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lanewinfield 13 minutes ago [-]
Thank you for sharing your story! I wish you continued success and I also hope that one day someone will share with you about how YOUR story helped them do something similar, just like the article did for you.
I love such stories. Right now, a lot of folks I know are struggling to find jobs, so I read the part about how he got a job the first day he was out of jail with some astonishment and nostalgia for the simpler days, when showing interest was often enough to land the job! Now, hoop number 1, the AI resume filter, is a strange obstacle that one has to jump through first.
arthurofbabylon 16 minutes ago [-]
“ No part of the prose was machine-generated. You will not find machine-written prose on this blog. I consider it deeply disrespectful.”
<3
an_d_rew 31 minutes ago [-]
Thank you for sharing. Stories like yours remind us that there is good in the world, and even if it isn’t everywhere, it is still worth cultivating.
I’m a software engineer née scientist, but my spouse is a therapist who specializes in addiction. They (and I!) cherish stories like yours because we had seen up-close the struggle that so many people face.
gavinray 27 minutes ago [-]
Thank you!!
tickerticker 19 minutes ago [-]
Your compassionate and honest story will, I hope, bear much fruit. You write well..very readable and engaging.
himata4113 4 minutes ago [-]
I feel happiness reading stories like this. You proved to the world that you can become something great even when all the cards are stacked against you. I often feel despair when I think about where our society is heading, but there will always be people like you who are there to push back against all the wrongs in the world and make the best out of it.
TZubiri 3 minutes ago [-]
"AI Use Disclaimer: claude code was used to generate the OpenGraph SVG image.
No part of the prose was machine-generated. You will not find machine-written prose on this blog. I consider it deeply disrespectful."
I really like this disclaimer, by disclaiming that a single small thing was done with AI, you make very credible and notable that you did not use LLMs for the important parts.
isamuel 26 minutes ago [-]
I’m curious (as a recovered alcoholic myself) how you got sober.
gavinray 20 minutes ago [-]
I'll be honest, a lot of it was my wife. And also hitting my lowest bottom after becoming homeless and penniless.
So a combination of looking at what I had done to myself + everyone around me and going "what the fuck." and my ever-vigilant wife who knew I had the capacity and desire to get better.
For me it really took literally losing everything.
Nuzzerino 23 minutes ago [-]
That’s cool. Unfortunately, today, sobriety doesn’t guarantee that AI companies won’t kill off what’s left of your career (which somewhat weakens the incentives to do so). But congrats!
irishcoffee 6 minutes ago [-]
Have an upvote. Sobriety is an expectation. I will say though that people I’ve known who went through the journey are some of the smarter people I’ve met. Not all of them, but the whole numbing yourself because your brain can’t quite understand all the thoughts it has, that’s a real thing. Probably sounds insane, but it’s real.
gavinray 17 minutes ago [-]
> sobriety doesn’t guarantee that AI companies won’t kill off what’s left of your career
You're being downvoted, but I'd be lying if I said I don't see that as a distinct (and logical) possibility.
The ironic thing is, I work for one of those "AI Companies" ;^)
Claude Code and Codex have done most of my work for the last year, and with the pace of AI improvement, I'm not sure that you'd need (or even want) me in the mix.
From a business perspective, it makes a lot of financial sense, too.
I'm sure it's a limited amount of time before I'm dead weight, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, and I'll figure something out if/when it happens =)
Nuzzerino 12 minutes ago [-]
My lived experience doesn’t care what the downvotes say (many here are privileged, after all), and it is only a matter of time imo unless something is done about the industry to change course.
gedy 24 minutes ago [-]
Good on him and shout out for Hasura as well, probably the most pleasant dev experience I had in past 10 years. It was so good, the startup I was at dropped it because CTO got scared that there was no work for the backend devs, ha.
Also, Preston Thorpe (who Gavin mentions as inspiration) has an interesting story as well: https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/
https://unlockedlabs.org/
<3
I’m a software engineer née scientist, but my spouse is a therapist who specializes in addiction. They (and I!) cherish stories like yours because we had seen up-close the struggle that so many people face.
No part of the prose was machine-generated. You will not find machine-written prose on this blog. I consider it deeply disrespectful."
I really like this disclaimer, by disclaiming that a single small thing was done with AI, you make very credible and notable that you did not use LLMs for the important parts.
So a combination of looking at what I had done to myself + everyone around me and going "what the fuck." and my ever-vigilant wife who knew I had the capacity and desire to get better.
For me it really took literally losing everything.
The ironic thing is, I work for one of those "AI Companies" ;^)
Claude Code and Codex have done most of my work for the last year, and with the pace of AI improvement, I'm not sure that you'd need (or even want) me in the mix.
From a business perspective, it makes a lot of financial sense, too.
I'm sure it's a limited amount of time before I'm dead weight, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, and I'll figure something out if/when it happens =)