Throughout 2024, I've found a few people that I want to follow closely. They do the things I want to do or generally espouse the values I hold dear. By following their work closely, I hope to incorporate their style, ethos, thinking, and skill into my own and learn about interesting things along the way. These names are popular, but not big enough that everybody would know. They are known in small, niche circles and have built a reputation catering to their audience without giving up their authenticity, and without overtly promoting themselves.

Over time, I plan to add more names to this list as a reference for myself, but also to see how my interests, thinking and inspirations evolve.

• L. M. Sacasas - He writes in the areas of technology and culture. His writing is deep, engaging, and aligned with how I think about technology, values, and ethics. Reading him brings a healthy dose of skepticism about technology, capitalism, and consumerism, but more importantly, helps zoom out from the autopilot mode most of us live in and see life and the world through a different, more sensible, meaningful, and purposeful lens. X @ https://x.com/LMSacasas and blogs at https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/

• Anu Atluru, who also writes on Substack, in the areas of ambition, attention, and creation. I have followed her on Twitter/X all of 2024 and found her tweet theories to be insightful. Her noise-to-signal ratio is pretty low, i.e. the insight density is quite high, which means she consistently generates good ideas, so there's something for me to learn from. She's not as deep a writer as L. M. Sacasas is. What she's good at is identifying meaningful trends and offering insights about them in a relatively short but useful manner. She's usually pro-technology and a modernist. X @ https://x.com/anuatluru and blogs @ https://www.workingtheorys.com/

• Amelia Wattenberger - Creates beautiful things on the Web - writing, visuals, and software! To me, she's an artist, a Web designer, a deep thinker, a smart engineer, and a great communicator. A great combination and embodiment of the skills that I want to build and get better at. In all of 2024, I've found her to be someone to follow innovations in AI-based interfaces. Blogs @ https://wattenberger.com/

• Maggie Appleton - The same things that I said about Amelia can be said about Maggie. But her writing and communication style is distinct and freshly different. She is a designer and engineer but comes from an Anthropology background, which is interesting, and I think, contributes to some of her unique perspectives on things and style of communication. She also writes a lot about AI and AI-based interfaces and is a big proponent of ideas like infinite canvas, non-linear thinking, and malleable/barefoot software, which are the trends and ideas that I want to learn more about. Blogs @ https://maggieappleton.com/

• Kepano/Steph Ango - The creator of Obsidian! Less for the content, but more because as an individual, he embraces the philosophies that align with my own - minimalism, writing, file-over-app, climate friendliness, and holistic living. He's an interesting character, and as a person at the center of file-over-app philosophy and Obsidian, he's also at the center of the PKM landscape and has interesting takes and perspectives on it. Blogs @ https://stephango.com/

• Geoffery Litt - A researcher from MIT working in an independent research lab called Ink and Switch. He writes well and builds interesting apps as part of his research. He writes in the areas of local-first software malleable software, and AI/LLMs, all the areas that I want to learn more about. Blogs @ https://www.geoffreylitt.com/

• Caroline Girvan and Anna Engelschall(aka growingananas) - Fitness instructors who run YouTube channel and this, respectively. Caroline also has her own app. Until last year, my workouts only entailed running and biking, so mainly cardio. No stretching, no strength training, no weights. But that changed in 2024, when I could not go out much due to parenting responsibilities. I hate paying for gym memberships and had to find a way to stay fit by working out at home. A couple of my friends had also been doing a Zoom call, that started in the pandemic, where they did an HIIT workout every Friday. Now at-home weights, stretching(not as much as I'd like), cardio and body-weight strength sessions are a regular part of my routine

• Chip Huyen - An AI/ML researcher at Stanford and a prolific writer. I'm currently reading her book AI Engineering. Writes at https://huyenchip.com/ and has good articles and a great guide to AI/ML interviews.