an advisor with slides. Why AvanSaber runs the AI it sells, and what operating our own software actually teaches us. 07 I built a Laravel Forge alternative in 7 days with AI I paid rent for two years on a tool I could build. So one December I gave myself seven days and an AI pair to make my own. Here is the honest version. 08 The deep-work ritual: how I structure my week I run engineering, strategy and leadership across several products. My only sane response is a deep-work ritual I defend with real stubbornness. 09 Five rules for juggling multiple SaaS products I run eight products with a team of fifteen. Not with dashboards, with five simple rules that survive contact with a real, overloaded week. 10 Work-life integration vs. balance: my philosophy Balance assumes two opposing weights and a virtuous person keeping them level. After a decade of running companies, I stopped believing in the scale. 11 Inbox zero is a myth. Inbox intentional is my reality. I chased inbox zero like it was a moral state, and produced almost nothing. Here is the messier, more useful habit I replaced it with. 12 How I use productive downtime to prevent burnout The most productive thing I did last year was a week of near-nothing. Why rest is an input to the work, not a reward for it, and how I structure it. 13 Beyond the hype: three technologies I am excited about The louder a technology is hyped, the more wrong I tend to be about it. Three emerging technologies that survived my own skepticism, and why they last. 14 The best leadership lesson I ever learned I learned it by getting it badly wrong during a scary week. Your team does not mirror what you say. It mirrors how you are, and managing that is the job. 15 My home-office tech stack: the gadgets I actually use People want a list of exciting gadgets. The honest one is short and boring: the few tools I use every day, and the expensive lessons left in the drawer. 16 The read-to-lead habit: five books that made me a better leader The worst leadership advice I ever read came from a leadership book. Why the books that actually made me a better leader were never about business at all. 17 Why I ask what is the why before any new project One question has killed more of my bad ideas than any plan or strategy session. Why I make every new project answer it clearly before we start building. 18 Mentorship is a two-way street: what young founders teach me I mentor younger founders and quietly get the better end of the deal. What they teach me that I could not learn any other way, and what I try to give back. 19 DeepSeek R1: the underdog that shook up the AI world A model from a team nobody was watching broke the comfortable story that the AI race was already decided. Why the underdog mattered more than its scores. 20 The future of work, part 2: human creativity in an AI world As AI gets better at the mechanical parts of work, it does not make human creativity less valuable. It quietly makes it the main thing worth paying for. 21 The future of work, part 1: navigating a new reality The future of work is not the vendor utopia or the headline apocalypse. It is a new reality to navigate carefully, by the people actually living it. 22 The funniest TV comedies since 2000 I switch off with comedy that is actually funny, not clever or important. My opinionated take on the best TV comedy since 2000, and why funny is so hard. 23 Why Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia is TVs best comedy An extreme position, defended sincerely: Its Always Sunny is the best comedy on television, and the cruelty that puts people off is exactly the point. 24 The social-media dopamine dilemma Social apps are engineered to hijack your attention with the same chemistry as a slot machine. Why willpower is the wrong tool, and what actually helps. 25 Five fun movies for your next movie night Some nights you do not want a film that changes you, you want one that is reliably fun. A small defense of rewatchable, low-stakes movie nights. 26 ChatGPT plugins: AI steps out of the chat window ChatGPT plugins look like a small feature. They are a glimpse of where AI is heading: out of the chat window, into the world, doing rather than knowing. 27 Rebellion on Mars: what frontier sci-fi taught me The Mars rebellion is one of sci-fis oldest stories. Underneath the spaceships, it is a builders story about earning the right to set your own terms. 28 Mens health in your 30s and 40s: skip the supplement hype Most of what is sold to men my age about health is noise. The three boring things that beat the supplement aisle, and where the pills actually fit. 29 Five reasons the 70s might be humanitys best decade A slightly ridiculous argument, made sincerely: the 1970s sat at a rare balance of modern tools and unclaimed attention that we have since optimized away. 30 Five underrated comedy TV shows worth finding The comedies that were brilliant and never got their due. Why great shows get overlooked, and the quiet joy of rescuing one for a friend. 31 In defense of Sachin Tendulkar The oldest thing I ever published online, from 2007: a young man defending Sachin Tendulkar against his critics, grammar fixed and argument intact.