Oxford Harrison

An early demo of my months-long work on LinkedQL. Below is a basic TODO app that runs on LinkedQL live queries and sync. (More details in the README: github.com/linked-db/link…)

i skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been

I have interviewed 1,000s of the world's best founders over the past decade. Few have impressed me like @ShivdevRao at @AbridgeHQ. He navigated a brutal 5-year wilderness before exploding into one of the most dominant forces in vertical AI. Today, Abridge is a $5.3BN powerhouse. I sat down with Shiv to unpack exactly how he did it and condensed my notes below: 🚀 6 Lessons on Building a $5.3B Vertical AI Juggernaut 1. Survive Long Enough for Market Timing to Catch Up: Abridge spent 5 years in the "wilderness" before hitting a tidal wave of adoption. When you have an absolute true north thesis, your primary job in the early days is simple: stay standing and don’t die. You must be alive when the sky finally opens up. 2. Pivot the Product, Never the Core Thesis: Shiv was willing to pivot on features, go-to-market strategies, and business models. But he refused to budge on his core thesis that healthcare is ultimately powered by the spoken human signal. Die on the hill of your thesis; adapt everything else. 3. Target the Concentration of Scale Early: A massive trap for healthcare and enterprise founders is staying down-market too long for "fast feedback loops". In the US, the vast majority of clinicians are concentrated within large, integrated delivery networks. Time your "YOLO shot" to go up-market the moment the market inflects. Single biggest advice to founders on when to go up market @bhalligan @dharmesh? 4. Own Your Stack to Protect Your P&L and UX: While many AI startups rely entirely on frontier systems, 40% of Abridge's model outputs are generated by in-house models. Milliseconds matter in high-stakes enterprise workflows. Building your own models gives you insane performance gains, lower latency, and ultimate control over your P&L. When should you vs should you not build your own model @matanSF @MaxJunestrand @antonosika? 5. Don't Fight Foundation Models—Counter-Position Instead If you try to fight the frontier model giants directly, you've already lost. You win by going millions of miles deep into regulated industries with proprietary datasets and workflows they can't easily replicate. Find ways to coexist and leverage their tailwinds. Reminds me of what @bradlightcap said on his 20VC. 6. Move Toward the "Flat Company" Era: With the explosion of AI agents and advanced tooling, the traditional management layer is compressing. Shiv’s latest idealistic shift is building a hyper-flat organization: fewer managers, and highly leverageable "Super ICs" who can move in lockstep and cover massive surface area. (link in comments)

@hnasr It's mad how that literal says LinkedQL 😅 That's a real thing I built: github.com/linked-db/link…

OOP and Databases don’t mix well. When you force them to mix, you get a lipstick. Also know as ORMs.

@TosinOlugbenga github.com/linked-db/link…

@antl3x @theo Yes, 100% We do intend to be more "automatic" about typesafety, however, as with TanStack's approach.

@Ox_Harris @theo @Ox_Harris github.com/adelsz/pgtyped can be an inspiration regarding types

Today, I've put LinkedQL up for design review. Curious what engineers think of our Live Query implementation: dev.to/oxharris/desig… @theo #PostgreSQL #SQL

@antl3x @theo One thing LinkedQL doesn't provide yet is code-level typesafety. But this is planned. Focus so far has been building the core idea: a query engine that lets you do more with SQL.

@antl3x @theo The idea instead is: object-relational mapping as a SQL feature. LinkedQL let's you traverse foreign keys from table to table all within the query, using simple arrow notations: ~>, <~. That's covered here: linked-ql.netlify.app/lang

@antl3x @theo Yes RLS 100% – See here: #visibility-and-security" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">linked-ql.netlify.app/realtime/live-… And yes, just PostgreSQL for now

@Ox_Harris @theo @Ox_Harris what about RLS, is supported? PostgreSQL only right?

@TosinOlugbenga For this too, we built DeepRefs: linked-ql.netlify.app/lang/deeprefs

Meanwhile you would see some database queries, and you will want to run mad…. Like, right and left joins everywhere. AI has made everything easier now.

@TosinOlugbenga 10mins in the rest room also often did magic

In those days, before AI. IF my code is not working, i will start praying and speaking in tongues so it can work...😂😂😂😂 The moment i walk away, to rest or sleep...something in my spirit will give me a clue and when i get back to my desk, i get the issue fixed AI has taken over now.

@MadeinNGOSS Coming soon to the list: LinkedQL github.com/linked-db/link…

You've used Nigerian-built software. You just didn't know. Chakra UI. Buzz. Colima. ImageAI. 260+ open source projects. Built in Nigeria. Used worldwide. Your Open Source project can be part of them #OpenSource #DevCommunity

@Una This is crazy. Long awaited

OoooOOooh! Guess what! As of Chrome 149, shape() works in shape-outside! So you can really *shape* your UI's 😉* rect() and xywh() are also supported for shape-outside in Chrome 149 *(just let me have my Mom joke)

@TosinOlugbenga Thank you @TosinOlugbenga . We're at design review stage. And my ask would be: could you help us get more engineers in your network to review the current shape? (I'd be more than glad.)

@Ox_Harris Interesting

A skilled SQL engineer can build almost an entire backend inside the DB. That’s why some backend engineers see application code as merely a transport layer. PostgreSQL alone is practically an application platform now. When you build your logics in the DB, you are optimizing for: 1. data integrity 2. transactional consistency 3. performance 4. security This approach is good for banking and financial applications.

@LeaVerou @openjsf Congrats Lea. Well deserved

Incredibly honored to have been awarded “Pathfinder for Standards” by @openjsf! 💛 Love the blurb too, made me blush! ☺️: “Lea is a rare person who has strong academic credentials, has helped create rigorous industry standards, but always focuses on the needs of real world users who have little patience with the underlying theory and mind-numbing detail. Furthermore she has spent much of her career in open source communities building products and services that make those theories and standards truly available to the web community.  During Lea's tenure on the W3C TAG, she not only contributed to the day to day work of design reviews and liaison with the JS standards community, but initiated new work to improve and explain the web's Design Principles to web developers.” Glad to have been able to receive it in person at #jsconf.

@EmmanuelBuilds @OPay_NG Wow. HTML & CSS? That's significant. Should u want an upgrade? OOHTML gives u just that. (github.com/webqit/oohtml)

It took me 8 hours to build this OPay UI clone from scratch using just HTML & CSS. 🧱🔥 couldn't get the exact icons, but I tried to get everything else as close as possible. What do you think of the design? @OPay_NG I can be of service to you! Let's talk #Frontend #CSS #HTML

@hthieblot I feel spotted. Here's a good first thing to look at: github.com/linked-db/link…

The next billion-dollar founder has 15 followers on X rn. I will find you & fund you!