I miss email
March 10, 2026
I still occasionally get an email from someone I’ve never met who wants to have a conversation over email in a genuine way. Most common are users of my open source projects who don’t know about GitHub, but still want to talk about a feature suggestion or to say thank you. Other genuine emails I get are from old Giant Bomb fans. Even though I haven’t worked on the site for a dozen years, they still have fond memories and want to chat. Usually it’s from a now adult who grew up with the site as a teenager, and inspired by my work there, did the insane thing of going on to work in technology themselves. The last category of genuine emailers are old friends or coworkers. We don’t use the same social networks, so email is all we’ve got left, and it’s nice to check in async. Your dog is cute. We don’t drink as much as we used to.
I love these interactions. I love writing real responses to others, answering questions as honestly as I can. Unfortunately these moments are extremely rare now. I’m not the first to say it, but email is dying, or at least email as a communication tool is dying. In its place we now have email as authentication, email as order or delivery tracking, and email as marketing. Occasionally you need to get a new job or do your taxes and need email. I’d say that for every five-hundred emails I get, one of them is addressed to me personally and expects a real response. The rest are just trying to get something out of me. Still I check. I live for the banter.
Today I got a harmless email from someone I didn’t know that wanted to “connect”. I initially read it quickly on my phone, and thought, cool, someone who appreciates my work. I’ll respond on my Desktop later. Once I looked a little closer and had the ability to hover the links I realized… oh, it’s just spam, and my least favorite type of spam: the “personal” note.
I don't think it's important who sent this email. I get so many like them.
Emails that look personal, but are actually mass-delivered are a pet peeve of mine. Considered “growth hacks” they all share the same structure. This one is targeted at me because of something I posted to Hacker News, but I’ll very regularly get something similar whenever I sign up for a new service.
- They look like they are hand written because they are just text. No images or formatting.
- They entice through a sense of pedigree. “I’m the CEO”, “Former Engineer from Google”, “We just closed a round”.
- They mention something that seems personal as if you’ve been noticed, but is actually extremely general. “I was looking at your GitHub”, “Saw you on Twitter”, “Noticed you signed up”.
- The reason they reached out is always very vague. “Have time to meet?” without any known topic.
- Any links in them are tracked.
This particular email hit all the targets. Let’s go through them individually for a breakdown.
I’ve spent the last decade leading teams at Uber and Stripe, and was Eng #1 at █████.
I am more important than you. You likely don’t know who my last company was (hint: it’s crypto), but you likely recognize these other companies I worked at in some capacity. They are big companies.
AI healthcare company
This can be anything. Usually it combines something familiar to you. “We’re the X of Y”. These days “AI” is so pervasive, it’s almost an adjective for any noun. I can leave AI healthcare un-redacted, and there are likely a dozen places this could be from.
backed by █████ ($40M raised)
It is extremely common for startups to use money raised in absence of real status. Again, you haven’t heard of us, but we raised a lot of money from other things you may have heard of, so we are legit.
I came across your work on Show HN
You did? What did you like about it? What did I show that made you want to reach out?
thought you might enjoy some of the problems we’re working through.
Are you trying to hire me? Or build awareness of your thing? Or just make your visits go up. Just say what you want.
Open to a quick chat this week or next?
No matter how you respond to this email. They will respond with a calendly link.
I miss email. I miss talking with random people on the Internet about their projects. Recently I’ve made a few new Internet friends, but it’s harder than it used to be. Anyways. If you’ve hit the end of this post, you may as well send me an email. Tell me what you’re excited about! I’ll probably respond. I’m a sucker for conversation after all.