📚 David Kadavy, author

📘 Finish What Matters (fall '26)
📗 Mind Management, Not Time Management
📕 Heart to Start
📓 Digital Zettelkasten
📔 Design for Hackers

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Feeling cute and might delete, but if you want to read my short book, How to Write a Book, you can get it free over here. https://t.co/BGWtNrVcG5

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Apparently few people would pay even $20 to play this game.

After all, the chances of flipping heads even 21 times in a row are like 1 in 2 million.

The paradox is that the Expected Value of the game is infinite. It's possible to keep flipping heads forever, so you *should* be willing to pay any amount to play this game.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

A mathematical paradox I can't wrap my head around is the St. Petersburg paradox.

It works like this: Imagine someone offers to flip a coin and pay you $1 for every time it comes up heads.

But as soon as it comes up tails, the game is over.

How much can you win? How much are you willing to pay to play?...

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

"Audience capture" means the wrong thing. I guess it means the creator changes to meet the preferences of their audience. What it should mean is the audience keeps consuming the first 1 or 2 major creators they come across, never seeking anything better.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@MattZeitlin Sometimes "quiet work"

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

One of the crazy things about telling stories in 2026 is no matter who you mention as an example, someone voices their dissent.

We're not talking Bill Cosby here. Henry Ford, Jerry Seinfeld, Annie Duke, Rick Rubin, Elon Musk, J. K. Rowling.

It's at such a ridiculous proportion I honestly don't give a fuck anymore. Going to start quoting Genghis Khan.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@levelsio Do you take on many projects you don't expect to work?

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@thepatwalls @levelsio Very cool! I'd love to see a column of whether they were sure bets or wildcards. As in, did you expect a high chance of mild success, or a low chance of wild success?

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Nothing could have convinced me how much writing it takes to write a book you’re proud of. When you’re not a writer, you think, Wow 250 pages is a lot. Then you write a book and realize 250 is condensed from 2,500.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@theoptivert This is Thoreau writing about Montaigne, no less!

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

"The superior mind will find itself equally at odds with the evils of society, and with the projects that are offered to relieve them." —Henry David Thoreau

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

The struggle now is less Can you finish? than Should you finish?

[@levelsio @levelsio]

My friend went to an indie hacker meetup this week and said this:

"i went to indie hacker meetup

so what’s really interesting is that almost everyone is super focused on development.

they build these whole spaceships that generate code, review it, make all kinds of reports, analytics, and so on.

one guy built an entire factory: he has a list of ideas, and agents generate the landing page, the saas, the analytics, and pull everything into one dashboard. straight-up sci-fi.

and they focused optimize all of it like crazy.

and you can really see how comfortable that is for them.

but the most interesting part is that almost none of them have money or traffic.

and nobody knows where to get either one.

you often hear something like, yeah, i should probably do on marketing, but first i’ll finish my super system and then i’ll start.

or in best i would need to make agent that will post to instaram automatically

before, the classic programmer would spend a year writing code, tests, preparing for scale in the basement, and not show anything to anyone.

now it’s even worse: the amount of useless aislop nobody needs has grown massively."

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

I met a gastroenterologist and in the course of small talk asked how he ended up in that specialty.

He said with grateful disbelief, “Honestly, I just got lucky.”

Gratitude truly depends upon your perspective – even if it’s a live feed of someone’s colon.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@jessethanley I really am curious now about the Bachata scene in Fukuoka

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

@can Not when it's a bully corporation fucking with your shit.

[Phil Thompson @wonder_city_]

A few weeks ago I tweeted this photo.

Then @ianjanicki replied that someone should make a way for people to find places/homes like this. So I got to work.

Introducing "Old Town Atlas," a curated guide to historic small towns for people who love visiting them (or just fantasizing about living there).

Link below 👇 1/2

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

https://t.co/gtMK8fMDUt

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

I used to believe, “power corrupts.” I’m starting to wonder if, instead, it’s only the corrupt who are fucked up enough to win power.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Going to try maintaining here a thread of every time I see a high-engagement post on my timeline that echoes a sentiment I’ve previously posted (usually with little success).

This isn’t intended to be pointing out some unfairness, or to seem bitter.

Maybe this says something about a declining value of ideas, or luck as dictated my the algorithm. Maybe it says something about my writing skills. I don’t know, just documenting.

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

https://t.co/9m5In74Glq

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

― Frank Herbert

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Architects of Gothic cathedrals didn't today's knowledge about physics and structural analysis to help keep their buildings from collapsing.

They only had "implicit expertise."

[📚 David Kadavy, author @kadavy]

Using Claude to review my manuscript and oh my god, it IS conscious!