Simon Willison

Simon Willison is a software engineer, open source developer, and one of the most thoughtful voices writing about AI tools today. As a co-creator of the Django web framework, he brings decades of engineering experience to how he approaches AI. His open source work is prolific. Datasette, his tool for exploring and publishing data, has become a standard in data journalism. His LLM CLI tool lets developers interact with language models from the command line and has spawned an entire ecosystem of plugins. He builds in public, shipping new tools and plugins at a pace that's hard to match. What makes Simon unique is his combination of deep technical skill and clear, honest writing. His blog is one of the best resources for understanding how AI tools actually work in practice, without the hype. He's been experimenting with LLMs for over three years and documenting every insight along the way.