The “RS” in rsclayton.com comes from my dad, Richard. We share the same first name, but I’ve always gone by my middle name, Scott. 

I’m drawn to pursuits that reward depth, discipline, and honesty over time. Motorcycle track riding has been one of them. What began with a poster of Eddie Lawson on my wall became a long practice in self-mastery: learning limits, respecting constraints, and improving incrementally rather than chasing shortcuts. Passion matters, but it only works when paired with effort, time, and discipline.

Those same principles shape how I think and work elsewhere. I value depth, simplicity, excellence, truth, and growth, and I try to hold all five at the same time. Simplicity isn’t something you start with; it’s something you earn by understanding a system well enough to remove what doesn’t matter without breaking what does.

I’m sometimes misread as slow or overly particular. In practice, that usually comes from refusing hacks, shortcuts, or explanations I don’t believe in. I’d rather take longer and be correct than move fast and be untrue to my word. I’ve been wrong before and will be wrong again, but I try to be explicit about what I know, what I don’t, and where my thinking still has gaps.

I write to find those gaps. Writing forces me to connect ideas, test assumptions, and see whether something I believe can actually be explained simply. This site is where I show my work, test ideas in public, and leave room to be wrong.

I occasionally write. A recent essay is Grip.