Nick Harris

Here are the leadership philosophies, and my ethos, I build teams around. This grouping has succeeded since 2004 in creating high-performing teams with minimal attrition. In no particular order: #leadership

Wild stat: 73% of leaked API keys remain active 3+ days after public disclosure. Developers know keys leak. Companies know the risks. Tools exist to prevent it. Yet here we are... watching the same breach headlines cycle through HN every week. Knowing ≠ Acting.

Real talk: AI coding works when you treat it like teaching. You wouldn't tell a junior dev "fix the bug" and walk away. You'd explain the expected behavior, show the current output, point to relevant files. Same energy with AI. Be a teacher, not a taskmaster.

"But we rotate our keys monthly!" ...while your departing contractor still has working credentials to your entire AWS stack. Rotation without revocation is security theater. Real protection means instant access control when relationships change.

Before I build anything, I concept. Got inspired by @The_AdProfessor and decided to make this On Running ad. Why I dig it: → 48 SKUs in one frame = category ownership without saying it → “Which cloud is yours?” = identity question that stops the scroll → One stat, zero clutter = trust without a sales pitch That’s the research. That’s the brief. Most people skip this step and wonder why their creative feels flat. Concepting isn’t extra work. It’s the work.

@directRmarketer I think there's definitely a difference between processing patterns and true understanding. But the lines get blurrier as these systems get more sophisticated at reasoning through problems.

@NickD2C Super real there is no understanding in AI

What we call "AI" is a branding triumph, not a technological one. It doesn't understand anything. It doesn't want anything. It's a very, very expensive mirror that reflects the internet's collective writing back at you in an eerily coherent way.

@ImChaseMohseni @Apple Very.

@NickD2C @Apple LONG

.@Apple stole my line. Long CreativeOS.

I've seen the same pattern 47 times this year. Company gets breached → API keys exposed → "We take security seriously" blog post → Back to hardcoding keys in repos within 3 months. The problem isn't knowledge. It's that security feels optional until it's expensive.

What everyone is missing in this AI cycle we are in is that the way we do work is still not a substitute for the work. And the work is deep, thoughtful, and precise. now you can get to understanding what those thoughts mean in reality more quickly - which speeds up the innovation cycles. But never conflate speed = quality Speed without thought = slop note: no amount of claude skills, and openclaw workflows will make up for a bad idea that isn't customer focused - whether your customer is inside your company or outside it.

@DipanshuKu55175 AI

NanoBanana 2 just made your static ad agency obsolete. And I just open sourced the entire tool. Drop your product page URL. It pulls your logos, product images, fonts, colors, and brand voice automatically. Builds a full brand guide for you. Then generates ad creatives at scale using nearly 4,000 high-performing ad templates across 8 niches. It dynamically matches the best templates to your brand and brief. Here's what makes it different: → Instant resizing Get any ad in 1x1, 4x5, 9x16 with one click. No regeneration. No broken text. → Highlight-to-edit See an issue? Highlight the area and tell it what to fix. → Multiple brand profiles Run different brands or segments from one tool. → Auto persona building from real customer reviews → Multiple QC loops on briefs and final assets Catches AI-isms before you do. → Upload your own templates or use ours Runs locally. Just needs your Claude and Google API keys. This is the lite version of what we use internally. You get the full finished tool AND the open source code to make it your own. Creatives still design the system, this handles iteration and scale. Want a copy to download? 1. Like this post 2. Comment "AI" Will DM you the tool along with a tutorial shortly after.

This is a great book! Buy it. :)

Amazon is selling "Apple: The First 50 Years" (now a New York Times bestseller) for 25% off—which, on a $50 full-color book, really helps. Interestingly, Amazon also sent refunds to everyone who'd paid full price earlier. amazon.com/Apple-First-Ye…

@Pogue @AlSultan_Meriam @amazon Not your fault and the hassle was well worth it. Your book is excellent!

@NickD2C @AlSultan_Meriam @amazon Oh wow... so sorry about that hassle, Nick. But... that was clever!

I just recived my copy of Apple the first 50 years by @Pogue @amazon were nice enough to ship it in a box larger than they should’ve used and somehow has some grease on the cover though the box was dry! So it arrived in this condition 🙃 The book however is massive! And I’m so excited to start reading it.

@Pogue @AlSultan_Meriam @amazon I wish I would have seen this earlier. I returned two copies to Amazon until I got one without a damaged cover.

@AlSultan_Meriam @amazon Hey Meriam! Oh man. You got one of the scuffed covers. The publisher has a program to replace them with free, new, pristine book jackets! Call 800-223-2336, or email customerservicebiz@simonandschuster.com. Let me know if it they don't come through, and...I'm really sorry!

@pbakaus Wow!

Introducing Radiant: 80+ production-ready shaders and visual effects for the web. 0 dependencies, MIT license. - multiple color themes - ultra-realistic simulations - webgl and 2d canvas Pick one, copy source, integrate, ship. radiant-shaders.com

@Pogue Congratluations! It's a great book. Thank you.

Thrilling news in Pogueland: "Apple: The First 50 Years" is a NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!!! And Amazon, and USA Today! (And minus celebrity memoirs, it would be Number 1!) Thank you to everyone who's supported this journey!

"I will eliminate bots..." If you're curious, go setup an x developer account. One of the options for an App is "Bot".

@esjesjesj He'll leave it and charge for it be hidden from posts, which means it will always be hidden on his. He's so weak.

Elon is going to reverse this so fast

Made this ad for @vuoriclothing with @creativeosHQ in 3 minutes. I did setup a brand kit - which was another 3 minutes. I pulled down assets from a product page. (no there is not a sample sale)

If you are using AI for analysis in your business, you MUST understand the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect of AI. Here's how it works: You get AI to do some analysis of something you know very well. Example, it suggests increasing spend on a high ROAS adset. But you know this is just a down-funnel adset so thats a dumb strategy. Silly AI, doesn't know about the breakdown effect in media buying. But then you ask AI to analyze something you know less about... email flows, creative strategy, P&L issues, CRO results... and since you aren't a domain expert, you trust the results. Bruh...you just FORGOT it gave you a dumb answer two minutes ago. That's the Amnesia part. The uncomfortable truth is that without very tightly controlled inputs and processes... AI is bad at analysis. Anything one-shotted has as much rigor as an entry level employee pulling together a TPS report by 5pm on a Friday. Don't build your business on that.

AI isn't just bad at analysis, it will pick up on any bias in your question and affirm it. In college I took a course on Comparitive Politics that was mostly about polling and creating poll questions to never tip your hand. You have to do the same with your Agents.