What is wrong with us?!

This is going to be kind of a a weird video that I'm going to record. Uh

because normally I guess I get up here and I yap a bunch about a topic, but this time I'm gonna yap a bunch about a topic, but it's going to be more yappy.

Okay, a bit more serious. I'm in my serious phase right now. Okay, so you got to just let me have it. It's about

this growing trend that I'm seeing especially among developers. I'm sure it exists elsewhere, but it just seems to be I guess most poignant among us and among the software/ kind of nerd nerd

adjacent crowd. And I guess one of the

adjacent crowd. And I guess one of the best ways to talk about it is to kind of talk about some of my younger years of programming. And it doesn't matter how

programming. And it doesn't matter how much experience you have, there's eventually going to be a part in a project in which just has some level of confusion, some weird bug that's just really difficult to sus out and it could

just end up taking a significant portion of time. It's as true today as it's ever

of time. It's as true today as it's ever been true. And one of the things I used

been true. And one of the things I used to do is I would stop programming for like 15 minutes and go take a shower.

just go and try not to think about anything. Cuz often by thinking about

anything. Cuz often by thinking about nothing, somehow I could just feel this like kind of buzz going on in the back of my head and I would just come up with the solution. I go, "Oh my gosh, I know

the solution. I go, "Oh my gosh, I know what it is." Right? Like halfway through it's like I know kung fu right in the middle of the shower. And this always felt like a super like special skill.

This felt like my superhero kind of moment. And one of the dangerous parts

moment. And one of the dangerous parts about having that type of skill, I would have a like hard time disconnecting.

It's not that I was actively thinking about it, but I could just feel, you know, the intensity behind my ears just going and I'd go and I'd have dinner with my wife or be with my friends and I

would kind of not feel as engaged in the conversation because deep down I know I was just kind of swirling. And I'm sure if you've been programming long enough, you know that exact feeling. But now

there's a new version of it or at least what I'm considering some sort of a version of the exact same thing. And I

came across this article. It's called

Token Anxiety and it's kind of describing the life that is in San Francisco. If you've never been in the

Francisco. If you've never been in the Bay Area, if you've never lived in the city, uh, one kind of really, I guess, interesting thing about it is when I first arrived there in 2013, I remember

one of my first experiences being just so much different than my experiences in Montana. Cuz in Montana, I often would

Montana. Cuz in Montana, I often would just meet people and I just talk to them about life. We, you know, what are you

about life. We, you know, what are you doing? Where are you hiking? Where are

doing? Where are you hiking? Where are

you going? What are you working on? as

in like what what do you do around here?

And then more important topics like hey, how are you handling handling these life situations and stuff like that? But when

I went to the bay, it was just such a different experience in 2013. It was

what are we working on? What are you building? Hey, this is where my

building? Hey, this is where my company's at. This is what we're like

company's at. This is what we're like kind of really struggling with. This is

where we're actually thinking we're going. And there was just kind of this

going. And there was just kind of this energy, this excitement about everything where it felt like everybody was on the precipice of making the next big thing, the next Jeff Bezos, the next Mark Zuckerberg. there was still this like

Zuckerberg. there was still this like weird raw feeling of opportunity. And by

the time I left the Bay Area in 2020, I didn't feel that as much. Maybe it was due to like the insulation of working at Netflix versus actually being out there more in the startup scene having a bunch

of kids and just no longer going out.

But nonetheless, it just didn't quite feel the same by the time CO hit. But

this new way that these kids are living just it just feels difficult. Here, look

at this. A friend left a party at 9:30 on Saturday. not tired, not sick. He

on Saturday. not tired, not sick. He

wanted to get back to his agents. Nobody

questions it anymore. Half the room is thinking the same thing. The other half is probably checking on the progress of their agents at the party. It's almost

like that busyiness, that kind of like fuzzing of the brain that I used to experience every now and then when I'd get onto a really difficult problem I wanted to solve is just now a perpetual non-stop vibration in the back of

everybody's head. Because for me to kind

everybody's head. Because for me to kind of fall into that state, I had to kind of have the challenge show up. Whereas

now it's about the machines and the machines being on and the machines running. And so now it's about how big

running. And so now it's about how big the checklist can be, how big the prompts can be, how big the harness and testing can be to make sure that your agents are just always spinning. All

these parties are sober now. Young

people don't drink because they're going back to work after. Not inspired by Brian Johnson and his Titanic level erections, although that's probably a factor. The buzz they want now runs on

factor. The buzz they want now runs on tokens per day. You can see this with the CEO of Y Commonator. He just made this tweet today. I'm giving up drinking because of clawed code. I need my brain to be maximally pristine so I can sling

10,000 lines of code a day. It almost

feels like there's been this weird dramatic shift. It's like the Bay Area

dramatic shift. It's like the Bay Area at one point felt like this weird kind of opportunistic place. Like, dude,

there's so much opportunity here. You

got to come here. You got to try this.

And now it's almost like I'm watching people and I'm watching kind of like an inverse of it, which is, oh, I better keep working. I better keep working

keep working. I better keep working because if I don't, it's escaping. And

it almost feels like this desperation.

It just feels backwards or different.

And some of my friends that I still know that are in this Bay Area, it's just like I I feel something different kind of landing on them. It just feels like a different kind of haze or malaise or

just some sort of like this weird spirit of just like downward pressure. The

anxiety is rational, which is why it sticks. Every week, some new benchmark

sticks. Every week, some new benchmark drops that makes last month's workflow feel prehistoric. Codec ships overnight

feel prehistoric. Codec ships overnight processing. Opus gets faster. Context

processing. Opus gets faster. Context

windows double. None of this reduces the pressure. It multiplies it. You can do

pressure. It multiplies it. You can do more now and someone already is. The

window to being first at anything feels like it's shrinking by the day.

Literally by the day. I replace Netflix with clawed code. I lie in bed thinking about what I can spin up before I fall asleep. What can I run while I'm

asleep. What can I run while I'm unconscious? Reading a novel feels

unconscious? Reading a novel feels indulgent now. Watching movie without a

indulgent now. Watching movie without a laptop open feels wasteful. This voice

in my head says something could be running right now. Just doesn't shut off. I'm not even building a company.

off. I'm not even building a company.

I'm just addicted to building my random ideas. It just feels sad. You know, when

ideas. It just feels sad. You know, when I read that, it does feel sad. That is a bad state to be in. And that part about pressure just never going down, but it's always being multiplied. I really feel

like I can understand that. So, one

thing I've been doing is I'm I'm trying to understand this this vibe coding world because I have this like extreme revulsion at the code these machines make and I constantly keep on running it

with more and more guard rails really trying to understand what people want out of it and all the success you see on Twitter of people talking about how they're building everything yet I've never really produced code that I'm

happy with. It always requires me to go

happy with. It always requires me to go in and do a bunch of stuff on top of it.

But I'm still I'm committed to figuring out these things. Something I started doing is actually start building a bunch of vibecoded programs. It's how I control my stream. The Twitch chat that

inevitably shows up right here. That is

just a vibe coded thing. I wanted to be able to control my OBS much, much better. This thing right here is how I

better. This thing right here is how I go in and I just get whatever memes I want. Right? If I come in here and I

want. Right? If I come in here and I want to see Sam holding hands, boom, I got it right there. That feels

fantastic, right? And I can also go and get the original video right here. Long

as I have all these things documented.

Also, yes, that was Sam in not one but two polos.

And so, I started doing this to myself cuz I really wanted to kind of understand this other side of things.

And as I was building it, something unique happened to me during the times when I was just hand coding. I was like, dude, I could did it's just so much faster to vibe code, but the code it produces is something I I I hate. And

so, I found this weird like world I was standing in. I felt like uh the house of

standing in. I felt like uh the house of the rising sun. and I had one foot on the station and one foot on the train or trad coding. I'm I feel like I'm missing

trad coding. I'm I feel like I'm missing out on something. Like, oh, I better just kick off a quick agent. And I just felt this like running weird buzzing kind of evolving inside of me as well because there's so many things I need to

build just for this YouTube empire/streaming empire that ultimately makes my work easier. And it's not a I'm not trying to get rich off these tools.

I'm not trying to sell the tools. I'm

really just trying to use the tools for me and my videos and my video editor.

Yet, after just a couple days of having these things going, the ideas keep kicking off cuz they're so easy to kind of get the MVP out, but the work just kept growing. And that's kind of like

kept growing. And that's kind of like this weird Fouian bargain of the whole thing. As you begin, the idea is really

thing. As you begin, the idea is really simple. You can describe it in a few

simple. You can describe it in a few words. You could get like the rough

words. You could get like the rough edges up. And each one of those fixes

edges up. And each one of those fixes require more prompting, more waiting, and the cycle is really, really long.

It's worse than a Rust compile cycle.

it's very very long and then all a sudden you start having multiple of them going and you can no longer focus on whatever you were working on with something running in the background.

It's because you're constantly having to babysit these small little steps and you have so many little things you want to kind of type up and attempt to explain in English to fix. And because you can

run that fast, all of a sudden you find yourself being able to have that many different things running. And so it's almost like I'm not really accomplishing the things I want to accomplish, but I'm building more than I've ever built in my

life. Yeah, 10,000 lines of code in a

life. Yeah, 10,000 lines of code in a day. Easy peasy. But that doesn't mean

day. Easy peasy. But that doesn't mean those 10,000 lines in in a in a day were any good. It doesn't mean I feel

any good. It doesn't mean I feel satisfied afterwards, it doesn't even mean I built the right thing. And I

think the worst part about all of this is that what I'm discovering is that all these ideas that flow through your head, one thing that kind of made it really nice in the before land is that you

couldn't try out all the ideas. You kind

of really had to be very selective. You

had to pick one. But now I can have three or four of them spinning all at the exact same time. All of them in the most crappy versions of themselves and the work growing at an exponential rate.

It's almost like the programming part was never the problem. The problem was solving the right problem. And so now even I after forcing myself into this

life, I feel that same anxiety. I can

feel what the author is talking about when he talks about this desire to go back. The desire to leave the party at

back. The desire to leave the party at 9:30. The desire not to have any

9:30. The desire not to have any alcoholic beverages, not because of Brian Johnson's Titanic erections, but because I want to make sure I'm sharp and ready, that I can wake up at 5 in the morning and I better be able to hop

to it. That one drink that could prevent

to it. That one drink that could prevent me from being able to do that. That one

drink could prevent my productivity from being higher. I just wanted to yap about

being higher. I just wanted to yap about this because I saw this article and it just made me feel really bad because at the end of the day, I know that there's a lot of people that are just constantly

spinning and constantly attempting to do things and constantly trying to to like formulate all of their ideas and they have so much stuff running, but they literally have nothing to show for it.

and they're spending like some there are people in the Bay that are spending $1,000 a day on tokens and they're living their life just jumping from every last little thing. The work is

multiplying, the task juggling is getting out of control. The productivity

is through the roof, yet nothing really happens. So, if I could give you

really happens. So, if I could give you any advice, it'd be the same advice I'd give myself, which is 2009, 2010. I

ended up trying to make my own startup to kind of pursue that Silicon Valley dream life. And I ended up just working

dream life. And I ended up just working non-stop all the time. I spent multiple evenings staying through the entire night just programming non-stop and my Net Beans editor making PHP amazing.

Yes, everything I just said there was true. This is before my Vim days, okay?

true. This is before my Vim days, okay?

So, give me a break. I can tell you that it it impacted how I hung out with my friends. I felt this uh in some sense an

friends. I felt this uh in some sense an anxiousness to get back home, to keep on making features. It kind of impacted my

making features. It kind of impacted my relationship with my wife and I just constantly had this non-stop pursuit in trying to produce something and I've always kind of had this. So, am I in any surprise that these agents are

resurrecting an old feeling in me? No,

I'm not. But I can tell you the piece of advice I'd give myself back then and the piece of advice that I'm even giving myself now and hopefully to you, which is that one extra feature in your

calendar app, it's not worth skipping out on some good times with your friends. Hard work got me to where I am now, but it is not who I am. Anyways, I just want I I just

I am. Anyways, I just want I I just wanted to yap about that. I wanted to get some things off my chest. Okay.

Sometimes I use YouTube as just a means to express the feelings that I have and I'm not really sure if that was coherent or not. I just kind of turned on the cam

or not. I just kind of turned on the cam and just gapperated for a while about this. I hope you enjoyed it. The name is

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