Collin Ching

[Collin Ching @collindching]

vibe coding apps is fun but I spend too much time building what I think is a good product

and too little on identifying potential users and understanding their specific problems

customer and problem definition are pretty important. need to listen before action

[Jeremy Bernier @jeremybernier]

At 3pm today I was in Menlo Park and debating heading to SF to work out of a cafe. Then I remembered that there's literally no great cafes to work out of in SF that are open past 5pm. Maybe some meh ones open until 6pm, but def nothing worth the drive. Ironic given that SF is supposed to be the place for building startups.

If you like working out of cafes, SF is surprisingly bad for it. Most cafes are cute little spots that close 3-5pm and barely have seating. I haven't found a single great cafe that combines modern design, ample seating, and remains open past 5pm. Actually I have yet to find a single cafe that even just checks those first two boxes.

The #1 city in the world for working out of cafes is Seoul, and its surrounding suburbs. You could be in a random suburb of Seoul, and within 15 minutes walking distance there will be a quality work cafe with tasteful modern design, ample seating, thriving co-working space vibes, and open 24/7. There are even 24/7 cafes with zero employees - something that could never exist in the U.S.

I was in Tokyo last week and saw the most beautiful and aesthetic co-working space I've ever seen where you can rent by the hour or day, attached to one of the nicest bookstores I've ever seen, two more hip and stylish cafes, all in a beautiful building and beautiful area. A 15 minute walk away was the nicest Starbucks Reserve I've ever seen, with 4 floors. These kind of places don't exist in the U.S, and definitely don't exist in SF.

Ironically, Tokyo and Seoul are probably better places to build a startup if you're just working from your laptop, don't have an office and prefer working out of cafes to holing up in your apartment all day in your pajamas, don't need to beg rich people for funding, and don't care about networking.

Anyways I ended up driving 10 mins to Mountain View to work out of the only cafe I know here with ample seating, modern design, and open till 6pm. Of course it has nothing on what I saw in Asia though (attached photos are from Tokyo)

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

A peak life advice from Alex Hormozi:

“The fastest way to become the person you want to be is to put yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to become them.”

[Chris Freiman @cafreiman]

For Father’s Day, I’ll share this letter to Karl Marx from his dad

[Farza 🇵🇰🇺🇸 @FarzaTV]

We built an AI that can draw on your screen.

It's a true personal tutor.

Using Claude Opus we're able to draw polygons, point with pixel perfect accuracy, and walk users through complex steps directly on their screen.

Here's me learning Pythagorean Theorem + FL Studio.

Demo:

[Collin Ching @collindching]

probs would have helped me prevent my gout attack two days ago 🤣

[Collin Ching @collindching]

made a thing to help you hit your protein goals with gout-friendly foods

you pick your protein sources and it shows how much protein you hit + how much gout risk you're adding

https://t.co/IrpKc2l3pE

[Tom Goodwin @tomfgoodwin]

When are tech folk going to get that people like wasting time, it's life. They don't optimize for efficiency, they try to get by, they watch dumb stuff, they enjoy shopping. Inefficiency is another work for living and life.

Your m mean and median job isn't a software engineer in Menlo Park, it's Ashley in accounts in a not for profit in Columbus, it's Jesse , the office manager for a tool rental business in Tallahassee, they are more likely to use a Fax machine than Slack.

They quite like meetings because they like chatting, they'll use AI to make a better invite to their baby shower, not agentify their job.

These people, nor their bosses boss, aren't in a rush to build software as a side hustle, they are keen to use AI to check if their vet is overcharging them. They'd like AI to check spelling on the email to the school governor.

They don't want agentic commerce, they want AI to be in the background and make living a little less stressful

[Collin Ching @collindching]

@usemonologue any chance you will do offline support?

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

Marc Andreessen on why it’s critically important to expose yourself to risk:

“Put yourself in situations where you will succeed or fail by your own decisions and actions, and where that success or failure will be highly visible.

Why?

If you're going to be a high achiever, you're going to be in lots of situations where you're going to be quickly making decisions in the presence of incomplete or incorrect information, under intense time pressure, and often under intense political pressure.

You're going to screw up - frequently - and the screwups will have serious consequences, and you'll feel incredibly stupid every time.

It can't faze you.

You have to be able to just get right back up and keep on going.

That may be the most valuable skill you can ever learn. Make sure you start learning it early.”

[Noah Zender @noahzender]

Everyone talks about building a second brain.

450 notes.
3 years of curation.
Books, podcasts, articles, videos.

I built a section of my site where an agent forces connections between ideas and writes exploratory essays from it.

Your notes are dead if they sit in folders.

[Rudrank Riyam @rudrank]

New blog post about using Xcode Tools MCP from Xcode 26.3 in any MCP compatible client (Cursor, OpenCode, Droid, etc) apart from using it with Claude Code and Codex!

https://t.co/KSVCN1MeIV

[Max Spero @max_spero_]

.@paulg is so real for this. 10pm onward is the best deep work time

[Collin Ching @collindching]

@v_computer id like credits to try this out pls!

[Collin Ching @collindching]

Five right socks in a row, not a single left to pair them... Feetures socks will be the deatg of me

[Blake Robbins @blakeir]

Unironically, the Claude Code killer use case for normies might just be:

a to-do list that actually understands how you work + an inbox that triages itself.

[Robleh @robjama]

who's building the beautiful TO DO app that's really just claude code under the hood for non-technical people?

not a list but something that actually works with you to get stuff done, minus the terminal UI. bonus points if it replaces notes app too.

[Mustafa @oprydai]

if you want to future-proof your career;

stop chasing hype and start building in the foundations that the future literally runs on.

here’s where the real action will be for the next 50 years:

‣ advanced manufacturing
‣ artificial intelligence
‣ autonomous robots
‣ battery storage
‣ edge computing
‣ distributed energy
‣ secure communication
‣ quantum computing
‣ nanomaterials & microelectronics
‣ space launch & spacecraft
‣ critical minerals & components
‣ grid resilience
‣ 6G
‣ nuclear energy
‣ cybersecurity
‣ command & control systems

these are not buzzwords; they’re national power levers.
they’ll define which countries stay ahead and which fade out.

pick one. go deep. build.
and you’ll never have to worry about being “replaced by AI"

[Collin Ching @collindching]

@vladtenev You mentioned in an interview that evening routines like journaling and exercise help with managing stress. What is your journaling ritual like? Is it scheduled, whenever you feel like? What do you typically write about ?

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Agency > Intelligence

I had this intuitively wrong for decades, I think due to a pervasive cultural veneration of intelligence, various entertainment/media, obsession with IQ etc. Agency is significantly more powerful and significantly more scarce. Are you hiring for agency? Are we educating for agency? Are you acting as if you had 10X agency?

Grok explanation is ~close:

“Agency, as a personality trait, refers to an individual's capacity to take initiative, make decisions, and exert control over their actions and environment. It’s about being proactive rather than reactive—someone with high agency doesn’t just let life happen to them; they shape it. Think of it as a blend of self-efficacy, determination, and a sense of ownership over one’s path.

People with strong agency tend to set goals and pursue them with confidence, even in the face of obstacles. They’re the type to say, “I’ll figure it out,” and then actually do it. On the flip side, someone low in agency might feel more like a passenger in their own life, waiting for external forces—like luck, other people, or circumstances—to dictate what happens next.

It’s not quite the same as assertiveness or ambition, though it can overlap. Agency is quieter, more internal—it’s the belief that you *can* act, paired with the will to follow through. Psychologists often tie it to concepts like locus of control: high-agency folks lean toward an internal locus, feeling they steer their fate, while low-agency folks might lean external, seeing life as something that happens *to* them.”