Turning 42 felt like a good time to pause and reflect.
Not on milestones or ARR charts. But on what actually matters after two decades of building, shipping, leading, and living.
So if 42 is the answer to everything, here’s what I’ve learned so far 👇
🧍♂️ Life, growth & happiness
The definition of happiness changes with age. And that’s okay.
The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.
Curiosity is infinite; boredom is optional.
You can’t optimize life like you optimize code.
If you chase success, it runs faster. If you enjoy the run, it slows down.
Peace beats growth. Every time.
Wealth is freedom, not Ferraris.
Desire is a contract to be unhappy until you get what you want. Cancel it often.
Run more. Read more. Scroll less.
Sleep is the most underrated productivity hack on Earth.
💼 Building, leading & learning
Startups are people, not ideas.
Leading by example is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
Leadership is 80% conversations you didn’t want to have.
Hire slow. Fire fast. Then sleep well.
Focus is a superpower. Protect it like oxygen.
The first job of a leader is clarity. The second is repetition.
Nobody cares how much you know; they care how you make them feel.
Feedback given late is just resentment with a bow on it.
The most complex skill for a CEO to learn is knowing when to remain silent.
You can’t delegate judgment.
⚙️ Building products & companies
Quality compounds like interest. So does mediocrity.
Success is rarely a pivot; it’s iteration with taste.
Great engineers fix root causes. Average ones fix symptoms.
The perfect product doesn’t exist: the one you can evolve does.
Simplicity scales. Complexity invoices.
Don’t chase vanity metrics: chase user trust.
Code reviews are easy. People reviews aren’t.
Build systems, not heroics.
The best feature is one you can delete later.
Tech debt is fine. Moral debt isn’t.
🧩 Mindset & philosophy
The only person you need to impress is your future self.
Gratitude is the antidote to burnout.
Meditation isn’t for everyone. Long runs count.
You can be kind and still have high standards.
It’s okay to be wrong, just not stubborn.
The right “no” beats a thousand “maybes.”
Compromise kills clarity. Choose, don’t blend.
Every problem looks smaller after a good meal.
Don’t overthink purpose. Build, love, repeat.
Curiosity never retires.
❤️ Family, friends & the long game
Family first. Always. The best way to disconnect is to be needed by your kids.
You can’t buy time, but you can decide how to spend it.
At 42, I’ve realized something simple but not easy:
Life isn’t a sprint to a finish line. It’s an ongoing debugging session. You fix a few things, break a few others, and hopefully push a slightly better version of yourself every year.
The same applies to building a company, raising children, or simply trying to be a decent person. You never “ship it” and move on. You iterate. You learn. You acknowledge that the next release will likely also contain bugs. And that’s fine.
For a long time, I thought success meant achieving things: a title, a product, a number in the bank, a milestone on a slide deck. But the more I live, the more I see that peace is the real metric. The ability to wake up excited, to solve interesting problems, to spend time with people you love, and to go to bed proud.
That’s it.
At 20, I wanted to build great code.
At 30, I wanted to build great products.
At 40, I just want to build a great life.
And the funny thing?
It still takes the same skills: focus, iteration, and knowing when to stop optimizing.
So if there’s one thing I’d tell my younger self, it’s this:
Keep learning, keep building, but remember that there’s no final commit.
You don’t get to “win” life. You just get to live it. Version by version.