welcome

hello! im johnny lin. i build products and am lucky to be born in this time.

i live in san francisco. you can say hi back to me at hi@johnnylin.co.

my products

• neuronpedia - accelerating ai alignment/interpretability research [tweet post]
• shortify - summarizer that works in every app, including youtube [product hunt]
• lockdown privacy - (now advisor) block trackers & ads [forbes zdnet 9to5mac]
• openly operated - a transparency standard for the internet [the verge]
• confirmed vpn - (-> lockdown privacy) openly operated vpn [techcrunch]
• berry browser - (inactive) dark-mode web browser [appadvice economic times]
• wifi widget - (inactive) a widget for your wifi [lifehacker]
• hemingboard - (inactive) keyboard with thesaurus, rhymes, puns [macstories]
• memoji - (inactive) before apple did a memoji, i did a memoji [the cut complex]

my writing & research

• planned parenthood suspends marketing trackers dec 2022 [washington post]
  • following overturn of roe, helped planned parenthood disable sending potentially incriminating health data (scheduling, location, procedure details) to third parties vulnerable to state subpoenas
• the button asking apps not to track you is a 'dud' sept 2021 [business insider]
  • if a third party service was recording your ip address and location every time you used an app, would you consider that "tracking"? apple doesn't.
• ‘privacy nutrition labels’ have a fatal flaw jan 2021 [fastcompany]
  • the nutrition labels are based on the honor system and never verified. apps intent on stealing your data can (and do) simply lie.
• virus scanner or malware? beware app store fakes jun 2017 [medium]
  • top ranking scam apps employed various tactics to fool users into paying hundreds of dollars a month. top story on medium for a few weeks, covered by cbs news, mashable, ibtimes, and others.

how i live

• find a meaningful thing to build, then building it
• avoid reading content i already agree with
• one quarter-caff coffee in the morning

some current beliefs

• i am super lucky
• doing stuff > complaining > not doing stuff
• nuance is important
• things worth reading should be read slowly
• books are outdated technology
• irony happens a lot

in my free time

• gardening
• stretching
• playing cello
• thinking
• interneting
• rearranging furniture

obligatory

• i used to work at apple and helped launch icloud. they had interesting challenges and terrific people, but i didn't find the goal very meaningful. my job was to reduce storage costs, which i described to friends as "clipping coupons for warren buffett".
• i went to brown university, a cool place with great people.
• i did policy debate in high school.