shelf / links

Lee Robinson's (VP Product at Vercel) living document of personal principles. Honest takes on building, shipping, learning in public, and what matters in tech and life.

What it takes to do exceptional work. A thoughtful exploration of excellence, ambition, and the path to mastery.

Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) shares hard-won lessons on career, learning, and building. Concise wisdom from one of tech's most thoughtful founders.

When you can't find motivation for yourself, do it for the people who believe in you. A perspective shift on external vs internal motivation.

Alexey Guzey's brutally honest guide to figuring out your path. Skip the soul-searching, start doing things, and pay attention to what energizes you.

Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt founder) on why the best builders ship fast and iterate. The advantage isn't being right the first time—it's learning faster than everyone else.

Steph Smith breaks down the math of compound excellence. Greatness isn't about heroic leaps—it's about being consistently good over time.

Why discipline alone isn't enough—you need obsession to do great things. The rocket metaphor: discipline maintains speed, obsession gets you off the ground.

Oliver Burkeman on accepting that you'll never get everything done. A liberating perspective on productivity—stop trying to empty the inbox and learn to surf the never-ending river.

Paul Graham's legendary book on Lisp programming, available free online. Dense but rewarding—teaches you to think about computation differently.

Erik Torenberg on making career decisions with unlimited upside and limited downside. The framework for thinking about risk in your twenties and thirties.

Why building at the intersections of different domains creates asymmetric opportunities. The case for breadth over depth in the modern knowledge economy.

Why text is the most powerful communication technology. From the creator of Rust on the enduring power of plain text over richer media formats.

Tim Urban's deep dive into AI and its implications. Mind-bending exploration of where artificial intelligence is headed and what it means for humanity.