I write code for Humans & text for Robots
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The most interesting Articles
Last year, I pushed myself to write and publish every other day for the whole year. I had accumulated a large number of subjects over the years, and I was ready to start blogging again. After writing a dozen or so articles, I couldn't keep up. What was I thinking? 180 articles in a year is too much. I barely wrote 4 articles in 2024. But there was this new emerging technology that people wouldn't stop talking about. What if I used it to help me achieve my goal?
How do you manage a company with 50,000 employees? You need processes that give you visibility and control across every function such as technology, logistics, operations, and more. But the moment you try to create a single process to govern everyone, it stops working for anyone.
Let's do this thought experiment together. I have a little box. I'll place the box on the table. Now I'll open the little box and put all the arguments against large language models in it. I'll put all the arguments, including my own. Now, I'll close the box and leave it on the table.
Sometimes, I have 50 tabs open. Looking for a single piece of information ends up being a rapid click on each tab until I find what I'm looking for. Somehow, every time I get to that LinkedIn tab, I pause for a second. I just have to click on the little red dot in the top right corner, see that there is nothing new, then resume my clicking. Why is that? Why can't I ignore the red notification badge?
A few years back, the term "AI" took an unexpected turn when it was redefined as "Actual Indian". As in, a person in India operating the machine remotely.
How did we do it before ChatGPT? How did we write full sentences, connect ideas into a coherent arc, solve problems that had no obvious answer? We thought. That's it. We simply sat with discomfort long enough for something to emerge.
A college student on his spring break contacted me for a meeting. At the time, I had my own startup and was navigating the world of startup school with Y Combinator and the publicity from TechCrunch. This student wanted to meet with me to gain insight on the project he was working on. We met in a cafe, and he went straight to business. He opened his MacBook Pro, and I glimpsed at the website he and his partner had created.
Whenever one of my articles reaches some popularity, I tend not to participate in the discussion. A few weeks back, I told a story about me, my neighbor and an UHF remote. The story took on a life of its own on Hackernews before I could answer any questions. But reading through the comment section, I noticed a pattern on how comments form. People were not necessarily talking about my article. They had turned into factions.
Last year, all my non-programmer friends were building apps. Yet today, those apps are nowhere to be found. Everyone followed the ads. They signed up for Lovable and all the fancy app-building services that exist. My LinkedIn feed was filled with PMs who had discovered new powers. Some posted bullet-point lists of "things to do to be successful with AI." "Don't work hard, work smart," they said, as if it were a deep insight.
The most read articles
It was 7am when my phone rang. Instead of an alarm, it was my recruiter disturbing me from a pleasant dream. It was too early for a phone call or to be caught off guard, so I did not answer. I went to take a shower and get ready for the day. On my way to work, I listened to the voice mail she had left.
As a Linux user, I can't help but spend most of my time on the command line. Not that the GUI is not efficient, but there are things that are simply faster to do with the keyboard.
Search is an important feature on a website. When my few readers want to look for a particular passage on my blog, they use the search box. It used to be powered by Google Search, but I have since then changed it to my own home-brewed version not because I can do better but because it was an interesting challenge.
a book by Ibrahim Diallo
After the explosive reception of my story, The Machine Fired Me, I set out to write a book to tell the before and after.
I started as a minimum wage laborer in Los Angeles and I set out to reach the top of the echelon in Silicon Valley. Every time I made a step forward, I was greeted with the harsh changing reality of the modern work space.
Getting fired is no longer reserved to those who mess up. Instead, it's a popular company strategy to decrease expenses and increase productivity.
Every little corner has a story. Sometimes a camera tells the story and a picture is worth a thousand words.
There are professional photographers and then there is me who happens to have a camera on my phone. Here's to what came out.
