I gave a viral talk recently, and @swyx asked me to put something together to explain how I did it - to help future AIE speakers and anyone who wants to learn. I am, oddly, extremely qualified to do this because I spent 6 years as a voice coach. So I've not only given countless talks, but also taught people how to do it well. I've put together a list of things I think about when I'm preparing and giving a talk. These are applicable to literally any situation where you're presenting a deck - but also to most in-person interactions. Enjoy. Flowing and Choking The thing I think about most when I'm giving a talk is tension. Tension is bodily constriction that interferes with the voice. Tight intercostals, neck muscles, and muscles around the larynx. Tension is different from anxiety. Anxiety is the nerves, stage fright, the feeling of being watched. Stage fright is curable only through repetition. You get your reps in, you do larger and larger talks, and it goes away. I have negligible anxiety when I do talks, usually because I can always picture a bigger gig I've done. Anxiety feeds tension. You are nervous, so you get physically tense. Your voice catches, your breathing collapses. Your hand start jerking, face freezing, voice going monotone. This is choking - the failure state of any talk. Its opposite is flowing - an integrated performance state where voice and body move together without friction. It's not effortless - my heart rate is usually through the roof when I'm giving a talk. But it's a state without tension or anxiety. Breathing Tension is a physical problem. The wrong muscles are working too hard, and the right muscles aren't working at all. This manifests as clavicular breathing. This is breathing led from the upper chest and shoulders. It's the natural 'nervous breath'. And it's a recipe for choking. The more clavicular breaths you take, the more tense you become, the more anxious you feel. Ironically, the advice to 'take a few deep breaths' can fuck you over. If you're not breathing right, you'll immediately breathe into your clavicle, and start choking. The fix is diaphragmatic breathing. This style of breathing has you relaxing the belly as you breathe in so that the diaphragm can descend. It's the first thing I taught every student who walked through my door. I'll link to an old video of mine where I talk about it. Breathing this way is totally free of tension. It's invisible to anyone watching - you just look as if you're completely relaxed. So you can do it on-stage to reduce your physical tension and prevent choking. It's the foundation everything else rests on. Aim Most speakers - I would say 95% of tech speakers I've seen - don't aim their talk at their audience. They are not keeping their audience in mind. They're not even thinking about their audience as they speak. This manifests in two ways. The first is that they're talking past their audience. They are projecting past them to an imaginary audience that they pictured during practice. They are aiming at the world, not the room. This reads as loud, performative, and hollow. The second is that they're talking inwardly. They're rehearsing their next line. They're monitoring themselves. This is commonly caused by anxiety, but not always - even relaxed speakers do this. They're aiming at themselves, not the room. This reads as disconnected. Aim at the room. Read the audience in real-time and adjust. Calibrate to their energy levels. Consider what they might be thinking. Ignore the world, focus on the room. Look outwards, not inwards. Slides Let's finally talk about slides. People focus way too much on their slides, but they are worth of some attention. Your talk should be speaker-led, not deck-led. The deck is there to support you. It is there to emphasise your points and give you reminders where to go next. If the deck is the talk, with the speaker narrating, why did the speaker even bother to show up. Slides should be bare. Minimal information per slide. A single phrase. A single quote. A single image. The audience reads it quickly and returns attention to the speaker. Cluttered slides mean the audience pulls attention away from you. Keep your slides paced. Don't rapid-fire through a bunch of them - nothing will stick. Give each slide, each point, time to land. Summary Anxiety can only be cured by reps. But tension is the battleground of the speaker. Fix it with diaphragmatic breathing, and notice whenever you do clavicular breathing. Flow, don't choke. Aim your talk at the room, not yourself or the world. Keep your audience in mind. Make your talk speaker-led, not deck-led. Use bare slides, and pace them well. I don't make money off teaching voice any more, so if you enjoyed this, then a donation to Oxford Food Hub would be very welcome. Link below.

new post: what could "devrel" mean in a world with slot machines spitting out code and opinions sunilpai.dev/posts/developer…

New episode with @swyx: - DevRel is back. - The Zuck interview - Uphill DevRel

Code To Market episode 36 is live! We talk about devrel. we push back on @swyx take. devrel isn't back. it was never gone. it just mutates. **The new devrel is all about branding.** codetomarket.fm/episodes/36-…

I predict we see a backlash to the launch video trend in the next ~ 6 months It’s starting to feel like a prereq to spend tens of thousands of $ and weeks of production time to debut your product…. Founders just talking to the camera may make a comeback!

devrel is the best job ever @GroqInc it’s basically many hats in one, so it’s great for ex-founders- you get to work on product design, engineer the core product, plus hang out with the smartest folks, run, judge, and participate in hackathons, even get invited to cool talks! it’s also kind of an “EIR” and design engineer role where you get to build some really cool stuff. (and infinite credits and no rate limits ;) and of course evangelize the cool stuff your team mates are building it can be intimidating though (i can’t imagine what devrel at @AnthropicAI might look like) as there’s an infinite list of things to do… but for my adhd riddled brain this is the perfect role design engineers should DEFINITELY go apply.

devrel is so back the amount of dms I've gotten about exciting gigs is insane (tbh I'd argue it never left, just changed a bit) lfg

Module 2 of AI Coding University just dropped! The LLM landscape exploded this year. Claude 4 Sonnet, GPT-5, local models. More choices than ever, but which one fits your workflow? That's exactly what Module 2: LLM Fundamentals covers. 🧵

There is insane demand for people who can understand and explain technology in a compelling way.