Michael Lynch

@mtlynch.io

856 Followers 185 Following

Bootstrapped founder. Lover of unit tests. One successful exit. ex-@google, ex-@microsoft.

Cartoon of Steve Jobs announcing the iPod by calling it, "A plastic and metal rectangle, right in your pocket." Audience looks confused. Caption is "Before Steve Jobs landed on '1,000 songs, right in your pocket.'"
Hacker News comment from May 10, 2026: "But you know, I'm willing to bet that in 10 years from now WhatsApp and Slack will be both dead..."
AI can help you become a good writer, not a great writer AI can be improve your writing, but it's important to recognize its limitations. AI can't accurately predict the responses of real readers. AI has seen many examples of good writing, and it does an impressive job at pattern matching your writing to other examples, but you know your readers better than AI does. As an experiment, I asked an AI agent to offer feedback on a recent essay written by Paul Graham, a popular and influential software writer. Here was the AI assistant's first note: > “An essay has to tell people something they don't already know” may feel too rigid. [...] > > A softer version might be: > > - “A good essay usually tells readers something they didn't already fully know.” > - “An essay has to add something to the reader's understanding.” The AI's feedback is basically, “You have a strong point of view. Why don't you water it down?” The feedback for Graham's essay is typical of AI. An AI assistant does not want to adopt bold stances or take risks. AI wants to sound like everyone else. If Paul Graham let an AI assistant revise all of his writing, he would not be popular or interesting because AI would filter the exact qualities that make Graham stand out. AI can help you reach the 60th or 70th percentile of writing ability, but not beyond. An AI assistant will never say, “Gosh, that's better than I can write, so I'll leave it alone.” If you show it 90th percentile writing, AI will drag it to the 70th percentile with needless edits. To grow beyond AI's limitations, you need to follow your intuition. If AI tells you to change something, think carefully about whether the AI assistant “gets” what you're trying to do and whether you agree with its feedback.
For example, these two sentences differ slightly: I discovered a very useful feature of Linux. I discovered a useful feature of Linux. The difference in meaning above is so small that it’s easy to delete “very” for brevity. The same is true with similarly bland modifiers like “really,” “pretty,” and “much”: The code feels much cleaner now that we have consistent conventions. The code feels cleaner now that we have consistent conventions. We’ve had really promising results with SQLite. We’ve had promising results with SQLite.
I refer to the following words as "`easy deletes,`" as they rarely add enough value in any sentence to justify their existence: * very * really * pretty * much * just * actually * own
A release announcement should never include the phrase, "various improvements and bugfixes." You might as well boast that the team proudly breathed air throughout development and used the latest version of the Internet. If you can't articulate how a change benefits your users, don't highlight it in your release announcement. Save the exhaustive list of changes for your release notes, but even there, please leave out "various improvements and bugfixes." — Michael Lynch
In fact, it’s so rare for a book to deliver on its promise that readers will adore you for doing just that one thing. I’ve heard plenty of people recommend a messy-but-effective book by saying: Listen, it’s terribly written and full of typos and has a cover that appears to have been drawn by a distracted toddler, but it’s got something inside that’s just too important to miss. It’s going to change your life. You’ve got to read it. Trust me. But I’ve never heard even a single person recommend a problem-solver with the inverse argument of: This book is a real zero-impact way to spend thirteen dollars and three hours. But you can tell that the author is super smart, the cover is gorgeous, and there’s not even a single typo. You’re going to love it.
Litestream is really cool! I'm planning to use it to backup and restore my SQLite in the container level, just like what that ex-google guy who started a startup of a small KVM and had a flood in his warehouse while on vacation did. If I'm not mistaken. I would link here the perfect guide he wrote but there's 0 chance I'll find it. If you understand the reference please post the link.
Screenshot showing Kickstarter project at 105% funded
Can You Spot the Passive Voice? Your Results Correct answers: 8 ✅ Incorrect answers: 0 ❌ A score of 100% was achieved on this passive voice quiz (by you).
Photo of my Honeywell Home thermostat
Screenshot of refactoringenglish.com using the Lato and Harriet fonts
This is funny but nice. I read through the tutorial, and I really liked the tone of it. I got down to the end to find out he has also written a book on technical writing. If this is an example of what the book teaches, I am going to check that out.
Graph of subscribers to my ebook. 12 in September, 17 in October, 95 in November