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GOOGLE AND THE ART OF WEAPONIZING PRIVACY

Google has repeatedly used privacy as a pretext to restrict competitors' access to valuable user data while continuing to collect and exploit it through its own platforms. In 2011, it blocked access to search keyword data, crippling tools used by rivals like Facebook for ad targeting. More recently, it announced plans to end third-party cookies in Chrome and eliminate Android's Advertising ID, moves that weaken independent ad networks while preserving Google's dominance through its first-party data. These actions reduce competition and innovation in the tech industry, concentrating power and data within Google.

9 PREDICTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF B2B MARKETING

AI-native businesses are outpacing legacy companies by building faster, using real-time feedback, and embedding AI at their core. As AI lowers the barrier to product creation, the focus is shifting to growing engaged audiences and communities. B2B creators with niche followings will gain influence, often earning equity in exchange for audience access. The most effective approach will combine high-quality content at scale, buyer intent tracking, and warm outbound outreach. Strategic thinking, video, and creativity will become more valuable as AI agents take over much of the execution.

HOW TO REPOSITION A PRODUCT AS A PRODUCT MARKETER

2+1 POWERFUL WAYS TO ACQUIRE AND CONVERT MORE WITH JOBS-TO-BE-DONE

Push and pull forces drive product adoption, while inertia and anxiety often prevent conversion. Jobs-to-be-done interviews help uncover how these forces influence customer decisions by mapping the timeline of events leading to adoption, stagnation, or churn. Speaking with power users, recent adopters, and those who left reveals actionable patterns in motivation, hesitation, and unmet expectations. This approach surfaces gaps in perceived value and misaligned messaging, helping teams focus on what actually moves users through the decision funnel.

the right lead in front of the right rep. See Default in action

TRANSLATING MARKETING METRICS FOR NON-MARKETERS (WEBINAR)

This webinar will focus on tailoring reporting, telling a compelling data-driven story, and building trust with cross-functional teams by connecting marketing performance to business outcomes. It is free and will take place on June 4 at 12 PM CDT.

HOW TO MANAGE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK WITH AI

Even though 85% of product leaders believe customer-focused companies perform better, most companies struggle to act on customer feedback because it is hard to organize. AI can streamline this process by helping teams collect, tag, cluster, and prioritize feedback from multiple sources like surveys, reviews, and support tickets. This article presents a 3-step framework focused on collecting, organizing, and acting on feedback by linking it to business goals and customer insights. It includes templated AI prompts to carry out the framework.

HOW SUBSTACK IS REMARKABLY CHANGING THE GAME FOR GOOD

Substack has surpassed 5M paid subscriptions, adding nearly 1M every quarter. It now supports over 50K income-generating publishers. Substack succeeds where traditional social media fails by giving creators direct audience relationships, no algorithmic interference, and built-in monetization. Writers typically grow through 3 stages: foundation, acceleration, and exponential "hockey stick" growth. The top 10 earners collectively make $40M annually. Tools like Notes and A/B testing drive engagement and retention, with 72% of subscribers staying past 90 days and only 8% actively churning.

ALMOST HALF OF GOOGLE SEARCHES ARE BRANDED

Branded searches make up 45.7% of total Google search volume. 36.9% of unique queries include a brand name. Users aren't just looking for a homepage, they're seeking specific content like support pages, product comparisons, reviews, or local listings. If these results aren't optimized, it can lead to a poor experience or even competitor visibility. Branded search isn't just about ranking, it's also about shaping how people engage with your brand once they already know it.

TARIFFS ARE LIKELY TO DRIVE PRIME DAY PURCHASES

Prime Day shoppers intend to stock up on products they think will get more expensive due to tariffs.

SHOULD YOU RETARGET BY INTENT?

A test showed that segmenting retargeting ads by visitor intent can lead to a 3.1X increase in CTR compared to a one-size-fits-all approach.

THE MODERN MARKETER IS A MULTI-THREADED OPERATOR

IT'S STILL SEO: SEARCH EVERYWHERE OPTIMIZATION

SEOs should adopt "Search Everywhere Optimization" to better reflect how people search across multiple platforms beyond traditional search engines.

👉 Read the guide.

PROGRESSIVE JSON

Most apps send JSON all at once, forcing the client to wait until everything is ready, but what if we streamed it progressively, like how progressive JPEGs load from blurry to clear? A "Progressive JSON" approach is explored here that sends data breadth-first with placeholders, letting the client process what's ready and treat missing parts as Promises. This is similar to how React Server Components stream UI and use Suspense to control visual loading states.

VIRTUAL THREADS ATE MY MEMORY: A WEB CRAWLER'S TALE OF SPEED VS. MEMORY

Switching a web crawler from platform threads to Java Virtual Threads improves speed, but also causes an OutOfMemoryError due to a lack of built-in backpressure. Virtual Threads allows downloads to race ahead, but without limits, the system quickly floods memory with unprocessed tasks. The fix is to introduce explicit concurrency control (like semaphores) to balance speed with memory.

CONCURRENT WEB CRAWLING IN RUBY WITH ASYNC

This article shows how to transform a slow, synchronous Ruby web crawler into a fast concurrent one using the Async library. Crawling time is reduced from 3 seconds to half a second in the example by implementing non-blocking I/O with Fibers, connection reuse, and rate limiting.

WHAT'S WORKING FOR YC COMPANIES SINCE THE AI BOOM

WHEN FINE-TUNING ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE: A DEVELOPER'S GUIDE

Fine-tuning helps solve specific, high-impact problems that prompting alone can't, like inconsistent JSON output, bloated prompts, or models that ignore custom logic or tone. It's especially valuable for improving task-specific quality, reducing cost and latency, and making smaller models smarter through training on targeted examples.

MCP SERVER IN BASH

`mcp-server-bash-sdk` is a lightweight implementation of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in Bash. It provides a zero-overhead alternative to other MCP server implementations by using Bash and `jq` for JSON processing.

CAP

Cap is a fast, lightweight, open-source CAPTCHA alternative that uses SHA-256 proof-of-work instead of tracking or fingerprinting. It has a tiny JavaScript widget, zero-dependency server, optional CLI, Docker-based standalone mode, and middleware for frameworks like Express, Hono, and Elysia.

ROOT SHELL ON CREDIT CARD TERMINAL

This dev reverse-engineered a Worldline Yomani XR credit card terminal and found it had surprisingly weak security despite hardware tamper protections. He discovered a root shell accessible via a debug port, even from outside the device without triggering tamper detection. However, the vulnerable Linux system appears isolated from the secure processor handling sensitive card data, which limits the potential damage.

HOW GENERATIVE ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (GEO) REWRITES THE RULES OF SEARCH

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a new paradigm shifting from traditional SEO's focus on page rank to language models and how content is referenced in AI-generated answers. This new approach prioritizes well-organized and meaningful content that language models can easily extract and reproduce, requiring brands to optimize for model relevance rather than just search engine rankings.

ESLINT V9.0.0: A RETROSPECTIVE

ESLint v9.0.0 was released in April 2024 with a new configuration system, but its launch faced initial negative feedback from users due to numerous breaking changes, such as the combination of the new configuration system and rule API changes. While the ESLint team provided documentation, users found it overwhelming and preferred automated tooling for upgrades. The lessons learned include prioritizing smaller, more frequent releases, focusing on tooling over documentation, and improving error message context.

WHY ARE 2025/05/28 AND 2025-05-28 DIFFERENT DAYS IN JAVASCRIPT?

JavaScript interprets dates with the `/` separator as local time and dates with the `-` separator as UTC, leading to different date calculations due to browser parsing inconsistencies and historical standards.

PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME: THE PRINCETON INTERCAL COMPILER'S SOURCE CODE

The original source code for the influential esoteric programming language INTERCAL-72, created by Princeton undergraduates in 1972 and known for its intentionally difficult and parodic design, has been rediscovered, transcribed, and made publicly available.

CODEX CLI IS GOING NATIVE

OpenAI is rewriting Codex CLI in Rust to improve cross-platform stability, security, performance, and extensibility.

WHY DEEPSEEK IS CHEAP AT SCALE BUT EXPENSIVE TO RUN LOCALLY

DeepSeek-V3's architecture, like other Mixture-of-Experts models, benefits from large batch sizes to efficiently utilize GPUs, making it cost-effective at scale.

Read the Delve case study.

TESLA TARGETS JUNE 12 LAUNCH OF ROBOTAXI SERVICE IN AUSTIN

Tesla plans to launch its long-awaited robotaxi service in Austin on June 12. The date has only been discussed internally and could still change. The company this week operated a test vehicle on public roads in Austin with no one in the driver's seat for the first time. Elon Musk said earlier this month that Tesla would officially roll out a fleet of about 10 self-driving robotaxis in Austin before expanding to a thousand vehicles within a few months.

PERPLEXITY'S NEW TOOL CAN GENERATE SPREADSHEETS, DASHBOARDS, AND MORE

Perplexity Labs, a tool now available to Perplexity Pro users, can craft reports, spreadsheets, dashboards, and more. It is available on the web, iOS, and Android and will soon be available on Perplexity's apps for Mac and Windows. The tool is designed to help people complete a variety of work and personal projects. It can take 10 minutes or more to run and use tools like web search, code execution, and chart and image creation.

CHINA TO VISIT EARTH'S ‘QUASI-MOON' AND BRING A CHUNK OF IT BACK HOME

China's National Space Agency has launched an asteroid sample mission aimed at Asteroid 2016HO3, aka 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, which orbits the Sun. The Tianwen 2 probe rode a Long March 3B rocket into orbit at 1:31 Thursday morning. 2016HO3 is estimated to have a diameter of 40 to 100 meters. It is an attractive target for exploration because it can be reached by a spacecraft traveling at a modest 7 kilometers per second. The probe will reach the asteroid in about a year and then orbit it for a while before landing and attempting to retrieve around 100 grams of material.

HUGGING FACE UNVEILS TWO NEW HUMANOID ROBOTS

Hugging Face has announced a pair of open source humanoid robots. HopeJR is a full-sized humanoid robot with 66 actuated degrees of freedom. It can walk and move its arms. Reachy Mini is a desktop unit that can move its head, talk, listen, and be used to test AI apps. There is no timeline for shipping these robots, but the company anticipates shipping the first few units by the end of the year. The waitlist is currently open. A video of HopeJR being demonstrated at an event is available in the article.

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ANNOUNCING TYPESCRIPT NATIVE PREVIEWS

Developers can now use npm to get a preview of the native TypeScript compiler. They can now also use a preview version of TypeScript editor functionality for VS Code through the Visual Studio Marketplace. These previews will eventually become TypeScript 7. They will be published nightly so that developers can easily try the latest developments. The VS Code extension should get automatic updates by default.

BUILDING A DISTRIBUTED CACHE FOR S3

Clickhouse built a distributed cache for cloud object storage - a shared, low-latency layer that gives all compute nodes fast access to hot data. This post looks at how hot data caching worked before, why object storage made it hard, and how the new architecture fixes it. It includes benchmarks.

PATTERN MATCHING 20 HABITS OF EXCEPTIONAL STARTUPS

Exceptional startups do things very differently from the median startup. This post looks at habits that these startups tend to have. Exceptional startups beat and raise expectations, recruit top talent obsessively, ship product incredibly fast, and obsess over product quality. These traits, along with many others, make them great places to work and invest in.

KNOWLEDGE WORK IS DYING—HERE'S WHAT COMES NEXT

Before AI, knowledge set people apart - knowing more meant earning more. AI models can swallow entire fields overnight. This makes it more important to have wisdom. This article looks at how to develop abilities in areas that AI can't replicate. It teaches leaders how to lead from a deeper place of wisdom.

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THE CASE FOR USING A WEB BROWSER AS YOUR TERMINAL

Tweety is an integrated terminal for the browser that minimizes context switching by allowing developers to interact with their terminal directly from their browsers.

META AND ANDURIL DEFENSE STARTUP PARTNER ON VR, AR PROJECT INTENDED FOR U.S. ARMY

Meta and Anduril have formed a partnership to create virtual and augmented reality devices intended for use by the US Army.

APPLE'S US APP STORE TOPPED $400B IN DEVELOPER BILLINGS AND SALES IN 2024

The figure has nearly tripled in size since 2019.