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Web experiences during the age of LLMs

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

My experience with the World Wide Web was like growing up with a childhood friend. The early days of building personal websites were what some would call Web 1.0—the static web. I’d observe my brother building HTML websites with Notepad, inline styles, and all, then publish them to Geocities. The Social Web (Web 2.0) brought user-generated content, web applications, and social networks. Because of these new technologies, people deviated arom personal websites in favor of simple about.me pages, popular blogging platforms, and exclusively publishing on Social Networks like Facebook.

We’re in the midst of Web 3.0—whatever you want to call it. Blockchain technologies and decentralization are capabilities often associated with this phase. However, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are included i this era as well Let’s focus only on the implications of what AI/ML brings to the new web, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). Because of its capabilities of data, fine-tuning, and generative capabilities, there are two likely scenarios of how LLMs can be used to create web experiences.

Scenario 1: website builders equip themselves with AI capabilities: Products built for making websites will add AI capabilities to their product offerings. Every SaaS product seems to be doing this now to make their product Copilot or Generative AI-ready.

Scenario 2: LLMs build websites: With experiences like Designer GPT and Grimoire, empowering LLMs to build websites is already possible today.
With products like Designer GPT, LLMs have generate websites for people.

I believer Scenario 2 will be adopted quicker than Scenario 1. In fact, glimpses of it is happening already. When The Browser Company launched the iOS app, they created a unique experience for the form factor. Instead of yet another browser, they created an experience focused on search. One of the key features is, “Browser For Me,” which has the app construct a simple web experience based on the search prompt. Perplexity recently launched Perplexity Pages, which builds a wiki-like website based on your searches.

Though I don’t think it makes sense for Arc and Perplexity to have customization (a different topic), you can see how other products can take the concept of “build it for me” for web experiences generated by prompts.

There are still bottlenecks that need to be solved to have generative websites be more widely adopted. There are a few core areas in building and maintaining a web experience:

  • Content: Copywriting, creative assets, and information architecture
  • Design: Layout, style, and aesthetics
  • Tech: Frameworks, hosting services, and how the site is published/deployed
  • Management: Maintenance, SEO, and other growth levers

As I say to Design Systems teams: it’s easy to generate something net new than it is to maintain it. This is a similar challenge with websites generated by AI. It gives you a first version to work from but you still need to maintain and host it.

Screenshots of Arc Search on iOS

What LLM-powered site building looks like

I believe there will be a lot of people in the world who will continue hand-crafting sites (myself included) because we have the ability and desire to do so. Let’s acknowledge that while speculating what a site-building experience looks like when it is more derived from a generative prompt.

Good web design starts with content—something the majority of people can create, on the other hand, is a skill that needs to be developed—one people might not bother to learn.

From structure-based design to content-based design

Authoring experiences will move closer to distribution

Professionals are always going to want their own space for their power tools. However, the rest of people often prefer convenience: not having to learn something new, reducing friction, and anything else that accelerates the job to be done. What we’ll see is authoring experiences more infused with publishing tools. For example, if a person is writing a blog post, they might generate creative assets, adjust layouts, and make stylistic changes in the content management system vs. an external authoring tool like Figma—faster editing that leads to faster publishing.

Settings and profiles facilitated by AI Agents

My bet is AI tooling not going to be a monolithic LLM—a god-like AGI. Instead, it’s having a hive of tiny LLMs interacting with one another to collaborate. Take the example of making changes to a web host provider. Instead of logging into Dreamhost and upgrading hosting services, there might be a chat service I build or interface setting I can change to invoke the changes on the hosting services.

A spectrum of customization continues to exist

Ben South said it well: “The average person doesn’t want to customize their software—they want the best defaults.” Even before AI became the talk of the town, the spectrum of customization exists in building web experiences and other types of publishing, with the majority of people simply wanting a thing. LLMs are decent at building these now and the workflows to maintain and publish will get there.

There will always be room for people who care about hand-crafting experiences with maximum customization. My belief for AI in tooling is the capabilities should always be lowering the floor, not the ceiling Elegant AI-powered experiences help people without the skills to do things they only imagined being able to do. While doing that, it enhances and makes work more efficient such as fixing random syntaxes and nuances we find frustrating. Design and building websites will be content-focused with Dynamic Interfaces doing the heavy lifting, so we can focus on curation and publishing.

The oil and water problem

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

I avoid writing about topics that is a direct reference to where I work. You never want people on your team to feel like you’re writing about them on a personal newsletter. However, I will write about themes I feel are universal challenges every company encounters and spans beyond my own experience. With that, let’s talk about the Oil and Water Problem.

Oil and water don’t mix because they have different molecular structures and polarities. This difference in polarity prevents them from forming stable mixtures, causing them to separate into distinct layers. Oil and water are the metaphor for startups rapidly growing when one polarity mixes with another.

The first group are the old guard (OGs)—tenured employees super early when the company started. The second group is the new guard (NGs)—tech veterans who contributed to successful scale at previous companies (those from the minestrone of talent). The Oil and Water Problem is the most common points of contention within companies and crucial to address. Let’s make sense of the points of view of both groups, identify typical tension points, and what you can do to mitigate the segregation of cultures.

The old guard point of view

The OGs at startups are the earlier believers who joined before others joined. Many of them are the first community members who sent the founders feedback and ideas. Because of this early start, OGs have superior knowledge of the product, not only how it works, but all the gotchas and skeletons in the closet. This context is crucial and are a big reason why OG team members are a lynchpin for historical information.

Since the OGs joined early, they may not have the experience of what happens next when a company goes from scrappy startup to a larger scale. They might wonder why new hires are coming in and taking over in areas of leadership and strategy as they’ve ben the earliest believers and loyal.

The new guard point of view

The new guard are the minestrone of talent that arrive when a startup found product market fit and growing. These individual come from roles as operators of a specific function (such as Product, Design, Marketing, etc.) and have expertise scaling those groups.

Despite having a lot of experience at other companies, the new guard are unproven in the eyes of the OGs and founders. Whereas the OGs have gone to war with the founders for many years, the new guard have no battle scars. They don’t have the same organization and product context of what’s happened internally before.

Common tension points

There is a famous Looney Toons scene (E25 – S23) where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argue over Elmer Fud’s hunting license—is it Rabbit season or Duck season? What ensues is a back-and-forth of Bugs and Daffy ripping that sign that depicts the other one being the season hunted.

Bugs: Duck season!

Daffy: Rabbit season!

Bugs: Duck season!

Daffy: Rabbit season!

(Repeat)

Find-replace for Bugs and Daffy, and you have the old guard and new guard. In my experience, there are a few common areas where tension points occur like two tectonic plates colliding on the Earth.

Process

The first tension point is processes. Operational excellence is not the top priority in the early stage. Process done the wrong way can hinders progress and result in performative work. However, how a 20-person team runs and a 2,000 person company runs are drastically different (and should be). What results is a debate on when processes need to evolve.

OG: “We’ve always done it this way.”

NG: “This won’t scale. Here’s how we did it at [Company Y].”

Decisions

Stakeholders and who make the decision changes in this phase.

OG: “We should have input in this decision.”

NG: “It’s been decided.”

Communication

In addition to operating procedures, you can expect meetings and communication constantly change in the growth arc of a company as it multiplies. In places where I stayed for four years, it felt like four different companies based on the growth.

OG: “I need to be in this meeting to know what’s going on”

NG: “We’ll send out meeting notes for everyone”

Access to founders

The hardest thing for a founder to deal with is when they can’t scale the relationship like in the early days. They used to be able to hand write the holiday cards personalized to each employee. At a point in time, the cards then become branded company cards with a printed message.

OG: “I used to be able to Slack message the founder easily.”

NG: “I’ll let you know what comes out of the exec meeting”

The new guard becomes the old guard

A universal truth working in startups is eventually scale will get you. Those who were the new guard at the Series B growth become part of the old guard after years of being at the company. What happens next is an even newer new guard comes in to take the company to next level—late stage to IPO. Suddenly, the original OGs and former new guard have shared experiences of what it feels like with a new regime coming in. For the new guard, it’s important to have empathy for the OGs because how they feel with you coming in will happen to you at a point in time.

Turning oil and water into ice tea and lemonade

I’ve been part of the new guard at the previous place I worked. I’ve learned what worked and what didn’t. Whether you’re an OG or new person coming in, be that person who infuses the two cultures together. This meant spending a lot of time with the founders to expand and scale their mission, talking to as many customers as possible, and dog fooding the product daily. You have to jump right into battle to gain trust. Spend time with the OGs, understand what’s been important to get here. If you aren’t able to integrate, you won’t make it and things will quickly fall apart.

To be abundantly clear, integrating the two cultures isn’t about making everyone happy as that’s not alignment. Larry David once said, “A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied.” The goal is constantly having input and continued improvement in blending the best of both worlds together.

Avoid the Oil and Water Problem and strive to be the Arnold Palmer of tech companies—a harmonious blend of two delightful substances (ice tea and lemonade) that create a delightful experience.

Mastery for generalists

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

When I was the Product team at One Medical, our clinical and Ops teams were critical partners in how we shipped work. It was common to visit the offices to observe (going to gemba). During my four years at the health tech company, I learned about the various roles on clinical teams: primary care providers, registered nurses, care navigators, specialists, phlebotomists, and many more. In my research work, I spent the majority of the time with primary care providers (generalists).

“Why did you decide to be a generalist instead of a specialist?”, I’d ask each provider. What compelled them to general care vs. being a specialist. Primary care physicians experience more burnout and specialists make more money. The truth is you make more money as a specialists, so what would compel someone to general care. The answer was consistent: to have a broader range to care for their patients’ health.

The path for specialists is more clear than generalists. If one chooses the generalist path, what does mastery look like? The notion of mastery as a generalist sounds oxymoronic. Let’s challenge that and identify how to grow in your craft in a generalist role. In order to master being a generalist, let’s reflect on how to know if you are a generalist, the impact they make, and leveling up as generalist practitioners.

You might be a generalist…

If you grew up in the 90s and experiencing lower back pain, you may remember comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck” routine: “If you’ve been on the television more than five times describing what the tornado sounds like, you might be a redneck.” We can remix that and play it back with being a generalist:

  • If you can’t decide if you want to be a product manager, designer, or engineer, you might be a generalist
  • If you find yourself always wanting to learn new things outside of what you do, you might be a generalist
  • If you highly enjoy collaborating with every department, you might be a generalist
  • If you get excited about trying out emerging technology and tools, you might be a generalist
  • If you get bored by doing one thing, you might be a generalist
  • If you’re comfortable hiring people better than you at everything, you might be a generalist

Generalists are people who love variety, connecting the dots, and curious. In contrast, specialists usually focus and go deeper on a certain practice. I use the clinical metaphor above a lot when describing generalists and specialists. A brain surgeon could conduct a physical if needed the same way a primary care provider could do certain operations in the case of an emergency. However, based on the level of skill and precision, a specialist is more effective. Every designer can contribute to a design system and having a specialist in design systems will merit in more effective outcomes.

Why be a generalist?

“Jack of all trades, master of none” can sound negative—almost implying one isn’t good at anything. Do you ever feel like you don’t fit into a specialty? Being a generalist allows flexibility and have broader range in what you can do. This is a great skill for early stage startups when wearing multiple hats is common. As the company grows, it’ll specialize at scale, and it makes sense. You don’t want your generalist co-founder to continue being responsible for people experience or finance and bring in the specialists. What happens to people who when they relinquish the said hats? You’re able to freelance and move around more. There might be a new initiative that needs to get spun up. If you’re interested in management, many people managers are generalists.

Generalists spark alchemy

In the article “Generalists CEOs Not Specialists Spur Innovation,” there is a great excerpt on how generalist spark innovation:

“Under generalist CEOs, companies tend to engage in more ‘exploitative’ innovation, which involves improving or refining something that already exists, and also more ‘exploratory’ innovation — that is, engaging in a risky search for radical and transformative innovation. However, the difference between specialist CEOs and generalists is especially pronounced in exploratory innovation.”

You don’t see many specialist CEOs unless the business does something specific to it. A generalist can start an important initiative and collaborate with specialists to drastically improve it.

Building mastery as a generalist

“Mastery as a generalist” is an oxymoron, but let’s embrace the duality. How does one become a better generalist? Great teams need a blend of generalists and specialists.

Be an expert at learning

If there’s one specialty a generalist has, it’s learning to learn. Build familiarity in a discipline enough to understand the mechanics, develop experience, and when it scales, find a specialist. If you’ve ever had a manager who understands what you do because they’ve done it before, they can build more advocacy for the effort of your work. A designer understanding how the software development cycle works can anticipate questions that come up.

Understand every role

I’ve worked in so many aspects of design: UI Designer, Information Architect, Marketing Designer, Motion Designer, Researcher, or Product Designer, I’ve worked in dozens of roles. Understanding everyone’s roles and responsibilities helps you influence at a higher scale since you have a sense of what everyone is doing. It allows you to give better input and direction.

Build connective skills

Understand how every org works and connecting the dots across them. One of the services I was most passionate at while at One Medical was pediatrics and family practice. Whenever I had a coffee break or free time, I’d make time to connect with people who were passionate about that program and ways to support it. Learn how to synthesize, story tell, and connect to the big picture.

Mastering the generalist path means everyone will be better than you at something, but you’re better than everyone at every little thing.

Being a generalist does not mean the work is shallow. It’s right sizing the amount of up skill needed to get the job done. If the path of a generalist resonates with you, continue diversifying your skill portfolio and extend your range.

Striving for imperfection

Is there any better way to dunk on Virgos than writing about subverting perfectionism in September? (Narrator: There is not.) I’m kidding, Virgos. My cat, who just celebrated his 18th birthday, is also a Virgo.

The refusal to accept any standard short of perfection has its benefits and major challenges is a common theme among Virgos and other humans. The benefit is it can motivate you to do top quality work. However, this can be counter-productive, inducing a lot of anxiety, fears, and insecurities.

Perfectionism is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high-performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations. This can create analysis paralysis and you may never put your idea in motion. Psychologist David Burns once said, “Reaching for the stars, perfectionists may end up clutching at air.” People often don’t launch their ideas because of what they might face as it transitions from idea to reality as a result of this fear. Sometimes you’re trying to refine something so much in your head that you later learn that someone else went and did your idea.

Sharing ideas is extremely hard. It puts you in a vulnerable space. When you keep ideas to yourself, there is no risk of critique or reaction. It’s perfect in your mind. When you create something and put it out to the world, you face critique. It’s tough to launch that app idea, only to find out it’s something nobody wanted and failed. It’s also hard to put yourself out there in a world where things are portrayed in the most idealistic. Open Instagram and within seconds you’ll often encounter perfectly staged narratives. How would you ever reach that standard?

Becoming the imperfectionist

In 2006, the world was introduced to blonde hair and blue-eyed James Bond in Daniel Craig. For those who are familiar with the Ian Fleming character, James Bond has always been portrayed as hyper-masculine, smooth, and suave. Aside from the ocean-blue eyes and blonde hair, Daniel Craig’s portrayal of Bond was different. It was brutal, rugged, and inelegant.

(Spoiler alert: there’s a scene where Bond orders a drink)

Bond: Vodka martini
Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?

This is a rough cut of Bond. He doesn’t care about being smooth; that the job is done (In no ways am I saying Daniel Craig is imperfect). I’ve always looked at the Daniel Craig James Bond as a metaphor for being more real and unrefined in order to achieve results. Though I care about doing high-quality work, I am far from a perfectionist. My style of getting there is very rugged and often by brute force. As the saying goes, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” This is what Proof of Concept is about; encouraging you to get those ideas out to exist in the world so you can refine it.

The other end of the spectrum of a perfectionist is often defined as an Optimalist. This comes from the Latin word Optimus, which means both “best” and the fearless leader of the Autobots in the Transformers series.

Filling the white space

In art school, I was trained to get rid of all the white space on the canvas. In my oil painting classes, I’d apply the techniques of the artists of old like Titian to complete an underpainting, a very low fidelity pass of the entire canvas to shape up the composition. Once you mess it up, you can then refine it. This helps me cope with any sense of perfectionism that might creep in.

There is more hesitance to make a mark on a blank white piece of paper because each stroke can feel like a mistake. When it’s filled, you have less to lose.

The key is you do not have to attain perfection in one iteration.

Iterate the momentum

As Dr. Julie Gurner recently said on Twitter, “What most won’t tell you? It’s not knowing what to do that it is hard…it’s actually doing it, and not allowing yourself to get in the way.”

Building momentum is the most challenging part of doing anything. One of my favorite quotes is from Pixar’s 22 secrets to storytelling: “Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.”

Similar to my painting style, I approach writing the same way; creating mind maps of ideas and unstructured writing to help me get started. The blank canvas often the biggest blocker.

Especially now during COVID-19 where we seem to be perpetually on screens, I take my sketchbook as a way to plan my action. Whether it’s a book idea or a quick note, I scribble on paper to hash the ideas out a bit before focusing on any digital computation. I’ve also found putting thoughts on paper has put my mind at ease and makings me less anxious about any work I do. Since I spend seconds doing quick thumbnails, there is such low risk for me to re-do the work in a better way.

Sharing your drafts to the public

I’ve been so inspired by people on the web who have been sharing concepts out in the open, and I’d like to share two who come to mind. Paige Doherty is a software engineer who is working on a children’s book about venture capital and has been sharing her pen and paper pages of the book. She used Loom as a way to create an intro video to solicit feedback. I cannot wait to see where this book goes! Jordan Singer, a product designer at Square Cash with a background in computer science, has been building his ideas for many years. He created an app called Airport which lets people browse different TestFlight builds of iOS apps that people are building.

These are two of many examples of people putting work out there to get feedback and providing early access. People don’t create things out of thin air like magic. We often feel like it is so because often we don’t see the drafts and iterations. The reason someone has achieved more success is often likely they’ve failed more than you.

Non Finito can be therapeutic

The word “Non Finito” means “not finished” in Italian. I find a lot of benefits doing a “brain dump” of all my thoughts. This type of journaling has helped provide some mental relief by making it tangible and a source to start new ideas.

You don’t even have to show your imperfections to the world if you’re not ready for it, or if you ever are. Putting these thoughts down can help you look at things head-on and be accepting of the imperfections.

“What if I mess up and break something?”

Who cares.

Kintsugi, the art of repairing with gold is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

It is in our imperfections and fragments where we can find a long-lasting beauty we can appreciate in an authentic and sustainable manner. Take a moment, put that idea out there. You might inspire someone to do the same. Together we can iterate more and share it with the universe.

As the artist, Salvador Dali once said, “have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

P.S. In the spirit of idea generation on early drafts, I’d love your feedback on what you’d like for me to write about. Simply reply to this email with your idea. I appreciate any suggestions!

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

The ambition of Prometheus

Originally posted on Substack

Today is Christmas. Whether you celebrate it or not, the general masses often enjoy the festivities, especially watching classic holiday movies: Home Alone, A Christmas Story, Jingle All the Way, or Elf. There are plenty to choose from. There is always a person online who makes a case that Die Hard is a Christmas movie because it occurs on the day. Let’s go with that logic and add Batman Returns, and Rocky IV to the list of Christmas movies. Today I’m writing about the greatest Christmas movie—Prometheus. This film released Summer of 2012 marked the return of Ridley Scott to the Alien franchise he birthed nearly forty years prior. At the time, the film had a lot of anticipation and expectation with one of the best trailers ever. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and spent the rainy day seeing it at Nighthawk Cinema in Williamsburg.

The reactions for many people were mixed, or they hated it. To this day, Prometheus is one of the most polarizing films ever. Admitedly, upon first view, I had mixed feelings. However, after many years and re-watches, I’ve found great appreciation for the ambitious film. This isn’t a movie review or an attempt to convince you that Prometheus is a great movie (but it is), it’s a reflection on the lessons we can learn as creators and builders on the ambition of this film.

(Some spoilers if you haven’t seen Prometheus!)

Ambition is admirable

Dom Nero wrote in his Esquire article, It’s Time to Redeem Prometheus: “Like it or not, you’ve got to admire Scott’s audacity in giving us such an expansive new scope for the franchise.” Regardless if people liked the film or not, a common praise everyone gives it is the ambition of what they made. Many prequels deliver lackluster narratives—showing the events the lead up to the original film without expanding the world. A great prequel expands on the world while respecting what came before it, and Prometheus does this in a grand way. In fact, it’s one of the films which content connects Alien to Blade Runner implying they are in the same world.

Ambition is the strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. Ambition is not hustle culture and working hundreds of hours a week, it’s going after a big vision. Ambition enables you to think big, and be confident, and is a shield against adversity you encounter. The two common people humanity roots for are the underdogs and people who chase their dreams, and boy, this Ridley Scott swung for the fences with this one. The baseball players who hit the most home runs are the ones who strike out, and Scott has no fear in striking out epically (have you ever seen The Counselor?). Having an ambitious mindset gives you the grit to keep iterating and confidently continue the great pursuit.

Aesthetics matter, but need to be grounded on more

The visual language of this film is absolutely stunning—something people critical of the film admit as well. Despite appreciation for the aesthetics, the plot holes and narrative challenges couldn’t save the film for people. Without solid grounding and foundations of elements that make an experience successful, visual aesthetics cannot save it.

Designing your worlds

I’m inspired by world-building as it pertains to software development and creativity. A practice often found in film and fiction writing, world-building in a nutshell is about the rules you create in the space of the experience you’re designing and building.

Big things certainly have small beginnings. In my research, which is basically reading articles and watching the commentaries again, I learned the small and big details the team put in the world-building. The original script writer Jon Spaihts talks a lot about the design decisions to hint at the world being built. Spaihts mentioned the design of the helmets the crew wears, which are completely transparent. It’s mentioned that in this world Gorilla Glass innovation would get to the point where it’s stronger than steel, making the design choice glass. The vehicles have a lot of copper, hinting the crew navigates the planet with battery-powered vehicles.

One of my favorite photos of Charlize Theron lounging on set. Notice the almost-transparent helmet.

In addition to the small details that hint at the world, Scott dramatically expanded the scope of what the world could be, always challenging us to think bigger. The aforementioned tiny details hint at a much bigger world. In its core essence, world-building is user experience and how someone interacts with what you build. The more we can have a 30,000 ft and 1px view of that, the more our end users gain.

Destruction is part of the creative process

There is a line in the film said by David, the Android on the ship played by the brilliant Michael Fassbender: “Sometimes to create, one must first destroy.” In issue 117 we talked about the importance of subversion. Destroying something in order to create something new is arguable the greatest act of subversion. I’m not telling you to go delete your codebase tomorrow and start anew, but think about what room needs to be made to create something new. However, there are times that call for the destruction of something in order to create a new foundation.

This is happening in the DC Universe with newly appointed co-CEO James Gunn. As sad as I am that Henry Cavill is no longer Superman, it appears that the former Marvel Studios director and architect for a lot of the cosmic stories are rebooting the world from scratch. You can’t keep a house that’s falling apart because it has one good guest bedroom. You must destroy and start anew. The last few weeks have been a lot about the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in software with the release of ChatGPT with OpenAI. The temptation for many might be figuring out how to quickly pivot or tack on a layer of AI to what they’re doing. However, a new innovation or invention like this might require exploring how things are built or created from the ground up.

Prometheus makes us focus on questions and discussion

Prometheus is the classic Five Ws for problem solving. Asking the right questions and having important discussions are key attributes of design and product development. If you spend as much time (or more) discussing the film than the length of the film, it’s notable. It’s here we have to acknowledge that the script rewrite was done by Damon Lindelof, who wrote the series Lost1. If you’ve seen either Prometheus or Lost, you’ll know things rarely get answered in a clear way. This may frustrate a lot of people, but I believe good Science Fiction prompts you to seek the answers yourself.

Recap

  • Be ambitious, deliver, and be fearless of failure
  • Aesthetics are important but alone is not enough
  • Obsess the details of world building
  • Creation requires destruction
  • Focus on the questions, speculate the answers
  • If a narrow space ship rollstowards you, veer to the side so it won’t crush you

Before Prometheus, the 2010s lacked Sci-Fi ambition: Tron: Legacy, Cowboys and Aliens, Battle Los Angeles, Battleship, and Men in Black 3. After Prometheus we saw incredible Sci-Fi titles released such as Gravity, Snowpiercer, Interstellar, Ex Machina, The Lobster, The Martian, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Annihilation, and many others. I like to think because of Scott’s ambitious attempt with Prometheus sparked other people to swing for the fences. It’s fitting that the film Prometheus is the Engineer in the opening scene that sacrifices itself to spark life.

If you’ve never seen Prometheus, give it a try. Perhaps you saw it in 2012 in theaters like me and haven’t seen it since—give it another watch. Hint: Prometheus is better if you watch it as a Blade Runner movie than an Alien movie.

Finally, I commend Ridley Scott’s ambition and output at his age. The man is definitely YOLO’ing it. At age 85 Scott has no signal of slowing down. For someone nearer to the end of his life and lost two brothers (including the tragic suicide of Tony Scott the same year Prometheus was released), what does he have to lose in being ambitious? Life is too short and not a promise, so you might as well swing for the fences. As I reflect on 2022 and find a guiding light for 2023, it’s simple: be ambitious and go for broke.