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World's laziest CEO. Before starting the highly-successful Proxycurl and Sapiengraph, Steven founded 5 other startups: Gom VPN, Kloudsec, SilvrBullet, NuMoney, and SharedHere.
I read a well-written post [elijames.org/the-two-tiers-of-singapores-tech-companies/?fbclid=IwAR2Dk4aRf0U7GVCTDS-OAfOLN0vqsVi1zowRX8gs8UWBLom9e0v8cXQMejA] by Eli James, a schoolmate from my university, on good-tier and shit-tier companies to work at as developers. I agree with him on the fact that there are great places to work as a developer, but the chances are that
I used to console myself that the journey is all that matters. Bullshit. The only thing that matters is the result. Sure, the journey can be memorable, but any tumultuous journey can be equally unforgettable. Is it not even better to partner great memories with a great pay off? Not
If you failed an interview at Nubela, it is because you were unable to deliver a WIIFY. Our recent product Sapiengraph [https://nubela.co/blog/i-can-see-your-bikini-pictures/] failed because we did not offer a strong WIIFY. Our product team is happy because we nailed the WIIFY for the technical crew. WIIFY
Adam Neumann of WeWork was the largest advocate for "optionality." A term he coined to describe the availability of options. For example, if Softbank did not invest in WeWork, Adam would have primed the situation to have ten other investors lined up. Optionality is the ideal I pursue
Nobody is obligated to work for me (or you). It is not even about money. Poor culture fit; poor performances; there is a multitude of reasons for anyone to leave a company. Still, it does not feel good when someone goes. But then I realized why – because employees were a
I find holidays annoying because flights are intolerable, and being always on the move is exhausting. But because it is jam-packed with touristy activities, holidays force me not to work and spend time with the family. But I am not always "there." My body automatically shuts down during
Because I want to build a company that someone like myself will be proud and happy to work. This is the dull reason I give when people ask why I started a business. I like the people that I work with, and it is nice to age together with them.
Warning: This is a technical post. We decided to adopt Kubernetes as the company doubles down on container-based deployment. I am probably the last code-savvy person in the company to understand Kubernetes since we migrated our deployments to Kubernetes. Given that I have some code to deploy, I spent three
> Warning, this is a technical post. I have been busy in the past two days picking up Kubernetes and boy this new technology will need a third day for me to wrap my head around it. That said, this has been a productive year for me. In the past
Ba-boom, ba-boom. A relentless beat in life to remind you to tone the fuck down. I hear it constantly, and I find it impossible to get it to stop. Against my will, my body grooves with the beat with heart palpitations in feverish sweats. I notice that I fall ill
I had to study hard and get to a university because my mother said so. I had to tuck in my clothes in school because those were the school rules. Never do drugs, because I will get addicted after the first try. But cigarettes and alcohol are okay. > Cover
I received a private message on Reddit today by a guy who asked if I know anything about another redditor that I replied to on Reddit. I do not recall the Redditor's username, but he created https://free-tia.now.sh. His laughably simple yet genius tool that allows
You might have come across this "GIF" printing photo booth if you have attended corporate events or weddings. The chances are that you just used Ubersnap's services. Ubersnap is probably the first company in the world to come up with the idea of printing GIFs. Today,
Building a product is not the same as playing chess. An egomaniac tried to impress upon me that I should be like him, to engage my brain before diving headfirst into building my next business. He is not worth talking about. Instead, I will like to propose my stance on
The Singapore government just banned e-scooters on all footpaths. This stacks on top of the existing e-scooter road ban. The regulation was announced and enforced the very next day. In one fell scoop, e-scooters are banned while the nation pitches a society with fewer cars. I wish the e-scooter ban
Last night, I caught a fever from a mild store throat, so I went to bed an hour earlier. Last month I caught a cold as well, so I took a flu shot right after I got better. I suspect these physical ailments are ramifications of what is happening in
A few weeks ago, I spent $150 on 50 Pure Red Line (PRL) shrimps. These are the purest breed of what is a high-end shrimp for my aquarium hobby. They all died except one. Today I bought more. Two more high-end ones known as Wine Red Shrimps. I spend every
I have been writing code, designing interfaces, and exploring Unix tools in the last two and a half weeks. I should not be coding. And yet I got my hands dirty because it is the most efficient way that I can wrap my head around the product as a programmer,
In one of my earliest articles, I wrote about building a position of continuous survival [https://nubela.co/blog/the-bootstrappers-hierarchy-of-needs/]. Looking back, building that stream of sustained revenue was more than just luck and hard work. It was an act of desperation. I worked hard because I was desperate. I
I wonder if it is a false dichotomy between demanding excellence and being liked. Being liked has it's perks and I am envious of those perks because they are rare and fleeting for me. Unfortunately, I choose excellence everytime. I have no story to frame the point I
Growing up as a teenager, I consumed American drama exclusively and built friendships with fellow American hackers. Inadvertently, I longed to go to the US and even live there. In my interview with NOC, my university's international internship program, I raved so much about the US, and I
Straits Times is going bankrupt, so they made a paywall -- Straits Times Premium. Immediately r/Singapore on Reddit built a bot to repost the blockaded content for all to enjoy. The problem is, traditional businesses do not get the internet. Hell, even teenagers do not get the internet. Let&
I was in the worst (performing) class in secondary school. I am not sure how well it does now, but Anglican High was a good school that ranks in the top ten. I was in the "Special" stream, as were most of my peers. Academically, our cohort sits
Sometimes, I envy smokers because they always seem so relaxed while smoking. My drug of choice is programming. I am lost in my head when I am in the zone, arranging lego blocks of code both in my head and on my screen. I love coding, so naturally, I chose
Warning, technical post alert. I have been programming in the last two weeks, and boy do I miss it. We have been using a variant of CoffeeScript, known as iced-coffeescript [https://maxtaco.github.io/coffee-script/]. It is like Coffeescript, which is like Javascript, but it is also like Python with
