at the end of 2024 i announced a year long speedrun. here’s what happened:
- started a family
- highest income of my life
- bought a company
- [under contract] sold a company
- got back in shape
now for the longer version.
family
my wife and i welcomed our first kid, Joan. i started writing songs about her before we met. i spent more time with my parents than any year since i last lived with them (high school) in 2007.
work
the Fork portfolio had its best year. we grew Fera, acquired BookThatApp, and signed an agreement to sell GetReviews. TRMNL blew up and i wrote a TRMNL year in review with more details.
i also got to speak at conferences in Toronto and Amsterdam.
friends
canceled every “fun” engagement imaginable. my phone is set to 24/7 DND (do not disturb) and i ghosted all my friends. but we did make a couple exceptions… a trip to Savannah during July 4th and a buddy’s bachelor party in Colorado.
entertainment
i love watching movies, so to be more thoughtful about my time i created a Letterboxd profile. this helped me observe the diminishing returns of couch potato-ism. in my speedrunning planning period i aimed for just a couple daily hours of R&R and that seems about right.
Kulp Estates
early this year there was concern about a subdivision moving in behind us. to no avail i delivered a speech at a city council meeting. then i commissioned a beautiful 12 foot tall border wall at one edge of our property. the neighborhood project has since stalled and yesterday the developer offered to sell it to me.
TRMNL assembly outgrew my basement so we renovated the barn into a full blown warehouse, later adding an elevator for loft access.
the Hacker House opened for business and hosted several guests from Airbnb, HomeAway, and direct bookings. to focus on bigger opportunities however, this summer i shut down the listings and it’s now for friends only @ $0 /night.
to make our house more cozy we painted 2 refrigerators, set up a mud room area, baby nursery, and installed motorized blackout shades in our bedroom.
our barn and main house got a new roof, new coat of paint on the deck and window trim, and more security cameras. we got a 2nd Tesla charger. i personally fixed a few small issues, from exterior photosensors to hardscaping a trail. our entire ~2,800 foot driveway got a layer of asphalt millings.
new firsts
- made my first contribution to Ruby on Rails after abusing it for 11 years.
- didn’t sell a single course because i made them all free.
- quit social media.
- bought a brand new truck
- finally tried mushrooms (the food) – gross
- finally played pickleball – fun
embracing the suck
do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep? this year i embraced getting out of bed and starting my work day early. sometimes really early, like today when i woke up at 3:47am and wrote this post.
during my come-up phase at Fomo (ca. 2017) i would hack late into the night, only stopping when i physically couldn’t hold open my eyelids. this year i re-introduced that sensation, often to the point of wondering if my vision was failing.
i let go of multiple team members and i have a few more in mind to let go of next year if things don’t improve. for years i was too agreeable a manager, now i take my own advice.
every hobby was neglected. we packed up my woodworking shop into a couple horse stalls. every cool electronics gadget i bought to learn from sits unopened. i tried taking a half day off work to play the new Battlefield 6 video game but found myself responding to support tickets between kills.
my back got injured. for days i could barely move. tried physical therapy, peptides, and other drugs. decided against an MRI / surgery, just self-rehabbing. still have pain but walking 6-8 miles per day at my standup desk with a 24 pound ruck sack seems to be helping.
i stopped drinking alcohol. planning to get back on (off?) the wagon around my birthday next year, so not a forever thing. but obviously a useful tactic for productivity and physical health.
hedging against myself
as i said in my original post, a core driver of this speedrunning experiment was Elon trashing native born Americans. although i disagree with him, i also believe in him. so this year i loaded up on TSLA at $280 and am up 68%.
sidebar, this has been a strategy of mine since the early days of Bitcoin. i don’t like crypto but i bought it anyway @ $300, $700, $20k, $45k. i always sold it for a profit. the Hacker House was paid for in crypto. i ran dozens of miners at my Seoul apartment. i started a web3 agency and sold out my own NFT and built smart contracts with Solidity… all while pretty much hating it.
if you have a bold idea, don’t be afraid to bet on yourself (and against yourself).
peaking early
there will never be another 2025. another first child or speedrunning experiment. one might say i’m cooked.
but what i can do is peak in different areas. perhaps one year i’ll sleep more or run a marathon. i don’t need to replicate this year’s results. it is enough to know i can.
to the friends i ignored who still read my blog, thanks for hanging in there. come visit the ranch in 2026. to my haters, nice try, you failed. to my wife and daughter, this was all for you.
Heres to 2026!