"The naked man fears no pick-pocket." It means if you have nothing to hide, nobody can rob you. I can't remember where I first read this phrase, but I did end up shaping my life around it. This is about that.

// about my personal life

• I was born and brought up in a small town called Lucknow in India. It's an amazing city with open spaces, great food, and monuments. But not important to the world. My upbringing has been in a financially unstable and conservative family. I wasn't raised with puppies, social security, vacations in Italy, or my parents telling me I deserve the world. It will reflect in how I do things day-to-day if you happen to be around me for prolonged periods. Sounds intense, but I had a cute childhood.

• I used to be an athlete. My mother used to scold me a lot because I frequently tore my school shoes while doing that, and we had to buy new ones. I also once stole a shoe in school so I could avoid the beating at home. After high school, I stopped playing. But I never relaxed my competitive muscles.

• I am quite comfortable in my skin, and I'll make sure you feel comfortable in yours - black, white, brown, green, whatever. Her, him, they. 3rd world or 1st world. That being said, while I believe in the equality of opportunity, I do not in the equality of outcome. You eat what you kill. I have no respect for people who use diversity programs as a competitive advantage. Win by merit.

• I can be hard to love. I didn't have many toys as a kid, and the kids who had more than I did shamed me. My parents could only do so much. Angry, I wanted to make money and buy these toys. I closed myself in, forgot to eat, forgot to call my mother. The friends I had, I grew distant from. And those I have left, I rarely call. With time, I started making more money than I know what to do with. And before I could buy the toys that got me started, I lost my liking for them. It was about the shame more than the toys now that I think of it. Eventually, I lost my anger, all of it. But yeah, in this little quest of mine, my inner world got so rich that I stopped participating much in the world out there, for facts like everything I value came out of me and my isolation. I started reading philosophy to cope with loneliness. Picked up new hobbies, expensive ones. Like sailing. And now I feel I am just going on to see my full potential. Not to forget, boats are expensive. And while I am learning to enjoy people again, it'll be nice if you are patient with me. I don't expect you to fall in love, of course, I do very little for that.

• I believe in gods. Not so much in religion and deities. These are different things for me. I was born into Hinduism, and my parents like me to participate in traditions, and I do so for their happiness. It has helped me to be somewhat of an atheist who walks into temples for the happiness of others. But for myself - I let no book, code, story, mediator come between me and my creators, if this world ain't a mistake. And I also think if there are gods, they're no better than me.

• I've have a very deep sense of personal power. Control over myself. Control over the world - that I don't care about much. I distance myself from those who reek of psyops. There is only push, no pull with me. I walk with an innocent honesty. And I like seeing people who meet me in the middle.

• I like philosophy, the sound of the ocean crashing, video games, clicking photos, and cracking dark jokes. I can cook very well, but I don't like doing that. I also had a solo traveling phase, but that was just me cowardly running away from chaos, as I didn't know the dance then. My weekends are sacred to me. I spend it to work out, study, scheme, and go see ducks.

// about working with me

• I am a quiet person in real life. I sit in a corner and get up from there once I am done. I don't use emojis in my texts. I also don't exclaim with an extraordinary reaction. That doesn't mean I hate you. In fact, I really like talkative people around me as they complete what I lack. But when I have shit to do, I want silence. And don't let my composure confuse you. I can be an asshole depending on how much you are asking for it.

• I am anything that helps me ship. Have always had a hard time calling myself a designer, though that's what I specialise in and do for most of my time. But I'll write code, write a product requirement doc, make decks to sway people, do politics, and babysit if either is not going well. Depends on my pay grade.

• Besides visual and motion chops, the other core skill set I have is that I can narrow down a book into a blog, and you'll say it has more than less. I have the brain, eye, and taste to take a dump of unstructured data, break it into unique views and inputs, apply the right order and abstraction, and design interactions that transition through these different states and contexts yet feel like one connected system. A talent for deciding what needs to be obvious, what should be easy, and what should be possible in interface design. Part of why I am good at this thing is that I have a very high capacity for confusion, and my natural default is inversion thinking. Simply said, I excel at elimination. You can fact-check with my previous managers.

• I don't do wireframes. Never did in the last 4 years. Will never do. I speak UI and prototypes. You get it fast.

• I've been fired from one of my jobs (CRED). Kind of. HR said I'm "obnoxiously aggressive" on the radical candor quadrant, and my boss said "I don't think you have a future here". I was asking for it, looking back. I was good at my job but stupid - reactive, lacked pragmatism, focused too much on the right, swung at kings and didn't kill them. Cared too much about the product than people. That was an important arc in my character development. It made me a damn good operator.

• My level and compensation don't dictate my agency and focus. I don't need regular motivation, appreciation, offsite, lunch & dinner perks, parties, or insurance to show up. I have my own agenda to work for you (money, fun, path, status). I love making software. Because of my inability to fuck the quality of my own work if people are being unfair to me, I am never closed to new opportunities. So I give first, then stay till the deal is fair and square. When it's no longer fair, I find another buyer and leave quietly. No drama. I have eyes to see and compare my qualities and work with others, I know my place in the chain of command, and that my time is all I can control. It's faster working with me - hiring, building, promoting, firing me.

• The end goal for my professional life is to make the software I want, the way I want. But that can't happen on a payroll I don't own. Figuring this out is what I intend to spend the rest of my life on. I believe I can do better than the people I have worked for.

• I understand you need to do laundry, cook, you might have a face pack on, you might be in a metro running late, on a beach, you might have a kid heckling, have fought with your partner, etc. So if we are on a call, please never apologise for having a life. If you can't take my call, tell me and I'll reschedule. If you don't make it to the call, I'll drop after waiting for 10 minutes, and I will not be mad. I am also not much of a workstation guy myself; I usually work from a couch in the office. So, showing up to meetings on your mobile's front camera while you take a walk is okay. We are people - flawed, burdened, trying to do everything all at once, and managing somehow.

• I assume you are as sharp as I am. So meetings are direct and brief by default. I don't believe in cadences and recurring calls. I'd prefer to meet only when there is something to say (Slack?). If I am reporting to you, I will make sure you stay updated with the right volume of details, and you are always free to ask for more. You can still decide to have weekly/bi-weekly 1-1s with me, and I'll be on time. Though my experience tells me the more your boss wants to check in on you, either you are a genius or about to be fired, the latter in most cases.

• You can walk up to me and say I fucked up. I have a very high capacity for truth. I'd like you more if you spoke plainly, as to me it symbolises care and clarity of thought. Feedback loops with me will never become a revenge cycle, no ego. Because I do realise you could have chosen indifference. And I am glad that you didn't.

• I have grown kinder with experience. I am incompetent, and so are you, sometimes over some things. I offer you psychological safety and solutions till we find our way forward. That being said, my kindness is an instinct, not a tactic. How gentle I am to people doesn't depend on whether I like them or what they can do for me. So hyping me up or playing me on my ego will not make me trust you. And I can see through those who are making mountains out of molehills. Instead, just try to do your job well.

• I believe nothing scales infinitely. So my solutions are forward-looking, but maximum 2 years in the future. Change is the only constant. Scale is synonymous with vanilla; I am more of a cookie and cream guy.

• If you are a manager, I know the job sucks on most days. Took some time to learn, but if you ever bite, no hard feelings. I know you picked the best of the shit options you had to choose from. Unless you have a reputation of a tyrant, in which case I made a wrong bet, and I'll ensure our paths never cross again.