SOUL.md
Introduction & Context
This post is a companion piece to a talk I recently gave at DevRelCon.
Because it was a seven-minute lightning talk, I wasn't able to share all the context and nuance I wanted on stage. I'm publishing this for two reasons:
- For attendees: To offer deeper context around why I gave this talk and expand on things I couldn't fit into those seven minutes.
- For those who couldn't attend: To share this perspective with anyone interested who couldn't be there in person.
(Note: Right now, you can view the presentation slide deck linked below. Once the official recording is published, I'll update this post to include the video of the talk as well.)
The Moment We’re In
At the core of this talk is an acknowledgment of the moment we find ourselves in right now. It is a very unique and important moment—in our lifetimes, and on the broader timeline of humanity.
Especially for this audience, this moment is largely characterized by artificial intelligence and everything that comes along with it: the hype, the noise, the changing expectations, the uncertainty, the chaos, and often, the abandonment of common sense.
We feel this at the industry level, the company level, the team level, and the individual level. It looks a little different for all of us, but the underlying uncertainty is something we're all navigating.
What We Can Control
While so much of this feels completely outside our control, our own actions and decisions are still entirely up to us.
Those choices matter because we have real influence. We work in tech companies building frontier AI technology, and we're actively using these tools every day. We influence where this goes not only by what we build, but also by what we buy and support.
Why This Talk Now
Two main things prompted me to step on stage.
First was a conversation with Swift, the CEO of Major League Hacking (MLH). We worked together in DevRel back at SendGrid in 2011. Because I wasn't a developer, my focus was always on values, character traits, and how we showed up for people—the core principles that make up my SOUL.md file today.
Knowing Swift has a broad pulse on the industry, I asked him if he thought today’s teams still emphasize those same foundational values. His answer was simple: "No, I don't think so." That made me realize people needed a reminder.
Normalizing the Unreasonable
The second reason was the broader loss of common sense around AI. We’ve started normalizing things that simply aren't normal if you say them out loud:
- Prioritizing tokens over people: At a group dinner, a guy mentioned feeling anxious about unused AI API tokens expiring at home—worried about being at dinner instead of burning through his daily quota.
- Blind consumption: Developers comparing tools like Claude and Codex solely on raw output, completely ignoring who builds the tech, how the company operates, or what practices their money supports.
- Self-imposed suffering: A founder building an AI-native company told me how burned out, terrified, and exhausted he was, but felt he had no choice because "that’s just what it takes." I wanted to shake him and say, "You're choosing this. No one is forcing you to destroy yourself."
We’ve built up a narrative that this level of chaos and burnout is mandatory. It isn't. If we actually listen to what we're saying, we'll see how crazy it’s gotten—and that we have the agency to choose differently.
Beyond DevRel: A Broader Message for Everyone
While this talk was tailored specifically for DevRel practitioners navigating the AI wave, the core message goes far beyond our industry. It isn't just about software, and it isn't just about AI—it applies to the much larger macro realities we’re all facing right now.
In sharing this, I’m simply passing along wisdom that has been shared with me by my teachers—rooted in Indigenous understandings of our world. Many Indigenous cultures view this specific moment in human history as a prophesied turning point: a time when the world becomes so upside down that we are forced to turn it right-side up. That inflection point happens when enough of us wake up and realize that the way we've been operating isn't working.
The turmoil, chaos, and intensity we see across the world right now are all reflections of that shift. It’s a reality we’ll likely be navigating for the rest of our lives.
So while these ideas are immediately useful for tech workers, founders, and community leaders in the room at DevRelCon, this message is ultimately for every human being. No matter what you do for work, we all have the choice to pause, check our alignment, and decide how we want to show up in the world.
