👋 On time for your weekend: a round-up of this week’s remarkable stories at the intersection of technology, business, design, and culture. Three reads and three listens; no fluff, just stuff ⚡
The past is written, but the future is left for us to write. And we have powerful tools, openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity – Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
📚 Reading
Goodbye programmers:
Instead of relying on a single chatbot providing answers to questions asked by a human, they created a team of ChatGPT 3.5-powered bots, each assuming a different role in a software agency: CEO, CTO, CPO, programmer, code reviewer, code tester, and graphics designe […] to come up with its own solutions, decide which languages to use, design the interface, test the output, and provide corrections if needed.
Michael Petraeus—Vulcan Post | 4 minutes
Regulating AI by Executive Order is the Real AI Risk:
The irony of all the concerns about AI today is that the reason so many people can immediately see the magic of the new technology is because of the microprocessor, database, and the internet. We can see the potential of AI because it is built on the innovations that were allowed to take place without the heavy hand of government managing them like something to be kept in a special jar, doled out for approved uses to entitled people.
Steven Sinofsky—Hardcore Software | 42 minutes
11 thoughts on memes:
If the emotion caused by the meme is greater than the friction of spreading it—you've cracked the meme algorithm […] Memes aren't just funny images. It's any contagious idea that spreads. The ability to create and download memes separates humans from other animals […] Meme first, explain later. Keep removing apathy and friction until you have meme-market fit.
George Mack—X | 1 minute
🎧 Listening
Reflections on a movement:
A lot of my work is just descriptive. It's not actually telling people what to do. It's simply giving a name and a concept to a thing that already happen [....] I'm not telling you that you should pivot. I'm just saying that is what it's called [....] And then once you've identified what it is and laid out the original principles of what you're trying to do, the prescriptive parts are just a matter of deductive logic.
Eric Ries—Lenny’s Newsletter | 134 minutes
LLMs, links, and the death of links:
It occurred to me that an awful lot of ChatGPT output is turned into screenshots. When you use an LLM, it's a kind of call and response model: you type the prompt, you press go, you wait, and something comes back. I compared it to playing battleships […] You wait and you start again. As opposed to working on a document; […] you're not getting something that you edit and work with.
Benedict Evans—Another Podcast | 30 minutes
The New Founder Mindset: The End of the Product-Focused CEO
There was a very brief window where you could just be the best in the world of product, and the best in the world, have a great insight, and just grow really quickly, and everything else works itself out […] That era is over. I'm not financing product people who don't know how to build a business anymore; I'm financing people who know how to build a good business, which then someday becomes a great business.
Sam Lessin—More or Less | 45 minutes