Founder And The City

Do things that don't scale, or how we're building a new way of caring for people with chronic conditions

In 2016 we shut down a service that worked and made money, because we couldn't see how to do it for more than a few hundred people. Ten years later I…

Oct 8 • Jane Smorodnikova

September 2026

AI Knows What the Work Looks Like. Not How It Gets Done.

Why language models sound like brilliant students in blazers who’ve never lost a dollar of their own money—and how to actually extract value from them.

Sep 19 • Jane Smorodnikova

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The Wooden Block OS: Managing ADHD, AI, and Three Laptops

Zero software, zero neuroscience. Just moving chunks of cedar between keyboards.

Sep 14 • Jane Smorodnikova

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If You’re a Leader Without Impostor Syndrome, You Might Be the Impostor

The irony of impostor syndrome: the people who feel it may be the ones you want in charge

Sep 4 • Jane Smorodnikova

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August 2026

My first book is out, and it's not the one I expected to write

A book about post-exertional malaise — a condition I don't have

Aug 25 • Jane Smorodnikova

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The Annual Plot to Photograph the Founder

It involves my CMO, my assistant, my friends—and a very narrow window of good mood.

Aug 22 • Jane Smorodnikova

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The Barbershop Is Safer Than Your Job

I lost one of my company's competitive advantages the week ChatGPT launched. I got it fast. Now I often asked about how to compete as a startup or as a…

Aug 6

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July 2026

Stop Fixing Your ADHD. Fix What You Feed It.

Every article about ADHD is trying to fix the person. The evidence says the problem was the room. I stopped trying to fix myself years ago, and that's…

Jul 29 • Jane Smorodnikova

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No, You Don’t Need to Be “AI-Native”

Everyone says AI-native startups are growing like crazy. So I started asking: which ones, exactly? — and what actually survives once AI makes everything…

Jul 6 • Jane Smorodnikova

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June 2026

God-in-the-Loop: In Search of an AI Deity

Why the race for AGI is less about automating labor, and more about our desperate desire to escape the heavy burden of human judgment

Jun 28 • Jane Smorodnikova

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Real Product Is Not Idealism. It’s Independence.

Why the most cold-blooded, pragmatic move in a broken acquisition market is building something people actually need

Jun 17 • Jane Smorodnikova

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I Analyzed 700,000 Days of Wearable Data to Find a Symptom No Test Can See

Inside the search for a Long COVID crash detection algorithm — the dead ends, the paradoxes, and why most studies might be measuring the wrong thing

Jun 5

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