Tech bros back in the day: "It's proprietary!"
Tech bros now talk about moats.
Building a Ghibli image generator?
You won't have a moat against someone one-shotting you whole product with AI.
Showing a vibe coded game to your 500k+ audience?
That's a moat.
Posts by Ryan Faust
I got frustrated while working on one part of my product.
Decided to work on another, simpler one. To get momentum again.
Now I'm down a rabbit hole.
Like one quest leading to multiple side quests.
7/ The logic is universal
If this, then that
AND, OR, ELSE
Laws are written using the same logic as coding.
From chess to rocket science, everything is based on the same fundamental logic.
Learn it once, apply it anywhere
7/ Coding is going mainstream
It’ll be as basic as email or spreadsheets soon.
Both of these are giving instructions to a machine to achieve something.
Coding doesn't mean writing complex programs.
Even writing a spreadsheet formula is basically coding.
6/ You don't need to be a pro
Only 0.5% of people in the world can code.
Just by understanding the basics gives you an edge over 99.5% of the people in the world.
5/ Coding is giving instructions to a machine
Master telling a machine what to do, and you’ll get better at directing AI, tech, even people.
Precision matters.
4/ Coding is a tool
Humans + tools (technology) has always been the winning combo.
Coding is just another tool in our toolbelt.
Use it.
3/ It opens up you world view
I learned the basics electrical engineering out of curiosity.
For months I saw small details in the world that I hadn't noticed before.
It’s mental expansion, like a new lens on reality.
2/ Coding is systems thinking
You have to make up a system or understand an existing one.
Like organizing a project file & folders system.
Systems are everywhere.
Organizing your kitchen or school notes is systems thinking.
Coding trains you to make the pieces fit.
1/ Coding is thinking
Before you type a line, you have to think what to write.
You have to decide the what and how.
It's problem solving and thought construction.
I'm a lawyer and self-taught coder.
You should still learn to code—even if AI writes better code than you.
Here's why:
Solopreneurship vs fitness
What people think is hard:
- Coding
- Going to the gym
What's actually hard:
- healthy eating
- marketing
No-code didn’t kill off developers.
It allowed less technical people to create.
And gave rise to a new breed: no-code developers.
AI coding won’t make developers obsolete either.
It’s doing the same:
enabling builders and is creating a new class of AI-assisted developers.
Vibe coding is like giving someone a hammer and expecting a house—no blueprint, no foundation, just chaos.
People use AI to generate things that humans don't want.
Long emails from bullet points,
while people want the bullet points, not the long text.
AI avatars for video meetings,
while people don't want to show themselves.
Vibe coded games that nobody wants to play.
Vibe-coded games are like piano-playing dogs.
Is it impressive because it’s a dog, or is it actually any good at playing?
At some point, you have to ask:
Are they good games?
Or are they cool only because they were vibe-coded?
Will anyone actually play them?
Recent vibe coding dramas have given me back some confidence.
I saw people with no coding skills at all build so much faster than me.
They shipped while I was still coding.
I felt behind.
But the reality hit those people in the face. Hard.
We have come a full circle with AI.
Developers are realizing the importance of documentation.
They are writing/generating docs to give context to AI.
When docs were for humans, they didn't care.
Building a product is having never ending side quests.
One thing leads to 5 other things.
They each lead to another 5 more things.
Imagine personalized food made just for your taste buds and current cravings.
That's where I think AI is going. But for entertainment.
Vibe coded games show how easily AI can create.
AI will soon create hyper-personalized entertainment instead current for-masses content.
// src/app/page.tsx
I started putting the file paths to the top of the files.
To give better context to AI.
Is there a word for it?
AI driven development?
No-code tools are cool and all, but when you need anything remotely custom, you're in trouble.
If you can code, build it in code.
How to stop buying new domains?
Keep a list of all the ones you've bought.
Before buying another one, look at all the failed or abandoned projects.
Not to discourage you, but to keep you grounded in reality and learn from your mistakes.
Your business won't take off.
This is the most likely outcome according to data we have about businesses.
2nd most likely:
It will go bankrupt within three years
3rd most likely:
It will never grow to more than 10 employees.
Adjust accordingly.
"Legacy" is used as a negative in tech.
Almost everywhere else it's positive.
E.g. the legacy of an author is their life's work.
They say that if your app looks nice, you've shipped too late.
I don't agree.
Building something good looking gives me energy to build more.
And new UI libraries make it so easy anyway.
I think I don't like SEO.
I haven't changed anything on my site, but sometimes pages get indexed and sometimes deindexed on Google.
I heard that some people cross the street slowly because they don't have power in their own lives.
By making others wait, they sneakily steal some control and power from society.
Most people only learn in school.
They say school is important, because that’s the only place they learn.
After graduating, they stop learning.
Are you still learning and growing?
ChatGPT has learned a lot about me and knows me better than most people in my life.
I have mixed feelings about this.