joel spiro

Middle management existed to pass information up and down the org chain. AI removes this middle management layer and flattens orgs. Great article suggests we only need 3 roles in an org: ICs (builders), DRIs (owners), and player-coaches (builders who lead).

Anthropic employs world-class engineers who could build an HR system in weeks. They use Workday anyway. The reason tells you exactly where enterprise SaaS is headed. Building HR software requires knowing labor law across 50 states and 100+ countries. Payroll tax compliance changes quarterly. Healthcare benefit structures shift annually. One classification error creates seven-figure liability. No engineering team wants to own that surface area. The maintenance burden compounds forever while delivering zero competitive advantage. This is why enterprise SaaS moats actually strengthen with AI. The value was never “we built software you couldn’t.” The value was always “we absorb compliance risk and regulatory complexity you don’t want.” AI makes custom software cheaper to build. It doesn’t make compliance cheaper to own. Workday’s real product is liability absorption, and that product just got more valuable as build-vs-buy calculations everywhere else shift. The companies getting disrupted are the ones selling capability. The ones selling risk transfer are about to have their best decade.

Masterclass on product metrics (and clarity) from @joulee

OMG yes this. Reminds me of Branch by @joshm

A few years ago I realized that if I’m too busy to take something on, I shouldn’t say “I don’t have the time”. In fact, I often do have the time. It’s not that hard to squeeze in some extra time for someone. What I don’t have – and what I can’t squeeze in – is more attention. Attention is a far more limited resource than time. So what I should say is “I don’t have the attention”. I may have 8 hours a day for work, but I probably have 4 hours a day for attention. One summer, a guy wrote me out of the blue asking if he could intern for me. His email was great – clear, thoughtful, kind, inviting, confident but not pushy, and not too long (but long enough to say what he had to say without leaving anything out). He was studying at Harvard Business School and was going to be back in Chicago that summer. He asked if he could swing by and say hi. His email made it easy for me to say yes. So he did, and we had a great session. We spent maybe an hour or so together. I learned about his background, what kind of stuff he was interested in, what he wanted to learn, what he could teach us, etc. Then we riffed on a few ideas. It was natural, flowing, effortless. Really promising. Then I told him I’d think a few things over and get back to him soon. He checked in a few weeks later, and I said I’d get back to him soon again. And I didn’t. A month or so after that I wrote him and told him I was really sorry. I’d mislead him – and myself – thinking I had enough time to take on a intern that summer. I wanted to, I really liked him, I thought he’d be great, but I just didn’t have as much time as I thought I had to even consider it more and line up work and spend time with him, etc. But really, as I thought about it, I realized I had the time. Every day is the same 24 hour cycle. Every workday around 8 hours. Surely I could have found even 20 minutes a day to work with him. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find the time. I couldn’t find the attention — especially sustained attention. My mind fills up with a few key projects and that’s it. I’m absorbed by those. That’s where my attention is. Had I made 20 minutes here and there for him, I’d be physically present in that moment, but mentally I’d be elsewhere. And that’s not fair to either of us. Time and attention aren’t the same thing. They're barely related.

This is amazing!!! and also a warning to anyone working on a specific use case for an AI assistant on top of the big LLMs

Product management is becoming the new bottleneck according to @AndrewYNg "I don't see product management work becoming faster at the same speed as engineering. I'm seeing this ratio shift. Just yesterday, one of my teams came to me, and for the first time, when we're planning headcount for a project, this team proposed to me not to have 1:4 PM/engineers, but to have 1:0.5 PM/engineers. I still don't know if this is a good idea, but for the first time in my life, managers are proposing having twice as many PMs as engineers. I think it's a sign of where the world is going."

🚨 This was the BEST Google I/O that I can remember. Google launched over 12 different insane things. Here is every single one of the launches and the best tweets about them: 1/12

This is a great insight. Interesting to see what this brings.

💯

Great advise

I wonder what this means for the future of SQL

Good and useful advise here…

Unfortunately very true

Naval Ravikant's latest podcast with Chris Williamson is mind-blowing. He revealed: • Why he deleted his calendar • Three decisions that determine 90% of your life's outcome • Why most anxiety comes from a problem few understand 10 insights that'll transform your life:

@adamwathan When a wrapper on a standard becomes so popular that it becomes The standard. Amazing journey @adamwathan 🔥 Fan since early days of refactoring UI

Big news — we've partnered with Apple to integrate Tailwind CSS into Safari directly, making it the first browser that can render Tailwind sites with 0kb of CSS over the wire. Do your part and ship your sites with no CSS file to force other browsers to do the same 🤘🏻

this is what's keeping me up at night these days... 1. chatgpt 4o image gen is as big as the chatgpt launch. probably will birth 1000+ $1-$100m/year vertical software businesses. 2. we’re in the “mp3 napster era” of content. millions of creators don’t realize their entire back catalog is being weaponized into their competition because of AI. 3. every calendar, inbox, and CRM will be rebuilt from scratch in the next 3 years. not “AI-enhanced,” fully rethought. 4. i thought ai was creating digital employees. but it's more like digital employers. the first ai systems that can manage human workers will cause a restructuring of labor markets more significant than the industrial revolution. 5. if your job is interviewing people who will train ai systems that will replace people who do interviews, you're just a step in a weird recursive extinction. 6. ai is turning "service businesses that don't scale" into "product businesses with service margins." the new unicorns will be productized services with ai doing 80% of the work. 7. building communities is harder than building products but everyone pretends it's the reverse. the reality is most startups fail because nobody cares. 8. it's been 739 days since the will smith spaghetti video. imagine what could happen to gen ai in 739 more days? 9. people building "ai assistants" have never actually had assistants. real assistants need context, history, and relationship. 95% of chatbots have none of those. 10. most customer support will be automated within 36 months. not just tier 1 tickets, complex, multi-step resolution that previously required senior support staff. 11. the worst thing that can happen to your startup is mediocre success. enough to keep you going but not enough to change your life. most founders are trapped there. thinking about this a lot with respect to shutting down or doubling down on projects. 12. the ai backlash won't just come from replaced workers, it'll be from everyone who realizes their entire digital identity is being converted into training data without consent. 13. no one has ever read a terms of service ever 14. the "sketching economy" is the real ai revolution. when anyone can turn rough sketches into production-ready designs, taste and ideation become the only scarce resources. 15. i dont know how else to say it, the money (and opportunity for the avg joe) is in ai startups is in vertical-specific applications that actually understand industry context. no, adding industry terms to your prompts isn't the same thing. 16. consumer mobile is back in full swing. we went from desktop-first apps to mobile-first apps to now ai-first mobile apps. the next wave of $100m/year apps will start mobile-first with ai baked in from day one. 17. the ai middleman boom is just starting. companies that sit between foundation models and specific industries will capture most of the value while both ends get commoditized. 18. we're witnessing the birth of a whole new job category: ai workflow designers. people who can map human processes into ai-augmented workflows will be the highest-paid consultants of the next decade. 19. ai is creating winner-take-most markets overnight. the window to establish yourself as the go-to solution in a specific vertical is maybe 6-12 months before it closes for a decade. this isn't helping my sleep lollll. 20. really smart strategy to rebuild traditional products with ai as your unfair advantage, hiding the complexity behind familiar interfaces. basically, just look at proven apps that have no ai, make them ai-first (if it adds a ton of value to end customer). use ai features (don’t sell ai) in creator-led marketing. this is the playbook. 21. distribution is the only moat left. your product, tech, and team can all be replicated. your direct connection to customers cannot. 22. we'll soon hit the tipping point where custom ai tools are cheaper than hiring humans, even for small businesses. 23. nobody's talking about how ai is making previously "un-acquirable" businesses suddenly attractive targets. when you can automate operations, the owner-dependent business problem disappears. 24. the coming smb acquisition frenzy will make the 2021 tech bubble look tame. when ai drops operating costs by 60%, every small business becomes a cash flow engine. 25. if vibe coding will be a $100B opportunity, how big of an opportunity is vibe marketing? (you can follow my co-founder @boringmarketer for more on that) 26. Video game studios will separate into two distinct types: agent-driven content farms that generate infinite assets, and boutique studios focused on core mechanics. The middle will disappear entirely. 27. Corporate photography is effectively dead. No company will pay $2K for a stock-style photoshoot when they can generate unlimited perfectly on-brand imagery for the cost of a subscription. 28. enterprise sales is being completely inverted by ai. using ai to identify exactly when and how to talk to the right buyer, and set off automations. ill probably talk about this more on a pod soon. 29. i wonder if AGI will emerge from interconnected agent networks that develop emergent properties nobody designed? we're building the neural connections without realizing it. 30. while genai looks to be the $1T category, many quiet fortunes will be built in predictive ai. knowing what will happen is more valuable than generating new content. 31. the "ai bubble" is actually an excise tax on vcs who can't tell the difference between genuine innovation and repackaged openai apis. 32. interfaces will become personalities. when every tool can talk back, vibe and tone will drive trust, loyalty, and retention. It's why I'm investing more in our design firm for the AI age @meetLCA (you can follow for more insights on designing/taste/brand that will stand out) 33. ai will kill the homepage. interfaces will get replaced by entry points that change based on who you are, what you need, and when you show up. 34. no one will pay for "ai", they’ll pay to solve a $10,000/hour problem in 3 clicks. sell outcomes, hide the ai. 35. ai is unbundling google. every vertical search engine, directory, and comparison tool is a billion-dollar opportunity in disguise. 36. every small business will get a “ghost team.” automated bookkeepers, sales agents, marketers—run by one founder and 5 bots. 37. ai-generated content is creating a monoculture of ideas. when everyone uses the same models, we get the same outputs. original human thinking is becoming the ultimate premium. be weird. weird will sell. 38. schools won’t be disrupted by ai. they’ll be disintermediated. smart teens will skip formal education, build audiences, run experiments, and learn faster. kids say they want to become creators but creators are becoming entrepreneurs. entrepreneurship becomes the most popular profession. 39. in 18 months, 80% of the “ai startup” category will look like spam. the rest will become infrastructure. 40. conversion rate product debates are obsolete. Why argue over 2 button colors when AI focus groups can test 200 variations overnight? 41. most of what we call “marketing” is about to be done by ai. humans will move upstream into storytelling, vibes, and brand energy. 42. the best hiring decision you can make this year? a head of ai ops. someone who can build workflows, glue tools, and ship outcomes. 43. the first $1b AGI startup will look like a toy at first. all world-changing interfaces do. 44. ai-powered distribution > ai-powered product. a mid product with elite reach will beat a great product with no attention every time. 45. people still hate monthly subscriptions. outcome-based pricing is still in early days. implementing this will be a competitive advantage for lots of companies. large saas wont be able to compete with you. 46. i don't know how long this window stays open, but we're in a moment where all the rules of building businesses are being rewritten. for the people playing with these new tools, creating audiences and communities, you've got an unfair advantage. i hope you get some sleep.

The most important things to teach children today are agency and taste They happen to map to prompting and evals

How Apple Can Come From Behind And Win The AI Race 🍎🤖 - - - Apple finds itself at a crossroads: while tools like Cursor handle complex, dozen-step tasks with ease, Siri struggles with even basic queries like identifying the current month. I've loved Apple products for two decades – from my first iPod through many iPhones and Macbooks, to the latest Apple Watch. But there's no denying that the company I've championed is stuck in the classic innovator's dilemma. Thriving in the agentic age will require dismantling much of what made them successful. The agentic age calls for systems where assistants, not apps, are the primary interface – reducing notification overload and delivering outcomes rather than features. Apple today ships their org chart: Messages, Notes, and Photos teams operate in silos, each reporting to different VPs with different incentives. This structure, tolerable for app-based computing, is catastrophic for creating a seamless AI experience. An agentic Apple OS would let a non-tech-savvy grandma simply tell Siri: > "Create an Amazon shopping list of presents my children and grandchildren might want for Christmas." > "Create three possible detailed itineraries with ready-to-book hotels and flights for a 3-week European trip starting in Paris this April." > "Send my granddaughter the most relevant notes I've taken on baking snickerdoodles." No more juggling between siloed apps. No more notification hell. Just outcomes delivered with minimal cognitive overhead. The urgency for Apple couldn't be greater. Meta, with its aggressive AI investments and lack of legacy software constraints, could emerge as the leader in agentic computing. Even hardware manufacturers like Dell (which builds billions of dollars of AI servers for xAI) could potentially leapfrog Apple if they built an operating system that creates a direct pipeline from user intention to outcome without traditional software layers. If Apple doesn't move quickly, they will be overtaken in defining the next computing paradigm – much as Microsoft missed the mobile revolution. But for a company that has orchestrated spectacular comebacks before – from near-bankruptcy in 1997 to becoming the world's most valuable company – staging another reinvention isn't unprecedented. Apple has a history of arriving late to markets only to redefine them entirely. This is fundamentally Apple's game to lose. They've spent decades becoming the trusted gateway for people getting things done. With their control of devices, operating systems, and user data, they're perfectly positioned to become the hypercontextual layer underpinning every user's personal assistant. They already know our contacts, calendars, health data, habits, and preferences – becoming the foundation for our AI-powered future would be a natural evolution. To execute this AI comeback, Apple must take three crucial steps: 1. Reward AI integration, not product silos. Restructure incentives to reward teams for improving Siri's capabilities, not individual app metrics. Transform the App Store into a marketplace where developers earn based on how often Siri uses their capabilities to accomplish user goals – creating a meritocracy where the best AI capabilities thrive. 2. Embrace open AI standards. By adopting the Model Context Protocol used by companies like Anthropic and Cursor, Apple can tap into the growing ecosystem of interoperable AI tools while maintaining its privacy-focused ethos. 3. Unleash direct device control. Apple devices are supercomputers artificially constrained by tap-and-click interfaces. By implementing APIs for AI assistants to directly control device functions (as Claude does with Computer Use), Siri could finally accomplish complex tasks on users' behalf, with proper safety guardrails. But Tim Cook faces a stark choice: rest on Apple's laurels or make the painful decision to reorganize both the company and its developer community. Recent leadership changes, like John Giannandrea's appointment as SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, may signal that Tim is ready to fix Apple's AI strategy. The funny thing about all the criticism of Apple? The moment Apple ships a truly agentic Siri, all will be forgiven, creating potentially the greatest tech comeback since Jobs returned in 1997. But this transformation requires humility and courage – and will alienate long-tenured employees (many in their 50s and 60s) and loyal developers who don't fit the AI-first mentality. I want Apple to succeed. I want to stay in the ecosystem I've invested in for years. I want the company that gave us "the computer for the rest of us" to give us "the AI for the rest of us" too. Just as they once rendered BlackBerry obsolete by redefining what a phone could be, they can overcome their late start in the AI race by reinventing the very concept of human-computer interaction. So, Tim: bring in people like graduates of @gauntletai who live and breathe the AI-first future. Empower them to rebuild Apple for the agentic age. That's how to make sure Apple will continue to Cook.