As one year comes to an end and a new one begins, I find myself pausing to reflect. If you had the chance to say something to your future self to the version of you in 2025 and 2026, what would it be?

Looking back, I want to thank myself for how much I pushed through this past year:

• For finding a job I genuinely value, even after going through a long period of stress and fear of unemployment

• For speaking up and sharing my own perspectives at work

• For choosing action over just talking

• For walking away from toxic and unnecessary work relationships

• For daring to learn new things outside my original field of study

• For letting go of some comforts and entertainment to focus more on my health

Hi PH fam,

As 2025 comes to a close, it s time to pause and reflect.

Every journey has its milestones. Some loud, some quiet. Some planned, some unexpected.

What was your biggest achievement of 2025?
It could be a goal you finally reached, a habit you built, a fear you overcame, or simply not giving up when things got tough.

I ve been watching the discussions here over the holidays, and it s inspiring to see so much passion. But it also got me thinking. After 35 years in the entrepreneurial world, I ve realised that my biggest mistakes didn't happen because I wasn't working hard enough they happened because I was running on an empty battery.

As founders, we are obsessed with "optimisation." We optimize our code, our funnels, and our growth. But this week, I m trying something different: I m optimising for rest.

I ve spent the last few days intentionally stepping away from the screen. Not to plan the next pivot or to "reflect on KPIs," but to actually let my mind go quiet. I m finding that the better I use this week to truly recharge my own energy, the more excited I feel about 2026.

It s a strange feeling to not be "productive" for a few days, but I m learning that my energy levels are the most important asset I have. If that battery isn't green, nothing else I build will be sustainable.

I absolutely love seeing people still launching stuff even during the holidays. In my opinion, every true founder is a workaholic (a little bit).

I m pretty sure half of us are secretly thinking about business during Christmas.

Everyone went crazy in 2025 after AI Memory. There are atleast a dozen launches in the space on product hunt from june-december, but the problem seems far from solved.
Are you using any of the current memory systems (platform specific or interoperable ones, doesn't matter).
What do you still hate in these systems? is it context repetition? is it hallucinations? is it inability to move between systems with your memory intact?
Want to wrap up the year knowing what people actually need!

Working from home has a ton of traps, like:

• Family members think that just because you re home, you re always available and need to drop everything for them.

• Your workday can stretch across the entire day, and sometimes you don t even know when to stop.

• You start missing real social contact.

• But it also has some huge upsides:

• You save time and money on commuting.

• You can sleep in a little longer.

• You get to schedule your day exactly how it suits you.

I wrote a long essay following a talk I gave at AI DevCon in Brooklyn last month.

It starts out with an anecdote about hunting ChatGPT in December 2022 and goes on to explore what I think will be necessary to thrive as code becomes a commodity:

In December 2022, I hunted ChatGPT on Product Hunt.

It ranked #1 product of the day, then the week, and went on to be named Product of the Year.

Having co-founded a YC-backed conversational AI startup in 2018 (long before LLMs) I recognized in ChatGPT the missing ingredient that would have made that venture viable.

The future we d anticipated had arrived. I could revisit my old problem, or I could expand my area of potency by raising and deploying my own venture capital fund.

I chose the latter.

Three years later, on December 9th, I watched a 24-hour window on Product Hunt cross 500 launches roughly double what I observed throughout the preceding 825 days. Only 13 were featured; most were unremarkable.

The LLM has fundamentally shifted the economics of software development.

As someone with a dual vantage point being the #1 Product Hunter while investing in AI startups I watch the floodwaters rise in real-time.

What s become clear: SaaS is dying; VC is withering . Building software is not uniquely compelling. Code has become a commodity.

What most people miss about commoditization is that when a product or resource becomes abundant, it doesn t just get cheaper. It unlocks new and previously uneconomic uses.

The more information and ads we re exposed to, the more resistant we become.

(It s literally impossible to absorb everything, so our brains just filter most of it out.)

BUT there s always that one exception.

Hey everyone! With the holiday season coming up, I'm curious how entrepreneurs and business owners are prepping for Christmas.

The rush can be a goldmine for sales, but it also means:

• dealing with slowdowns,

• staff vacations,

• and potential disruptions.

Whether you're a solo builder or part of a fast-moving product team, documentation always seems to lag just behind reality.
Is it the speed of product changes?

• Getting engineers or PMs to consistently update docs?

• Lack of ownership?

• Tooling limitations?

• Or is it something else entirely?

  Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Whether you're a solo builder or part of a fast-moving product team, documentation always seems to lag just behind reality.
Is it the speed of product changes?

• Getting engineers or PMs to consistently update docs?

• Lack of ownership?

• Tooling limitations?

• Or is it something else entirely?

  Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Slowly but surely, the Christmas holidays are approaching, which usually means more time at home with family and more movie binge-watching.

Yesterday I watched TV for the first time in a while, and they were playing Bezos: The Beginning (2023). A decent movie overall, even though it could ve been longer or had a sequel.

I keep seeing the same pattern across early-stage teams:

the MVP works until it really doesn t.

For many founders, the hardest part isn t getting something online
it s everything that comes after:
infra that cracks under real users
code that no dev wants to touch
rewriting the whole stack
AI-built projects no one can maintain
the moment you realize your prototype isn t a product

I ve noticed that many health products have a real chance of getting featured on Product Hunt.

And it makes sense. Health is the most valuable thing we have, so if a product is innovative and genuinely helpful, it should be accessible to as many people as possible.

I keep seeing the same pattern across early-stage teams:

the MVP works until it really doesn t.

For many founders, the hardest part isn t getting something online
it s everything that comes after:
infra that cracks under real users
code that no dev wants to touch
rewriting the whole stack
AI-built projects no one can maintain
the moment you realize your prototype isn t a product

Some of you set resolutions for this year, and soon you ll be looking back to see how well you did.

Before that moment comes, what do you want to finish or achieve in this final month?

This question is semi-philosophical, but I recall my ex-classmate she had quite rich parents and really didn't need to work. As an only child, she had everything first (all technology, all pricy vacations, they even bought her own flat in 18 + car). Since she had a lot of money from her parents and a lot of free time, she only enjoyed life (some dr*gs and other stuff). As a person, she didn't look like someone who would appreciate money or time at all because it was "normal" to have everything from all above mentioned.

(And I don't want to sound bad, but I honestly don't know what skill she would have that she could use to make a living - the only thing she was really good at was being sassy, which, oddly enough, earned some people's respect.)

On Twitter, it is classic many of us follow YCombinator people, Angel Investors, or big indie makers.

The most popular are:

• Garry Tan

• Levelsio

• Marc Andreessen

• Marc Lou

• Michael Seibel

• Naval

There s still a lot of attention on flashy categories: AI agents, creator tools, social apps. At the same time, you keep hearing quiet stories about people building solid, calm businesses around very unsexy problems: invoicing for a niche industry, compliance workflows, scheduling in weird contexts, back-office tools nobody outside the niche has heard of.

I m curious whether your view of what s worth building has changed over the last few years. Would you be excited to build something deeply boring if the demand and willingness to pay were obvious? Or do you still feel pulled towards more visible, consumer-facing or hyped spaces? And for those already in boring niches, how has that choice played out in terms of users, stress and revenue?

Everywhere I look, I see founders and operators investing heavily in their personal brand:

• LinkedIn posts every day

• X threads

• Podcasts, YouTube, newsletters and substacks too

Meanwhile, their CV or portfolio gets updated maybe once a year.

I m wondering if we re heading into a world where your online signal (what you say, who engages with you, what you ship publicly) will matter more than any formal CV or resume.