Nick Schmidt

My biggest takeaways from @danshipper: 1. The future of work will happen inside Codex or Claude Code. Instead of putting AI into your SaaS tool, you’ll use your SaaS tools inside your favorite AI agents' in-app browser. Dan spends all his time in Codex now—writing documents, managing email, doing research, everything. He's using Google Docs, PostHog, and everything he needs within the agent's in-app browser. The agent can see what he’s doing, and has all of his context, so he and his agent collaborate quickly and super effectively. 2. Automation is a lie—every automation needs a human. Dan's company doubled in size this year despite being incredibly AI-forward. Why? Because in order to make automation work well, you need humans making sure everything keeps working. This is why benchmarks are misleading—they measure AI on problems we’ve already framed and can score, but there’s always a higher frame. 3. PMs will win the AI era. Marcus, a former PM who previously ran Axios’s writing product, joined Every after getting super AI-pilled. Now he runs their product Spiral, and ships faster than anyone on the team. He pairs technical knowledge with spiky product sense, deep user empathy, and an eye for what matters. Dan thinks any PM who gets really AI-native will be incredibly dangerous because the building is done for you—what matters is figuring out what to build and if it’s great. 4. Full-stack designers are becoming superheroes. Designers used to make beautiful interactions that engineers didn’t want to build or couldn’t execute properly. Now designers don’t need to hand things off; they can build it themselves. Designers are naturally creative people, and AI is the perfect tool for them because it lets them bring their vision to life without the traditional bottlenecks. 5. SaaS is not dead. In fact, Dan is bullish on SaaS stocks. When users bring their own AI (via Codex or Claude Code) to use SaaS products, the user—not the SaaS company—pays for tokens. This saves SaaS company’s margins. Since the agents need their own seats, Dan predicts that agents will create massive new demand for SaaS because there will be tons of agents using these products at high volume. 6. Every company will have one “super-agent” inside their Slack that every employee will use. Dan initially thought every employee would have their personal work agent, like a shadow AI org chart, but he’s completely flipped his view. He realized agents need humans who care about them. When someone gets tired of maintaining their personal agent, it becomes useless. The winning model is one forward-deployed engineer or AI-savvy person who maintains a company-wide agent (like Shopify’s River or Viktor), and then it trickles down to more specialized team agents as models improve and become less fiddly. 7. The AI job apocalypse is not happening, but you do need to evolve to stay relevant. Models make yesterday’s human competence cheap. But because everyone uses the same models, it all looks the same if you use it the default way; it becomes commoditized slop. Humans then take that frozen competence and use it to make something new and interesting for their specific situation. The key: “ride the models”—use them for everything you do, try new models when they drop, keep turning over rocks. 8. We will read way more AI-generated writing, and we will like it. Human writing is incredibly important for things that matter, but for internal docs, planning, and email, AI-generated is often better because most people are bad at writing strategy documents. 9. Build software for humans and agents to use together. The current model is building a CLI that an agent uses independently. Instead, you and your agent should be using the app together. This creates new design challenges—agents can make a billion requests in three seconds, so you need approval flows, inboxes that summarize what happened, logs, and easy rollback. 10. Forward-deployed engineers are the new most essential role. The big model companies have teams of people managing their internal agents, and those teams aren’t going away. It’s different from traditional software building, and certain engineers love it. As models get better, this role will evolve—you’ll be managing more agents doing more things.

My good friend @NickSchmidt invented the weekly chart. Nick also made a great writeup on “character change” & it aligns very closely with how I personally view weekly charts + major bottoms/reversals. Most of the big winners this cycle started with these subtle behavior shifts:

My Favorite Weekly Chart Setup: The "Character Change" This is my go-to setup for getting into new uptrends early, and it’s something I use only on weekly charts. The CC (character change) is all about patience and waiting for clear evidence that the trend has shifted. ⚠️ If you’re looking for quick trades or need to be active, this might not be for you, because these require you to sit after you get in for a long time and let it do it's thing. Why Weekly Charts? Weekly charts smooth out a lot of the noise you see on daily charts. They give you a bigger picture and help you see the trend more clearly. What Is the "Character Change" Setup? This setup is about recognizing when a stock is transitioning from a long downtrend to the early stages of an uptrend. It’s all about waiting for specific signals on the weekly chart that show that it is highly likely the long-term trend is now up. Here’s what I look for: 1. First Higher Low After a long downtrend, I look for the stock to make a higher low on the weekly chart. This alone isn't enough but it's our first piece of evidence that something might be up. 2. HUGE Volume with a Price Pop The other thing to look for is a big surge in volume with a strong price move. This shows real institutional interest. This is our second piece of evidence. You have a higher low + it's first massive push. After this I have confidence the birth of a solid new trend is likely in place. Also the 1st or 2nd above can happen in any order you just want to see both. 3. New 10 Week respect The way you get a low-stress entry with incredible R/R is by waiting now that you have the evidence of a true CC on your side. The 3rd piece of the puzzle where you can enter with extremely low risk if it doesn't work is when you see the stock start to respect the 10-week moving average for the first time. Example 1: $APP Let’s look at APP, which had a huge run after showing this setup and my second best trade of all time. 1. Volume Pop: First, I noticed a big volume spike, but I didn’t jump in just because of that alone, not enough evidence. 2. First Higher Low: After the volume pop, the stock pulled back a bit and made a higher low. That’s when I got interested. As it made that higher low, it started respecting the 10-week moving average. 3. Holding the 10-Week: It then resumes its move being supported clearly by the 10 week again. That’s the final confirmation needed. APP took time to develop this setup. Even though it might look like dumpster diving, since these are weekly charts, the downtrend is long over before it becomes a buy. From there, it just kept riding the 10-week line up , giving you multiple chances to add to your position if you caught it or many chances to get in. Example 2: $PYPL (currently developing) PayPal was dead money for a long time, making lower lows. Then early this year we started developing a CC. 1. Higher Low: This grinded sideways but still ended up being a big higher low. 2. Volume Pop: Here we get a big price push on volume. Technically we had a few before the higher low was confirmed, and an entry could have been established after the higher low because the risk is so low. But this was the clear Volume pop. 3. New 10W Respect: This is final evidence for me, off the volume pop the weakness is supported by the 10W for the first time. Super low risk entry and you can see if this is a real long-term trend then we are still very early. Example 3: $PTON (very early, still developing, and new position) Peloton had been stuck in a downtrend for over two years, so I didn’t even consider buying until it started showing evidence that the downtrend might be done. 1. Higher Low: Instead of breaking to a new low, it held up at a slightly higher level. It’s subtle, but this is a big clue that the character of the stock is shifting. (It was kind of a retest of the same low, not much of a higher low, so you can argue #3 on the chart is also the first higher low. Doesn't matter, by 3 you have all 3 pieces of evidence.) 2. Volume Pop: Next, a significant volume spike paired with a strong price move. But I don’t buy just because of a volume spike—I need more confirmation. 3. Trading Tight into the 10-Week Moving Average: After the volume pop, PTON started trading tightly near the top of that move and right into the 10-week moving average. This is what really got me interested because even if it fails, I can't emphasize enough.... the R/R for these types of setups is off the charts. The big thing here is patience. I don’t jump in while a stock is still in a downtrend. I wait until it’s made a higher low, shown a volume surge, and started respecting the 10-week moving average. By the time I get in, the downtrend has usually been over for a while. I’m letting the stock prove itself first. Quick Recap Here’s what makes the character change setup work: 1. Higher Low on the Weekly: Signals the stock might be done making new lows and could be shifting to an uptrend. 2. Volume Pop: A big volume spike with a price move. This tells you that there is now real interest in this name and adds evidence to support the birth of a new trend. 3. New 10-Week Respect: This helps add further evidence the momentum is on your side and allows you to get in with really low risk if it doesn't end up working. Remember, this setup takes time to develop. The hardest part is the patience. It is a lot of hands off and waiting but thats also how I like my trades. Low stress. Less is more! If you made it here...drop a reply—I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions.