# Simon Willison

> Simon Willison is a British software engineer, open source creator, and AI commentator best known for co-creating the Django web framework and building Datasette, the open-source data exploration tool. He coined the term 'prompt injection' in 2022 and popularized 'AI slop' in 2024 - a word later named Merriam-Webster's 2025 Word of the Year. Through his prolific blog (active since 2002), newsletter with 54,000+ subscribers, and 100+ open source tools, he is one of the most influential independent voices at the intersection of LLMs and open source software.

- **Role:** Independent Open Source Developer & AI Commentator
- **Organizations:** Python Software Foundation, Datasette, GitHub Sponsors
- **From:** United Kingdom
- **Nationality:** British
- **Education:** B.Sc. Computer Science, University of Bath
- **Known for:** Co-created Django, the most widely-used Python web framework, in 2003, Created Datasette with 11,000+ GitHub stars, used by journalists, scientists, and governments worldwide, Created llm CLI tool with 11,700+ GitHub stars for accessing LLMs from the command line

## Career timeline

- **2000** — Early web developer at UK-based Gameplay
- **2001** — Enrolled at University of Bath for Computer Science; began contributing to Incutio XML-RPC Library used in WordPress
- **2002** — Launched personal developer blog at simonwillison.net - one of the longest-running dev blogs on the web
- **2003** — Industrial placement at Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, Kansas; began collaborating on Django framework
- **2005** — Django publicly released under BSD license; joined Yahoo! Technology Development team
- **2008** — Joined The Guardian (UK) as Software Architect
- **2010** — Co-founded Lanyrd (social conference directory) with wife Natalie Downe; Y Combinator funded (YC W11)
- **2013** — Lanyrd acquired by Eventbrite; joined Eventbrite engineering team
- **2017** — Created Datasette - open source tool for exploring and publishing SQLite data
- **2019** — Stanford John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowship
- **2022** — Coined the term 'prompt injection'; joined Python Software Foundation board
- **2022** — Launched Simon Willison's Newsletter on Substack
- **2023** — Created llm CLI tool for accessing large language models; GitHub Accelerator support
- **2024** — Published 'Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content' - 'slop' became 2025 Word of the Year
- **2025** — Built 110+ tools; began daily blogging streak; coined 'lethal trifecta' for AI security
- **2026** — Writing serialized book on agentic engineering; speaking at PyCon US 2026; 645+ GitHub Sponsors

## Achievements

- Co-created Django, the most widely-used Python web framework, in 2003
- Created Datasette with 11,000+ GitHub stars, used by journalists, scientists, and governments worldwide
- Created llm CLI tool with 11,700+ GitHub stars for accessing LLMs from the command line
- Coined the term 'prompt injection' (2022) - now a standard security concept in AI
- Popularized 'AI slop' (2024) - named Merriam-Webster 2025 Word of the Year
- Coined 'lethal trifecta' (2025) for dangerous AI agent configurations
- 54,000+ Substack newsletter subscribers
- 954+ public GitHub repositories with 14,400+ GitHub followers
- Python Software Foundation board member since 2022
- Built 110+ open source tools in 2025 alone
- TIL site with 575+ 'Today I Learned' technical entries
- Blog post on Bing received 1.4 million views in 2023, shared by Elon Musk
- 645+ GitHub Sponsors funding independent open source work
- Stanford JSK Journalism Fellow

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Preparing to speak at PyCon US 2026; writing serialized book on agentic engineering patterns
- **2026-02** — Spoke on 'The State of LLMs, February 2026 edition'; live-coded a macOS app in SwiftUI during the presentation
- **2026-01** — Reported writing 95% of code from phone; described being mentally exhausted by 11am from AI-native development
- **2025-11** — Declared November 2025 as the inflection point where AI coding agents crossed from 'mostly works' to 'actually works'
- **2025-05** — Built 110+ open source tools across the year
- **2024-05** — Published 'Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content' - coined the term 'AI slop'

## Links

- Website: https://simonwillison.net
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonwillison/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/simonw
- GitHub: https://github.com/simonw

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/simon-willison
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-23