STATUS // operational
Westenberg. | v1.0 | 2026
$ whoami

POSTS //
1

Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

In June 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte marched 685,000 soldiers into Russia - the largest military force ever assembled in European history up to that point, and one of the largest

2026-04-13 7 min read
2

Optimism is not a personality flaw

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik - and the United States lost its collective mind. Newspapers ran headlines about Soviet nuclear weapons raining from orbit, and schools

2026-04-12 6 min read
3

Why I quit "The Strive"

I spent about a decade waking up at 6am and checking my follower count before I brushed my teeth. Refreshing analytics while the coffee brewed, reading Y Combinator essays, networking

2026-04-10 9 min read
4

The Hacker News tarpit

Hacker News is a web application with the following features: a list of links, sorted by votes. Comments under those links, also sorted by votes. User accounts with karma. A

2026-04-06 7 min read
5

The AI writing witchhunt is pointless.

Alexandre Dumas ran what was essentially a content production house in 19th century Paris. His most famous collaborator was Auguste Maquet, who wrote substantial portions of The Three Musketeers and

2026-04-04 10 min read
6

The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs

I had coffee last year with a guy - I won't use his real name - who told me he was "building a business." I asked

2026-04-03 8 min read
7

Time is a User-Interface

2026-04-02 4 min read
8

The Entire Internet Is a UGC Reaction Video Now

I keep a folder in Apple Notes called “cursed websites,” where I save various artefacts that make me feel like the social contract has dissolved. Call it an act of

2026-03-31 6 min read
9

The World's First Bullshit

I opened Twitter this morning and three different startups were announcing "the world's first" something. An AI CMO, an autonomous AI marketer, and a design agent

2026-03-31 4 min read
10

Notes on going solo: celebrating 6 years of Studio Self

Since roughly // broadly 2020, I’ve been running a solo-powered minor empire. I have no employees, and my only office is my home office, filled as it is with cat

2026-03-30 11 min read
11

Members Only: On Cathedral thinking

2026-03-26 7 min read
12

Tread carefully, because you tread on my fucks.

On any given day, I have roughly 5 or so fucks to give. Before anyone takes that as a confession of total selfishness… I wake up each morning with a

2026-03-24 4 min read
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