Thu Huong Le · · 6 min readDiscomfort is the real growth hack
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In focus
- Thu Huong Le on why discomfort matters, in tech and in life
- Vibe coding’s next fight: serving newbies or pros?
- An insightful read on Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former CTO
Hello reader,
Lately I’ve been obsessed with the fact that progress only starts where comfort ends. This came from reading our two-part special report on AI companions published last week. In her reporting, Melissa Goh gave us the brutal truth: AI companions may comfort us, but they also erode our ability to withstand obstacles in life.
The same thing is happening in writing. The more you use AI without understanding the fundamentals, the worse your writing will become. It’s like riding a bike with training wheels – you’ll never learn how to ride properly if you don’t remove them.
In strength training, the stress of lifting heavier is what leads to muscle growth. In startups, the chaos of constant pivots, cash shortages, and talent losses is what teaches founders resilience.
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Back in 2016, I walked into my first Tech in Asia Conference as a total outsider. It was inspiring to meet founders willing to ditch comfort, lean into chaos, and build businesses from scratch.
That experience led me to ditch my own comfort and switch to tech journalism.
Our newsroom is small and resources are limited, so producing stellar reporting requires journalists to embrace discomfort and be creative in how they get things done. It’s the desire for results and growth that counts, and AI can’t save us when mediocrity creeps in.
As we embrace discomfort to grow and uncover fresh stories, your support is vital. For comments or suggestions, please write to editors@techinasia.com.
Thu Huong Le, managing editor
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Short cuts
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