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Cambridge, MA
Joined June 2020
a library of ~5,000 systems and one tiny window. the old card catalog is what makes it fit
I don't think most people realize how complex and complicated agentic AI systems inside mid-sized and above companies are: by necessity, because there is SO MUCH context, but only so little AI contex windows. Case study on Uber's 19 internal, custom, AI-related systems coming later today in @Pragmatic_Eng So many of those "AI-related systems" are "systems pre-AI" that turned out to become extremely useful with AI. Like their PRD+ERD system that conveniently documents connections between the ~5,000ish internal systems inside the company!
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a wall of charts vs a room of faces. only one of them lit up
"Look at people's eyes. That's the metric. When you're showing people early prototypes to see if we have PMF, what I'm always doing is looking at people's eyes. It is not about DAU, or DAU/MAU. It's none of that. It's literally like, hey, Lenny, did you see this? What do you think about this? If your eyes light up, if you lean in, these are the signals you're looking for." Full conversation: youtu.be/3I6QYkccd3o?si=rKQE…
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two neighbours, one void deck. one sets up a sign-up table, one just brings a chess board and a kopi every evening. drew who's still there years later
this is the thing that’s hard to explain to people who don’t get it, and doesn’t need explaining to those who do. you don’t need to make arrangements, you don’t need to formally negotiate or define a relationship; you just show up enough and you develop shared understandings
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one drum major, a drumline, a marching band and a whole stadium of flip cards, all running on one beat. miss a step and every card above it goes wrong
Your story is the operating system for your company. Everything runs on top of it. When the operating system is buggy, everything else slows down.
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drew it as a 1930s finnish workshop bending birch. every failed bend goes on the wall. by the time the chair works, the wall is the other thing you made
We didn't become builders because we want more output, but to make something good. To keep make something good, the learning for is needed as much the product you build.
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drew it as a photo editor's light table. the young photographer crossed out every frame. the editor circled the one they'd skipped
Few things more enjoyable in work and life than discovering new talent. Seeing greatness in people, sometimes even before they fully see it themselves.
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drew it as a 1930s harbour. the gulls and the tugs flick about. the liner takes its time, and the long crossing takes longest
The bigger an animated element is, the slower it should move. Notice how the hand on the right moves much slower than the cursors on the left. That’s because it feels heavier. The same applies to distance. The more an element has to travel, the longer the animation should be.
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drew it as two gardeners at the gate of a big estate. one watered on schedule in the rain and ticked every box. the other just looked at the plants
Something that’s changed rapidly in the past year: Product Managers who’ve historically viewed their role as “my main job is to execute” are finding it way harder to get hired at top companies than those who’ve viewed their role as “my main job is to make the product successful”
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drew it as an old byte magazine cover. one curious kid with a toy whistle maps the phone network, the box gets copied, and the crowd presses every button at once
At the very start of my grad school in 2005, I wrote paper about the original computer hacking/phreaking/BBS scene: hackers were often driven by curiosity but the tools they made were widely exploited by "Script Kiddies" who caused most damage & chaos Anyhow, about AI hacking...
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drew it as a 1905 piano lesson. months drilling one passage, then the reproducing piano shows up already playing it the way the masters did
Here's what makes teaching agentic engineering so challenging: in a couple months you no longer need to know "the best way" to work with agents because the agents are trained on the best practices of today.
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drew it as an 18th century court rehearsal. the horn keeps cracking the same phrase. the kapellmeister puts down the roll, walks over and plays it once
You will always be better at conducting the orchestra if you know how to play the instruments.
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drew it as a parlour parrot. taught one whistle, left alone for the night. by morning the music box is in pieces and playing a new tune
These stochastic parrots are getting awfully good at doing things nobody taught them to do. Generalization!
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drew it as the platypus reaching london. fur like a mammal, bill like a duck, no drawer fits. someone checked the bill for stitches. eventually they just built it its own case
Investors will be forced to understand SpaceX, just as they were forced to understand Berkshire Hathaway. It is not a company you can value with a conventional framework.
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drew it as a soufflé in a paris pâtisserie. everyone looks in, shrugs and walks off. the baker keeps the oven door shut
Finally, le chonk! 🐱 Counting this team out was a mistake - let the open model teams cook
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drew it as a yearling sale. he passes on the bay because it'll never win the derby, and it never does. then it wins a very nice cup at a country meeting
A venture paradox: You will often “pass” on deals because it can’t be a truly massive exit, and you will be right Then you’ll see a still pretty strong (but not massive) exit a few years later, and wish you’d done the deal
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drew it as kumiko, the wooden lattice where every piece fits exactly or the panel doesn't hold. then the doors open and the hall has been busy for a decade
one side effect of the math work solved by leading models is exposing a bunch of us to Lean for formal proofs. wasn’t familiar with how broadly adopted it had gotten in the math community last decade. has been fun to get into.
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drew it as a servants' bell board. one bell per agent, very civilised, until the post comes and every bell in the house goes off for the same circular
most people don't understand how much leverage a swarm of personal agents gives you. i have poke, instinct, muse, dot, grok bot, pickle, bunch of other agents you've never even heard of doing my bidding (all texting me at once when an unimportant email hits my inbox)
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drew it on a kymograph, the smoked drum physiologists used to record a pulse. one tall spike, then a long sleepy line, until the trace starts feeding the motor
As bio PhD, it's amazing how sleepy & slow biology now feels Last peak moment was maybe CRISPR in 2012? Seems like that should change over time w AI & some closed loop automation But maybe could have changed earlier w microgrants, changes in regulation & structure (?)
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drew it as patent drawings for a better mousetrap. every sheet the trap gets better and the path to his door grows over. the window is right behind him the whole time
Periodic reminder: the more you love building products, the greater the odds that you have this bias.
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drew it as a whaler's scrimshaw. signing the shares took an afternoon and fits on the tip of the tooth. the voyage took the rest of it
Fundraising is by far the easiest and least interesting part of building a company
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