Superpower — Ferrari Brain, Bicycle Brakes

The throughline connecting every branch is a late-recognized neurodivergent mind — what Jack Phan calls a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes: enormous horsepower, hard to slow down.

Jack describes his mind as a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes — enormous horsepower paired with brakes that were never built for it. It’s a personal lens he came to later in life, and it reframes the whole timeline: the restless reinvention, the pattern-hunting, the intensity, are features of the same engine.

(The “Ferrari engine, bicycle brakes” framing for ADHD traces to Dr. Edward Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey, ADHD 2.0. Jack uses it as a personal narrative, not a clinical claim about anyone else.)

The pattern under the patterns

A TAG kid who could pick up nearly any instrument; an operator with an uncanny read on customers; a founder who keeps changing seats to learn the next function — these aren’t separate traits. They’re one mind that finds signal fast and resists staying still.

This branch is the connective tissue. It’s also where the work points next: toward writing, papers, and a manifesto on human-centered, responsible AI — a way of building technology that works with how different minds actually think.

Return to the timeline spine to travel any branch, or read the full arc on the About page.