First-principles thinking about code, product, and life.
I question defaults, discard inherited assumptions, and reconstruct from the ground up. Most tech content recycles best practices. I reason from first principles — the kind of thinking that compounds over years, not the kind that expires in months.
LaunchFast — Production-ready TypeScript infrastructure for web apps. Ship your first product on a codebase worth keeping.
- Functional programming is the correct default. OOP was a wrong turn. State is data, functions transform data. Not preference — first-principles reasoning about computation.
- Correctness over speed. Founding decisions compound. A production-ready codebase needs the right architecture from day one, not a fast prototype patched forever.
- Depth over volume. One essay that took weeks of research is worth more than a year of hot takes.
- Systems beat willpower. If it requires heroics, it's misdesigned. Constraints produce better outcomes than motivation.
Long-form essays at andrecasal.com — first-principles reconstructions of topics in software, product, and life.
Daily posts on X / Twitter — reasoning applied in real time.