People and Blogs: Anton Podviaznikov

Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

I’m originally from Ukraine, I grew up there and finished university. Moved out in 2010 to explore the world. Since 2014 US was my home base.

I’m software engineer by trade. It was my education and first I worked as a programmer because it was my career choice. But sometime around 2011 I fell in love with the web and programming. I worked at several startups and few bigger tech companies and also created countless side projects.

What's the story behind your blog?

I created my personal site around 2013. It is 10+ years old. I think I created it during the period when I was falling in love with programming and ideas behind web and the Internet. I got exposed to them way later in my life than people who grew up in Western Europe or US. I had a lot of personal revelations at that time in my life.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Super simple. I discovered that writing feels “painful” for me. I really do struggle. The only way that works for me is to remove editing part and also write in the “stream of consciousness style”. I write stuff in one go. I write some essay in Apple Notes and it gets published automatically to my site while I’m writing it. I might reread it some time later and edit few things - but usually I don’t do that and just discover some typos years later.

Another important thing is that I mostly write on topics I don’t want to think anymore. Writing is the final step of thinking over something for me. I write down about some topic, publish it and then don’t think about that again for a while.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I wrote decent amount of essays on airplanes and trains. They are uncomfortable physically, but I found them to be a great time to write and to speed up the travel, Internet is flaky and I have space to reflect. I also like to write(and program) in coffeeshops. I like noise and I can usually fully block it out.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

I’m software engineer. I always made custom stacks for my personal site. For the past 2 years my website is powered by a small tool I made. It’s a tool that publishes Apple Notes to my site. It’s called Montaigne.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I want to say: start even earlier. But that is also difficult because I do feel that I didn’t have much to say before I was 25 yo and also I didn’t discover my “voice”. But I think trying writing helps to discover that voice.

Write as often as you can. If it’s 5 essays per year - it’s still good. I collected many over the years and sometimes I open some and read and get surprised with some insights I got. It’s a very interesting feeling.

I feel like even now I don’t capture most of the insights I have during the year. So writing more is always a good advice.

Financial question since the web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I think people should do what they feel is good for them. If you are in the position where you want/need to monetize - do that. If money is not critical, do not do it. Eg write for yourself first. On top of that there might be some second order unpredictable benefits to writing. Eg someone would reach out to you and would offer a job or collaboration. This is way better than money(if you don’t need them).

Hard to say how much does it cost to run my site since it runs using the tool that I made. But for other people this tool is free:)

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

• tyler.cafe - simplicity of the design, color scheme, gradient background. It's so lovely.
• brandur.org - site that I check often. It has many great ideas: year scroll control, fragments, sequences etc.
• ekzhang.com - minimalistic but so clear.
• destroytoday.com - I love the logo, colors, menu.
• dennissnellenberg.com/about - menu and effects are so creative.
• macwright.com - one of my all time favorites. Table layouts are so rare an unusual. Everything is so simple and clear.
• silviamakesdrawings.com - love the visuals and grid layout and drawings.
• joeblu.com - love the logo and subtle colorful touch in it.
• beanacre.xyz/bookshelf - this bookshelf is perfect. And the site itself is beautiful. Love the command palette as a menu.
• blog.jim-nielsen.com - another all time favorite. Colors, layouts, small touches — everything works perfectly together. And I'm in love with the stats page https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/about/.
• sikorskyi.com - so simple. Sometimes you don't need anything else.
• jadrian.org - another one page option.
• www.juanbuis.com - I'm at the age when I do like photos of people who I follow.
• herman.bearblog.dev - minimalistic blog. I want to see more of these.
• leerob.io - this one is pretty famous. It has so many features. Not everyone needs those features but it's a good example for inspiration.
• miles.land - colors and layouts. That is how you express yourself in terms of form.
• paco.me - Mac OS inspired styling.
• nickcammarata.com - moving tree makes it a bit remarkable.
• neil.computer - I love this old school aesthetic. I love tables.
• harrisonpim.com - modern Notion-like design.
• liangela.com/journal - personal journals are so powerful and intimate and inspiring.
• dustincurtis.com - it's a bit empty now. But it changes often and I've been following it for many years and like the style a lot.
• maurits.ch - beautiful collection of photos.
• alistair.sh - simple modern website that looks like geeky old school one.
• yihui.work - this one is easy for me because I love full screen 2 columns layouts.

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

Some of my current small tools: montaigne.io/products

Books -> anything by Neil Postman. He has unbelievable insights about technology on our lives.

Also The Dream Machine is an incredible book on the history of computing and early Internet.