American Eagle launched a free Substack newsletter to connect with Gen Z through more meaningful, group-chat-style content. Its first post shares key trends, including a nostalgic return to Y2K and '90s styles like jorts, flip-flops, and lace vests, alongside lo-fi seasonal vibes like “dilly-dally spring.” Festival fashion and EDM culture are rising, while blue eyeshadow and intentional rest through “bed rotting” reflect Gen Z's balance between performance and self-care.
Ashley Rudder, Chief Creator Officer at DNY, believes creators are no longer tactics. They're media, and media must perform. At DNY, creators work across every department, reshaping how advertising is developed and measured. Rudder moves beyond outdated metrics like follower count and EMV, focusing instead on real engagement and business impact. The goal is to help brands build real, human connections through content that feels authentic rather than corporate.
A series of Timeleft ads that sell its vibe rather than the app itself.
Build influence, don't spray and pray, and stop waiting for clicks.
In the AI era, product teams will shrink to just generalists and top-tier specialists, making it crucial to deepen your expertise while using AI to broaden your skills. To stay ahead, learn to manage AI agents, act with initiative, and automate repetitive tasks so you can focus on high-value, creative work.
A product roadmap is not a task list or plan, but a strategic communication tool used to share the intended future direction of a product based on hypotheses and evolving understanding. It should align with the product strategy, accommodate uncertainty, and be tailored to different stakeholder audiences for effective communication.
People judge you by the average quality of your accomplishments, not the total, so listing too many weak ones can hurt your impression. Focus on a few strong, memorable highlights and share lesser ones only when aiming to be relatable.
A/B testing is broken. Only 10% of revenue-linked tests beat their controls, and many teams keep copying popular but ineffective design choices or fail to implement winning variants. Relying on outdated "best practices" and internal pressures, especially around trends like AI, leads companies to ignore test results, costing them conversions and credibility.
While product-led growth can be a powerful engine for early traction and cost-efficient scaling, relying on it alone can limit revenue potential, reduce customer insight, and hinder enterprise expansion. Even the most celebrated PLG companies eventually invest heavily in sales teams to close complex, high-value deals, proving that the most effective growth strategy is a blend of self-serve and people-led sales.
Spotify's dominance in music apps comes from a flawlessly intuitive UI and UX that prioritizes simplicity, minimal friction, and user-centric features like clean navigation, seamless device switching, and smart recommendations. Instead of adding flashy extras, Spotify refines what matters, creating an experience so natural it becomes invisible.
Confidence significantly impacts how ideas are received by senior executives, even when the data and people remain the same. Confident presentation fosters trust, while nervousness invites doubt. To show up confidently, prepare thoroughly - not just the content, but also the audience, structure, and support - while also managing your mindset and energy before the meeting.
Building a new API product from scratch presents the same 0-to-1 challenges as any product, requiring discovery, user insight, and thoughtful design. Chi Phan, a product manager, used tactics like interviews and story mapping to create an API that streamlined manual processes, boosted efficiency, and increased revenue despite initial adoption hurdles.
Many product teams mistake activity for impact, focusing on features delivered instead of meaningful outcomes.
As product development grows increasingly superficial and templated, there will be a renewed demand for teaching fundamental product management principles - rooted in psychology, prioritization, and intentionality - as a key differentiator in a saturated market.
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Autumn tried to simplify billing by handling payments directly on the frontend. Its initial approach was to use a "publishable key," but it was limited and confusing. Next, it experimented with Next.js server actions, which were insecure due to the exposure of customer IDs. To address this, it implemented a custom encryption layer for server actions, which finally allowed secure operations from the frontend.
Hybrid frameworks can function as both server-side and static site generators. These frameworks use the request/response model of server frameworks, but can be used to pre-render static sites by running the server during the build process. Hybrid frameworks are more flexible and reduce tooling fragmentation compared to static-only tools.
GitHub has upgraded its Issues search with support for nested queries and boolean operators, allowing users to build complex searches with AND/OR logic across all fields. The technical implementation involved creating an AST parser and mapping the complex queries to Elasticsearch's boolean query structure while maintaining backward compatibility.
NumPy is a popular Python library for array computations that frustratingly makes complex array operations unnecessarily difficult and unintuitive. NumPy's broadcasting and indexing features are confusing and error-prone, and its function design is too complex.
Complicated and complex systems are different in that complex systems require adaptive solutions and novel approaches. There are five characteristics of complex systems: emergent behavior, delayed consequences, local vs. global optimization, hysteresis, and nonlinearity. To navigate complexity, devs should favor reversible decisions, think beyond immediate metrics, embrace innovation, use controlled rollouts, and prioritize observability.
Various opinions on the future of React. Some regard it as a web standard and the only framework many web devs know, others think the rendering model is outdated, and many think the tight coupling with Next.js and Vercel will lead to its downfall.
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Vibe coding tools like Lovable and Bolt promise speed but create tech debt, security gaps, and shadow IT. As AI demands grow, DIY foundations fail.
TanStack DB is a reactive client store designed to build fast, synchronized applications. It extends TanStack Query by adding collections, live queries, and optimistic mutations for a reactive UI experience.
Windsurf's SWE-1 is a family of software engineering models designed to accelerate development by 99%. The family includes SWE-1, SWE-1-lite, and SWE-1-mini, each offering different levels of performance and availability. SWE-1 models are trained on a new data model and training recipe that covers incomplete states, long-running tasks, and multiple surfaces.
Easel is a beginner-friendly 2D game programming language and platform that makes multiplayer game development simpler by handling networking and synchronization automatically.
Stack Overflow's question volume has plummeted to 2009 levels. This decline began around 2014 with increased moderation. It accelerated after ChatGPT's launch, and was made worse by the rise of LLMs providing faster and more polite answers.
2025.05.16·blog.pragmaticengineer.com·4 min read·TLDR Web Dev There's a lack of substantial AI contributions to open-source projects, where code is transparent and easily verifiable. AI-derived pull requests cannot yet address complex issues. AI coding tools can be useful for experienced developers but problematic for novices.
A simple LLM agent loop with tool use is surprisingly effective for many development tasks.
Coinbase reported a security breach where hackers bribed overseas staff to steal customer data for social engineering attacks - the hackers are demanding a $20 million ransom.
Spotify releases its mobile app weekly through a two-week overlapping cycle managed by a Release Manager.
2025.05.16·engineering.atspotify.com·7 min read·TLDR Web Dev Ollama has released a new multimodal engine that supports vision models like Meta Llama 4, Google Gemma 3, and Qwen 2.5 VL.
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Google DeepMind's AlphaEvolve is an artificial intelligence agent that can invent brand-new computer algorithms. It pairs Google's large language models with an approach that tests, refines, and improves algorithms automatically. The system has already been deployed across Google's data centers, chip designs, and AI training systems, boosting efficiency and solving mathematical problems that have stumped researchers for decades. The system represents a major leap in AI's ability to develop sophisticated algorithms for both scientific challenges and everyday computing problems.
2025.05.15·links.tldrnewsletter.com·7 min read·TLDR Uber's new type of ride service travels along a set route every 20 minutes with up to three passengers. Route Share will cost up to 50% less than an UberX ride. The service will be available in select cities and only during commuting hours. Uber says the service is a complement to public transit. The company has also announced a new price lock feature that allows customers to lock in a certain price for up to 10 routes for a $2.99 per month fee. Customers can now prepay for up to 20 rides a month at a reduced rate.
2025.05.15·theverge.com·4 min read·TLDR The Boring Company has successfully continuously mined in a Zero-People-in-Tunnel (ZPIT) configuration. Its machine can simultaneously advance forward and build tunnels without a human in it. Each 'ring' in the tunnel weighs around 24,000 pounds. ZPIT continuous mining is the Holy Grail for Boring Machines as it is the safest, fastest, and least expensive architecture for building tunnels.
2025.05.15·threadreaderapp.com·1 min read·TLDR South Korean tech companies are now deploying collaborative robots to work alongside humans in hotels, elder care, schools, and restaurants. The bots are supposed to solve a looming labor shortage in the rapidly aging nation. The government plans to increase the number of bot workers to 1 million by 2030. The reaction to the introduction of robots has been met with mixed emotions from both workers and customers.
2025.05.15·restofworld.org·12 min read·TLDR Sponsored
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2025.05.15·advertise.tldr.tech·Sponsor·TLDR Microsoft will retire Bing Search APIs on August 11. All existing instances of Bing Search APIs will be decommissioned completely and the API will no longer be available for use. Developers who need a real alternative are recommended to check out Brave Search APIs, which generally offers a more cost-effective solution, especially for developers with lower usage needs.
2025.05.15·neowin.net·2 min read·TLDR git-bug is an issue management tool that embeds issues, comments, and more as objects in a git repository, enabling users to push and pull them to one or more remotes. It manages issues, users, and comments directly within repositories, keeping everything versioned and clutter-free. git-bug leverages git's decentralized architecture to work offline and sync seamlessly later. It is lightning fast and easily synchronizes with platforms like GitHub and GitLab.
2025.05.15·github.com·GitHub repository·TLDR Netflix's ad-supported tier has 94 million monthly active users, up 20 million since last November. The cheaper plan costs $7.99 per month compared to $17.99 for the lowest ad-free option. The ad model is outperforming expectations. Netflix says its ad-supported tier now reaches more US viewers aged 18 to 34 than any other broadcast or cable network and that viewers are engaging with mid-roll ads just as much as they do with the content itself.
2025.05.15·9to5mac.com·2 min read·TLDR Large language models can help people output substantially more work, but this usually comes at the cost of learning or improvement. People are incentivized to maximize immediate output, so the sacrifice seems fair. Before the rise of generative AI, learning was a prerequisite for output, but people can now use technology to build things without deeply understanding the implementation. Developers should decide what skills they are and are not okay with offloading and what they want to do for themselves.
2025.05.15·vvvincent.me·11 min read·TLDR Sponsored
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Gamers will have to wait a few more days before Fortnite can return to the App Store, as Epic had to resubmit the app for review after the first submission went unreviewed for over 120 hours - 90% of apps are usually reviewed within 48 hours.
2025.05.15·gamerant.com·2 min read·TLDR Linux Integration Services Automation (LISA) is a Linux quality validation system consisting of a test framework to drive test execution and a set of test suites to verify Linux kernel/distribution quality.
2025.05.15·github.com·GitHub repository·TLDR AI has helped Klarna shrink from about 5,000 employees to almost 3,000 - the headcount reduction wasn't solely due to AI, but also because of attrition.
Some of the best minds in programming work in open source - if AI coding was really better than humans, they'd be using it and recommending it.
2025.05.15·pivot-to-ai.com·4 min read·TLDR The deal may make Databricks more attractive to businesses that want to create their own artificial intelligence bots.
2025.05.15·links.tldrnewsletter.com·2 min read·TLDR