It’s a beautiful day. How have you been?
I feel like I moved faster than ever during the first half of this year. I can't believe it's already July; time has flown by. I have accomplished a lot, faced some failures, and am currently in the middle of new attempts.
I am moving toward a world of survival where everything can change overnight. I hope to keep moving forward steadily without falling behind, and ultimately, to survive.
Leaving Bohol
As I mentioned in last year's annual letter, Bohol in the Philippines is a wonderful place. It is arguably one of the best marine environments in the world. I spent about a year and a half working as a scuba instructor in these waters. It feels like a long time, but looking back at the numbers, it was actually quite brief. During this time, I gained diverse diving experiences and had a great time. Most importantly, I met Jia, the person I promise to spend the rest of my life with.
My final days in Bohol leave me with mixed feelings. It was bittersweet, and I sometimes wonder if there might have been a better path. Yet, I believe it was the best choice available to me at the time. I have no regrets.
In January of this year, I wrapped things up and returned to South Korea. I spent about two months resting, eating delicious food, meeting friends, and spending quality time with my family. I even took on a part-time job—something I never thought I would do—making the most of my brief stay in Korea.
At the same time, I prepared for a working holiday in Australia. I wanted to experience living there. I wanted to challenge myself as a diving instructor entirely on my own, without relying on anyone else. So, Jia and I prepared for our working holiday visas, which would allow us to live and work legally in the country.
Diving Is Tough!
Jia and I arrived in Australia in March, entering through Cairns, Queensland. Cairns is a city ideally located for taking boat trips to the Great Barrier Reef, a world-famous diving destination. Fortunately, I managed to secure an interview for a diving instructor position, but in the end, I couldn't get the job.
I couldn't ignore the language barrier. The shop where I interviewed focused primarily on introductory diving, and since it was the off-season, basic English proficiency was critical. Rather than focusing on diving skills or teaching quality, they needed someone who could practically provide service while conducting introductory dives and snorkel tours. With no Korean-targeted diving resorts around, working as a diving instructor was simply not viable in many ways.
Because we couldn't afford to take our time looking for work, we quickly moved to our next plan. We decided on farm work and headed to Atherton, which is close to Cairns. However, things did not go as planned, and a few weeks later, we had to relocate again. That was how we ended up in Bowen.
Jochheim’s Bakery Cafe
Bowen is a small, quiet countryside town in northern Queensland. It is historically known among Koreans as a place to find work on tomato farms. Located right by the coast, it’s also a perfect spot to relax and heal while gazing at the ocean.
At first, we waited for calls to work on the farms, but securing a farm job proved difficult. Strangely, there were no Korean contractors, and the local business scene in Bowen was very different from what we had heard. The farm work didn't seem as bustling, and it felt like fewer people were visiting Bowen than before.
Fortunately, we had distributed our resumes in the hospitality sector before the farm season kicked off. As a result, we were lucky enough to land jobs at Jochheim’s Bakery. I worked from 2:00 AM to 10:00 AM, Monday through Friday, and from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM on Saturdays, receiving a stable wage. The bakery put its own unique spin on authentic Australian meat pies, sausage rolls, and various baked goods, and I learned to make them alongside the team. The work was incredibly fun, and I learned so much. I built wonderful relationships, and though it was a short period, it was a deeply rewarding time for me. I gained a great deal of input and output from this experience.
Returning to Development
Since the start of this year, I have returned to development. In the past, I had built and managed personal and resort websites, but I had never created a commercial product or something born purely out of personal necessity. Armed with my previous experience, and now with the dawn of agentic coding, I was able to multiply my development productivity.
To be clear, I am not looking to get a job in development again at this stage. As I have mentioned before, making development my career is something that requires serious thought, and I don't think I will return to the front lines. Still, it feels good to have picked up a fun hobby after such a long time.
Recently, I have been preparing two services, and I poured a tremendous amount of effort into the first one. It originally started as a project to help me study, but now I plan to launch it commercially. Developing again after a long break was challenging from the very start—even setting up the environment presented hurdles—and I faced plenty of trial and error. However, by leveraging AI agents in my own way, I am steadily building the service. I also want to quickly build and deploy the second service to gauge the market's reaction. Even if I fail, my goal is to fail fast and move on to the next challenge.
English
It's my biggest bottleneck. Since arriving in Australia, I've been trying to study English as much as I can, but I haven't seen any dramatic improvements. It doesn't help that I'm not much of a talker by nature, nor do I have any particular desire to make new friends.
I get by on personal study and the bits of English I speak at work. In Bohol, I rarely used English and felt no real purpose to study it. Here, however, I study a little every day out of sheer survival. It is the same reason I began translating my previously Korean-only writings into English.
Still, after about three months of consistent study, I am starting to understand and speak a little more. I hope I can communicate more effectively in English this year.
Health
Health is always the ultimate asset.
I don't remind myself of this sentence every day, but reflecting on it like this once every six months is a great help.
In fact, I have cut down on alcohol significantly this year, and I am trying to eat healthy meals prepared with good ingredients, just as I used to. We eat out occasionally, but most of the time we cook at home. Selecting fresh, quality ingredients is always a pleasure.
Last year, I worked out, if only briefly, but now I don't set aside dedicated time for exercise. I get my daily exercise through my work. Fortunately, having worked out for a long time, my body has internalized how to use my muscles properly. This naturally keeps me healthy and free of pain.
I should start working out again. Soon, I plan to establish a routine to move my body, even if it's just a hobby.
Acknowledgments
This letter feels like the quickest and most naturally written one so far. I always want to write less and convey more, but it has turned into a long piece. I hope to convey more stories even more compactly in my next annual letter.
I was inspired to take the leap and apply for this Australian working holiday by someone I met back in Europe. Although I vaguely knew about the program, I didn't know anyone around me who had actually gone through with it. Thank you for leading me to this new journey.
Above all, my deepest gratitude goes to Jia, who planned and has been sharing this new journey with me.
I am always grateful to my friends and family.
As always, I am able to live this life thanks to so many people around me. Even if we are a bit slow, I hope we can walk together. I wish peace to everyone.
I close this letter with the quotes that have deeply resonated with me over the past six months.
Farewell for now.
If you intend for an artifact to have a long lifespan (ex: software, a novel, a movie), then AI might still aid you in your creative process. But you will bring great intention to the work. You will think through many different approaches. You will care about the smallest of details. You will lean into the craft. Because if you don't, it won't be good enough to last. It won't be noticed. It won't be loved. It won't matter.
- Dylan Field, Figma CEO
AI will be the most powerful tool for expanding human capability and potential that anyone has ever seen. Demand for this tool will be essentially uncapped, and people will do incredible things with it. The world deserves huge amounts of AI and we must figure out how to make it happen.
AI has to be democratized; power cannot be too concentrated. Control of the future belongs to all people and their institutions. AI needs to empower people individually, and we need to make decisions about our future and the new rules collectively. I do not think it is right that a few AI labs would make the most consequential decisions about the shape of our future.
- Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO
Specifically, consumers don’t want to work, and don’t really care about being productive.
This reality about the consumer market is a lesson that Silicon Valley has to re-learn every decade or so. Consider Dropbox, whose founder, Drew Houston, is in the process of stepping down. Dropbox was a category-defining product that had a viral hook — if someone signed up with your referral code, you got more storage — and grew extremely fast amongst consumers; the company then spent too long trying to actually build a business in the consumer space, before finally realizing that the only way to make money with what was ultimately a productivity product was by selling to enterprise.
- Stratechery, <The iPhone’s Last Stand>
Q. How does a leader in a story-driven world differ from a traditional leader?
A. In my view, a leader is someone who finds a beautiful, captivating sentence and uses it to inspire and persuade their team. When I was 24, we were developing Cookie Run for Kakao. It was a tiny team of about ten people. Since the chances of failure were high, the pay and benefits were terrible. What do you think was in the minds of these young people, living in a tent on top of a shipping container and cooking rice in a basic electric cooker? It was the belief that we were building something truly special—the feeling that we were writing our own life stories. A compelling story fosters deep immersion, and when you are fully immersed, you start to visualize the scenes you want to see. Back then, there were only ten of us; today, about eight hundred people share that same vision. What I learned in my twenties is that the power of a single sentence and the size of a dream are what matter most. In 2009, during Cookie Run for Kakao, a seemingly far-fetched goal united us: "Let’s create a mobile game played by people all over the world." Today, that goal is: "Let's build a 100-year IP legacy." By crafting a beautiful, compelling sentence—even if it seems impossible—you can align and move everyone together. A powerful narrative is what builds organizational strength.
- Eunji Lee, Chief IP Officer (CIPO) of Devsisters
The past is as unevenly distributed as the future. What has been erased from the past affects the present as tenaciously as what survives.
- Rebecca Giggs, Fathoms: The World in the Whale