The wheel of technology
Lately, I’ve noticed a familiar pattern in many tech communities.
Whenever someone, especially a group of students, shares a new project, the same comment often appears:
“Another person reinventing the wheel.”
Honestly, I don’t know how successful those people are or how capable they truly are. But one thing I do notice is that many of them choose to hide behind anonymous accounts, using invisible identities to judge the efforts of others.
Every time I see a group of students struggling to build an early-stage project, I’m reminded of my younger self — a version of me filled with dreams, energy, and a fair amount of naivety.
It also reminds me of something I once wrote:
“Young people, effort, dreams, and the price we pay for them.”
No one is born talented.
No one is born knowing everything.
No one enters life already holding all the answers.
Everything we know today is built upon a very simple process:
Experiment → Fail → Learn → Repeat.
We keep moving and eventually we’ll make mistakes.
We keep making mistakes and eventually we’ll get things right.
But if we never dare to begin, perhaps we’ve already failed from the very start.
From Loop Engineering to Life Itself
Recently, I’ve been exploring a concept called Loop Engineering.
In the AI world, things are changing.
For a long time, people tried to make AI smarter by writing longer prompts, adding more context, and providing increasingly detailed instructions.
But now, the leverage has shifted.
Instead of manually typing every instruction, people are building systems that allow AI to work through loops.
AI receives a task.
AI executes it.
AI verifies the outcome.
AI learns from its mistakes.
AI repeats the process until it reaches its goal.
And then I realized something fascinating.
Human beings are living inside a very similar loop.
Perhaps life itself is one giant Loop Engineering system.
Learn.
Experiment.
Fail.
Correct yourself.
Grow.
Then enter a new loop at a higher level.
We are not wrong.
We are simply in the middle of a loop that’s making us better.
Creativity has never fallen from the sky.
It is built from hundreds of small failures, dozens of small successes, and thousands of continuous iterations.
Steve Jobs didn’t appear on day one as a legend at Apple.
No one starts life with a complete map in their hands.
The only difference between those who leave a mark and those who stand outside criticizing others is this:
They dare to start their own loop.
Reinventing the Wheel Isn’t Always a Bad Thing
So whenever I see an early-stage project, an imperfect product, or a group of young people trying to build something, instead of asking:
“Why are they reinventing the wheel?”
Maybe we should ask:
“Do you need any help?”
Because sometimes, the value doesn’t lie in creating something that has never existed before.
The value lies in walking the journey yourself and understanding why it exists in the first place.
Only those who have built something with their own hands truly understand this:
Every time we reinvent the wheel, we gain a deeper understanding of how the world actually works.
Maybe that’s why I never underestimate early projects.
Because everything great in this world was once an awkward first version.
A startup was once just an idea.
A product was once just an experiment.
A system was once only a few lines of code.
An expert was once a beginner.
The Greatest Lesson Loop Engineering Has Taught Me
The most beautiful thing Loop Engineering has taught me is not how to build AI.
It is how to rethink life itself.
In software engineering, there’s a mindset I really like:
“The repo remembers, the mind forgets.”
Repositories remember.
Human beings forget.
Life works the same way.
Every failure.
Every wrong decision.
Every time we have to start over.
None of them truly disappear.
They become data for our next iteration.
They allow us not to start from zero, but to inherit and optimize the previous version of ourselves.
Only insecure people use failure or someone else’s inexperience to define their worth.
Truly strong people understand that they were once beginners too.
We don’t lack creativity.
We don’t lack ideas.
We don’t lack people capable of building extraordinary things.
Sometimes, what we lack is simply the courage to begin, because we’re surrounded by self-appointed judges who are always ready to criticize those who are trying.
Don’t just react to life.
Design your own loop.
Accept imperfections.
Accept failures.
Set your own standards.
And keep moving forward.
Because in the end, the most important question remains:
If you never try, how will you know what’s right or wrong?
But perhaps there’s an even more important question:
If you never begin, how will you ever have the chance to enter the loop that turns you into a better version of yourself?
The shortcut to success isn’t avoiding failure. It’s failing early, learning fast, and continuing to iterate.
Build the loop. Stay the engineer.