Aaron Ortbals

Building new things. Software, systems, engineering teams

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

@orrdavid Ben Thompson of Stratechery is well known for talking about zero marginal costs in software (and how AI changes that) and just recently revisited it when talking about Kimi K3 https://t.co/mmCKBOTpbZ

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

you really have to believe the bull thesis that the TAM of AI is so large that even moderately successful adoption as it expands beyond programming means immense more compute is needed. I think it’s almost guaranteed that we’ll continue to see better and better general models. But what about successful vertically integrated companies?

Take Sierra, for example. Once a company adopts Sierra and is able to reduce human head count for customer service, they’ll become reliant. Long running agents will use more compute, etc. If this type of product is available across most conceivable verticals, that’s a lot of compute.

A variable that may tell this story is the ROI companies are getting from AI that _isn’t_ just a Claude subscription given to their employees. Looking beyond capex from the hyperscalers, if we start to see strong growth from these early AI vertical leaders, it may be another leading indicator that we are still in the early innings here.

The timeline is hard though. This won’t happen overnight even though the frontier labs would like you to think so. If this plays out, it’s not if compute goes up by a magnitude or two, but on what time horizon…

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

the only way forward to truly autonomous agents is seeing exactly what happens when you remove the human guardrails on access to accounts, data, and APIs. OpenClaw is a fascinating experiment in this direction - risky, but the pain will surely lead to some interesting ways to actually solve some of the security problems we’re facing as LLMs attempt to truly act on our behalf

[Jamieson O'Reilly @theonejvo]

https://t.co/K6zXwDUFtz

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

Excited to get Quests account support out in to the world. For our non-technical users, API keys were complicated to set up and this makes things much easier.

You can build many apps under our free plan, or upgrade if you need it. Try it out!

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

I’m not 55 (yet), but a lot of these I would have ignored 10 years ago and see a ton of value in now. Great list to read, even if you don’t want to partake.

[Kevin Dahlstrom @Camp4]

Today I turn 55.

I’m the fittest, sharpest, and happiest I’ve ever been.

If I’m an outlier, it’s not because I’m built different or discovered a secret formula. The truth is far less glamorous:

It’s a million tiny choices, compounded over decades.

Here are 55 of them:

1. Walk 15+ miles a week, even if you do other exercise. Humans are uniquely made to move slowly over long distances—it’s critical to longevity.

2. Develop a writing practice. It’s the single best way to sharpen your mind. And remember, you don’t have to be a good writer to write. Start with 10 minutes a day.

3. Swap out your toothpaste, deodorant, lotions, soap, shampoo, and other personal care products for natural versions. Here’s a rule of thumb: Don’t put anything on your skin that you couldn’t safely eat.

4. If you have a positive thought about someone, don’t keep it to yourself—share it immediately. Encouragement defies the laws of physics: When you give energy, you also receive it.

5. Wear shoes with a wide forefoot (I like Topo Athletic) and wear toe spreaders around the house (search “yoga toes” on Amazon). Spine health begins with the feet.

6. Get sunlight regularly. Moderate sun exposure (without sunscreen) is hugely important for overall health.

7. Do a 3-minute deep (“ass to grass”) squat every morning. Deep squats are often called the anti-aging exercise. It’s been said that, “It’s not that you can’t do deep squats because you’re old, it’s that you’re old because you can’t do deep squats.”

8. Explore minimalism (it’s not what you think it is).

9. Set boundaries on toxic relationships. We tend to cling to relationships past their expiration date, and it takes a bigger toll on our health than we recognize.

10. Eat real food. Not too much. Don’t eat garbage. Binge occasionally. Fast occasionally. That’s the diet.

11. Learn about FIRE. It’s a great framework for financial success.

12. Don’t take antibiotics except in emergency situations. They’re massively over-prescribed and aren’t needed in most cases. Antibiotics have done untold damage to our guts, which is where health begins. Great natural alternatives are out there.

13. Get 8 hours of quality sleep each night. To optimize sleep:
—Don’t eat after 6pm
—Get blackout shades and cover LEDs with black tape
—No screens 2 hours before bed
—Try ashwagandha (an herb) to calm the nervous system

14. Stop drinking, even in moderation. People find all sorts of ways to justify drinking, but there’s no escaping the simple fact that alcohol is a toxin and it limits your potential.

15. Travel as much as possible. Nothing expands the mind like seeing the world. And travel doesn’t have to be expensive—the best experiences happen outside of fancy resorts, when you live like a local.

16. Let go of resentment. When you forgive someone, you release the prisoner, and the prisoner isn’t them… it’s you.

17. Show up on time, every time. Poor time management limits success more than most people realize. If you struggle with punctuality, stop everything else and fix that first.

18. Spend lots of time in nature and touch the earth. Humans evolved over 300k years to live in harmony with nature, and only recently have we retreated indoors. If you don’t spend time outside, you’re fighting biology (hint: You won’t win.)

19. Stop doing dumb things. As Leo Tolstoy said, “People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”

20. Find your happy place and (eventually) move there. Most people live where they live because... that's where they live. We are products of our environment—choose yours carefully.

21. Find a hobby and pursue mastery. You can’t have a happy life without a passionate pursuit that isn’t your vocation. Your work—even if you enjoy it—isn’t enough.

22. Avoid mainstream medicine except as a last resort. The results are in—our healthcare (or more appropriately, sick care) system is badly broken and only makes people sicker.

23. Have a mindset of abundance. There is no advantage to being a pessimist—even if you’re right, it’s a miserable way to live. In a very real way… whatever you believe, you’re right!

24. Do hard things. Choose courage over comfort. Everything you want is on the other side of fear and hard work. As Jerzy Gregorik said, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

25. Ignore haters. Hurt people hurt people. Negative/toxic people live in a prison of their own design. Don’t join them!

26. Say no. Protect your time and energy like it’s your most precious asset… because it is.

27. Become a water snob. As an alien said on Star Trek, humans are “ugly bags of mostly water.” You are what you drink—literally! We have Mountain Valley Spring water delivered in glass 5-gallon jugs and also have whole-house water filter (Aquasana Rhino).

28. Stop drinking sodas and sugary energy drinks. After a few weeks you won’t miss them, and a few months later they’ll seem disgusting. Refined sugar causes inflammation, which is the root of most disease.

29. If you’re over 35, find a good functional/longevity medicine doctor and start tracking your hormones. Modern life is hell on the endocrine system and restoring healthy hormone levels can change your life. As we get older, we either accept a slow decline in performance or we do something about it—choose the latter!

30. Develop a morning routine and follow it faithfully. Win the morning, win the day!

31. Invest in experiences, not things. People frequently regret buying things, but rarely regret investing in great experiences (especially when shared with loved ones). Remember, there’s nothing you can buy in a mall that you’ll remember in ten years.

32. Explore spirituality. It’s arrogant and small-minded to believe there’s nothing going on in our universe that is beyond our comprehension. We know less about our universe than an ant meandering on a sidewalk understands about this planet.

33. Have a strong bias toward action—doing rather than talking. If you ask a bunch of old people about their regrets, they’ll talk about the things they *didn't* do—the shots they didn’t take—more than the things they did do (even if it went wrong). As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Most people don’t take enough shots.

34. Stay lean. Men in particular are obsessed with muscle mass these days, but bulk doesn’t age well. The goal is to be strong but lean. The fittest guys in their 50s and beyond aren’t meatheads, they’re lean guys who are serious about a sport.

35. Curate your inner circle carefully. Surround yourself with people you admire and who challenge you to grow. Remember, we’re the average of our 5 closest relationships.

36. Be the fittest version of yourself. Your body is your only vessel for experiencing life—so treat it as such. Fitness isn’t working out a few times a week, it’s a lifestyle. The older you get, the more time you need to devote to your health.

37. Take the time to appreciate art and beauty in all its forms.

38. Think globally, but act locally. Too many people put their energy into far-away problems they don’t understand and can’t impact, while ignoring problems right under their nose. Want to change the world? Start at home.

39. Try psychedelics. It’s one of those things everyone should do at least once, and it might be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.

40. Limit bad habits, including unhealthy thought patterns. We all have them—practice avoidance and find substitutes. Get professional help if needed.

41. Be a lifelong learner. Your brain is just like a muscle—if you don’t feed and flex it regularly, it will atrophy.

42. Find your purpose. People with a strong sense of purpose are happier and live longer. Lack of purpose sucks energy and magnifies depression.

43. Only take advice from people who embody the traits you want to have. Talk is cheap—emulate those who have DONE it.

44. The goal is not to retire and do nothing, it’s to build a great day-to-day life that you don’t need to escape. A life of leisure is a slow death. Happiness isn’t possible without a little struggle, uncertainty, and skin in the game.

45. Have fun! Do frivolous and silly things that make you smile. As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

46. Whatever you want to do or achieve in life, start NOW. Don’t fall victim to “someday thinking” because someday never comes.

47. Accumulate assets—things that grow in value over time. It’s the #1 habit of rich people, and it can be done in tiny chunks. Instead of spending $100 on an impulse purchase that has no lasting value, put that money into an index fund or Bitcoin. It becomes addictive (in a good way).

48. Don’t ignore the big 3 canaries in the coal mine for health:
—Low libido (and ED)
—Frequent sinus & respiratory issues
—Depression
These usually aren’t medical conditions in themselves, they’re symptoms of an underlying problem. Find a good doc (outside of the mainstream) and figure out the root cause.

49. Have a clear vision for your future. How can you decide which direction to go if you haven’t clearly defined the destination? It sounds obvious, but 95% of people haven’t defined their “Ideal End State” in detail and in writing. (Check out my thread on this topic.)

50. Make your own decisions. We live in an era where most of what society tells us is wrong. Don’t be afraid to break from societal norms—if people say you’re crazy, it’s a sign that you’re doing something right.

51. Get hardcore about mobility exercise. As you age, it’s usually the knees, hips, and lower back that limit physical performance. 30 min a couple times a week can spare you a lifetime of pain. YouTube is a great resource.

52. Go all in on family. Get married, stay married, have kids. Burn the boats. In the end, family is all that matters.

53. Be ruthless with your time. Money comes and goes. Time only goes. Audit your calendar ruthlessly—cut the trivial, double down on the meaningful, and spend your hours like your life depends on it. (Because it does.)

54. Have a strong bias toward action. Be curious, try things, meet people—it’s how you increase your surface area for serendipity, the most powerful unseen force in our lives.

55. Reinvent yourself every decade. Over time, we slowly drift off course from our priorities, values, and true identity. Take stock and don’t be afraid to hit the reset button. Bold, calculated moves made for the right reasons almost always pay off—usually even more than you can imagine.

🎁 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, would you give me a birthday gift? Repost or comment with the item number(s) you liked best?

[Quests @quests_dev]

How to use Quests (with no coding experience)
https://t.co/ZDrP6B63oj

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

Overall, interesting entry into the IDE market from Google. Nothing blew my mind, but it's a very usable experience. It's not going to replace @cursor_ai for me yet, but Google's massive ecosystem advantage will surely convert some, especially due to costs and network effects

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

Google @antigravity is out with Google's take on a vscode fork. We need a bacon number for vscode forks at this point. Antigravity builds on Windsurf which builds on vscode. 5 interesting bits:

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

5. Artifact comments are neat - I like the idea of local review for long running tasks. I'm a firm believer that local iteration for most tasks is much faster than a PR-based workflow.

[Quests @quests_dev]

💬 Chat mode has landed!

- Projects page for bulk management of your chats and apps
- Recent projects on the new tab page
- 70 other commits you will feel, but don't want to read about

More will follow.

[Jeremy Mack @mutewinter]

Chat agent, coming to @quests_dev very soon...

[Quests @quests_dev]

🚨 Shipping on a Friday Alert 🚨

Evals just landed in Quests! One click to locally evaluate any LLM's ability to code by having them build visual benchmark apps.

[Jeremy Mack @mutewinter]

Polaris Alpha just dropped on @openrouter

- Best zero shots I've EVER SEEN
- Fast, < 1 minute wall clock for most apps
- Precise tool trajectories
- ZERO tsc errors
- Dark purple is the new blue pink gradient

Ran these using the new one click visual evals in @quests_dev

[Jeremy Mack @mutewinter]

We will be adding this to @quests_dev and shipping it this week!

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

One of the beauties of Quests is everything works out of the box—no extra downloads (you don't even need a terminal). Download here https://t.co/6Z7KoZnzdy

[Aaron Ortbals @aaronortbals]

Quests 1.4 is out with support for your favorite JavaScript framework 🔥. Here's a quick demo spinning up a @nextjs prototype dashboard in less than 30 seconds. Comes with support for @nuxt_js, @vuejs, @angular, @sveltejs and more. All baked right in to the runtime.