Reflecting on 2023

Three simple lessons I retain from this past year. Will be short, my brain is still crawling through an ocean of fat and ethanol from the holidays.

1/ Execution and building stuff is what matters. Ideas are cheap yet they should not be discarded so fast, instead experimentation and prototyping should always be encouraged. The trick is to build it incrementally, to sustain the little boosts you get from seeing your idea come to life. If your project solves a problem (and I believe that for the types of projects I am interested in, it should) the feeling of getting rid of the problem is also fantastically rewarding. Getting better at building stuff is done by actually building and I am thankful for 2023 for having been one of the most productive years of my life on that front. I have worked on three experiments, Dorsia, Faie and now syncy and while none of them attracted a single active user (I discarded two projects out of the three after 6 months), it has been incredibly exciting to build them.

2/ The hardest challenge is "not to mess it up". Be it with projects, work, family, kids and friends, I came to realize that once settled in life with a stable situation, most of the times the only thing that can mess it up is yourself. And that your brain is pretty smart at tricking you into doing so.

3/ The older I get, the more friendless I become and I am fine with that now. I am focusing on my family and a few friends, some awesome colleagues and that's it. My realization of 2023 is that no one should be blamed for that, as priorities change and may become misaligned with some friends own schedule. I also welcome time spent with people I love more than ever, as I am now aware that it is a limited resource.

I am looking forward starting 2024, building on those lessons.