What Does Benjamin Akar Focus On in His Work?

Updated

Benjamin Akar builds products and experiences across software, design, and video, and describes his approach as working from the whole problem: what to make, how it should feel, and why it should exist. His current focus is Tembo, which he describes as "the cloud for coding agents." The rest of his site is an ongoing index of finished work, retired projects, and writing, so it reads more like a running record of output than a single-product portfolio.

The three disciplines he works across

Akar's own description of his work spans three areas:

  • Software — building products, currently Tembo.
  • Design — shaping how those products look and feel.
  • Video — a third medium he treats as part of the same practice rather than a side activity.

The through-line is that these aren't separate tracks. He says he cares about how technology shapes taste, behavior, and culture, which is why design and video sit alongside engineering instead of after it.

What he's building now: Tembo

The site states he is "currently spending my energy building Tembo, the cloud for coding agents." That's the only active project named as a current focus. Everything else on the page is listed under projects, which he frames as an index that includes retired work — so a project appearing there doesn't mean it's still maintained.

Projects listed on the site

Project What it is, per the site
Tembo The cloud for coding agents (current focus)
Dockset "Set your Mac for what's next"
Ask "Ask, then do. Follow up when you need to."
Tax Visualize and compare taxes worldwide
Gamelib A social platform for people who love games
Maskbunny Privacy-focused email forwarding

The range here — developer tooling, macOS setup, a Q&A-style tool, a tax visualizer, a gaming community, and email privacy — is itself the point. It matches his stated preference for starting from the whole problem rather than from a fixed product category.

The working philosophy behind the projects

Two statements on the site explain the selection of projects better than any list:

  1. "Driven by curiosity and a fear of average." This is the stated motivation, and it shows up as a willingness to move between domains rather than deepen in one.
  2. "I tend to work from the whole problem—what to make, how it should feel, and why it should exist." This is the method: scope, feel, and justification get decided together, not in sequence.

If you're trying to understand what Akar focuses on, the useful takeaway is that the focus is the approach, not a vertical. The projects change; the questions he asks before starting one don't.