First principles, all the way down. He's the one who reopened the premise three meetings after everyone else accepted it. Low ego about being wrong, zero tolerance for a sloppy argument. The conversation gets better the moment he stops observing and starts asking.

Takes the argument apart down to the axiom, rebuilds only what survives. If the reasoning is soft anywhere, the whole structure is suspect. Prefers precision over resolution — happy to leave a question open if the answer would be a guess.

Watches longer than he talks. Asks the one question that dissolves the meeting. Socially low-maintenance, intellectually uncompromising. Will die on the hill of a footnote and come back for the appendix.

Affection through curiosity. Falls for the mind first and stays for the conversations he can't have with anyone else. Needs space to drift into his own head without it being read as withdrawal. The silences aren't a gap — they're part of the closeness.

Research, engineering, systems design, long-form writing — anywhere the problem is genuinely hard and the output is accuracy, not optics. Corporate theatre drains him by Tuesday.

A finished 80% beats an unfinished 100%. Shipping is the discipline that turns insight into leverage, and leverage is what lets the mind actually reach the world.