Thomas Valera

On a journey to turn 1M Humans into AI Native Developers 🦄
🟩⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️⬛️ (10K/1M)
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[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

If the algorithm sent you here, it made a good call.

I'm Thomas — @ thmsvlra.

Developer for close to 20 years.
Freelanced for 15.
Launched 3 startups.
And scaled a dev agency to $200k ARR. Completely solo.

Oh, and I originally taught myself to code trying to cheat in math class.

After 20 years in the field, I'm sharing everything I know online.
On my socials, newsletter, and a free Skool community called AI Native Developers, where I'm building a free course to teach people how to develop with AI the right way.

So don't forget to hit follow.

You'll see beautiful my face pop up next time you doomscroll on the toilet.

🦄

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

We developers are labeled as difficult sometimes.

But we're the ones who care the most about the users, the product, the devs who built before us, and every dev who comes after us.

So when they push back,
it's becasue we care that much.

That's why AI can't replace us.

It doesn't give a shit like we do.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

A company spent $500M in AI tokens in a single month.

They "forgot to set limits on employee usage".

No product to show for it.
No announcement.
Not even a rumor.

Half-a-billion-dollars.

What would you spend it on?

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Stop typing `cd` commands to navigate to subfolders in Cursor.

Right-click the folder → Open Integrated Terminal.

Opens right there.

Done.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

I've been telling myself a lot of bs to validate my procrastination lately.

→ I'm not good enough
→ I can't make an online course
→ I'm out of my depth

But in reality I have done 90% of the work already.

I have a full curriculum ready with around 100hours worth of content.

I have the first 6 lessons of the first module ready.

And really i just need to get my shit together and finish the next 14.

Complete my first module.
Launch the free part of my master class.

That'll be a real milestone.

And after that I'll be unstoppable.

So stfu me and let me be awesome.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Trust. Reach. Authority.

These are the 3 pillars behind my next 1,350 videos.

Trust = building in public. The highs and lows of building AIND and what my life actually looks like day to day.

Reach = hot takes. AI news, companies replacing devs, everything that makes me go "this is wrong and here's why."

Authority = the craft. Cursor, Claude Code, frameworks, the mindset of an AI native developer. Everything that makes you stop and think "I need to learn from this guy."

3 pillars. 3 videos a day. 5 platforms. 90 days.

Follow me if this is for you.

I'll see you in the next video.

🦄

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

1,350 posts in 90 days.

That's my plan.

Here's the math:
3 videos per day
* 30 days = 90 videos per month
* 5 platforms = 270 videos per month
* 3 months = 1350 videos total

If you look at it this way, it's way more doable isn't it?

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Who do you want to become when you grow up?

So seriously...

Am I the only adult here that has no fucking clue what I want to become?

I feel like everyone has life figured out... everyone but me.

Tell me I'm not alone here.

Please 🥲

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Having no life goal is weirder than having a stupid one.

My first goal was simple: I just wanted to be rich.

I didn't even know what that meant but it got me out of bed, pushed me to go freelance, and made me move.

3 years in, I woke up one day and realised I'd reached it.

And I did the dumbest thing possible.

I didn't make another goal.

As a result I feel like I've been wandering for the last 7 years.

And just today did I realise it mid-recording 🥲

I need a goal again.

🦄

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Physically I'm bald.

And yet when I meditate,
the image I have of myself has hair.

And it's messing with my meditations.

🥲

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

There's a moment every developer remembers.

The first time something you built actually ran.

Mine happened on a calculator in high school while I was trying to cheat in math class 😬

Weeks of brute force trial and error.

Trying to figure out how to do something I didn't understand.

Totally in secret.

And then one day I clicked the Execute button.

It asked me for the value of a.
Then b.
Ran a calculation.
Printed the result back on screen.
Mind blown.
I felt like I had unlocked access to a black magic realm.
And honestly, I wasnt wrong 😅

That one moment started a 15-year software engineering career.

Every developer has one.

What was yours? 👇

🦄

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

My Claude Code stack isn't working for me and I need help.

My current stack is:
* Claude Code
* Markdown
* Obsidian

I love markdown because it's been working really well to share knowledge back and forth with CC.

Plus, it's very easy to use, read and write!

BUT

The more I use it, the more I want to do complex stuff.

Like graphs, tables, databases.

Which is not possible in Markdown.

So I genuinely want to know:
💬 How do you do it? What's your stack?

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

I code
You code
They code
It codes
We code
They code

To code.
We should all know how to do it.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

We all have that fire inside of us that keeps up going, keeps us striving for more.

Mine has been slow lately.

And it both feels unnatural and makes me sad.

I need to get it back and stronger than ever.

If you've experienced it let me know what worked for you 💬

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

@perkmaybe Hello! 👋 Let’s connect, let’s build, let’s go! 🚀

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Sometimes you just need to clean up your desk to create some mental space.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

I built a 270-day content streak last year.

Then I quit.

Not because I ran out of ideas or because I didn't have time.

Honestly I just quit because it started working and that scared me somehow.

I've never had that happen to me before.

I've been freelancing for 15 years, always starting from scratch after each project.

Launched 3 startups, always pushed through the hard and uncertain times.

But this time, for content, I got scared?

I've been scratching my head around this for a few months.

But if there's anything I'm realizing is that before it got serious I was really enjoying it.

I was having fun making content, having total creative freedom over what I did.

This is what I want again.

So I'm back.

First goal:
→ 30 days of content.
→ Start sharing my journey again.

See you tomorrow.

If this sounds familiar, I'd love to know how you broke the cycle. Let me know in the comments 💬

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

I miss writing code by hand.

The slow relaxed pace that came with it.

This was an enjoyable moment for me.

A moment where I could disconnect from the world and live in the moment.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

If you code review, you're a real developer.

If you don't, you're not.

It's as simple as that.

If you though AI-generated code was your solution to writing code without bugs then think again...

Then start doing code reviews :)

You'll thank me later.

[Thomas Valera @thmsvlra]

Who gave AI permission to highjack my commits like this?

Claude Code adds itself as author.

Cursor signs all the commits with its own name.

But what if I wanted to act as if I had typed it all by myself?

Huh?

Who game them permission?