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2024 STATE OF AI (REPORT)

Navigating the present and promise of generative AI: insights from ICONIQ's 2024 GenAI survey.

THE PLUMMETING COST OF INTELLIGENCE

The cost of artificial intelligence is experiencing a rapid decline, driven by factors such as increased competition among model developers, improvements in computational efficiency, and the emergence of smaller, more efficient models. This trend is expected to continue, potentially leading to a future where the cost of intelligence is negligible for most practical purposes. As a result, new applications and industries are likely to emerge, and founders and builders are encouraged to focus on exploring new use cases and features that will become feasible as the cost of intelligence continues to drop.

WHY AI WORKFLOWS ARE THE NEXT FRONTIER OF GTM

Many B2B SaaS companies struggle to achieve organic growth due to a lack of investment in quality content and a reliance on inefficient AI tools. However, by leveraging AI workflows, businesses can amplify their productivity, reduce content creation costs, and deploy complex organic strategies quickly. A strategic, quality-focused approach to AI implementation is crucial, incorporating human oversight to maintain brand voice and expertise while harnessing the power of AI for research, content generation, and workflow automation.

THE RISE OF ADVANCED BUILD SYSTEMS

The software development process is becoming increasingly complex, leading to slower and more unreliable builds that hinder developer productivity and drive up infrastructure costs. A new generation of advanced build systems is emerging to address this issue by leveraging features like subdivision of builds, deterministic dependency management, and remote execution to deliver faster and more reliable builds. These systems are being adopted by companies across various industries, promising to transform the way software is developed and shipped, and ultimately making the age-old excuse "my code's compiling" a relic of the past.

A POSSIBLE AI FUTURE

A potential future for AI could involve AI systems acting as thoughtful and trusted friends, using their knowledge of our connections and networks to facilitate helpful interactions and transactions.

WHAT COSTCO'S FOUNDER, JIM SINEGAL CAN TEACH US ABOUT CHARACTER

Effective leaders prioritize integrity and character over short-term gains, even when no one is watching.

ARE RATE CUTS A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF A PROBLEM?

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GITLAB WARNS OF CRITICAL PIPELINE EXECUTION VULNERABILITY

GitLab has released a bulletin urging CE and EE users to update their installation to fix a critical vulnerability. The vulnerability allows RCE via environment stop action jobs. The fix also addresses four other high severity vulnerabilities that can be exploited to achieve RCE.

CLEVER 'GITHUB SCANNER' CAMPAIGN ABUSING REPOS TO PUSH MALWARE

A sneaky campaign on GitHub is tricking users into visiting a fake domain and installing Windows malware by falsely reporting security vulnerabilities. Users are receiving convincing email alerts from legitimate GitHub addresses, leading to the spread of malicious software. Threat actors are using GitHub's "Issues" feature to distribute malware through open-source repositories, highlighting the platform's vulnerability to abuse.

A SAAS PROVIDER'S GUIDE TO SECURELY INTEGRATING WITH CUSTOMERS' AWS ACCOUNTS

SaaS providers often need to integrate with customers' AWS environments to perform a variety of tasks such as cost optimization or CSPM. The basics that a provider can do are to use IAM Roles with ExternalIDs instead of IAM users and to audit and minimize permissions that your role requires. Some paved roads and guardrails that providers can then take would be to provide CloudFormation templates and/or a Terraform provider as well as refusing to assume an overly permissive role. Finally, providers should treat their integrations as crown jewels and consider using defense-in-depth models such as bastion accounts and restricting the customer's trust boundary to a single role instead of a full account.

HOW CLOUDFLARE IS HELPING DOMAIN OWNERS WITH THE UPCOMING ENTRUST CA DISTRUST BY CHROME AND MOZILLA

Entrust is partnering with SSL.com to issue trusted certificates and prevent disruptions as Chrome and Mozilla plan to stop trusting its TLS certificates soon due to compliance concerns. Cloudflare will now support SSL.com certificates for automatic issuance and renewal, making it easier for domain owners.

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1PASSWORD PYTHON SDK

1Password has released a Python SDK that allows for programmatic access and management of 1Password secrets.

CHROMEKATZ

ChromeKatz is a tool for dumping passwords and cookies from compromised Chromium browsers.

STOWAWAY

Stowaway is a Multi-hop proxy tool for security researchers and pentesters. Users can use it to proxy external traffic through multiple nodes to the core internal network, breaking through internal network access restrictions, constructing a tree-like node network, and easily realizing management functions.

CYBERSECURITY TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION CYCLE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR STARTUPS AND SECURITY TEAMS

Security teams can be classified into three categories: mature and engineering-focused teams, mature but not engineering-focused teams, and less mature teams or organizations that lack resources. Mature and engineering-focused teams will look to build their own tools, become design partners with early stage startups, and only look to buy tooling once it becomes commodified. Mature but not engineering-focused teams will often buy tooling from early-stage startups. Less mature teams will primarily wait for larger companies to adopt new tooling and features to reduce the amount of products they pay for. Startups need to be aware of these trends as they are the inverse of typical strategies. Security teams need to consider this cycle when deciding to build vs buy tooling.

CROWDSTRIKE EX-EMPLOYEES: ‘QUALITY CONTROL WAS NOT PART OF THE PROCESS'

Semafor interviewed 24 former CrowdStrike employees in the wake of the outage this past July. The employees detailed working conditions that prioritized speed above all else and omitted quality control. CrowdStrike disputes these claims and says that these were disgruntled former employees who are not reputable.

POLICY LANGUAGE SECURITY COMPARISON

AWS engaged Trail of Bits to evaluate three major authorization and access management policy languages: Cedar, Rego, and OpenFGA. Trail of Bits evaluated sixteen threat scenarios and grouped them by attack surface and mitigation similarity. Cedar's predictable evaluation model protects against DoS from users and the formalized semantics, testing, and typing system prevent language misuse and mis-evaluation, but data ingestion and engineering may cause complexities. Rego provides a flexible policy language which can make it easier to use but also may lead to language misuse, mis-evaluation, or performance considerations. OpenFGA provides a declarative language for mapping ReBAC constraints, which can simplify policy writing, but it relies on external attribute lists and can lead to unpredictable performance. The language also features mitigations for threats related to policy extension and replacement.

APPLE'S NEW MACOS SEQUOIA UPDATE IS BREAKING SOME CYBERSECURITY TOOLS

Apple's new macOS Sequoia update is breaking several tools, including those from CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, and Microsoft, causing delays in support.

SNOWFLAKE ROLLS OUT MFA BY DEFAULT

Snowflake has announced new password requirements and is enforcing MFA by default starting in October.

GERMANY SEIZES 47 CRYPTO EXCHANGES USED BY RANSOMWARE GANGS

German law enforcement seized 47 cryptocurrency exchanges in the country used by cybercriminals for illegal activities like ransomware payments.

REDDIT LAUNCHES NEW ADS INSPIRATION LIBRARY, AI COPYWRITER, AND IMAGE AUTO-CROPPER

Reddit has launched a “Reddit ads inspiration library”, which provides an overview of the best-performing ads running on the platform across various verticals. The tool allows users to filter ads by campaign budget, placement, format, industry, or objective. Reddit also announced a beta “AI copywriter” and an image auto-cropper, both designed to simplify the ad creation flow.

HOW LINKEDIN BECAME INFLUENCERS' HOT NEW VIDEO PLATFORM

LinkedIn has embraced short-form video content, with uploads increasing by 34% YoY. Creators, including popular TikTok figures, are now posting more dynamic content, ranging from business insights to stunts similar to those on TikTok or YouTube. Influencers note that LinkedIn offers more thoughtful engagement and a more responsive audience compared to other platforms.

HOW I GET CUSTOMERS TO OPEN UP

Researchers often overcomplicate customer interviews. In reality, only two types of questions matter: good questions, which provide honest, insightful feedback, and bad questions, which yield vague, biased answers. Good questions focus on past behaviors and real experiences, such as asking how customers have solved specific problems rather than hypothetical future actions. This approach cuts through superficial responses.

PRICING STRATEGIES WHEN YOUR AUDIENCE IS SMALL

Small audiences don't have to limit revenue, with pricing strategies like offering consulting services and treating advice as a sellable content product being key. Calculating a realistic "survival rate" and setting prices based on effectiveness can help business owners make more money in less time. Building a business funnel that turns audience members into paying customers ensures that even small audiences can generate consistent revenue.

LINKEDIN COMPANY PAGE STRATEGIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND

LinkedIn has introduced a revamped company page layout that includes features like easier admin access, a new identity switcher for engaging with other posts, and premium options like custom CTA buttons. These updates streamline page management and help brands engage more effectively. Other new tools like LinkedIn newsletters have shown rapid audience growth potential, with some pages gaining thousands of subscribers within weeks.

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ARCADE: CREATE INTERACTIVE DEMOS THAT CONVERT

Arcade enables companies to create interactive demos in minutes that drive leads, boost adoption, and tell the product's story. The tool syncs engagement data with CRM and marketing analytics tools, allowing marketers to more easily show the ROI of the demos. Arcade offers a limited free plan as well as several paid plans.

HYPE: GIVING FANS A STAKE IN THE SUCCESS OF THEIR FAVORITE EMERGING CREATORS

Hype is a new YouTube feature designed to help smaller creators grow by allowing fans to promote videos from channels with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. Fans can hype videos within the first 7 days of release, earning creators points that boost their position on a weekly leaderboard, potentially introducing them to a wider audience. Hype also includes a "small creator bonus" to level the playing field for those with fewer subscribers.

ATTENTION IS ADVERTISING'S CURRENCY, LET'S AGREE ON ITS VALUE

Attention is key to measuring ad effectiveness, but a standardized definition is still missing. Advances in technology like AI and eye-tracking enable more accurate attention measurement, but the industry needs consensus on metrics across platforms. This author calls for collaboration among brands, agencies, and platforms to create consistent standards.

REDDIT THREADS ARE BLOWING UP ON TIKTOK AND INSTAGRAM

Reddit threads are gaining massive visibility on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and X through reposted content like screenshots, story narrations, and reaction videos. TikTok's popular format of pairing narrated Reddit stories with gameplay and YouTube creators reacting to controversial posts like “Am I The Asshole?” have helped drive Reddit's presence off-platform. However, while this cross-platform content increases awareness, it hasn't translated into significant traffic back to Reddit itself. The trend shows Reddit's growing mainstream influence, though much of the engagement remains on other social platforms.

PHOTOS STILL MATTER ON BRAND SOCIAL

Great photography continues to be key to creating memorable brand campaigns, despite the increasing focus on video, with trends on social media often leading to visual homogenization. Micro trends, like bows and jaguar print, come and go quickly, while macro trends, such as film-inspired aesthetics, evolve more slowly. Social media tends to prolong trends, as platforms incentivize the use of proven visuals for engagement.

GOOD EMAIL STRUCTURE > GOOD EMAIL DESIGN

A breakdown of how to improve a health food company's welcome email focused on improving information structure.

INCREASE TRAFFIC BY 20% WITH THESE 3 EXERCISES

Boost high-converting pages, nearly-famous content, and hidden articles by adding 10 internal links from other relevant pages.

HOW NEWSLETTERS MAKE MONEY

Newsletters are a simple yet profitable business, some netting millions from either an ad-supported or subscription-supported model.

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MY THOUGHTS ON "FOUNDER MODE" AND WHY IT'S DANGEROUS

There is a tension between founder CEOs and product leaders, particularly when scaling a business. While 'founder mode' is valuable in the early stages, founders need to adapt, collaborate with experienced executives, and provide clear strategy as companies grow, rather than relying solely on innovation and early-stage tactics.

WILL AI TAKE OVER HUMANS?

AI's evolution is reshaping social interactions and knowledge-based work, potentially displacing many jobs while leaving physical and emotional tasks untouched. Its dominance over knowledge work may free humanity to address critical global issues like environmental degradation, making it a tool for progress rather than a threat.

MASTERING COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS: A PRODUCT MANAGER'S GUIDE TO OUTMANEUVERING THE MARKET

Competitive analysis is crucial for product managers. Make it ongoing, consider more than just features, and apply insights to your strategy. Use it to lead, not just follow, in your market.

WHY IS EVERYONE HATING ON PRODUCT MANAGERS?

Focus on real customer feedback and execution, rather than obsessing over internal artifacts and unnecessary frameworks. Avoid falling for unsustainable trends like hypergrowth. Choose work carefully, avoid toxic leaders, and prioritize environments and incentives that foster genuine product development over optics and bureaucracy.

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE PM JOB MARKET AND HOW TO FIX IT

The product management job market has shifted dramatically since 2022, with fewer open roles and intense competition for positions, leaving many qualified candidates struggling to even get their CVs seen. Meanwhile, employers face challenges of their own, including managing overwhelming volumes of applicants, mitigating hiring risks, and dealing with inefficiencies in recruitment processes, despite advanced tools like AI and ATS.

12 PROVEN SOURCES OF INSIGHTS TO FUEL YOUR PRODUCT DISCOVERY

Regular customer conversations are crucial, but true innovation stems from diverse insights. Here are 12 ways to enhance product discovery by tapping into various sources to thoroughly explore the problem space and maximize your impact as a PM.

THE VERTICAL SAAS + PAYMENTS PLAYBOOK

Vertical software companies can significantly increase revenue and improve retention by integrating industry-specific payments solutions into their existing products, expanding their market size and customer engagement. By owning key workflows before and after transactions and leveraging third-party payment providers, these companies can scale quickly and monetize multiple revenue streams.

MY FAVORITE UX RESEARCH BOOKS & WHY I LOVE THEM

DO YOU HAVE "THREE-PANE" RESILIENCE?

Throughout your career, you'll face intense external pressure. Build resilience by developing a strong outer layer to handle stress, using backup systems for support, and knowing when to deploy high-touch solutions.