Search the archive

growth opportunities. Finally, support that scales. Try Pylon.

KARPATHY IS WRONG. WRITE THAT POST, BUILD THAT SLIDE DECK!

Writing is one of the most powerful ways to build understanding because explaining something forces clarity.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN TALKS TO TAKE EQUITY STAKES IN QUANTUM-COMPUTING FIRMS

The Trump administration is expanding its interventions in what it sees as critical segments of the economy.

GOOGLE PORTING ALL INTERNAL WORKLOADS TO ARM, WITH HELP FROM GENAI

Google's Axion-powered machines deliver up to 65% better price-performance and can be 60% more energy-efficient than x86 instances.

Subscribe now.

🍏 THE APPLE FACTORY: WHAT PERFECT COORDINATION FEELS LIKE

Apple's ecosystem is proof that interoperability is a design choice.

AMAZON UNVEILS AI-POWERED AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES FOR DELIVERY DRIVERS

Amazon's AI-powered AR glasses help delivery drivers scan packages, follow turn-by-turn walking directions, and capture proof of delivery.

TESLA PROFIT PLUNGES AS MUSK TURNS FOCUS TO ‘ROBOT ARMY'

Elon Musk has threatened to leave Tesla to pursue AI projects outside the company if a new pay package that could be worth as much as $1 trillion is not approved.

TRY WISPR FLOW FOR FREE →

OPENAI LOOKS FOR ITS “GOOGLE CHROME” MOMENT WITH NEW ATLAS WEB BROWSER

OpenAI's Atlas browser is now available for macOS. The browser has all the features users expect from a browser and also lets users chat with an assistant about web pages, browsing history, and bookmarks. Windows and mobile versions will be rolled out soon. Atlas has an Agent Mode that can complete tasks for users, but it is only available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers while still in 'preview mode'.

AMAZON PLANS TO REPLACE MORE THAN HALF A MILLION JOBS WITH ROBOTS

Amazon plans to replace more than half a million jobs with robots by 2033. The company's automation team estimates that Amazon can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the US it would otherwise need by 2027, saving the company 30 cents on each item that it delivers to customers. Amazon is so sure of this automated future that it has started developing plans to mitigate the fallout in communities that may lose jobs. The company's plans could have a profound impact on blue-collar jobs and serve as a model for other companies.

SPACEX OPENS UP ITS STARLINK LASER TECH TO THIRD-PARTY COMPANIES

Muon Space is integrating Starlink's laser technology into its own satellites to provide them with an optical fiber-like connection to the Starlink constellation. SpaceX's mini laser terminals can support a 25Gbps connection between two satellites at a range of up to 4,000 kilometers. Muon Space plans to launch the first Starlink-enabled Halo satellite in Q1 2027. The company supplies weather and climate-monitoring satellite systems to third-party clients, including the US Space Force. Starlink's laser technology will transform Muon Halo satellites from isolated vehicles to real-time nodes on Starlink's global network.

THE ROBOTS FUELING AMAZON'S AUTOMATION

Amazon got started with robots in 2012 when it bought the robot maker Kiva, which made circular robots that could lift a stack of goods and take it to a worker. Since then, the company has categorized all of its operations into six types of automation: movement, manipulation, sorting, storage, identification, and packing. Amazon has developed robots that tackle particular changes like moving heavy carts, sorting packed orders, and manipulating items and packages. Employees only touch products at a few stages at Amazon's most advanced warehouse. This article takes a look at the state of Amazon's automation activities and what the future holds for the company and its technology.

BUILD YOUR OWN DATABASE

This post walks readers through how to build a key-value database from the ground up. Key-value databases work similarly to objects in JavaScript - you store values using a key and retrieve them later using that same key. The post covers everything required to build a Log-Structured Merge (LSM) Tree, a type of database used in the real world that works by combining an in-memory list with an on-disk file. LSM trees have proven to perform really well at scale - on Prime Day 2020, DynamoDB peaked at 80 million requests per second.

NEXT.JS 16

Next.js features improvements to Turbopack, caching, and the Next.js architecture. Cache Components are a new set of features designed to make caching in Next.js more explicit and flexible. The Next.js DevTools MCP provides agents with Next.js knowledge, unified logs, automatic error access, and page awareness. More details about what's new in Next.js are available in the article.

SAMSUNG GALAXY XR HANDS-ON: IT'S LIKE A CHEAPER APPLE VISION PRO AND LAUNCHES TODAY

Samsung's Galaxy XR brings an experience comparable to Apple Vision Pro, but with a $1,799 price tag, giving users much more bang for their buck. The headset launches in the US and Korea today. It is significantly lighter than the Vision Pro, and it also comes with a native Netflix app. Samsung and Google are offering an 'explorer pack' with each headset that includes a free year of Google AI Pro, Google Play Pass, and YouTube Premium, YouTube TV for $1 a month for three months, and a free season of NBA League Pass.

AI IS MAKING US WORK MORE

The AI boom has revived a 996 culture (working from 9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week). The increase in work may be due to hyper-capable tools creating a new kind of pressure to keep working. The challenge of the AI era is learning to live with these tools in a healthy way that doesn't allow them to enslave us, and knowing when and how to use them in a way that doesn't diminish our efforts. AI doesn't demand work - people and systems do.

free-forever version - upgrade when you see it works. Sign up

RE: STACKED DIFFS ON @GITHUB

GitHub is migrating to use git reftables instead of packed-refs so that multi-ref updates/restacking will be O(n).

OPENAI IS PAYING EX-INVESTMENT BANKERS $150 AN HOUR TO TRAIN ITS AI

OpenAI has formed a new team of over 100 former investment bankers to create financial models to train AI.

INSIDE THE SYNTHIENT THREAT DATA

Once the bad guys have your data, it often replicates to numerous channels and platforms - if you can aggregate enough of the data en masse, you can end up with huge volumes of threat intelligence data.

scale. See what's possible with Marqeta

TECH CEOS SAY THE ERA OF 'CODE BY AI' IS HERE. SOME SOFTWARE ENGINEERS ARE SKEPTICAL

Many software engineers have seen no evidence of long-term boosts to efficiency.

WHY SSA?

SSA (static single assignment), developed in the 80s, is a popular architecture featured in many optimizing compilers.

THE LOTTERY-FICATION OF EVERYTHING

The breakout financial products of the past decade are highly engineered lotteries - small, low probability bets with asymmetric upside.

Schedule a demo to learn more

AWS SERVICES RECOVER AFTER DAYLONG OUTAGE HITS MAJOR SITES

Amazon Web Services experienced a major outage yesterday that took down numerous websites. Many sites came back online within a few hours. All AWS services returned to normal operations shortly after 6 PM ET. The outage was first reported at 3:11 AM ET. The AWS status page said it was a DNS issue with DynamoDB, a database service that underpins many AWS applications.

HOW SAM ALTMAN TIED TECH'S BIGGEST PLAYERS TO OPENAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on a dealmaking blitz to achieve his vision of securing seemingly endless computing power for his company. He played the egos of Silicon Valley's giants, resulting in a game of financial one-upmanship that has tied the fates of the world's biggest semiconductor and cloud companies to OpenAI. Vast swaths of the US economy are now betting on the success of a startup that is nowhere near turning a profit and facing a mounting list of business challenges. Investors don't seem to be bothered, as the stock prices of companies that have made deals with OpenAI have soared.

VISION RESTORED USING PROSTHETIC RETINAL IMPLANT

THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN BIOLOGY ISN'T READING LIFE'S CODE — IT'S WRITING IT

Genome writing is humanity's next great moonshot. The Human Genome Project-write (HGP-write) and SynHG, the Synthetic Human Genome Initiative, aim to develop the technology to write DNA. DNA synthesis could transform biology, medicine, and industry. Global cooperation would ensure that the technology is used wisely and for the common good.

CLAUDE CODE IS UNREASONABLY GOOD AT BUILDING MVPS

Concerns about technical debt and quality are premature in the prototyping and validation stage. Perfect code isn't required to validate whether people want your product. What is needed is the ability to test more ideas quickly. Claude Code allows people to validate through building and testing. The ideas that survive contact with actual users are the ones worth refactoring, hardening, and scaling.

FRONT-END MAXIMALISM

Just considering a front-end maximalist approach can lead to better designs. Doing almost everything on the front end is underrated and increasingly viable. Don't divide responsibilities between the front and back end just out of habit. It is possible to get all the modularity you need by structuring your code appropriately.

WITH SPACEX BEHIND SCHEDULE, NASA WILL SEEK MORE MOON LANDER IDEAS

NASA is looking for a Plan B to carry astronauts to the Moon's surface because SpaceX is behind schedule. It is opening bidding on a contract to build a new lunar lander. The agency wants to beat China, which is aiming to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030. President Trump wants the moon landing to occur before the end of his term. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded dismissively to the news, saying that SpaceX is moving at a lightning pace compared to the rest of the industry and that Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission.

LETTER TO A YOUNG PERSON WORRYING ABOUT AI

It is possible to act without prediction. Most good businesspeople don't attempt to predict the future. They instead design their lives and organizations for fast adaptation under uncertainty. You can safely ignore any essay that attempts to predict the future. Just look at what is happening right now - you'll have plenty of time to adapt.

Microsoft. Claim your offer

THIS IS HOW MUCH ANTHROPIC AND CURSOR SPEND ON AMAZON WEB SERVICES

Anthropic spent $1.359 billion in 2024, Cursor's AWS spend in 2025 through to September was $69.99 million.

ONE OF GOOGLE'S NEW YORK OFFICES NEEDS LITERAL DEBUGGING

A bedbug infestation was discovered in a building at Google's Chelsea campus.

MY PROGRAMMING CAREER IS A HISTORICAL ARTIFACT

In a few years, humanity will look back and think how funny it was that people once actually programmed machines.

GIVE YOUR METRICS AN EXPIRY DATE

Having an expiry date means you can step back and reassess whether the metric is still useful.

THE CSS RESET, AGAIN

This post looks at several CSS resets and discusses their pros and cons.

ATOMIC-SCALE PROTEIN FILTERS

Cell walls show how often, in biology, solutions to complicated problems are strikingly simple.

Download the report to learn how memory is reshaping AI →