Brett Queener

@levie burning

@levie everyone is going to quickly realize the value of leveraging shared context/semantic layers from vendors so they are not buring billions of dollars all token maxxing across their companies

What’s happened is that we went from AI chat tools that were relatively cheap and had small context windows, to AI agents that have giant context windows, the ability to keep track of longer running work, and models that cost an order of magnitude more on inference because they’re that much better. This has compounded far faster than most realized (unless you were paying close attention at the middle or end of last year, which many here were), and the dollars flowing in now are much more real. What follows is a continued march of AI capability that will continue to be used by anyone with a frontier use-case (like coding, sciences, finance, consulting) and then a peeling off of tasks to lower cost models that are capable enough for the job. Whereas we thought the cost of AI might converge on a single low price per token before, it’s clear the stratification is only widening based on the task you need performed. This will be yet another component that has to be figured out for broad AI diffusion. Enterprises will need to put in programs, new finance teams, and technology solutions to manage this all. The labs and platforms that can ensure customers can price optimize for the task at hand will be in the best position.

The Compounding Loop open.substack.com/pub/queener/p/…

@davidu Claude co work with powerpoint works great although the design is clearly claudish

Lazyweb: What’s the best AI tool to help me generate a small 5-10 slide presentation? Ideally I'd just prompt the structure and have it make the slides, text, images, etc. and then let me fine tune it and edit the copy as I see fit.

@anshublog i remember my spicy friend

What if Salesforce was like a headless data platform? I would have called it database.com. Never mind.

GREATNESS

@Alfred_Lin I needed this post two decades ago. I was just labeled “difficult”

@joannezchen Great thoughtful piece Joanne.

@loganbartlett Great stuff logan. I am working on a similar presentation with the guts to try and predict the economic effects of ai ten years from now:).

Spent the last few weeks pulling together our thoughts on the state of the software and ai market ahead of our annual meeting yesterday. Obviously a dynamic time with a lot going on so tried to unpack what is happening and our view on the different levels of risk and opportunities. Thank you to my colleagues @AdilBhatia and @lydianday for the hard work on this with me.

ChatGpt really lagging now in trying to think through basic tasks - cmon openai, focus on what matters

@ericvishria @adityaag Agreed. The sadness phase transitioning into wonder is a real one.

The identify crisis that very good, especially mid-level, software engineers are going through with AI is a huge cultural challenge inside of companies, and a harbinger of the challenge to come for most other functions. Great, self-reflective articulation from @adityaag here:

I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric. *** The average was 64/100.*** My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85. Context: • This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material. • Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions. • Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay. • I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester. • We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture. • Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade). • Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz. *** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.*** After the midterm, students reported: • They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper. • They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement. My view: It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material. Moving forward: We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.

Me reviewing code generated by Claude before pushing to prod

@juliettekayyem thought it would take two weeks.

Again and again, I repeat. For all the war hawks or idealogues talking about a transformative moment, let me make this clear: the Gulf states will soon teach the US that they love their commerce more than they hate Iran.

@Acyn Where are all my DOGE enthusiasts?

POV: Senior Agentic Engineer

Under-rated - AI's ability, when given proper context, to be an incredible thought partner to flesh through ideas.

In the End, it May Just be Judgement that Matters Most. open.substack.com/pub/queener/p/…

I'm not crying...YOU'RE crying.

california is like claude code but for beautiful sunsets