Open Forem: Simon L

March 2026

Simon L — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 06:07:37 +0000

It's not exactly the beginning of 2026 but it still feels like it - it still feels like the beginning of 2026. Is it because we're still close to the Chinese New Year holiday? Perhaps. Is it because the work wise the goal for the year has yet to be aligned? Perhaps. But it still feels like the beginning of 2026.

I am not in a good place. Mentally I mean. Physically I can't complain much about where I am. Weather is favourable. I am wearing a t-shirt sitting in a coffee shop - where else. I don't feel cold. I don't feel warm. I am feeling hungry. But yeah I have not been in a good place mentally recently.

I feel small. I feel vulnerable. I get easily agitated. I am not sure what happened.

I was right though. I am fearful. I fear the things that is coming. A trip, a dinner party, a visit to the hospital, work. I also fear the things in the past. Something I said, something I didn't do.

All these things have one thing in common - they're not real. They're imaginative things that might happen in the future, or something could've happened differently in the past.

I have an active mind, which constantly creates stories that hurts myself. This is just absurd.

Telescoping

Simon L — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 05:28:36 +0000

We're trying to hire a senior engineer. After that, the average age of my team is going to be over 40. It's a bit scary come to think of it. Is it a good thing? Or a bad thing? I don't know. Are we going to be slow and boring as a team? What would the youngest on the team thin? I don't have the answers. It just happened. I didn't design it or plan it.

The thing is - it probably doesn't make much sense to hire junior developers at this stage. The logic behind hiring a junior developer is 2 folds:

there is always going to be something that is "too simple for" or "below" a senior developer.
given the choice, it's almost always better to "grow" your own talent instead of acquiring it from out side.

Even if "2" is still true, to some extent, the logic of "1" just doesn't hold anymore. The following are simple facts we're facing in software industry as far as coding agents goes:

Agents have way more knowledge about the basic materials of programming - language syntax, API parameters.
Compared to most average software developers, it knows better how to build software. I.e. after reading all the text books, blog posts, cream of open source projects, it knows the best practices of software engineering.
It follows instruction better. A junior developer probably suffer from lack of listening skill, which is very much undervalued. Agents read everything you give to it without missing a word. Anthropics and OpenAI has fine tuned their model to follow instructions better and better.
It's faster.

So if I were to hire some junior developer in the team, I'd have to convince myself that I am willing to let go all of the above for the sake of growing him/her, while at the same time bear the risk of loosing it to an competitor after the growing is done? It just doesn't make sense at all.

This is software engineering. But it's probably true for a lot of other knowledge work as well. Law, health care, finance, etc etc. Why would anyone hire any random young man as a charity?

The disruption is going to be real if not already. What are the possible outcome?

For most people, having a job is a necessity. This is not going to be true any more. There will be people with jobs. But they'll be highly trained experts, more so than current level. And their job will probably be supervising AI agents instead of doing anything concrete. For the majority of human race, to work to be able to survive is not needed anymore. But people still needs progress, connection, purpose, etc. These things will come from other activities, not work. Those activities are looking more and more likely to be something in the virtual world, built by AI agents.

All these are speculations of course. And that's assuming AI won't cause world ending scenarios as well.

Technology cannot be stopped. Mankind thought we tamed corps and livestock - it's the other way around. We're conditioned to stay in boxes like cars, elevators, instead of walking in grasses and open fields. We fall asleep many feet above without a single shred of worry. Things will only change faster this time. Let's see.

2026

Simon L — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 05:40:42 +0000

A span of a year is both long and short. A lot of things can happen within a year. Yet when we look back it seems like the first day of 2025 was only yesterday. Here are my predictions, hopes and goals for the coming year.

Predictions

Apple will have a new CEO.
A stock index will still be below 4200.
IDEs will be officially dead.
Premium speakers sells better in China compared to Europe.
Major demonstration happen in a major European city.
Slop creates a major news headline, either in the form of podcast of X posts.
AGI wil not be achieved.

Hopes

One or several strong leader emerge in Europe.
A breakthrough in medical usage of AI.
Ding to win some titles.
More vibe-coded applications.

Goals

Adopt AI usage in non professional life. Based on Gemini.
Learn to play at least 3 pieces of piano, including the "Moonlight Sonata".
Achieve equivalent of N4 or above in Japanese.
10%+ gain in stock market.
Write 5+ blog post manually.
Conquer fear.
Stay calm.