What Pieter Levels thinks about design
Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.
Everything they publish, on ppll ↗
Pieter Levels did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
31 dated positions, 2018 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Pieter Levels has said — not written or endorsed by them.
The line under a date shows how recently it was said: empty within a month, full after three years.
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Their wordsIt's such a weird experience that I can now build things faster than I get new ideas for things
- 4 days earlier
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Their wordsThe response then to still grab attention is be different and that probably means IRL marketing videos that are original and unique and maybe personal
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsAlso crazy you can see World War 1 and more so World War 2 in the histogram of hotels year built on https://t.co/Q8UoUHN2cp https://t.co/H3cLj5XOtJ
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Their wordsUsually SaaS sales calls are to gauge how much you can spend and get you to spend the most money you could So it's like maximizing revenue and giving everyone a custom plan
- 2 days earlier
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Our readingStarlink's built-in WiFi is unreliable due to its compact design and internal router placement.
Their wordsYou can't rely on the Starlink WiFi too much because it's so compact and the WiFi router is INSIDE the dish, so if it's outside and you close the doors the signal isn't great
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsIt's not too difficult WeChat simply won't work for foreigners As a foreigner, you need another Chinese WeChat user to vouch for you with a QR code or it won't even let you sign up!
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsakchually you know RO removes ALL minerals, you HAVE to remineralize it
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsYes! Same in Brazil Very ugly buildings, very ugly outside, very ugly cities But inside they put all the investment into how it looks, interior design architects, fancy designs
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsrice, grains, seeds and potatoes all used to be peasant foods And the kings actually just ate a lot of fresh meat like beef, venison, wild boar, swan, and peacock, and imported fruits and spices like saffron, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper A king's diet was high in protein A peasant's diet was low in protein
- 1 day earlier
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Our readingSoftware is mostly dead; new Silicon Valley startups are building harness or hardware instead.
Their wordsIn the most early adopting tech pioneering place that's Silicon Valley new startups aren't even building software anymore And it's debatable if anyone will actually need a custom harness or it won't just be generically offered by the AI frontier companies So software is mostly dead and hardware it is
↗Y Combinator's batch only has harness or hardware startups, so software is mostly deadlevels.io
- 3 days earlier
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Their wordsbuilding personal homepages permanently disappeared for normies when Facebook launched ~2005
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Our readingBuilding anything has become quite trivial, so catching attention is now the most important skill.
Their wordsNow that building anything has become quite trivial, catching attention is now the most important skill I think
- 3 days earlier
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Their wordsThe smartest people I know have strong opinions weakly held and change them when new information arises The dumbest people I know keep their opinions the same just so they can remain consistent Time changes too fast try remain consistent, better to sail the waves to wherever they are taking you!
↗The smartest people I know have strong opinions weakly heldlevels.io
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Their wordsespecially with AI now I'd say anyone can try, and non-technical people with the best ideas, creativity/taste and understanding of whatever cultural zeitgeist we're in can win
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Their wordsThere's an illusion here though that anyone will make it, which I've never portrayed to be true, entrepreneurship is one of the most challenging endeavours, kinda like pro sports
- 6 days earlier
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Their wordsSo indie hackers are pivoting toward content, audience and distribution to find some moat, essentially becoming influencers
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Their wordsA regular boring but non-superficial SaaS app would do well 5 years ago but now it might not get anyone to sign up because it's so easy to vibe code by tens of thousands of other people
- 8 days earlier
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Our reading · no longer heldClaude Code is the coding agent to build with.
No longer holdsI won't use SnekAI but I'll probably switch to @xAI soon
SaidYou're treated like a child getting lootboxes just to be able to do your work while you pay massive amounts of money for extra usage tokens
↗Claude Code treats you like a child getting lootboxes so I'll probably switch to xAIlevels.io
- 6 days earlier
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Their wordsThe chart of housing affordability is almost a direct inverse of how many new homes are built It's that simple Build more houses!
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI'm seeing a trend here of declining revenue and traffic with indiehackers On my own projects too Maybe big VC products too but I wouldn't know cause they don't share revenue To me it seems clear BigAI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps
↗BigAI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps for indiehackerslevels.io
- 6 days earlier
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Our readingAI has equalised everyone: coding, building and execution are no longer a differentiator.
Their wordsSo AI has made everybody just as capable as everyone else, it equalized everyone in the world, as in everyone can make everything (software, music, images, art etc) now and everyone is equal, at least in the digital realm now
↗Superintelligence has passed us and we're all running after the carrotlevels.io
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Our reading · no longer heldNow that everyone can build apps with AI, distribution is the thing that separates who wins.
No longer holdsI thought it'd be distribution but who knows, obviously creativity and ideas, but if you can copy a successful app in an hour, then how does that differentiating work?
SaidI thought it'd be distribution but who knows, obviously creativity and ideas, but if you can copy a successful app in an hour, then how does that differentiating work?
↗Superintelligence has passed us and we're all running after the carrotlevels.io
- 3 days earlier
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Our readingRestricting US AI models does not work: China builds better ones and everyone switches to them.
Their wordsUS: restricts US AI model because too dangerous China: builds better Chinese AI model Everyone: switches to Chinese AI model This is why restricting models probably doesn't work, it's much more preferable (for US) to have everyone on US AI models so at least they can monitor what everyone is doing
↗US restricts AI models so China builds better ones and everyone switcheslevels.io
- 3 days earlier
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Their wordsAll you really need today to build a business is 100% free open source software that charges you $0/mo a VPS server an API to do some required AI stuff some R2/S3 file hosting
↗All you need to build a business is free open source software a VPS an AI API and R2/S3levels.io
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI think I've been coding almost solely on my VPS with Claude Code for almost a year now
↗I've been coding almost solely on my VPS with Claude Code for almost a year nowlevels.io
- 3 weeks earlier
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Our readingNow that everyone can build apps with AI, distribution is the thing that separates who wins.
Their wordsI think the challenge is that everyone can now build apps But 1) almost nobody has distribution (like an audience), or 2) the money to pay for distribution (ads or UGC), or 3) the creative genius to get distribution for free (classically called guerilla marketing)
↗Everyone can now build apps with AI so now distribution is the real challengelevels.io
- 22 months earlier
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Their wordsI think the hard part is figuring out what you shouldn’t add, what you shouldn’t build, because you don’t have time.
↗Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440youtube.com 3rd of 30 in this recording
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Their wordsSo, there’s obviously a monetary incentive here. We want to get a lot of developers to use this technology, and then we need to charge them money, because they’re going to use it in startups, and then the startups can pay for the bills.
↗Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440youtube.com 7th of 30 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd for society, if we want to save time, we should probably use the technology that’s simple, that’s pragmatic, that works, that’s not overly complicated, it doesn’t make your life like a living hell.
↗Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440youtube.com 8th of 30 in this recording
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Their wordsSo I only look, okay, what’s the next problem to solve? And then the next problem. And at the end you have a whole app or website or thing. But I think most people look way too far ahead.
↗Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440youtube.com 14th of 30 in this recording
- 7 years earlier
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Their wordsit's better to make things for yourself and solve your own problems, it has limitations as well but it means you're the expert on your own problem. The majority of people are trying to solve other people's problems.
↗Indie Hackers Podcast: Confronting fears and taking a leaplevels.io
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.