Vardges

Adam Ernst is a Distinguished Eng (IC9) at Meta who has built iOS infra that impacted the entire company. He's someone I've always looked up to ever since I first started at Meta. We discussed: • How to influence engineers • Why code review is undervalued • Projects that got him promoted • Learnings from a major failed project • Examples of engineers he admires • Advice for his younger self His style of influence is one of my favorites; he's the type of engineer that digs deep and solves problems others can't. He's an engineer who embodies "Talk is cheap. Show me the code." Hope you enjoy the episode and learn something new Where to watch: • YouTube: youtu.be/YA_OYJF3Mmw • Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3KJfod… • Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the… • Transcript: developing.dev/p/meta-disting…

The AI backlash is here. This post has a million views. People hate technology. They hate innovation. They see that it is coming for their jobs. Coming for their way of life. Innovation is asking them to do more work. To spend nights and weekends learning about AI and building new things. They hate that. And I've seen it my entire career as people tell me over and over again that they don't like what I'm pitching them. How many have gone to an Apple store and had a demo of the Vision Pro? Even in Silicon Valley I keep finding smart people who refuse. And my consumer research outside the valley shows far far greater resistance. There are couple other such posts this morning going viral: @zachweinberg: x.com/zachweinberg/s… @tszzl: x.com/tszzl/status/2… Here's the real problem. Let's say you burn down Silicon Valley. The Chinese are coming and coming with cars that will eviscerate the rest of the auto industry. Americans can't see that because we tax the heck out of them and keep them from selling here. And soon they are coming with robots. Americans can't see that because they aren't like me meeting with robot pioneers here and in China. Or watching the robot community here on X (or understand what they are talking about with their highly technical talks about world models and reinforcement learning. And they are coming with AI models. Most Americans are sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring what's going on on @huggingface and here on X. I talk to entrepreneurs around the world who keep telling me they are building businesses on Chinese models because they are cheaper and better. And they are coming with entertainment businesses that will eviscerate Hollywood. Most Americans see AI artists as anti human. The Chinese don't. The only way out of this +is+ innovation. That's where any new jobs are gonna be. So go ahead and burn down Silicon Valley and San Francisco. That won't save your job and will doom America to being a poor country subservient to the Chinese. And, yes, we need to do a better job of explaining the role of innovation. But that job is bigger than what I can do. Why? Because people hate innovation and want to stick their heads in the sand, and even, roll back innovation, my posts aren't getting any reach here on X outside of a small group of innovation supporters. Well, I'll keep supporting the innovators. I made lists of almost all of them, 37,000 in AI alone, and 7,600 AI companies: x.com/scobleizer/lis… But that isn't nearly enough. The entire industry needs to do a better job of talking to everyday people and getting them to see a better world is possible. For now all they hear is "you are taking my job." And they aren't wrong about that either. Which makes this all so difficult to get people onto the side of innovation.

On January 23, I’ll be free soloing Taipei 101 in Taiwan. It’s been a long time goal of mine and it’ll be the most ambitious urban climb that I’ve attempted. It’s a nearly 1,700 ft tower! What’s not to like?! And I’ll be doing it LIVE on @netflix. Tune in Friday, January 23 at 8PM ET / 5PM PT

@WindowsLatest Debloat it guys, don’t preload the bloat.

@elonmusk the only reason i drive my tesla manually is to text and email.. FSD won’t let me!