2024 in review
At the end of every year I do a big yearly review. I go through all my notes, look through all my photos, check my calendar and try to list out everything I did and learned. It takes a while, and it’s always hard to finish. But it gives me a sense of control about what I am doing in life.
Like so many other important things, I don’t love doing it, but I love to have done it.
2024 was not a great year. 23 was such an important year, 24 was set up to be a perfect transition year. Instead my professional market tanked, and I struggled to get traction. I did several interesting experiments.
Timeline of events
January to March
Started the year on some friends balcony, and after a little break around the holidays I threw myself into professional activies and “musts” at the beginning of the year.
Went to startup events. Demoed n8n’s AI solution at a AI dinner.
Saw Dune 2! It was wonderful to see one of my childhood favourites come to life.
Organised a bachelors party for an old friend.
And saw the full ring cycle of Wagner’s masterpiece Der Ring Des Nibelungen at the Berlin Stadtsoper. Unfortunately the postmodern ironic production removed a lot of the magic and we were quite disappointed.
Spring came early, which was lovely. Unfortunately I stopped working with n8n.
April to June
As usual we celebrated Easter properly! Me and my wife have learned that we love traditions, we love the point of references they create, so we go all in.
Then we went to Lisbon to celebrate my 40th birthday. Despite having a lovely day with friends on the actual day, this was a bad birthday for me. I don’t enjoy growing older, and in this case what should’ve been a big celebration became a sad memory. Lisbon was wonderful, as usual. I did have the opportunity to reconnect with an old friend, and attend a painting workshop!
We celebrated some close friends beautiful wedding in the south of Portugal, even drinking rum on a real pirate ship in the atlantic.
I attended the first Local First conference in Berlin. As well as the Merge conference, where I met John Romero!
We saw Royal Republic live in a small bar in Berlin.
Then we celebrated Midsummers in Gnesta with friends, and celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary with my entire family at a small bnb outside Stockholm.
July to September
July I attended one of the first ever EU/ACC events in Berlin.
We went to a christening in Sweden which became a surprise wedding, and got caught in the rain.
Visited the archipelago with my parents.
I went on a brewery tour at Berliner Berg.
Attended a Nomad meetup in Berlin.
Visited Sweden.
Saw Jason DJ at a pop up rave outside Berlin.
Celebrated Octoberfest at Gendarmenmarkt.
October to December
Most importantly: we as usual went all in on Spooktober for Halloween. Me and my wife’s favourite tradition.
Then I went back to Lisbon to catch up with some old friends! It was a great trip, filled with ideas and great food.
Saw Jason DJ again.
And our house’s trash caught fire in the middle of the night. Woken up by the light of flames all over our apartment will definitely stay with me for some time.
We celebrated the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Freedom is never old, and must always be defended.
Had some friends visit!
We also celebrated Agnes birthday with her family visiting. And went to several christmas markets.
I beat my old friend August at chess!
Then we went to Stockholm for Christmas, and celebrated new years back in Berlin.
Projects
I’ve been working on a lot of new things this year. There’s just so much interesting stuff to try out, and with the new AI enabled tools, it’s so easy to try it!
Find Insight
link Automate your user research by sending your users an AI interview. Just write down things you’d like to know, and send the interview to people who may have the answer. Find Insight talks it over with them, and analyses the result for you.
While it doesn’t replace expert interviewers, it does replace most interviews, and can scale a lot better. Cutting customers costs to a fraction.
Armchair Safari
link A daily design review video. First I live streamed it, then I recorded and uploaded. Did about 60 episodes before I took a break. Not sure if I will continue or not.
Wine game
I made a wine game wrapping chatGPT. It let users take a photo of any drink and then answer quiz questions about it. Turns out I have forgotten just how much work goes into the “game” parts of any game. So after a little more than a month, I abandoned it. Hope to come back to it, but I doubt there’s a lot of money here.
Books
These are some of the books I read in 2023, both the most interesting, and the least interesting. All the links are amazon affiliate links, please use them if you are interested in the books.
The Lessons of History I’ve read so many quotes I wanted to read the book. I don’t think there’s anything else as densely packed with wisdom. 100 pages. All the wisdom of civilisation, a lot of it is surprisingly relevant today.
Anthem Possibly Ayn Rand’s least controversial book. Tells the story of how individuals take action against the forceful repression of collectivist ideas.
Post Office & the Bukowski canon Bukowski is a writer of smut. But it’s really well written. Both me and my Wife read the whole canon over the summer. Post Office was my favourite.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Several friends recommended it. So I finally read it. And I was very positively surprised. It stands up really well, and is a super interesting story.
The Count of Monte Christo I found this on a list of recommendations about books where the protagonist shows real agency. I was mind blown. Despite being a really old book, this reads like it’s a modern thriller set in an old world setting. Highly recommended! It’s long but wonderful!
Poor Charlie’s Almanack Very happy that Stripe Press created a new edition of this book. Still not quite done with it, it’s contains some really clear thinking.
Podcasts
Founders The best podcast for entrepreneurs in the world. Learn to think like a maker of great things.
All In The funniest news show right now. Jason and friends created a platform for political debate for the american election like no classic media would.
Arjun Khemani Podcast Arjun has hosted some of the most interesting thinkers this last year. Worth your time.
TokCast If you are interested in David Deutsch’s philosophy or work, this is the show for you. Brett dives into some of the deep issues on science and explains them expertly.
Movies
La Grande Belezza Quite possibly my favourite movie of all time. I want to move to Rome every time I see it.
The Lobster A surprise to me. Strange, funny, creepy. A really good film.
Black Cat A japanese classic that really caught my attention. It hasn’t aged super well, but it’s interesting in many ways.
Things I learned
There was a lot to learn in 2024. And with AI increasing the pace of everything, I’m sure it’s only going to get more overwhelming. I love it.
Some of my favourites were:
Recovery only happens when your parasympathetic nervous system is dominant. This means you literally have to be lazy, at least in mind, for muscles to grow and creativity to happen. A very important learning for me.
“it’s normal to doubt yourself when you’re creating something” — Walt Disney, via Founders Podcast
“The only thing that leads to real progress is doing more experiments.” — Jakob Greenfeld