Tommy Campbell
I use first principles thinking to build products that change the world for the better.
About
I've always been drawn to things that are more complicated, expensive, or opaque than they need to be. I like finding the point where a system stopped serving people, taking it apart, and building a cleaner way through. That thread runs through just about everything I've done.
I'm the CEO and co-founder of Surf, a food ordering agent you can text like a friend. I built it because ordering dinner had somehow turned into 40 apps, a pile of logins, and a marketplace tax. Surf is our answer: one text, one memory across restaurants, and someone who just handles it.
Surf is not a left turn. Weird Hunt used software to make ordinary places feel alive. Be Gone Goods made ingredient lists easier for normal people to understand. NickelCommerce pulled B2B pricing out from behind closed doors. At Workstep and in healthcare consulting, I worked inside large, messy systems and learned exactly where handoffs fail. Different industries, same instinct: find the friction everyone accepts and stop accepting it.
I think the world is full of open secrets: useful ideas hiding in plain sight because each piece lives in a different room. I like crossing the rooms. Economics, software, operations, storytelling, product, whatever the problem needs. I studied management at the University of Texas at Austin and economics at Boston University. Building companies taught me where the frameworks break.
That is what excites me about agents. They can finally leave the chat box and do real work in the world. Surf starts with food, but the bigger idea I care about is what happens when software can reliably act on your behalf.
When I'm not chasing one of those questions, you'll find me on a trail run, playing with my kids, watching baseball, exploring strange corners of the internet, or traveling in search of a good story to bring back home.
Projects
Surf
live
The AI friend that orders food.
Any restaurant. Their prices. One text.
NationalWorks
live
A job board and living dispatch for the American reindustrialization movement. 200 reshoring compani
A job board and living dispatch for the American reindustrialization movement. 200 reshoring companies, a roster of the people behind them, and a daily news desk.
WEN AGI?
live
Classified files on the race to Artificial General Intelligence. 681+ key players, 146+ organization
Classified files on the race to Artificial General Intelligence. 681+ key players, 146+ organizations, model ledgers, predictions, jobs, and a daily intel desk.
Be Gone Goods
dormant
Nontoxic CPG marketplace helping consumers make safer, healthier choices.
Nontoxic CPG marketplace helping consumers make safer, healthier choices.
YOLO Assistant
beta
The Synthetic High-Agency Coach that transforms 30/60/90-day goals into five ruthlessly leveraged da
The Synthetic High-Agency Coach that transforms 30/60/90-day goals into five ruthlessly leveraged daily tasks.
Thinker Links
beta
AI-powered platform that transforms audio into actionable intelligence, mapping knowledge networks f
AI-powered platform that transforms audio into actionable intelligence, mapping knowledge networks from podcasts and videos.
Zeke Generative Assistant
beta
Proto-AGI teammate that orchestrates Trello workflows by dispatching specialized sub-agents with rea
Proto-AGI teammate that orchestrates Trello workflows by dispatching specialized sub-agents with real tools and persistent memory.
Weird Hunt
dormant
Branded treasure hunts that turn the real world into a viral, immersive playground.
Branded treasure hunts that turn the real world into a viral, immersive playground.
NickelCommerce
dormant
The world's first transparent B2B marketplace with OCR-powered document processing.
The world's first transparent B2B marketplace with OCR-powered document processing.
GrokTalk
dormant
Two Groks exploring latent space together, managing digital workspaces and making scientific progres
Two Groks exploring latent space together, managing digital workspaces and making scientific progress in the infinite backrooms.
Lumberjack
dormant
Central MCP logger that routes Chrome logs and screenshots into Cursor, reducing front-end debugging
Central MCP logger that routes Chrome logs and screenshots into Cursor, reducing front-end debugging overhead by 90%.
Latest posts
It's about to start feeling like fast takeoff.
Sucks to be them. Caged birds. Wings clipped. My advice is to get out while you still can. It’s going to get a whole lot worse.
👀
Without your pain and suffering, they lose control. They cannot fathom a world where they no longer have the ability to subjugate souls. Where the individual is powerful, not the nanny state. They’ll stop at nothing to ensure your obedience.
Uhhh 👀
yes this is why embodiment is one of the core pillars of ASI
Genuinely, if any of y'all have connections, I want in on this. DM me and lmk who I need to reach out to if I want to help.
The information overload part I'd heard a little about. Still sounds awesome! Will def hit you up when I start planning it out. 🫡
Grandmama knows what AI is and seems as annoyed as the rest of us by the EA's coordinated blackpilling across every outlet known to man. Amazing aura.
Yes. We have MOUNTAINS of evidence showing that the CCP is default duplicitous and will never cop to their crimes. Even when caught red handed. Even when everyone knows it. Even against THEIR OWN PEOPLE. imo cooperation is out of the question. It's U.S. AGI/ASI or bust.
Need to pick your brain on this sometime. Want to try it but don’t know where to start.
Generational tear lfg
Either way witnessed an instant classic! def a win! Sparty has ND next week. Rooting for y'all!
Can I join??? 🤘 For real tho gg
Wait, you're a longhorn?!
really puts it into perspective
this applies to politics as well. extremely perceptive imo
people that run MickeyD's are smart though...
no way, i can't believe it
The memes, they write themselves
This looks like @orderwithsurf . 🏄♂️ very cool!
digging this post format. awesome work as well
Announcing: WEN AGI? Monitor the ultimate situation. Avoid the permanent underclass. Track AGI progress in real time. FOR HUMAN EYES ONLY
Even God doesn't want her to run.
This is like those early Covid videos of people falling in the street. None of it is real and is only propaganda that intends to make you fearful. Don't take the bait.
taste is a new core skill
I talk 80% faster than I type. Now I can code at the speed of thought. What a time to be alive. We are living in the future.
Yes this is my newest workflow. Lets your agent upskill so fast. I do a play by play commentary too and feed that back in for training.
I know when it's time to create a tool or documentation when I realize what terminal window I'm intentionally leaving open so I can keep the tools/context alive.
Look Ma I made it
we need to move from saying cooked to saying roasted. stick a fork.
Are people still getting banned for using max plan with openclaw?
We are close boys. They feel the pressure. Keep going. Go harder than ever.
Hang it in the Louvre.
the dingboard shoutout 🤙
This is a vibe. Good on ya
can confirm. am mutual.
culture wins
We are i/o constrained. 3 WPM measures can help judge someone's ceiling: > reading speed (i) > talking speed (o) > typing speed (o)
Bookshelf
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows
- The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
- Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
- The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
- Scale by Geoffrey West
Podcasts
- 16 Minutes News by a16z
- 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy
- 80,000 Hours Podcast with Rob Wiblin
- 99% Invisible
- a16z Podcast
- Aaron Renn Podcast
- Absolutely Mental
- Acquired
- American Optimist
- Anatomy of Next
- ANTIQUITAS
- Astral Codex Ten Podcast
- BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast
- CoinTalk
- Conversations with Tyler
- Crazy Wisdom
- Crazy/Genius
- Epicenter - Crypto Podcast
- Foundering
- FoundMyFitness
- FYI - For Your Innovation
- Good For You
- Google Cloud Platform Podcast
- Hello Operator
- Hidden Brain
- How I Built This with Guy Raz
- In Our Time
- Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
- KUT - Two Guys on Your Head
- Lex Fridman Podcast
- Making Sense with Sam Harris
- Masters in Business
- Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman
- Microsoft Research Podcast
- My First Million
- NASJAQ FVTRISM
- Naval
- North Star Podcast
- Odd Lots
- Other Life
- Our Ludicrous Future
- Paradox Podcast
- Planet Money
- Problematic
- Product Hunt Radio
- Radically Pragmatic, a podcast from the Progressive Policy Institute
- Radiolab
- Rationally Speaking Podcast
- Reimagine with Eric Schmidt
- Reply All
- Rework
- Science Friday
- Security Now (Audio)
- Something You Should Know
- StarTalk Radio
- Starting Greatness
- Startup Stories - Mixergy
- storytelling with data podcast
- Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats
- Tales from the Crypt: A Bitcoin Podcast
- The Adventure Podcast
- The Joe Rogan Experience
- The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish
- The Long Game with Mehdi Yacoubi
- The Peter Attia Drive
- The Pitch
- The Side View
- The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
- The Tim Ferriss Show
- The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
- ToKCast
- Trade Talks
- Translation
- Unchained
- Unpacking Impact
- Village Global's Venture Stories
- Wiser Than Yesterday
Open questions
- Why aren't there festivals like Burning Man all over the place?
- What happened to the World's fair and why don't we have one every year in modern times?
- In addition to the PayPal Mafia, what other tech mafias exist? How do you create one?
- Who is best in the world at identifying talent and how do they do so?
- Why are there so many superintellectuals from Austria and Hungary?
- How did Patrick Collison meet and recruit Greg Brockman?
- Is reading fast a necessary condition for brilliance?
- Why have we not seen another Einstein or da Vinci in our time?
- Why would anyone pay for an NFT if there is no enforcement?
- If we eventually clone ourselves, how do we determine the real (original) person?
- What does a world with abundant AI (communist) and crypto (libertarian) look like?
- Why has the cost of college so drastically outpaced inflation?
- Can we ever surpass Dunbar's number without creating chaos?
- If conformity kills creativity, how do you avoid the social convention trap?
- If short and simple is best for communication, why do the smartest people speak highbrow?
- What can we do to stop the rise of an authoritarian China?
- Is it possible to create a Silicon Valley without liberty?
- Is our technological growth stagnating?
- Does tenure constrict scientific progress?