The Blue Jays and Egoless Winning

If you watched Monday’s playoff game featuring the Blue Jays and the Rangers you might have noticed that The Jays’ GM, John Gibbons pulled…

If you watched Monday’s playoff game featuring the Blue Jays and the Rangers you might have noticed that The Jays’ GM, John Gibbons pulled starting pitcher R.A. Dickey (right) with 2 outs in the 5th inning and replaced him with David Price (left).

Who cares right?

At current count there are over 7,424 different conspiracy theories about why Gibbons put Price in, rather than letting Dickey finish (yes, I know how that sounds ha). 17 of them involve Reptilians.

In Major League Baseball, a winning pitcher is defined as the pitcher who last pitched prior to the half-inning when the winning team took the lead for the last time.

If you are a pitcher and you play baseball, you want Wins. Team wins yes, and personal Wins. Personal Wins get you into the hall of fame, get you a bigger contract, get you the cover.

Even though Dickey pitched a fantastic 5 innings, he didn’t get the Win. Personally this sucks for him. He’s an older dude. He might never get a playoff win ever again. Playoff wins for starting pitchers are valuable things. He was clearly disappointed and who wouldn’t be, he got 95% of the way there to watch someone else go the last mile and cross the finish line.

The media tried to stir the pot, get him fired up. But he didn’t bite. He calmly and cooly said: (paraphrasing)

“We have a special team. You don’t get to play on a team like this often, and we all know it’s special. Did I want the Win, of course, I am a competitor, but I want the team to win more.”

Listening to him I realized that I am on a few special teams. At home, at work, in life, and on punt returns. Yet, I am human. Luckily I have an ego, and sometimes I can feel it pulling me in. Gnawing at me to get that personal Win. I am lucky because when I catch it in the act I can laugh at it.

You are probably on a special team too.

If you aren’t, join one.

If you can’t find one… build one.

Introducing Runner

It was December 28th. I woke up at 6am and Cursor had been running all night. I had Claude working while I slept, writing code, pushing commits, doing things that would have taken me a full day. Just sitting there staring at the screen, coffee getting cold, and realizing life wasn't going to be the same. I got a taste of the agentic workflow and couldn't go back. Turns out I wasn't the only one. When the Christmas break ended, Charlie and Yitong, my co-founders at Agora, had similar epiphanies

How I build: Dec 2025 Edition

I treat AI as a tool and like any tool, people can use the same tools in different ways to acheive different results. I recently realized that I use AI differently than some of my colleagues so I was encouraged to share how I code. Before I talk about the tools and tactics, it's important to remember that I have a golden rule when using AI to code: Don't get AI to build something you don't understand or haven't built at least 3 times before. CRUD application? ✅ Simple Tab View Mobile App? ✅

The Messy Middle

My family is moving into a new house and we wanted to do a little bit of remodelling upstairs. Nothing big, just closing off a wall, making a closet a little bigger and swapping out a sink in the bathroom. My wife's family owns a construction business, so we are lucky to have an inside track with contractors and knowledge. My father in law is a genius, he runs his own construction business but still made time to come and measure, sketch and draw up the plans himself. My wife and I his customers

Someone needs to hear it

So, you want to write something but you are feeling like you can’t finish and post it for a really simple reason: there are 6 people in the world smarter than you on this topic, surely they should write it not you. During an interview today for Agora’s product manager, a warrior of art reminded me of this mental block and it rung so true. How many great pieces of advice, lessons, ideas and inspiration are left unsaid due to someone feeling as though they aren’t qualified enough to talk about it

Read more

Introducing Runner

How I build: Dec 2025 Edition

The Messy Middle

Someone needs to hear it