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VAN LEEUWEN AND THE ART OF NOT ADVERTISING

Van Leeuwen grew from a single cart in 2008 to 50 locations across the US without spending money on advertising.

* Why pressure's higher than ever, but there's big opportunity

for those ready to meet it * How AI is saving teams time — and what they _still_ can't find time for * Tips for investing in experimentation and product ops, based on Atlassian's own product development experience.

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9 WAYS GROWTH IS DIFFERENT IN AI COMPANIES

AI-native growth resets constantly, driven by prompt-box activation, big bets, and founder-led social. Product, brand, and velocity replace traditional optimizations and marketing playbooks.

THE PURPOSE OF PROTOTYPES

Prototypes test risks and reveal solutions worth building. AI tools now make this faster, cheaper, and essential for product teams.

HOW TO EFFECTIVELY PITCH CONSTRAINTS

Resistance to constraints stems from bias, autonomy concerns, and decision styles. Adoption improves when framed as empowerment, efficiency, or evidence-based experimentation.

THE HIDDEN TRAP KILLING B2B PRODUCT TEAMS

Project stacking traps B2B teams between custom work and scalable products. Escaping it demands organizational change, not just better product management.

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(includes a framework for cross-functional AI adoption [9])..

5 STEPS FROM FEATURES TO OUTCOME ROADMAP

Most roadmaps are plans, not strategy. A real roadmap builds from narratives, focuses on outcomes, and aligns with company goals.

THE MESSAGING MATRIX: HOW TO ALIGN YOUR PRODUCT MESSAGING

A messaging matrix aligns product positioning, benefits, and features across teams to ensure consistent, resonant communication. Create it cross-functionally, anchor in strategy, tailor by persona, and keep it current.

BRINGING DISCOVERY TO ENGINEERS WHO 'JUST WANT TO BUILD'

Discovery protects investment. Framed this way, engineers see it as risk management that saves time and prevents wasted builds.

WHAT EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE AI FUTURE

AI should amplify human potential, not replace it. Education must emphasize motivation, connection, originality, and curiosity. Parents and mentors should model balanced AI use, stressing hard work, portfolios, and relationships.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT SAYING NO

Great product leaders say no with clarity and purpose.

TIME FOR STRATEGIC WORK IS NOT OPTIONAL AND DOES NOT NEED TO BE EARNED

Focusing on execution traps leaders in reactive work.

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APPLE HAS A PRIVATE CSS PROPERTY TO ADD LIQUID GLASS EFFECTS TO WEB CONTENT

The private Apple CSS property, `-apple-visual-effect`, enables the "Liquid Glass" effect in iOS webviews. Although this property works when manually enabled, it's inaccessible for general web development and App Store apps due to its private status. Apple probably uses this feature internally to seamlessly integrate webviews into the iOS UI.

FALSEHOODS PROGRAMMERS BELIEVE ABOUT NULL POINTERS

Programmers commonly have some misconceptions about null pointers in languages like C, C++, and Rust. This article debunks assumptions ranging from immediate crashes upon dereferencing to the guaranteed address of zero for null pointers. These misconceptions come from compiler optimizations, platform-specific quirks, and the evolving understanding of undefined behavior.

WHY ARE EVENT-DRIVEN SYSTEMS HARD?

Event-driven systems use asynchronous messages to trigger actions. These often have to deal with evolving message formats, which requires strategies like backward/forward compatibility and schema registries to avoid system failures. Debugging is difficult due to the distributed nature, but correlation IDs allow for tracing events across services.

REACT WON BY DEFAULT – AND IT'S KILLING FRONTEND INNOVATION

The widespread default adoption of React in frontend development is stifling innovation. While React is excellent, its dominance discourages the adoption and evaluation of potentially better-suited frameworks like Svelte, Solid, and Qwik. These frameworks offer unique approaches such as compile-time optimization and fine-grained reactivity, which devs should also try to keep in mind.

WHY DO SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS LOVE COMPLEXITY?

Software developers often gravitate towards complexity despite the KISS principle due to its marketability and the perception that it signals expertise and innovation. This complexity can be driven by marketing hype, the creative satisfaction of solving intricate problems, the need to navigate existing convoluted codebases, and pressures to innovate within competitive team dynamics. However, unnecessary complexity creates a maintenance nightmare.

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INTRODUCING UPGRADES TO CODEX

OpenAI has released GPT-5-Codex, a better version of GPT-5 optimized for agentic coding within Codex. Codex now integrates with ChatGPT and supports various platforms like terminals, IDEs, and even mobile apps. It has a revamped Codex CLI, a new IDE extension, improved cloud infrastructure, and code review capabilities trained to catch flaws before deployment.

MACOS TAHOE

macOS Tahoe introduces a fresh, Liquid Glass design, better Continuity with iPhone through a new Phone app and Live Activities, Apple Intelligence integration for productivity boosts, and various updated features across apps like Messages, Photos, and Reminders.

SEMLIB

Semlib is a Python library that enables the creation of data processing and analysis pipelines using LLMs. It provides functional programming primitives like map, reduce, sort, and filter, but uses natural language descriptions instead of code for these operations. This approach breaks down complex tasks into simpler steps for improved quality, feasibility, latency, and cost-effectiveness.

WHICH NPM PACKAGE HAS THE LARGEST VERSION NUMBER?

This dev investigated which npm package has the largest number in its version by fetching package data from the npm registry. After fetching metadata for millions of packages, they initially found "latentflip-test" with a very large version number, which they considered invalid. After filtering and manual inspection, the author discovered that "all-the-package-names" has version 2.0.2401, making it the npm package following semantic versioning with the largest valid number.

HOSTING A WEBSITE ON A DISPOSABLE VAPE

This dev hosted a website on a disposable vape's microcontroller, the PUYA PY32F002B. He used semihosting to emulate a serial modem, enabling SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) communication and integrating uIP for TCP/IP support. It was initially slow, but he optimized the web server by implementing a ring buffer to improve data handling and speed.

AI HYPE IS MASKING RECESSION SIGNALS IN THE MARKET

Despite record highs driven by AI excitement, the stock market is masking underlying recessionary signals in other sectors. These AI investments are primarily driving market performance, rather than consumer spending. However, a market rotation is beginning, with investors eyeing previously struggling sectors anticipating potential interest rate cuts and the impact of AI on productivity.

BORING WORK NEEDS TENSION

Software developers can make their work more engaging by actively seeking out and resolving technical challenges ("tensions") that come up in their daily tasks.

VIBE CODING IS CREATING BRAINDEAD CODERS

While AI coding tools can increase productivity, they also risk creating a generation of developers who lack deep understanding and problem-solving skills.

HOW TO SELF-HOST A WEB FONT FROM GOOGLE FONTS

To avoid leaking visitor IP addresses to Google, download Google Fonts files, self-host them with relative paths, link the CSS file in your HTML, apply the font in your CSS, and include the font's license.

DEATH💀 TO TYPE CLASSES

Replacing Haskell's type classes with the Backpack module system might be a simpler, faster approach to effect systems, as you can implement Functors and effects using Backpack modules and signatures.

GOOGLE GEMINI IS THE TOP FREE IPHONE APP

Gemini for iPhone is the top free app in the US App Store. ChatGPT is in second position, and Threads is third. The Gemini app ranks second in Canada and the UK. It has seen more than 23 million new users since its launch. Google's new image editing model has been a viral hit due to how it maintains character likeness and consistency.

ELON MUSK'S BORING COMPANY COMPLETES VEGAS LOOP TUNNEL TO AIRPORT

The Boring Company has successfully completed a 2.26-mile tunnel for the Vegas Loop system in Las Vegas. The tunnel, aimed at alleviating surface congestion in one of America's busiest tourist destinations, stretches from a site near Harry Reid International Airport in the south to the Westgate Resort in the north. There will be eight stations along the route, including key stops at Virgin hotels and the Hughes Center. The tunnel is part of a broader plan to create a 68-mile network with over 100 stations to connect major landmarks.

PROMISING NEW EPILEPSY DRUG DELIVERS 80% REDUCTION IN SEIZURES

Rapport Therapeutics' experimental compound, RAP-219, reduced seizures by an average of 77.8% in a Phase 2a study. Almost a quarter of participants remained seizure-free over the two-month treatment period. The study raises hopes for patients who suffer from seizures despite being on multiple medications. Rapport plans to meet with the US Food and Drug Administration and then launch two Phase 3 trials next year. It is also developing a long-acting injectable version to address medication adherence, a frequent challenge in epilepsy.

NASA ANNOUNCES DISCOVERY OF LIFE ON MARS WITH HIGH DEGREE OF CONFIDENCE

An analysis of the Martian Sapphire Canyon mudstone core found minerals and textures that are often linked to microbial activity. While nonbiological chemistry could also explain the signals, the finding is the closest scientists have ever come to discovering life on Mars. More data is needed to rule out nonbiological sources.

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GET EXCITED ABOUT POSTGRES 18

Postgres18 adds asynchronous I/O, which means faster reads for many use cases. This is a part of a bigger series of performance improvements planned. Asynchronous I/O allows workers to optimize idle time and improve system throughput by batching reads. It provides a more predictable and better-performing method for batching operations at the database level. Writes will continue to be synchronous as this is needed for ACID compliance.

UTF-8 IS A BRILLIANT DESIGN

UTF-8 was designed to represent millions of characters from different languages and scripts and still be backward compatible with ASCII. Every ASCII-encoded file is a valid UTF-8 file, and every UTF-8 encoded file that only has ASCII characters is a valid ASCII file. This post gets into how UTF-8 works. A link to a playground for visualizing and playing around with UTF-8 encoding is available in the post.

A.I.'S PROPHET OF DOOM WANTS TO SHUT IT ALL DOWN

Eliezer Yudkowsky, the founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a Berkeley-based nonprofit that studies risks from advanced artificial intelligence, believes that building powerful AI systems is a terrible idea that will end in disaster. He recently released a book co-written with MIRI's president aimed at stopping the development of AI. The book claims that everyone on Earth will die if any company or group anywhere on the planet builds an artificial superintelligence using anything remotely like current techniques. While some may see Yudkowsky as an extremist or a crank, he is a central figure in modern AI history, and his influence on the industry is undeniable.

‘MORE EGALITARIAN': HOW NEPAL'S GEN Z USED GAMING APP DISCORD TO PICK PM

14 governments representing three parties have taken turns at governing Nepal since 2008, when the country adopted a new constitution after abolishing its monarchy. After recent protests, the country's citizens used a virtual poll on Discord to elect its new leader. A Gen Z group called Hami Nepal ran a channel where a debate on the country's future was livestreamed. After hours of debate, participants selected former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki to lead Nepal.

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WE GREW FROM ZERO TO $50M ARR IN <2 YEARS, PROFITABLY

This post looks at how influencer marketing, investing in brand before performance marketing, user testing, and dogfooding helped Gamma grow from zero to $50 million ARR in under two years.

THE CITY LEADING CHINA'S CHARGE TO PULL AHEAD IN AI

Hangzhou, China, has become an AI hub at the center of China's global tech ambitions.

OUR ROBOTS ARE NOW FOLDING LAUNDRY FOR TUMBLE LAUNDRY CUSTOMERS IN SAN FRANCISCO

A short video of a robot from Weave Robotics folding laundry.