Transition

The company that I founded just fired me because I'm too fat. The boss had enough of my bullshit. Now, this may be confusing since I'm a solopreneur that acts as a consultant trapping companies on this cockamamie platform that I had during a fever dream.

For clarity: I believe in this platform. I believe it's amazing and has a role in the future of human civilization. But when I look in the mirror, I see a fat bastard that is probably going to have a heart attack. Leaving my cushy big tech job had an opportunity cost measurable in millions. I left to wander, to retire, to recoup, to reflect on first principles. I had psychological wounds to heal. Moral injuries weighing down my soul.

I'm done thinking. My mind is healed, my soul is lifted, and now I grind.

The ascent in my career was glorious, but it got comfortable. I hated the mantra of peers who adopted "rest and vest" as a lifestyle. Comfort is a trap. It atrophies everything that made you capable in the first place, and the body is just the most visible symptom.

Fitness and living well will become a company mandate. Not hiring fat people in 2025 is the policy. (The boss has to hire me back first, so that's a whole conversation.) After years of reflecting on hiring, company culture, and the meaning of life, I can boil my philosophy down to this: mediocrity is a disease. It's harsh. But nature is metal. The point is to recognize that mediocrity is temporary and curable. You have to work hard, work smart, and in the coming age of AI, work with deep strategy.

The harder realization is that this company will fail as long as it's a platform for my ego. The best way to achieve success is to focus on others, but this platform is about me -- about how I believe software should be written. I wish every engineer could experience this investment in self. Once I'm hired back, the goal is to remove my ego from the potential of this platform. I'm not sure what that means yet, but I'll figure it out.

To live alone one must be either a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Nietzsche added: leaving out the third case, one must be both. Building a platform in isolation for years has been both beastly and divine. The loneliness of the solo path sharpens certain things and dulls others. What it dulled was my attention to the body carrying the mind that writes the code.

Only weak people want things easy. Comfort never brings anything good. Excellence comes from embracing doing hard shit.