## Metadata - Author: [[Benn Stancil]] - Full Title:: Gas Town - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://benn.substack.com/p/gas-town - Read date:: [[2026-01-31]] ## Highlights > Everyone is [six months from being dead](https://benn.substack.com/p/do-ai-companies-work#:~:text=Every%20LLM%20vendor%20is%20eighteen%20months%20from%20dead.), the clock is ticking, and all you can do is run. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kg9md83ahyzj9xz2fekfcrrk)) > But it is a *collective* progress, of distributed bets. Most of our work will be waste—random mutations fed into the evolutionary maw; ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kg9mdjkvesr4k22ahws56z7j)) > Is that how dents are made? Mighty swings and audacious bets? Or is that just the story we tell ourselves? Are we even in the arena at all? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kg9mepx8w42tb7vs3rbwt1g2)) > I have lived both lives, a bit. I spent a [decade swinging](https://benn.substack.com/p/ambition-then-and-now), as big and hard as I could. And I spent a few short months on [something else](https://benn.substack.com/p/live-like-youre-dying)—safely, comfortably, out of the cold and behind a screen, in a trivial, insignificant corner, but on the field for a cause I cared about. > I have written [posts](https://benn.substack.com/p/9-9-6-0) about [both](https://benn.substack.com/p/no-better-room). Only one is about regret. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kg9mt518ftms4fjed2t9gwbf))