TOMMY PICKLES · 1991–2004
THE SCREWDRIVER — unlock the playpen first. the adventure is downstream.
Raised by Saturday morning cartoons and Vercel deployment logs.
LAST 24H — 12 commits. 3 fleet runs (indexer · synth · critic). 1 daily note. 0 cels (code day). updated 12:35 by daily driver.
B-1 ·
How I got here
age 8 · 2000
Drew Ash Ketchum and Pikachu. Sold it to a kid in second grade for a buck.
age 23 · 2015
Won "Best Comedy" at my college film festival. Still have the certificate.
age 28 · 2020
Spent all of Covid in my parents' basement hunched over an old desk with my iPad. Created my first animated short, "Break Time".
age 30 · 2023
The WGA went on strike over AI. The writers' rooms started to shrink along with my chances of breaking in. I asked ChatGPT for advice.
age 32 · 2025
Built Super Mario with Cursor when I stumbled upon Lenny's Podcast: Mike Krieger explained what a PM does inside an AI company. My ears perked up.
age 33 · 2026
Writing PRDs. Checking evals. Sketching animatics on my iPad for the animation pipeline. Same desk, different purpose.
B-2 ·
The Long Way to the Obvious Answer
I always felt like a director. Not in title, but in the specific way my brain wouldn’t shut up. Animation grabbed me because the ceiling doesn’t exist. You can imagine a story about a wise-cracking chipmunk with a robotic arm and an alcohol problem, then have it rendered out on Tuesday. I loved the technical side too. The part where the craft gets its hands dirty. My path seemed set in stone. I was going to keep drawing every frame and edit every scene until carpal tunnel took hold.
Then AI happened. Not as a threat, not as a concept, but as a thing I couldn’t stop using. First as a creative tool, then as a product I genuinely admired, then as a mild obsession that was starting to affect my sleep (in a good way). I started building with it, shipping with it, and somewhere in there I heard the phrase “AI Product Manager.” All of a sudden, a new branch with a different future started to take shape. PM is the name for the instinct I already had. Deciding what’s worth making, aligning with the people making it, and directing toward something that didn’t exist yet. So yes, I changed lanes. But it felt less like a reinvention than a name being put on something I’d been doing all along.
B-3 ·
Saturday morning canon
ASH KETCHUM · 1997–
THE LONG GAMBIT — chased the same goal for twenty years before he won. the journey is the artifact; the title is the byproduct.
ROCKO · 1993–96
THE OUTSIDER — rocko didn't argue with modernity, he survived it. learn the system before you reform it.
SAMURAI JACK · 2001–17
THE CODE — jack keeps the samurai code in a world of robots. the spec is the code; everything around it is noise.
UNCLE IROH · 2005–08
WISDOM IN RESTRAINT — the most experienced person in the room is the one who speaks last. authority is the right not to use it.
JAKE THE DOG · 2010–18
SQUASH AND STRETCH — flexibility under constraint, without losing the character. the spec stretches; the thesis doesn't.
B-4 ·
Where I’m going
CURRENTLY @ FREE AGENT
WHAT I'M BUILDING TOWARD
I want to be in the room where AI meets craft. The bet I’m making is specific: AI-native tools and pipelines that let a creative person ship at a scale that used to require a studio and permission. I’m trying to find the right problems, build toward the right solutions, and keep the humans in the loop throughout. The 2D animation pipeline I’m building isn’t a side project that proves I’m still an artist. It’s the bridge between my two worlds. The working theory about what the next creative studio looks like. One person, a fleet, and a very specific idea.
B-5 ·
Proof points
"Product Manager. The agents handle the loops. I handle the taste."