5 weeks into applied
why I joined applied in 2026 still holds up — pretty aligned with what I thought going in. Five weeks in, mostly I'm just here to learn, and there's a lot of it.
The job asks me to be versatile across the stack: ODD expansion, and balancing classical and end-to-end driving.
you are someone's retention math
An organization is just people — that's the whole asset. And people aren't tools; each one comes with their own self-interest. So it works only one way: each person's self-interest has to point the same way as the organization's.
And the people whose interest you most need aligned are the ones you can't afford to lose. So when it restructures, it's rarely about principle — it's to keep them. You bend the org chart around them; the official story is "strategic alignment," underneath it's retention math. And that math has collateral — keep the ones you can't lose, and others quietly get moved, or cut, to make the shape fit. Not malice. Mechanics. Every reorg is the company protecting what it can't afford to lose.
unhappiness is a signal — recalibrate when the joy goes
Some days I don't wake up happy, or go to bed wiped. It's because I've stopped demanding control.
It creeps in. You land somewhere new, adapt to the constant confusion, and somewhere in there you accept not being in control too — until being powerless doesn't even feel like a problem anymore.
When I'm in it, I interrogate the wrong things — is the problem unclear? is my motivation off? Those are hours I won't get back, and I was never going to think my way out of them. When in doubt, the answer is almost always the same: I don't feel in control. The fix? Grab a bigger role. Insert yourself. Take hold of the work. Get more involved.
Over your happiness, your satisfaction. Why shouldn't you be happy? Why shouldn't you feel powerful? Why shouldn't you feel in control? Maybe try demanding it.
focus is who you are
I caught myself after a couple of distracted days thinking, that's not really me. But it is. Your attention is who you are. Focus is everything; the good work and the problems solved are just a byproduct of it.
So don't take focus as a given. Don't take a clear head as a given. That's the thing you're actually fighting for — the thing you set your whole self up to protect.
watch what you reach for
I almost never catch the unhappiness in the moment. It's never one big event I can point to — that basically never happens. It's slower: I lose grip on my life, and without noticing, I start filling the void with whatever gives a quick, refreshed hit of feeling fine.
The tells are sideways. I get loose about eating junk without registering it. I start caring more how others see me — because in those stretches, their version of me is kinder than my own. I never connect any of it, because I never clocked something was off to begin with.
So when you're unhappy, get a grip again. The fix isn't some unknown — not a vision problem, not a purpose problem. It's the boring stuff you already know: eat well, exercise, demand more control. You don't wait it out — you push a little harder for it.
the rearview
memories from the last season.