I've been thinking about what "building" actually means to me.
It's easy to romanticize the craft. The late-night coding sessions, the satisfaction of a clean deploy, the beauty of a well-structured system. But craft without purpose is just practice.
Why I Build
The projects I care most about share a pattern: they solve a real problem for a real person, and the person knows it. The FAFSA redesign mattered because students were dropping out of the application process. The analytics pipeline mattered because a team was flying blind. The AI packaging tool mattered because designers were spending hours on what should take minutes.
The "why" has to come first.
Speed as a Value
I've come to believe that shipping speed is a moral imperative in product work. Not because velocity metrics look good in standups, but because every week a problem stays unsolved is a week someone is living with it.
This doesn't mean building carelessly. It means being honest about what needs to be perfect and what just needs to exist.
More thoughts on this as I figure them out. This blog is as much for me as it is for anyone reading.