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Min-Max Employment
This week, Meta laid off another 8,000 employees. These layoffs feel so dystopian nowadays especially since Meta employees ended up learning the exact…
May 24
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
31
How to Actually Get What You Want in Life
Most people believe that to win at a high level, you have to be the smartest, most inherently gifted person in the room. They treat success like a…
May 17
•
Kevin Naughton Jr.
10
1
How Do I Live in the Present?
I’ve spent the last few days in a small village in the south of France, thinking about a concept I’m historically bad at: living in the present. We’re…
May 10
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
10
365 Days Ago I Left Google: 3 Lessons I've Learned in Self-Employment
One year ago today, I walked away from my Software Engineering role at Google. At the time, it felt like the riskiest move of my life. Now, looking back…
May 1
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
17
1
April 2026
Leverage is Everything
Most people blindly subscribe to a linear relationship between input and output. They believe that if they work 40 hours a week, they will achieve 40…
Apr 24
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
25
1
2
A Deep Dive into My Remote Development Setup
Last week, I talked about the philosophy of “Cattle, Not Pets”, the idea that your laptop should be disposable, not a precious asset. But why actually…
Apr 19
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
16
2
I Trapped Myself in Arch Linux for 365 Days. Here's Why I’m Never Leaving.
Over a year ago, I bought an old Thinkpad with the sole intention of messing around. I wanted to upgrade the hardware, tinker with the internals, and…
Apr 12
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
23
1
2
The Seniority Trap: Why You Might Have 1 Year of Experience, 10 Times
We’ve all seen the “Senior Software Engineer” LinkedIn profiles with 10+ years of experience. But in the world of engineering, time is a deceptive…
Apr 5
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
29
3
2
March 2026
3 Things I'm Unlearning from Big Tech
For nearly a decade, my identity was defined by a single title: Software Engineer. It’s an identity I picked up early, starting in a Computer Science…
Mar 29
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Kevin Naughton Jr.
22
How to Build a $1k MRR SaaS Without Getting Lucky
This week, Ferryman officially crossed the $1,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) milestone. It took 110 days of showing up every single day. No days…
Mar 20
•
Kevin Naughton Jr.
17
Be Selective About Opinions
As you get older, you have to become aggressively selective about whose advice you let into your head. Early in our lives, we’re all standing on the…
Mar 15
•
Kevin Naughton Jr.
15
2
1
3 Hard Truths I Learned From Being Laid Off
Nearly eight years ago, on March 20th, I woke up, walked to a coffee shop near Washington Square Park with Carly, and prepared for another Tuesday as a…
Mar 6
•
Kevin Naughton Jr.
17
2
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