Laura Roeder

Founder at @byPaperbell, Exited MeetEdgar

Anti-hustle poster child

I blog at

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

A Week in The Life of a Claudepilled Marketing Founder https://t.co/7UInsCtLGI

(list of everything claude did for me in the past week)

[Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday]

https://t.co/2EAlVNTu7s

[˗ˏˋ Jesse Hanley ˎˊ˗ @jessethanley]

Morning routine now:
Wake up before family.
Go to gym.
Triage Discord and support.
Queue up @cursor_ai cloud agents.
Over breakfast run /walk-prs in IDE.
Merge everything.
Relax and take daughter to kindy.

Before this might have been a full days worth of work that I’m now completing before breakfast.

The @cursor_ai mobile app and cloud agents is such an amazing partner as a solo builder.

Clearest trade of tokens for time you can make right now.

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@mitchellh Spotify is terrible, just try finding your queue

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@jasonfried They do this in japan! You rent from toyota and they are awesome and have really flexible terms, you can drop off anywhere in the country and we extended it over and over again with no trouble.

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@ShaanVP Truth

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@Camp4 this is why I roll my eyes at the stuff you see online thats like "have AI make them a new website! tell them AI can answer their phone! you'll make millions!"

like dude no, these businesses are NOT interested

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@robhennefer @bryce is it something your doctor brought up?

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@bryce wow have never heard of this

[Brett Caughran @FundamentEdge]

I know I have the right Twitter friend group when all my true buddies here (mostly successful former Wall Street people looking for a more authentic life) start roasting this take.

But I will point out one glaringly obvious error with his framework: Scott Galloway is going to die.

We all are.

But he is 61. Per Claude, the average 61 year old American male has about 21 years left to live, and, on average, about 15 of those years are expected to be "active" / largely unimpaired. And for how many men does this jet-setting, Aspen & St Barths lifestyle stay compelling past ~70? For only the truly mentally ill, I would argue. The 4%/25x FIRE rule doesn't apply to him, and he doesn't even know it (worse, he's attempting to poison the rest of us with this mimetic crap of feeling like we don't have enough to feel secure).

And the fact that we are going to die is great news.

Life is precious precisely because it ends.

A few years back, I did a deep dive on near death experiences (NDE). What was most remarkable was the consistency of the aftereffects: reordered priorities, markedly reduced fear of death, increased sense of meaning & connection to source, and durable improvements to mental health. Buddhist "die before you die" meditations and the dissociative reframing activated in psychedelic journeys activate the same fundamental experience. What is learned through these experiences is that you don't need $125m to feel secure...you are secure precisely because your journey is deeply supported by a benevolent universe.

Though this study, I developed a reflection question that has been one of my most reliable mirrors, for myself and when people ask advice: how would you live your life if you knew you were going to die in five years?

As a professor teaching (mostly) young men and by being present on Twitter over the years, I have had many occasions where high-performing but burnt out men have reached out to me for advice. It sort of feels uncomfortable, as life advice is a really hard, and also really dangerous thing, to give - because what worked for me likely won't work for you. "Buy rental real estate" was great advice in 2012 and probably leads to bankruptcy in 2026. "Quit your Wall Street job making $650k" may be great advice for some people, and awful advice leading to financial distress & divorce for others. Each of our skillsets and situations are so deeply unique that advice is hard.

But I do know one thing: we are all going to die. Don't live like you aren't. Life isn't a game of making more and more money to chase this elusive feeling of security (which is almost certainly a moving goal post). True security is an internal feeling, a feeling of "I can handle anything thrown my way because the benevolent universe has my back".

When I was in my mimetic, competitive, "I have to get back in the game" mode after being let go by Citadel in 2018, my coach Justin Doyle looked at me and said "Brett, you are so stressed out, I'm more worried about you having a heart attack in front of your Bloomberg screen than finding your next PM job". It was kind of a throwaway comment, but with an amazing wife and three beautiful young sons at home, it was the right comment at the right time, and it hit me hard and led to a sharp course correct. I literally booked a 10 day trip to India the next day leaving in 2 weeks, on which I was flooded with insight on what to do next (i.e. leave NYC and build a new life in Arizona). The hedge fund headhunters who saw fresh meat and an easy placement were apoplectic. "Build a vocation that doesn't feel like work, that you could do for the next 20+ years" was his next advice, and he helped me do precisely that.

These days, when people ask for my advice, I offer them the "5 year test". What would you do if you knew you were going to die in 5 years? Figure that out, then do it.

For me, it's simple. My sons are 12, 10 and 8. I want to give them the things my father couldn't give me: most critically, deep & joyful presence & unconditional acceptance. I want to spend a lot of time with them, having crazy adventures & building a deep level of love & trust.

But it's also complicated. I could never be JUST a "retired, stay at home dad", as my intellectual muscle would atrophy (which has happened at moments in my life, and is a terrifying and motivating thing for me). I love working hard to solve complicated problems with motivated, intelligent people. I deeply love my job, and this moment of time where AI is fundamentally transforming knowledge work is just incredibly exciting and invigorating to me. The process of creating things is deeply spiritual for me and it's such a delightful experience to be working on a problem and get that magical "ping" of insight that unlocks it. Reading "When Breath Becomes Air" which is the beautiful account of a brain surgeon facing death, but in his dying days loving the craft of conducting surgery was deeply resonant to me around the power of vocation & purpose. It's fine to love your work, in fact it's ideal for a life fully lived, which is anathema to the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) crowd that all seem to view their jobs as prison time.

And it's also complicated in the sense that I have a deep duty to provide & protect, and a man or woman who holds the critical mantle of head of household has a sacred responsibility to be economically viable in a world where a nice life is expensive. I've had some well-timed luck in this regard, but I always want to be anti-fragile to all scenarios, and AI certainly expands the fan of outcomes in this regard.

In sum, it's a complicated balance.

But I have learned one other thing. The courage to embrace living by this "5 year test" has a way of unlocking the support of the universe. "Jump and the net will appear" is super woo woo, but it's a real thing. I can't explain it, but it's real. It's the Neville Goddard Law of Assumption as depicted in the Indiana Jones Leap of Faith, and it's shown up in my life in so many ways (I could write for hours about spirit guides & pre-life planning & karmic balancing via reincarnation...but that's a little woo woo for the moment).

TLDR: You're going to die. You don't need $125m to feel secure. The universe has your back.

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@nickgraynews just use codex from your claudecode folder, tell it to read your claude.md, ask what else it needs to work there are just a few minor things

I use them both with my claude set up

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@NWischoff I've seen a bunch of these come and go and they always go out of business

The business model can't charge enough to be viable

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

I was lucky enough to have a similar epiphany young that changed the course of my life

When I was 20 I had an office job in Chicago, my friend was waitressing and acting in LA

From the traditional POV I was on a respectable career path and she wasn't

But when she visited me we could only hang out for dinner once I was done with work at 6

When I visited her she had the freedom to hang out all day

I quit my job to work for myself and moved to LA

I've never worked for someone else since, and always designed my life around the freedom to hang w friends all day who visit from out of town

[Kevin Dahlstrom @Camp4]

> Escaping The Matrix <

A decade ago, when I was at the top of the corporate world, I had an eye-opening experience:

I became friends with a mountain guide named Tom. Tom is ex-military and didn’t go to college. He spends his days outside, guiding clients up the sandstone cliffs of Red Rock Canyon just outside of Vegas.

Tom has never made more than $70,000 in a year, but…

He has an awesome life:

—Works 6-8 months a year, travels the rest.
—Has zero debt and pays cash for everything.
—Owns a tricked-out Sprinter van, a restored ‘71 Mustang, and a work truck.
—Impressive nest egg of savings.
—Great community of friends.

Tom works hard, but it’s on his terms—he has near-complete freedom. He once told me that he knew he’d never have high income, so he chose to live simply. His living expenses are under $4,000/month.

Meanwhile, when I met Tom, I was making 20 times that amount… but hated my life. At one point, I asked him:

“How the heck do you have a better life than me?!”

It was a rhetorical question.

Hanging out with Tom gave me a peek outside of the matrix.

Most people don’t know there’s a parallel universe out there, where society’s rules don’t apply. Where you don’t have to run ever faster on the hamster wheel. Where freedom trumps status. Where enough is enough.

It turns out there’s a level above being rich.

It’s the true wealth that comes from:

—Having the freedom to live your best life
—Making enough money to support that lifestyle

Once you’re living your best life and can comfortably pay the bills, more money has limited utility. So why trade your freedom to chase more?

People like Tom played a big role in my escape from the matrix in 2018.

In the 8 years since, I’ve spent 1,000 days outside instead of under fluorescent lights. Instead of fattening my bankroll, I fattened my camera roll. And ironically, I’m doing the best, most interesting work of my life.

I’m far less rich than I could have been if I’d stayed on the corporate track…

But I’m much wealthier.

P.S. If this post inspired you, would you please like / comment / repost?

📸: Tom and I living the dream in Eldorado Canyon.

[Ramit Sethi @ramit]

Once something becomes a Fixed Cost in your household -- housing, car, kids' activities -- it is nearly impossible to cut back on

This is why I'm so relaxed about buying a random dinner but very careful about adding new Fixed Costs, which must earn their way into our spending

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@consumerxai @AlexHormozi i don't think a python script could create these videos, they're specific to the person they're talking about

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@Shpigford activecampaign

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@aadilrverma Their video ads are exceptionally good they always get me watching the whole thing

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@einarvollset Fun fact I rented an office in the UK in a shared space but every kitchen in the building had a fridge but no freezer, so I had to buy my own to put in my little office so I could have ice!!

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@levelsio Yeah but your gf cares about her skin looking amazing and she's right it works!

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

twitter is truly inexplicable. people are responding to this saying that I'm insisting no one in the US should have AC???

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

Yes my house in England doesn't have AC. I also lived by the beach in LA for years and none of those houses had AC either but no one on twitter was mad about it.

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

@CleavageCrumbs correct, I am not telling you that

[Laura Roeder @lkr]

Yes my house in England doesn't have AC. I also lived by the beach in LA for years and none of those houses had AC either but no one on twitter was mad about it.