Intro
More AI stuff this week again like the last before it. I don’t think anybody really knows how these things will all play out but that hasn’t stopped everyone making lots of predictions.
Highlights of the Week
Raising a Special Little AI
By Not Boring
Having said that, I do subscribe to the Chris Dixon views that The next big thing will start out looking like a toy and What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years, so if this many people are captivated, there’s something going on.
I left FAANG for a startup and regretted it
https://lawrenceztang.substack.com/p/i-left-faang-for-a-startup-and-regretted No highlights from this but a great read all the same. It is very difficult to give all hours to someone else’s idea.
The way I run standup meetings
https://marcgg.com/blog/2024/11/20/standup
The objective of this meeting is to share interesting things relevant to your team and raise blockers. What we find “interesting” will vary depending on context. Use your best judgment and don’t hesitate to ask the group if this is interesting to them.
You will hear updates not impacting you directly. Maybe things you don’t understand fully. This is normal and by design. However your goal is to pay attention to everything, be curious and try to understand what everyone is sharing. Don’t hesitate to ask questions after the meeting.
Lots of meetings are BS but the daily standup is one of the better ones, at least in my experience. Especially on remote teams it is easy to loose contact and context with what is happening outside your own little bubble so a sync really does help keep it all on track.
Code Is Cheap Now. Software Isn’t.
https://www.chrisgregori.dev/opinion/code-is-cheap-now-software-isnt
AI has effectively removed engineering leverage as a primary differentiator. When any developer can use an LLM to build and deploy a complex feature in a fraction of the time it used to take, the ability to write code is no longer the competitive advantage it once was. It is no longer enough to just be a “builder.”
Code is the lines you have that tell a computer to do some instructions. Software includes the entire operation from building to maintaining to supporting and deciding what to spend the time on in the first place. Writing code used to be so much of the job but now we’re shifting more to the other parts. For some this is a crisis because that is what they enjoyed and were good at.
The Future of Enterprise Software
https://x.com/levie/status/2013018817610518642/
I’d argue that in a world of 100X more AI agents than people in an enterprise, the value of the systems of record and tools agents will use will go up, not down. Because in this new world, software provides the guardrails on which agents can operate successfully within an enterprise, and gives them the underlying tools to use to be more productive themselves and work alongside people.
Enterprise software is having a moment lately and not a good one. But eventually everything balances out and I feel we’ll see a bit more nuance than just AI will rewrite everything.
The week ahead
I’ve not kept my goal of reading more this week, not really properly at least.