PinnedJohn Wang·Jun 10, 2021My startup journeyHow I “failed” at a YC startup, worked at early Stripe, and then raised $20MA response icon1A response icon1
John Wang·Aug 6, 2025Why blocking LLMs from your website is dumbPerplexity was recently accused of scraping sites that had explicitly disallowed LLM crawlers in their robots.txt files. In the wake of…A response icon1A response icon1
John Wang·May 30, 2024Better RAG results with Reciprocal Rank Fusion and Hybrid SearchThe problem with vector-only search
John Wang·Aug 30, 2023How we built Assembled’s New Products TeamFour months ago, we embarked on a journey to create a new AI-powered product at Assembled. While there are many ways to launch a new…
John Wang·Jun 30, 2023Database abstractions for GolangAt Assembled, we’ve been using Golang as our exclusive backend language since our founding in 2018. We run a pretty standard web…A response icon2A response icon2
John Wang·Jun 16, 2023Product lessons from Dan Robinson (ex-CTO of Heap)At Assembled, we’ve made it our mission to have a culture of continuous learning. We’ve been inviting the best minds from the startup space…
John Wang·Sep 1, 2015The story of TaylorMy generation adores Taylor Swift. She’s a millennial icon who seems to perfectly blend feminism and the traditional pop-star mystique…
John Wang·Jul 9, 2015Billionaires don’t drive FerrarisThe other day, I walked by the front gate of one of the wealthiest parts of San Francisco. Houses in the area routinely sell for $10…
John Wang·May 24, 2015Why you should write in your booksWhen I was a kid, I would never highlight sentences or write in the margins of my books. I figured that I should keep my possessions in…
