profile

Eugene Yan

Some Paradoxical Rules of Writing

Published 11 months ago • 1 min read

Hey friends,

A very short email this week. I've been thinking a lot about writing lately and I've come to realize that there are a lot of rules, and at the same time no rules, about writing.

I appreciate you receiving this, but if you want to stop, simply unsubscribe.

• • •

  • use simple words to be clear and concise
  • use complex words to be sharp and precise

​

  • write short sentences for the punch
  • write long sentences to convey nuance

​

  • spend 80% effort on an intro that hooks
  • skip the intro, just get into the nooks

​

  • write for a wide audience to maximize reach
  • write for an audience of one—dive into a niche

​

  • write about something that may seem plain
  • write about something that’s outright arcane

​

  • write what’s widely known in a fresh way
  • write what no one cares about or dares say

​

  • make it easy to read but hard to forget
  • make it deep and detailed so readers sweat

​

  • condense wisdom into 120 words that zing
  • expand over 12,000 words and let your thoughts sing

​

  • write without publishing to hone your craft
  • hit publish even though it still feels like a draft

​

  • emulate the style of others to learn and grow
  • find and hone your voice and let it flow

​

  • spend weeks and months polishing a piece
  • ship something in hours, just release

​

  • ask for feedback to gain the wisdom of the crowd
  • trust your inner voice and think out loud

​

  • follow the rules
  • break the rules

​

Eugene Yan

Applied Scientist @ Amazon, Writer & Speaker, Operator-Angel

I build ML, RecSys, and LLM systems that serve customers at scale, and write about what I learn along the way. Join 7,500+ subscribers!

Read more from Eugene Yan

Hi friends, I got nerdsniped when I first heard about Semantic IDs. The idea is simple: Instead of using random hash IDs for videos or songs or products, we can use semantically meaningful tokens that an LLM can natively understand. I wondered, could we train an LLM-recommender hybrid on the rich behavioral data that makes today’s recommender systems so effective? I appreciate you receiving this, but if you want to stop, simply unsubscribe. • • • 👉 Read in browser for best experience (web...

22 days ago • 17 min read

Hey friends, I've been thinking a lot about evals for long-context Q&A since building aireadingclub.com and wrote an introduction here. It covers (i) key evaluation metrics, (ii) how to generate questions for Q&A evaluation datasets, (iii) how to build LLM-evaluators to assess Q&A performance, and (iv) a review of several existing benchmarks. I hope you find it useful. P.S. If you want to learn more about evals, my friends Shreya and Hamel are hosting their final cohort of “AI Evals for...

4 months ago • 20 min read

Hey friends, I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately—what is it that makes some leaders so good that teams want to follow their lead? After some reflection, I came to three key points on leadership qualities, behaviors, and styles. Enjoy! I appreciate you receiving this, but if you want to stop, simply unsubscribe. • • • 👉 Read in browser for best experience (web version has extras & images) 👈 What makes an exceptional leader? Vision: They can foresee not only what will change, but...

5 months ago • 3 min read