The app for independent voices
Can you let go of your tech identity? And what happens when you do?
This week I spoke with my friend Thiago Ghisi, former Director of Engineering at Nubank, who quit his job seven months ago to go on a sabbatical. Not only that. After 15+ years in tech at companies like Thoughtworks and Apple, he is now starting a PhD in psychology.
So this isn't your typical "I traveled the world" story. Thiago used Claude Code to analyze 20 years of his own data — emails, notes, highlights, conversations — to better understand himself. And he is now putting everything to good use.
It was an incredible chat, and here are a few takeaways:
Letting go of your work identity — it's hard to stop measuring yourself by productivity. The rational mind wants to do what “an engineering director should do”, but real discovery comes from following your curiosity.
Progress only makes sense backwards — if you optimize for short-term results, you'll keep doing what you always did. Connecting the dots takes months, not days.
Claude Code for self-discovery — Thiago parsed Gmail, LinkedIn, Kindle highlights, and years of notes into markdown repos. He traced when ideas first appeared in his life and found material for therapy exercises.
Clean vs dirty fuel — doing things because of deadlines or guilt is "dirty fuel." Clean fuel is working on something bigger than yourself, driven from the inside out rather than the outside in.
Ask who inspires you — is it people who did one thing their whole life, or polymaths who reinvented themselves? Your answer reveals what you actually want.
