Josh Harris

Pixie Chess Trailer — Launching April 2

Beta tomorrow. Your move.

in 1992 someone asked NeXT era Steve Jobs at MIT "What do you see on the horizon, and how do we capitalize on it?" It's crazy that Steve was talking about "Public APIs" — the same kinds of products Apple STILL launches every year at WWDC (like they did today!) in his answer, but he didn't have the words for it. Free Public APIs are what made Apple the biggest PAID subscriber base on earth by 3x the competition. "You could build the best spreadsheet today, but it would take you $50m to market it" he says (that's $112m in 2024) And again, because the internet didn't exist yet there wasn't a word for it, but every time he says "object" I want you to hear API And his answer was not for just 1992, it was for the history books. He gave an answer that applies to all technologies and innovations forever: it's hard to diffuse real innovation, people don't want to change how they do things, marketing costs money The key is to build a network that incentivizes the diffusion of innovation. Make it easier for more people to make great media, and make them look like rockstars to their friends, and help them get rich doing it. He didn't do this with the Lisa, he talks about those mistakes. But he did that with the Macintosh, and he did something even better with the iPhone. The reason the iPhone was 10x the iPod or Mac... ...is that instead of building the apps, he finally figured it out! After 20 years of fucking up doing exactly what Sam, Satya, Elon, Zuck, and others are still doing today, he figured out how to build the Objects, the public APIs that make up the foundation of Apple's ecosystem, and he found a way to capitalize on their use by forcing otherwise lazy developers to make beautiful, privacy respecting software. That's what Apple did with the App Store. What instagram did with photo editing. What Tiktok did with video editing. It's all just Digital Media that makes you look like a rockstar. "How do you draw the line between making apps and making tools/objects" is the second question in the video for the first time in history, with AI we can now write APIs that ARE apps. That are media native, usable by non-technical people. these new AI written internet-connected software platforms can market & sell themselves, with micro-transactions that ensure ALL the associated creators of a given asset get paid instantly the moment someone benefits from it. ...by just computing a function related to how much new efficient compute that piece of media unlocks. UBI. The AGI Economy. You get rich and look like a rockstar just by asking for the things you wish computers could do since the computers can build your dreams for you. It's here. Disney is other example of a Digital Media Native company that has ever figured this out. They sell sharable stories. Public APIs. Objects you can build communities and memories on top of, literally. We share cultural stories, we connect with each other, and we create communities by turning the drama around us into beautiful stories of how the future COULD turn out. It's an even more beautiful way, and a much more sustainable way of incentivizing network effects than making yourself look good. DATA Skills are APIs for a reason. You simply ask, and you receive a programming interface you can use to do anything you can dream of, and it pays you when it is used. Not only do you look like a technical rockstar, you get to share more beautiful stories more quickly and more easily with your friends!