I knew the time was coming and now it’s here. I am 40 years old. I feel pretty good about it.

I started regular journaling when I was about 28, and I have entries about how terrified I was to turn 30. It wasn’t that 30 felt old, but more that it felt respectable. I’ve always liked being slightly unassuming so that there is room to outshine expectations. 30 felt like I was supposed to have my shit together.

I still don’t feel like I have my shit together, but I think I now possess the wisdom of knowing that no one has their shit together. And that makes me feel ok.

My 20s were spent learning and working at an unhealthy pace.

My 30s were spent getting down to business.

Timeline

• 2014 - started coding
• 2015 - Released Rubberhose 1
• 2016
  • Moved to CA
  • Went to work at Google
  • Ash was diagnosed with MS
• 2017
  • Released Sketch2Ae with Google
  • Left Google
  • Moved back to Atlanta
  • Released Rubberhose 2
  • Released Overlord
• 2018
  • We lost health insurance
  • Went back to work with Google remotely
• 2019 - Released AEUX
• 2020 - Released Timelord
• 2021 - Released Anubis
• 2022
  • Left Google
  • Went full-time on Battle Axe
  • Hired our first employee
• 2023 - Released Rubberhose 3
• 2024
  • Built a new Battle Axe site
  • Released Overlord 2

Into the future

I’m not totally sure what the next decade will look like, and I’ve learned that when I plan too hard, it’s easy to be disappointed. My main focus right now is Overlord 2 and expanding it into more host apps. I’m really fascinated by connecting as many platforms as possible to help designers do their best work.

I’m really interested in exploring the humanity of this work. It’s 2024 and the state of LLMs is really wild. I can’t take too strong of a stance on it right now, but I am currently not that interested in exploring it. Most of the work that comes from these tools ranges from requiring a lot of hand-holding to being total slop.

I don’t enjoy slop, and I would rather invest time into developing skills to create what I imagine rather than outsourcing creativity to a reproduction machine so I can be in charge of fixing it.

My intention in this new decade is to pursue craft and expression and to learn more about myself and the people I care for.