Andrew Wilkinson

Co-founder of Tiny w/ @_Sparling_. We own @Dribbble, @Serato, @Letterboxd, @AeroPress, and 35+ other wonderful companies. Author of Never Enough.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

This guy from The Netherlands emailed me asking if I'd come on his podcast.

I didn't want to, so I used my usual line: "I'll only do it in person in Victoria."

Welp, the SOB called my bluff.

Flew 12 hours, mic in hand.

Well played, @WouterTeunissen.

It turned out great:

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

@CreativeChrisX https://t.co/q4OZxQeZSN

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Codex has transformed how I run my companies.

I have almost 40 businesses, and trying to keep them all in my brain can be insane.

I own:

Software companies
Restaurants
Newspapers
Social networks
A coffee maker company

Each one has totally different context, business model, and sorts of people.

For two decades, I struggled to keep my arms around it.

I couldn't keep it all in my head.
I hated holding people to account.
Details slipped through the cracks.
And worst of all - the emotional labour became exhausting.

Now, each company or project is just a Codex thread with a heartbeat.

Every few days, the heartbeat activates. It reads all the latest context around the project and suggests next steps, then uses the multiple choice question tool to quickly get any information it needs to keep things moving out of my head.

It's made running a large, complex org downright delightful. Even the emotional labour:

"How would a good boss write this?"

"Write an email that will be psychologically compelling that will make someone who works in the accounting department understand why this project is important"

For years, I used to read management books, whipping myself.

It turns out I just have ADHD (diagnosed last year - thank god).

And now my ADHD brain is free to play, while the robot army keeps my teams on track.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

@andrewjiang Vyvanse + Guanfacine. Game changer. https://t.co/q4OZxQfxIl

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Summer office

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

I’ve been playing with the new Siri AI.

My jaw drops when it does things that a model from 2 years ago would be able to do.

Setting an alarm reliably.

Dictating a text and having it come out correctly.

Answering a basic query.

Shocking how low the bar is.

[Boris Cherny @bcherny]

As engineering, product, design, DS, etc. melt into a new kind of role, I was reflecting on what roles might look like in the future. For example, when I look at the Claude Code team I see what I think is five archetypes:

1. Prototyper: comes up with brand new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship
2. Builder: quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra
3. Sweeper: cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance
4. Grower: takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve Product-Market Fit
5. Maintainer: owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales

Many people span across 2 roles, and sometimes 3 roles. I also notice that these roles are not really tied to job function -- eg. across Anthropic, some designers match category 1, some 2, some 3; same for engineers, PM, DS.

A healthy team needs a mix of these, depending on the product:

- A product that is new and pre-PMF needs people that are strong at 1+2+3
- A product that is growing and has found PMF needs 2+3+4 and some 5
- A product that has strong PMF needs 3+4+5 and some 2

Maybe product roles of the future will look more like this, and less like the domain-specific roles of today?

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

This is what sets ok employees apart from incredible ones.

[Alex Lieberman @businessbarista]

I stole this idea and now use it with every single employee.

It’s the best illustration I’ve seen of teaching someone to be high agency.

It says there are 5 levels of work:

Level 1: “There is a problem.”

Level 2: “There is a problem, and I’ve found some causes.”

Level 3: “Here’s the problem, here are some possible causes, and here are some possible solutions.”

Level 4: “Here’s the problem, here’s what I think caused it, here are some possible solutions, and here’s the one I think we should pick.”

Level 5: “I identified a problem, figured out what caused it, researched how to fix it, and I fixed it. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.”

Using this framework, here’s what I say to every new employee…

You will live at Level 4 from Day 1 and as we build trust you will rise to Level 5.

Being high agency doesn’t just mean tackling problems in this way. It means your entire way of working should be oriented to being a Level 4+ employee.

Plz feel free to steal it as well.

And ty @stephsmithio for the framework!

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else." -Bill Joy

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Did cancer write this?

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

@blader 100%. It’s basically my command Center for all work.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Any good tricks for getting the new Siri? I’m a week out and nothing.

[Kydo @0xkydo]

🤯 Midjourney -- yes, the AI image company -- just shipped a brand new type of imaging machine. 🤯

- 100x faster than an MRI.
- 10x cheaper.

Full body scanned in 60 seconds instead of an hour in a tube. Ultrasound based, MRI-level resolution.

And it's real -- not a concept, a working machine. You step into a shallow pool of warm water, a ring of half a million sensors sends sound through your body from every angle, and ~60 seconds later you have a 3D map of your insides down to a fraction of a millimeter. No radiation, no tube, no lying still.

They're not even building it as a hospital machine -- they're building a spa. The scan is a side-effect of a place you'd want to hang out anyway.

Lastly, it is built by 9 people. NINE PEOPLE.

You can just do things.

[Shai Goldman @shaig]

choose your fighter

[GRITCULT @GRITCULT]

HOLY FUCK - from another angle...

cant believe they shipped these - did no one tell him they look extremely bad and oversized?!?!

[Charlie Warzel @cwarzel]

instant classic

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Remember:

The grass is always greener over the septic tank.

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

@jmarus Which would you recommend?

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

When will Codex get better at design?

I'm using Codex as my day-to-day productivity center (email, GTD, business management, website updates) but the key thing holding it back (for me) is it's horrible taste.

Claude is still a vasty superior designer.

[Sam Parr @thesamparr]

A dear friend of mine, and someone many of you know, was recently diagnosed stage 4 lung cancer.

He is being seen at Sloan, which is great.

I've been reading about new treatments, particularly with AI.

I know nothing about this stuff.

But I desperately want to help a buddy and know I have a bunch of smart, powerful people in my audience.

If there's anyone out there that thinks they can point him into a helpful directly, please email me: [email protected].

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

@dawidstruzik Oh nice. What about iOS?

[Andrew Wilkinson @awilkinson]

Any tricks to get the new Siri in the beta?