welcome
hello! im johnny lin. i build products and am incredibly lucky to be born in this time period.
i live in san francisco. you can say hi back to me at hi@johnnylin.co.
my products
- 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]
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 incredibly lucky
- doing stuff > complaining > not doing stuff
- nuance is super important
- things worth reading should be read slowly
- (semi-hot take) books are outdated technology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 wonderful place with all sorts of incredible people.
- i did policy debate in high school.