I reduce things.

Take coffee machines. Strip away brand names, price tiers, marketing labels — and you're left with two variables: extraction from beans and convenience. Every machine on the market, from a moka pot to a $3,000 espresso setup, is just a different answer to those two. Once you see that, you can't unsee it.

I apply this to most things — business problems, product decisions, parenting, relationships. Find the fewest variables from which everything else radiates. Most complexity is noise layered over a simple core.

Software happens to be the craft I tinker with most. It's where I get to run this thinking the fastest — pull the abstraction, find the floor, build back up with intent.

TabDrop -- Effortless browser tab reference to your AI prompts in Chrome browser - instantly ⚡️

UnderstandThis.company — The missing half of the job description. A JD tells you what the company expects. It rarely tells you what you should know going in. BeforeInterview fixes that gap — for the candidate.

MindsEye — See beyond the line. The web was built for attention, not absorption. So it gave us scroll bars. MindsEye is built for the other kind of reading.

Scribble Bear — Your Intelligent Writing Partner A mac-only word processor app, where an LLM joins as a collaborator for corrections and improvements.

I write about software at karthick.page