
@arikf.net🦋 Data scientist @ Atlassian
Australia
Joined April 2009
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Doesn't apply just to politics.
This is an amazing quote from Lindsey Graham about when he realized how politics works. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…
Back in @MeasureCampSyd I had the opportunity to reflect on lessons I picked up throughout my tenure as a data scientist at Atlassian. This led to a fun discussion at the APH on what it actually means to "get things right" in data analysis.
"Far better an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question." So sayeth John Tukey! @arikf breaks down why analysts often need to value accuracy over precision, trust their intuition, and more! analyticshour.io/2026/04/28/…
Arik Friedman retweeted
Can a Jew let his agent run over Shabbat if the last prompt was Friday afternoon?
Can confirm. Just claimed $50 USD Claude usage credits. I always remained within limits so I have no idea if that will last 5 minutes, 5 days or 5 weeks with my usage patterns.
AFAIK devs are expected to be On Call, refine code to handle edge cases properly, make technical tradeoffs (performance, efficiency, ...), grow other devs etc.
I assume most PMs would rather avoid those tasks, otherwise they would have opted to be devs in the first place.
On the other hand, PMs spend time talking to customers, studying competition, are involved in GTM and pricing decisions, make roadmap tradeoffs, coordinate across broader initiatives, and so on. Any time spent on technical endeavours comes at the expense of those activities.
Antigravity is great but "eager to get to work building" is an understatement, especially with Gemini.
Me: for <feature X> what are the pros and cons of implementing option A vs option B?
AG: I implemented option C.
5 files deleted. 7 files modified. git add . git commit bye
AI coding agents like @antigravity are eager to get to work building.
But if you want to slow it down, you can use spec-driven frameworks like SpecKit to labor more intensely on the product and engineering docs.
Good example here: medium.com/google-cloud/beyo…
Arik Friedman retweeted
Continuing to have AI build a weird game demo a day. Here is: "Make a game where you have to prevent the apocalypse, but the interface is just Jira tickets"
Pretty fun/funny branching storyline, all text is AI created with minor feedback from me. Play: gentle-bienenstitch-01e24b.n…
Arik Friedman retweeted
Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.
$30 per seat per month.
$1.4 million annually.
I called it "digital transformation."
The board loved that phrase.
They approved it in eleven minutes.
No one asked what it would actually do.
Including me.
I told everyone it would "10x productivity."
That's not a real number.
But it sounds like one.
HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.
I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."
They stopped asking.
Three months later I checked the usage reports.
47 people had opened it.
12 had used it more than once.
One of them was me.
I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.
It took 45 seconds.
Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.
But I called it a "pilot success."
Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.
The CFO asked about ROI.
I showed him a graph.
The graph went up and to the right.
It measured "AI enablement."
I made that metric up.
He nodded approvingly.
We're "AI-enabled" now.
I don't know what that means.
But it's in our investor deck.
A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.
I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."
He asked what that meant.
I said "compliance."
He asked which compliance.
I said "all of them."
He looked skeptical.
I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."
He stopped asking questions.
Microsoft sent a case study team.
They wanted to feature us as a success story.
I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."
I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.
They didn't verify it.
They never do.
Now we're on Microsoft's website.
"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."
The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.
He got 3,000 likes.
He's never used Copilot.
None of the executives have.
We have an exemption.
"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."
I wrote that policy.
The licenses renew next month.
I'm requesting an expansion.
5,000 more seats.
We haven't used the first 4,000.
But this time we'll "drive adoption."
Adoption means mandatory training.
Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.
But completion will be tracked.
Completion is a metric.
Metrics go in dashboards.
Dashboards go in board presentations.
Board presentations get me promoted.
I'll be SVP by Q3.
I still don't know what Copilot does.
But I know what it's for.
It's for showing we're "investing in AI."
Investment means spending.
Spending means commitment.
Commitment means we're serious about the future.
The future is whatever I say it is.
As long as the graph goes up and to the right.
Arik Friedman retweeted
Interesting thesis on what destroys software engineering productivity at large enterprises: it's that legibility is prioritized over everything else.
seangoedecke.com/seeing-like…
Arik Friedman retweeted
"Hey, can you write me a script that does X?"
Gemini: Sure, here are 50 LOC that do just that
ChatGPT: Sure, here are 400 LOC. I added some basic error handling in case a solar flare flips a bit during execution
I feel like vibe coding is the slot machine of the LLM era. Maybe the next prompt will make it work exactly like you wanted. In the meantime, please feed another coin into the machine.
Arik Friedman retweeted
This is an excellent read. It also aligns with my experience. I have my coding agents on a very short and tight leash, and no generated code gets pushed unless I have cleaned it up and understand it myself.
Everything else leads to pain and suffering.
albertofortin.com/writing/co…
Arik Friedman retweeted
When you're working well with AI, you have it gently helping you go with your natural flow. It's *your* nature that is the foundation, not the AI's.
"Vibe coding" today isn't like this at all. It's a battle against the AI to control it under your will.
Arik Friedman retweeted
🎉Announcing Spider 2.0 Text-to-SQL challenge in the LLM era!
6 years after our Yale Spider 1.0, we're pushing it forward with:
🍊Real complex cloud DBs (3000+ cols)
🍋Multi-dialect SQL complexity
🍎Agentic coding workflows
🧐Best o1 only solves 17%!
👉spider2-sql.github.io
Arik Friedman retweeted
Narrative on X: 🦋 has no AI/ML and just talks about itself
My actual feed on 🦋:
Arik Friedman retweeted
My favorite description of a large language model was accidentally written by Ray Bradbury in 1969, more than half a century ago, and it's eerie how fitting its rendition of an emergent language mind is:
Suppose and then suppose and then suppose
That wires on the far-slung telephone black poles
Sopped up the billion-flooded words they heard
Each night all night and saved the sense
And meaning of it all.
Then, jigsaw in the night, Put all together and
In philosophic phase
Tried words like moron child.
Thus mindless beast
All treasuring of vowels and consonants
Saves up a miracle of bad advice
And lets it filter whisper, heartbeat out
One lisping murmur at a time.
So one night soon someone sits up
Hears sharp bell ring, lifts phone And hears a
Voice like Holy Ghost Gone far in nebulae
That Beast upon the wire,
Which with sibilance and savoring!
Down continental madnesses of time
Says Hell and O And then Hell-o.
To such Creation
Such dumb brute lost Electric Beast,
What is your wise reply?






















