The strangest part is the quiet. One month since leaving Meta, and years of constant input have simply stopped.
The Immediate Difference
No calendar, for the first time in years - my time is actually mine. No Slack either; the notification stream went silent, though it took a week before I quit checking reflexively. No hierarchy, which means decisions are mine alone: no approvals, no alignment, no waiting. And no resources, which are also mine alone. No cloud compute, no ML infrastructure, no team.
What I'm Doing
In June I was leaning toward independent plus building. One month out, that is the shape it took.
Consulting
A few companies reached out, and I'm taking selective engagements: spatial computing strategy, perception system architecture, AI product direction. It comes to roughly 20 hours a week, enough to stay sharp and connected without crowding out the building.
Building
I've started three small projects: an AI tool I wanted at Meta but couldn't build there, an experiment in synthetic data for a new domain, and a prototype exploring LLM plus spatial computing, the overlap I called underpopulated in March. None of them is a business yet. All of them are teaching me something.
Learning
I'm catching up on what I missed while heads-down: LLM developments (the field moved fast), multi-agent systems (the architectures are fascinating), and the new AI tooling - Claude Code, Cursor, the rest of it. Reading, building, experimenting.
What Surprised Me?
The quiet is productive. Without meetings I can think deeply again. But infinite possibility turns out to be paralyzing - ideas need constraints, and picking a few helps. The identity untangling is real too: "What do you do?" is a harder question than it used to be, and I'm working on being okay with that. And I miss the daily interaction with smart people, so I'm looking for community in new ways.
What's Next
I'm not rushing to decide anything; the experiment runs through at least Q4 2024, the reset quarter I gave myself on the way out.
Questions I'm exploring:
- What problems can I uniquely solve?
- What would I regret not trying?
- What work energizes me, and what drains me?
The freedom to ask them at all is the luxury of this moment.