q/a

Why don’t you have LinkedIn?

Interestingly, I created my LinkedIn account around 2012, just a couple years into high school—well before it became mainstream. But honestly, the platform promotes a culture of constant self-presentation, one that feels inauthentic, and something you feel pressured to engage with. And the pressure to conform, only makes me less inclined to do so; even knowing that it puts at a severe disadvantage compared to others.

It’s also about privacy, which to me, is a fundamental principle—one increasingly under threat in an age of rampant data exploitation. Sharing personal and professional information online not only seems careless but also feeds into systems designed to profile individuals, track behaviors to refine algorithms for engagement and ads, drive invasive technologies, etc.

Furthermore, I prefer to have control over who sees my career and achievements. It’s not about being secretive, but about exercising discretion and autonomy over my own narrative.

The constant drive for visibility and external validation, amongst many other issues, often feels counterproductive and misaligned with my principles.

Did you make this website?

Yes, this website was built using Hugo as the foundational framework; the CSS and styling mostly done from scratch [later iterations reference tufte-css].

The goal was to create a minimalistic aesthetic by avoiding the unnecessary elements that clutter many modern websites—things like excessive JavaScript or an overemphasis on ‘responsive design’.

For guidance on specific configurations of Hugo, I have referred to the Hugo Bear Blog Theme.