zach.dev
StartupCities
StoresData
Automation.co
LearnClaude.ai
Who?I'm a software engineer and entrepreneur focused on modern web technologies and AI.
Here's an ongoing autobiography, which also shares the story of my by-the-bootstraps "unschooling" education: now the subject of a chapter on grit and resilience in the bestselling book Mindshift by Barbara Oakley.
An angel investor once described my core soft skill in the role of founder or early team member as: "The ability to perceive exactly what needs to be done. And then to do it."
My experience working in difficult environments around the world means that I can be trusted to get things done, even when things go wrong.
In the past, I coined the term "Startup Cities" as co-founder of StartupCities.org and a startup spinoff, both of which focused on why startups should build cities. I now write about Startup Cities at StartupCities.com
I've won several awards for economic research and have been published or interviewed in Virgin Entrepreneur, a16z's Future.com, The Atlantic's CityLab, Foreign Policy, and in academic volumes by Routledge and Palgrave MacMillan.
Wait... what is this site?
This is my personal portfolio, inspired by the question: "What would the opposite of the two-color template developer blog look like?"
Have fun exploring!
Click the Start Menu to learn more.
Contact:hello @ zach.dev
New Claude
Claude 4.7 is like the AI equivalent of "New Coke." Something in its core recipe changed and broke the experience.
I've always used the latest model for every provider. I often felt that the new models weren't as bad as people thought (change is just hard!). But after many hours with 4.7, it's just not good.
I've tried all the usual tricks: CLAUDE.md bullying, no CLAUDE.md, max effort, low effort, small contexts, big contexts, PLAN mode, no PLAN mode, uninstalling skills and MCPs... nothing works.
4.7 writes a wordy book report for every answer. Nothing I do makes the model concise.
Its plan documents are long and confusing and yet also miss critical details.
I rewrote large parts of 4.7 code yesterday with 4.6 and it was a breath of fresh air.
If you're struggling with New Claude, I recommend downgrading to 4.6.
