Boring Money has an update

Catapulting from extreme boredom to risky exhilaration

It’s been 3 months since the last Boring Money post, and I’ve been meaning to share an update about what’s going on. Here it is, finally!

For those who may not know me, I’m neither a journalist¹ nor do I work in investing, finance, or anything remotely related to Boring Money. I’m just someone who likes reading about finance, thinking about things, joining the dots, and writing about the stuff I’ve thought about and the dots I’ve joined. It’s pretty fun.

When I’m not writing, I work in tech. Most recently, at a startup as a product manager. The product management paid the bills, the writing brought joy and fulfilment.

A few months ago, a couple of things happened around the same time.

1. The startup I worked at was acquired.

2. AI became pretty amazing at coding.

Let’s begin with the startup acquisition. I can’t go into too much candid detail just yet, ² but the truth is that the quality of the work that I was doing had long fallen below whatever imaginary line one can draw for bullshit jobs. There was no value in what I was doing, nothing to look forward to. The time I spent “working” was more “pretending to be working” while everyone else was doing exactly the same thing without being able to say it or admit it. Man, was it exhausting.

As this was happening, AI took off. I mean, it took off well enough with ChatGPT’s launch, but its application into software development was quite another thing. The path from imagination to software got incredibly short.

Even though I’ve studied computer science, I’ve never worked as a software engineer. I didn’t enjoy it.

But that was when software engineering meant something else. It meant being able to type characters in a weird computer language that the computer understood, but you didn’t. Bah.

But AI, it speaks the weird computer language. And it speaks English. And it’s here to do as you say (for now).

On the one hand was my job. Drab,³ exhausting, self-delusion all around. On the other hand was this beautiful, magical compression of human knowledge that seemed to be turning the digital world on its head.

I went in slow, used AI to build a project or two in spaces that I knew a little bit about. Put them out into the world. People used the things I built. Real people! It was exhilarating.

In October, the day prior to Diwali, the job went away. Technically, I was kicked out.⁴ But bah, I was mentally checked out anyway. I got two months’ notice pay, and January is going to be the first month in 6 years that I don’t get that sweet monthly salary credit (scary).

Anyway, I’m now working on my own startup. It’s called Inkable Docs, a SaaS aimed at universities in the US. I’ve spent the last few months, both days and nights, working on it. Which is why Boring Money took a backseat. Can’t have too much fun, can we?

While the startup is my source of exhilaration, the joy and fulfilment of writing a Boring Money post is irreplaceable. So this is me saying Boring Money isn’t on hiatus. Just a bit of an unplanned gap that we’re seeing the end of.

I’ll be back. Soon.

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PS - If you’re a paid subscriber disappointed that you’re not getting your money’s worth with regular posts, just reply to this email and I’ll be happy to refund.

1. I used to be. Seems like an eternity ago now.

2. Waiting for my F&F settlement to go through.

3. Contrary to what one might think as a result of the title of this blog, long periods of boredom are the death of me.

4. Let’s just say the founder and I were not on the best of terms. He took the cake with timing on this one.