Why I Don't Read Hacker News

There is a version of the tech internet that will, within about ten minutes of your visit, convince you that what you are doing is not real, that AI-built apps are toys, that vibe coding is a scam, that anyone who ships without a computer science degree is a fraud, and that the whole thing you're excited about is going to collapse by Q3.

I do not visit that internet anymore. I strongly recommend you don't either.

This isn't about anti-intellectualism or hiding from criticism. It's about protecting the one thing that is genuinely making this possible for people like us: beginner's mind.

Beginner's mind is the thing that lets you believe, on a Tuesday morning at your kitchen table, that you — a 50-year-old with no coding background — can build a real piece of software that real people will use. That belief is fragile. It has to be. It's flying in the face of decades of "software is for other people." The tech internet, especially the loudest corners of it, is very very good at killing that belief in about the time it takes to scroll a thread.

The pattern goes like this:

You read a comment from a real engineer with strong opinions. They dunk on AI-built apps. They talk about "slop," "brittle code," "toy projects," "the coming reckoning." They are, in their specific technical domain, often correct about specific technical things. But they are also, largely, playing a completely different game than you are. They are optimizing for craft, career, and peer status inside their industry. You are optimizing for shipping a thing that helps a small number of people who don't care what your code looks like under the hood.

Those are not the same game. Their scoring system does not apply to yours. Their trash-talk is not aimed at you, even when it feels like it is.

The other pattern:

You read a founder-hype thread. Someone built a $30k/month SaaS in a weekend. Someone else 10x'd their startup with AI. Someone else quit their job. You feel, suddenly, that your six-months-in project that has zero users is a failure. It's not. Their story is either lucky, cherry-picked, embellished, or all three. And even if it's true, it's their story. You have your own.

What I do instead:

I follow a small number of people who are actually building at my pace and are honest about the mess. I read them slowly. I ignore engagement bait. I do not open any tab that says "the truth about vibe coding" or "the AI bubble is popping" or "here's why non-technical founders always fail." Those tabs are junk food and I know what they do to me.

I mostly get my inspiration from outside tech entirely. Books. Restaurants. Product design in physical goods. My own users. Actual conversations with actual humans who have actual problems I might actually solve.

Two habits that keep me sane:

1. When I catch myself doom-scrolling tech Twitter, I close the tab. Not "in a minute." Right then. It's a reflex I've had to train, but I've trained it.
2. When I feel that specific brand of intellectual shame — the kind that says "you don't really know what you're doing, do you?" — I ask: is this teaching me something, or is it just noise pretending to be teaching? Nine times out of ten, it's noise.

What I'd tell someone in my shoes: your beginner's mind is a real asset, and it is under constant, subtle attack from an internet that mistakes cynicism for expertise. Guard it. Feed it books, users, and other beginners. Starve it of takes. What you're doing is real. The people telling you it isn't are, mostly, just louder — not righter.