TLDR 2025-10-06

Get your copy here >

WHAT'S INSIDE: LLM workflows often involve multiple calls to managed LLM platforms, making it difficult to identify the root causes of errors or latency issues during troubleshooting. Assessing the functional performance of LLM apps can be equally complex.

Read the guide >

APPLE PUTS HARDWARE CHIEF JOHN TERNUS IN THE SUCCESSION SPOTLIGHT

Several of Apple's executives are expected to relinquish their responsibilities in the near future - some of them were once seen as Tim Cook's heir, making the future of the company uncertain. The company needs to urgently beef up its AI business, which could mean a shake-up or even an acquisition. Big changes are likely, especially as some executives don't have obvious successors. Cook will likely remain involved with Apple in some capacity when he eventually steps down as CEO, perhaps as a board chairman. John Ternus remains the leading contender as Cook's successor.

OPENAI'S INVITE-ONLY VIDEO GENERATION APP SORA TOPS APPLE'S APP STORE

OpenAI's new video generation app, Sora, has snagged the No. 1 spot on Apple's App Store. The app allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users, and post them to a shared feed. It is only available on iOS and is invite-based. The app gives users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform, but some videos have sparked debate about its utility, potential for harm, and legality.

THE FIGHT TO FIX PROSTATE CANCER CARE

Prostate cancer is the most common nonskin cancer among American men. Diagnostics and therapies for the disease generated about $12 billion to $15 billion worldwide last year. Smarter screening of prostate cancers can save lives without the harms of overtreatment. New techniques and treatments cut recovery time down to weeks, with fewer of the side effects that often follow surgery or radiation.

BYD BUILDS WORLD'S FASTEST CAR

BYD's Yangwang U9 Extreme recorded a speed of 308.4 miles per hour at the Papenburg facility in Germany. The vehicle's four electric motors put out a combined total of more than 3,000 horsepower. There will be a limited production run of no more than 30 customer cars. BYD has yet to release pricing, but the queue is expected to fill quickly.

SCALING ENGINEERING TEAMS: LESSONS FROM GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, AND NETFLIX

Scaling engineering teams is like raising teenagers. They grow fast, develop personalities of their own, and they need boundaries. Teams that thrive at scale tend to have structured goal-setting, a ruthless focus on code quality, and intentional culture building. This post shares lessons learned from scaling teams at Google, Facebook, and Netflix. It provides a few frameworks, metrics, and tools to help you scale to over a thousand engineers without losing your mind or your best people.

VERCEL VS CLOUDFLARE: TWO PHILOSOPHIES OF BUILDING FOR DEVELOPERS

Vercel and Cloudflare are in a race to become the default platform for building modern apps. The two companies are competing with opposing ideas on what 'developer experience' means. The winner will be the one who wins developer trust. Whoever balances the developer experience, scale, and trust will shape how the web will be built in the next decade.

THE STABLECOIN DUOPOLY IS ENDING

Circle and Tether together boast $245 billion in supply - 85% of the stablecoin market. A few pieces have now come together to poke holes in this duopoly. It is now much easier to create, swap, and use stablecoins. New laws are making it possible for competition. The current stablecoin market is 10 years old, and the race has only just begun.

THE SELF-TAUGHT ENGINEER GOING HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH ELON MUSK AND JEFF BEZOS

Rocket Lab aims to fly its Neutron rocket, which is reusable, by the end of the year. Landing the rocket's booster will be a challenge - only SpaceX has achieved this feat. Rocket Lab's founder, Peter Beck, has a fixation on detail and form that has guided his course as an entrepreneur. The company's newly constructed launchpad is an example of this - it needed to be able to withstand 1.5 million pounds of thrust, but Beck added another requirement: it also had to look beautiful.

Subscribe now.

PYSCN

pyscn is a code quality analyzer for Python vibe coders that performs structural analysis to keep code bases maintainable.

HOW I INFLUENCE TECH COMPANY POLITICS AS A STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Let executives set the overall priorities for the company and tailor your own technical plans to fit.

HOW ONE AI MODEL CREATES A PHYSICAL INTUITION OF ITS ENVIRONMENT

Video Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture (V-JEPA), a model created by Meta, uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

MEMORY ACCESS IS O(N^[1/3])

If you can break up a task into many parts, each of which is highly local, then memory access in each part will be O(1), but if the task requires a lot of memory interdependencies, then you will get lots of O(N^⅓) terms.

HOW GDP HIDES INDUSTRIAL DECLINE

GDP is a very complicated statistical construct made by government bureaucrats - the public doesn't really have a way to replicate, audit, or verify assumptions.

PAY YOURSELF FIRST

Do the work that actually means something to you first, or you'll never get through the endless list of work that could be done.