Blog
Reviews, thoughts and stories
Longer pieces from building things: strategy write-ups on my own projects, design notes, and what worked and what did not. New posts land at the top.
October 2026
3,405 Duke courses, out from behind the login
DukeHub lists every open Spring 2027 course, and you need a NetID to see any of them. I put them on one public page you can filter by skill, notable faculty and an AI-resilient score that shows its working. The first live piece of Course Co-Pilot.
- Course Co-Pilot
- Duke
- Data
July 2026
YC flew me to San Francisco to sit in a room with Jensen Huang and Sam Altman
From a small town in Maharashtra, by way of Duke, to Y Combinator's Startup School 2026 at Chase Center. What Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Boris Cherny, Waymo and the others said, the perks, the after parties and the room, as a scroll-driven story.
- YC Startup School
- AI
- Story
October 2026
ThriftySpark: AI that puts 25,000 thrift stores online
You want red Prada shoes, secondhand. There are 25,000 thrift stores and none are searchable online, because listing costs more labour than a $3 shirt earns. ThriftySpark is the company I founded to remove that labour with AI: photo in, title, category, price, description, SKU and a live listing out in seconds. The founder's view: who it is for, the economics, the market, the competition, the business model, how I run AI like a team, and what would kill it.
- Founder
- AI product management
- Market research
- Thrift
October 2026
Drab Tube, a video app with nothing to scroll
A study-only video app with ten series at a time and no feed or search. The dual-self model behind it, the gate that opens at seven of ten, and a test build you can install.
- Android
- Behaviour design
- Case study
October 2026
Jarvis, a coach that calls
An Android app that rings like a call when an accountability coach decides it should. How a push becomes a ring, why every tap is saved before it is sent, and the research behind the calls.
- Android
- Kotlin
- Case study
October 2026
Drab Launcher, a home screen that makes a phone boring
The short version of the launcher. A wait before every marked app, the next task one tap from home, and rules that loosen only on a timer. Links to the full review.
- Android
- Behaviour design
- Case study
October 2026
Drab Launcher: a strategy review of an app built to make a phone boring
I built an Android launcher to cut screen time, then reviewed it the way a strategy consultant would: a model you can run, the behaviour-change evidence, the game theory of 9 am you against 11 pm you, and seven animated mock screens.
- Behaviour design
- Game theory
- Android
Drafts
Work in progress. Readable, but not finished yet.
September 2026
20 minutes with YC's Jared Friedman at Duke
In July, a jumbotron at YC Startup School offered an AI version of a YC partner. In September, I got 20 minutes of office hours with a real one at Duke. Still a draft: what we talked about is coming soon.
- YC
- Office hours
October 2026
The Odyssey, as one scroll
An unofficial fan voyage through Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Real frames from the film that move on their own dissolve into each other from Troy to Ithaca, with Ludwig Göransson's score and a soft sword cling at every chapter. Best with sound on.
- Film
- WebGL
- Fan project