Architect & Photographer. Creativity, design & building. Instagram: @juaneventer.com_
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2009
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Jo Venter retweeted
The older I get, the more I realize that life has seasons. And not every season needs to be your best one. Some seasons are for building. Some are for healing. Some are for just surviving. You don’t have to win every single chapter for the whole story to turn out well.
Jo Venter retweeted
is this genuinely the explanation for decline of everything - friendships, excitement, spontaneity, dating?
Jo Venter retweeted
one of the strangest things about moving from new york to sf was realizing how often extremely important things happen here in settings that don't feel important at all
i lived in new york for four years. i sometimes spent entire days moving icons around in powerpoint, but i was doing it in a skyscraper with great views, surrounded by attractive people in patagonia vests. afterward i'd walk onto a packed street and go to a beautiful restaurant
even when the work itself was mundane, everything around it told you it mattered
sf is almost the opposite
the blue bottle in south park feels like a normal coffee shop. it is also a place where an absurd amount of capital gets allocated
sand hill road is one of the most powerful financial centers in the world and looks like a collection of dentist offices
you'll meet someone dressed like they just rolled out of bed who can't make eye contact and discover later that they control billions of dollars or have built a product you use every day
i've been to parties where almost everyone had raised millions of dollars or built products used by millions of people. in another city, each person would have seemed like a big deal. in sf, they were just standing around a cramped apartment at a "party" that honestly wasn't even that good
i used to live in a closet in a slightly dilapidated hacker house with creaky floors and old furniture. people who lived there went on to create companies worth tens of billions of dollars
new york puts a lot of effort into making importance visible. sf often seems actively uninterested in doing that
some of this is probably because sf is more focused on creation than consumption. some of it is the personality of builders, who often care much more about the thing they're making than the room they're making it in
but i think the lack of polish also lowers the barrier to entry. you don't need to look important before doing something important here
new york makes ordinary work feel important
sf makes important work feel ordinary
Jo Venter retweeted
"The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents." —Carl Jung
Here’s a piece of contrarian parenting advice:
Be a little selfish.
After having kids, too many parents surrender their life as an individual. They stop pursuing their passions, don’t travel, give up their me-time, and get out of shape.
The intent is positive, but misguided. What message are you sending?
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about parenting, it’s this:
Kids are poor listeners, but astute observers.
What you say matters very little.
What you DO is everything.
Your kids don’t need a martyr, they need a model.
On airplanes, they instruct us:
“Put on your oxygen mask before helping others.”
On the surface, it seems selfish… but it’s better for everyone.
Parenting works the same way.
Give your kids the gift of front-row seats… to a life well lived.
SF apartment prices crazy atm. Our apartment in the city went up 37% from September 2024 until now, Feb 2026.
This is a old, rent-controlled unit in lower Russian Hill! When people say that rent in SF is crazy, they are not lying.
Jo Venter retweeted
The Invisible Guest Theory posits that in social settings, people are too preoccupied with their own insecurities, appearance, and inner monologues to focus on or judge you. It suggests we are essentially "invisible guests" to others, freeing us from the pressure to be perfect and reducing social anxiety.
Asked Chat Gpt which is more hardcore? Rugby or Football: Obviously Rugby won 😂
Feels like NFL is just a bunch of ads every few minutes and goes on for aaaages.
Jo Venter retweeted
AI has now replaced 85% of photography jobs including:
- passport and ID photos
- professional photos / headshots
- stock photography
- product photography
- real estate photography
- food photography (for delivery)
- fashion / e-commerce photography
- some social media content
People just snap a few basic photos with their phone and AI then makes it perfect like a professional photographer
What has remained and what photographers should focus on instead I think:
- news and sports photography (has to be real)
- high-end commercial photography
- event photography (weddings etc)
- social media content (Instagram etc) where authenticity matters
Lost assignments to GenAI:
- Sep 2024: 30%
- Feb 2025: 58%
- Feb 2026: 85% (extrapolated)
Source: ISM
Just in time, my new project!
📸 PhotoAI.io
I spent the last 2 months w/ 🩸blood, 🥵 sweat and 🥲 tears building a photorealistic AI Photo studio and it finally works:
✨ Upload photos
🧠 Train model of person
🐈 Copycat any photo
📸 Create a photo shoot anywhere
Jo Venter retweeted
One thing I learnt living all around the world for the last decade is that there really is no perfect place
Some places have clean air like Portugal and Spain but that's also because they don't really have industry and their economies are in many ways broken
Then you have the booming South East Asia where everything seems to be growing at all times, you can live in skyscraper penthouses with infinity pools for less than you pay rent in Europe, but then you also just have really bad air quality and the highest traffic deaths in the world
You can go live in Japan and Korea where people are so polite and it's so safe, silent and tidy but then you realize they're also some of the most socially isolating places on Earth, kinda because of it
You can move to the US, have the most functional economy in the world, with the largest product and service offering, where people actually want to work, but then in general most places aren't walkable and you're driving everywhere because that's just how most of the country was designed
You can then live in Europe where you have actually do have walkable streets, a pace of life that's more about life than work, but then you have the issue everything is slow and many things don't really work properly and you're lucky to get a plumber to come, because people don't really care about work (how's that slow pace of life, huh?)
So yes there's no perfect place, and the longer you are in one place, after the honeymoon of a new place is over, you often start getting annoyed with all the things that are wrong about that particular place
One solution to this that me and my friends have found is to mix at least 2 places to live (and we even have friends with many kids that do this), this is kind of a brain hack: you let your brain never adapt to one place by switching to the other place every 6 months or so. Your brain keeps thinking it's getting the novelty of a new place (honeymoon vibe) and you can have the pros/cons of two places that are counter in many ways to complement each other:
For example Portugal and Thailand:
- Portugal has clean air and mellow lifestyle near the beach, but services and gov stuff doesn't really work well
- Thailand you can have the 10 million people big city lifestyle in skyscrapers with amazing convenience and everything works, but you have really bad air quality much of the year
There's lots of combos that can complement if you think of it like that
We built this! Took this photo a week ago on site.
Rammed Earth lasts for 100 + years and these walls look great!
The interiors are about 60% there.
Super proud of what I designed and built here with blood, sweat and tears!
#rammedearth #naturalbuilding
