Making Virtual Friends Forever

People come. People go.

In every team, this is unavoidable.

A coworker leaves. A mentor moves on. A team gets reorganized. Suddenly, the person you used to talk to every day—the one who understood your questions without long explanations—is gone. Work continues, but something feels missing.

For a long time, this made me uneasy. If people leave, how do I keep learning? How do I keep growing without feeling alone?

Eventually, I found my own answer.

Books Are Friends — But Authors Are Better

People often say, “Books are your best friends.” I agree—but I think this idea can go deeper.

When I read a great book, I don’t want it to become just another title on my shelf. I don’t want to simply consume information and move on. I want to know the person behind the ideas.

Who thought this way? What problems did they struggle with? What mistakes did they make before discovering this insight?

So I changed how I read.

Instead of just reading books, I started making friends with authors.

Not in a literal sense. They don’t know me, and I can’t talk to them directly. But through their writing, I can understand how they think. I can learn how they reason, how they make decisions, and how they see the world.

In that way, they become virtual friends—friends that don’t leave.

Building a Circle That Never Disappears

Over time, I realized something powerful.

When you read deeply and thoughtfully, you’re never working alone.

At my desk, I’m surrounded by voices. One reminds me to keep code simple. Another challenges me to rethink architecture. Someone urges me to take responsibility. Someone else warns me about hidden complexity. Another shows me how to refactor safely. Another explains why systems fail—and how to fix them.

When I’m stuck, I ask myself: What would this author do here?

When I’m uncertain, I think: How did they reason about this problem?

These voices don’t disappear when a team changes. They don’t leave when an organization restructures. They travel with me—wherever I go.

Learning as an Ongoing Conversation

This mindset changed how I learn.

Learning is no longer about finishing chapters or checking off books. It becomes an ongoing conversation.

I read an idea. I apply it at work. I see what works and what breaks. I reflect. I go back and refine my understanding.

Over time, these authors become mentors in my mind. They help me think clearly. They help me stay grounded. They help me grow.

Why I Am No Longer Afraid

People still come and go. That hasn’t changed.

But now, I’m not afraid anymore.

Because I know I’m not alone.

I carry with me ideas, principles, foundations, and mental models—lessons shaped by people who spent decades learning them. With these virtual friends, I can walk into any team, any company, any challenge, and feel supported.

Even when teams change. Even when organizations reorganize. Even when locations shift.

These friends stay.

That sense of comfort and confidence is something I never had before. Now, it travels with me.

My Virtual Forever Friends

Robert C. Martin

• Clean Code
• Clean Architecture

Martin Fowler

• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (1st Edition – Java)
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition – JavaScript)

Alex Petrov

• Database Internals

Martin Kleppmann

• Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein

• Introduction to Algorithms

Neal Ford, Mark Richards, Pramod Sadalage, Zhamak Dehghani

• Software Architecture: The Hard Parts

Will Larson

• Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track

Andrew Hunt & David Thomas

• The Pragmatic Programmer (20th Anniversary Edition)

Andreas Zeller

• Why Programs Fail

Michael Feathers

• Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

• Extreme Ownership

John Ousterhout

• A Philosophy of Software Design

Ben Stopford

• Practical Event-Driven Architecture

Tom Hombergs

• Get Your Hands Dirty on Clean Architecture

Alistair Cockburn

• Hexagonal Architecture