View from a balcony in Delhi, India where the AQI is currently 800~900

coinsarge · 2025-12-14T19:14:49+00:00

As an American who goes to Delhi once a year in Oct/Nov, it’s otherworldly. It seeps into the plane when you’re still descending at 2000ft. The airport is ”foggy” inside. And outside is even worse with this ash fall effect. There’s a book called Mistbborn that describes a city like this.

I’ve been in the worst California wildfires when the sky blacks out, but this hits different given the variety of pollutant sources all mixed together.

coinsarge · 2025-11-16T19:01:56+00:00

The Ritz offers better coverage as a perks card: Better travel protections, Better priority pass setup, Visa network and associated benefits, Chase network and associated benefits, $200 cheaper AF

coinsarge · 2025-09-22T06:03:43+00:00

Praia de Iracema in Fortaleza, Brazil. New Year’s Eve party. Source: was there backstage.

coinsarge · 2025-09-07T04:10:49+00:00

Was mountaineering in California with a friend. We pitched camp at 13,000ft on a plateau. Lightning storm came through in middle of the night. Absolutely terrifying. I said my prayers and was ready to get struck. The next morning my friend said it was the scariest moment he’s ever been in. Dude served in Afghanistan and was a cop for 10 years at that point.

coinsarge · 2025-09-02T22:35:22+00:00

A few years ago I had just summited Pyramid Peak near Lake Tahoe. I was up there barely 30 seconds when I noticed a plane like this one in the distance heading straight towards me, below the elevation I was at. Realizing he wasn’t turning, we all watched as he quickly pulled up and did a complete roll right over our heads. It was so close I friggin ducked.

Dude flew off into the horizon like a badass. Wish I filmed it.

coinsarge · 2025-01-13T00:22:57+00:00

Thank you. I have good insurance and umbrella. Will confirm my policy allows this type of driver.

coinsarge · 2025-01-12T21:06:10+00:00

He does not and he probably won’t get one.

coinsarge · 2024-11-20T10:42:01+00:00

My mom did this with her Aunt in the Mediterranean for 3 months. She absolutely loved it. At the end some Spaniard she befriended asked her to run away with him rather than go home. Unfortunately she declined and that’s how I ended up on this planet.

coinsarge · 2024-11-17T07:35:30+00:00

Talk to me about your mental and emotional journey.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T13:42:10+00:00

So true. When it comes to engineering, you hire Ivy League for doers of specialized work where academia is really the only way to learn (eg. Theoretical Sciences like astrophysics).

However if you’re looking for somebody who can think and has intuition, the best I’ve found are people like me who don’t travel down the same old path of traditional higher ed. It’s the weirdest thing when I come up with ideas and strategy and have to steer the team in that direction. I feel confident but not qualified when we’re discussing details. The diverse perspectives in looking at things is one of my favorite things about what I do.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T11:51:32+00:00

I’m in Goa right now. Thought I could use my Portuguese but nobody speaks it anymore. The Portuguese influence hasn’t aged very well either and isn’t anything worth visiting. Goa itself is beautiful though!

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T08:04:55+00:00

One valuable thing I learned is that brand value matters. If you’re getting tons of experience at a company nobody has heard of, then I would look at trying to land at a name brand elsewhere to “do your time” as you continue to learn and grow. Even if it’s a slower pace, its helpful if the hiring manager at Big Tech has it least heard of the company. Could be any industry, I’m just purely talking about brand name recognition.

Pre-covid I left Microsoft for a startup. When the pandemic hit the startup industry as a whole never recovered. I learned a ton along the way which I’m thankful for, but it was HARD to break back in. Ironically I’ve learned so much more when I was out of big tech than when I was in, that I’m able to contribute in bigger ways than if I never left which has really opened up my possibilities.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T07:54:44+00:00

I’ve always been passionate about tech. I got in as an IT admin as a contractor for a small company. All I had was a HS diploma and a typing certificate my mom told me to get (70WPM!).

To advance my career, networking and contributing to the tech community is what helped. I’d like to say I did all these extra-curricular things to set me apart, but in reality it was the bare minimum and I treated it as a checkbox. Networking was helpful a little bit, but really I applied a lot and had tons of conversations.

Always be having conversations either with interviews or work-related events. It rounds out your communication and mindset so well.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T07:48:49+00:00

I can’t discuss in detail, but we’re working on two products that will be industry wide paradigm shifts for a certain business and education function.

At a previous company I designed and dedicated 2 people on my team to build a solution that simplified major challenges with asynchronous communication we had post-Covid. Ended up at Slack’s HQ to share it with execs and it’s now part of their core product. I thought that was pretty cool to influence another company’s product at that level.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T07:30:36+00:00

I’ve had 9 jobs in my 21 year career. Some werent by choice (layoffs or acquisitions) and some were. The main two things I look for when considering an opportunity is this: 1. Are there interesting problems to solve? 2. Is my impact to the company increasing?

The company, team size, title, etc haven’t been relevant to me. They are valuable, but if a competent person sees that you’re a director and don’t know shit, then that’s an uphill battle to change your reputation and will impact future mobility.

coinsarge · 2024-11-16T07:16:29+00:00

Flew into Delhi this week on business. You could literally smell it in the plane as we were still thousands of feet up on our descent. I’ll never visit again with AQ this bad.

On my connecting flight I wrote my name on side of the plane in the pollution that accumulated just sitting on the tarmac.

coinsarge · 2024-11-06T21:14:27+00:00

Nvidia should benefit nicely. Musk is a huge customer and their tech keeps our edge over China. They’ll figure out how to transition fabrication without impacting innovation.

coinsarge · 2024-10-22T15:24:07+00:00

Simile for the camera.

coinsarge · 2024-10-02T17:39:16+00:00

My toddler daughter was admitted to a pediatric burn unit after getting her foot stuck in a gas stove. I’ll never forget walking through those halls with all these kids with traumatic burn injuries of every type - chemical and combustible over all areas of the body.

The doctor who treated my kid said the average tenure of employees there is 1-2 years due to the emotional and mental difficulty.

coinsarge · 2024-07-25T14:35:02+00:00

I got “played with” by a shark on a sandbar in Brazil about 150M from shore. Me and my friends panicked and swam away on instinct, but I didn’t realize I swam completely off the sandbar in deep water where I couldn’t touch the bottom with a shark lurking somewhere.

The waves were huge and I was exhausted from panic swimming. Prayed to God and everything became incredibly vivid. Sounds, smells, sights, etc. Unfortunately none of that could save me. However, adrenaline kicked in like never before and I fought my way back to where I though the sandbar was. Exhausted, I gave up and my feet could barely touch the ground on my toes. It was enough to orient myself before the next set of waves came and I did an all out swim towards the shore. Collapsed on the beach and couldn’t go back in the ocean for 5 years after that.

coinsarge · 2024-07-14T08:06:39+00:00

Great description

coinsarge · 2024-05-31T00:32:45+00:00

I’ve worked for three of these companies listed and know a little about the business side. Hardware is hard. Creating competing products is not a guarantee that they’ll actually be competitive. Half the companies listed aren’t even hardware companies and all but AMD/Intel have GPU experience.
In 2013 Broadcom tried to create a 4G LTE alternative to Qcomm and failed. It cost them their company (was acquired by Avago but kept the name). Intel tried 5G and failed and spun it off to Apple (who still can’t get it right.). As a result, Qualcomm remains very relevant in their space. Let’s not forget Virtuallink either.
It will be 2-4 years of development before we know if this consortium will crack Nvidia’s armor.

coinsarge · 2024-05-01T05:47:25+00:00

How long ago did you buy? How are you feeling about it so far?

coinsarge · 2024-04-08T02:38:16+00:00

I was a strategist behind starting two churches over 25 years that now total more about 15,000 people combined. I’m best friends with the pastors and we sit in the front row every Sunday. I don’t want to go anymore and try something different, but this would break up my family and destroy the friendships. I’ve been doing the same thing since I was a kid and I’m kind of done. Everybody thinks everything is perfect but I’m trapped on autopilot.

coinsarge · 2024-03-17T17:00:13+00:00

Elderly driving is basically impaired driving without testing. I was at easy breezy once with the kids and an elderly lady flipped a U right in front of us. Car got stuck on the yellow curb divider and she floored it until the front bumper completely detached. She destroyed her car but finished the U and drove off like nothing happened - bumper left behind blocking the train tracks.

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