BreakdownNLW

@nlw hosts The Breakdown podcast, offering sharp insights on crypto, blockchain, and DeFi.

[BreakdownNLW @BreakdownNLW]

Are you ready?

Is this a test?

Is it also an innovation?

Your opportunity is about to begin

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

RIP AI Skepticism b. Aug 2025 d. Sep 2025

[swyx @swyx]

ok, officially announcing the new AIE CODE summit today. back in NYC, the city so nice we're doing it twice*!

CODE is the first modality to hit serious PMF after CHAT, and has become an existential battleground for all the model labs + is a key tool for digital transformation across the Fortune 500 while simultaneously bringing incredible joy and productivity to individual devs.

and yet: MIT claims 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail! METR says devs feel 20% faster but are actually 20% slower with AI! we will temper the enthusiasm with a healthy reality check, as there is so much work left to do.

AIE CODE will bring together all the top coding agent builders on earth to meet the enterprise customers they aim to serve - a "West meets East" if you will - and be the one place to recap the explosion in AI coding tooling and models in 2025.

see usual suspect confirmed speakers in below tweet, but also we have a few more unconventional voices on our wishlist. Just apply anyway! you know our track record by now!

On a personal note: can't believe we've never had a dedicated coding summit before. this is something i've subconsciously been training for since i first entered the devtools industry 10 years ago! Despite covering AI coding heavily with Alessio in @latentspacepod, I still feel we have underestimated and underweighted its importance, and this will be my attempt at catching up. More updates to come next week.

*to reset our NYC calendar to every Fall going forward

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

Today's show

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

Gemini's monthly token processing more than doubled May-July.

You thought AI was moving fast before? We've seen another major inflection recently.

State of AI -- 15 Charts in 15 (ish) Minutes

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

With GPT-5 OpenAI is making an extremely loud argument that there is one singular AI use case that matters.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

You guys are all upset about GPT-5, but have you just tried JSON prompting it?

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

What do you make of Zuckerberg's concept of "personal superintelligence?" Is the interest sincere? Is the vision coherent?

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

I went to Ozzfest ‘97 the month before I turned 13.

The tickets were like $100. I won them from a radio call-in contest. I lived in Maine and had to go to Massachusetts and stay with my grandmother to see the show.

Except I forgot the paper tickets (cause that’s how things worked then) in Maine and didn’t realize until about 11pm the night before.

My grandmother (who was as epic as Ozzy in her own way) drove early to Tower Records in Boston to get us replacement tickets.

Me and my friend James got a faceful of metal that day. Ozzy played with Black Sabbath. Marilyn Manson, Pantera and more. It was loud, aggressive and extremely welcoming.

I didn’t know what weed smelled like yet and nearly 30 years later every time someone is smoking nearby I think “mmm Ozzfest.”

For more than 50 years metal has been an outlet for kids who didn’t fit in, and who just wanted to figure out the world in a way that made sense to them.

There’s arguable no one who did more to start that possibility than Ozzy Osbourne.

Rest well. I hope there are plenty of bats up there so you don’t get hungry.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a literary experience as much as listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl. I’m on book 5 and I’m going to be beyond devastated when it’s done.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

We desperately need a UI update for the AI/agent/copilot inbox. The chatbot sidebar conversation list breaks down like crazy when you're prompting 30+ times a day

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

Today's @AIDailyBrief cover. IYKYK.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

It's so obvious to me that the right approach for customer service going forward is AI to handle what AI is good at, and then insanely high EQ well-trained humans that are much closer to luxury concierge than today's human agents. Make it a prestige position!

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

Vibe Coding or Vibecoding?

[Block21k @block21k]

Big thanks to @nlw for mentioning this thread on today’s episode of @BreakdownNLW 🎙️

I’ve been a daily listener for years—his insight on Bitcoin and macro has shaped my thinking in a big way

If you’re not subscribed, do yourself a favor 👇

https://t.co/s830HimiMt

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

The agentification of the enterprise continues! Full agent deployments tripled in Q2 from Q1, and the trend shows no sign of slowing down.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

It's actually insane how fast Veo3-created vids are taking over TikTok.

Vlogwartz Harry Potter channel has 12 vids in a couple weeks and over 16m views and 130,000 subs.

Here are ten AI video trends taking over the internet.

[BreakdownNLW @BreakdownNLW]

There are no "experts" in using GenAI, just people who have practiced more than others.

Gemini

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

I keep getting asked "what's the best way to get better at using AI right now?"

Unfortunately, imo the learning resources out there are pretty bad. AI has evolved much faster than formal AI edu has, and they're stuck in prompt engineering paradigms of 6-12 months ago.

Instead I've found myself suggesting 3 activities:

1. For a week, use OpenAI's o3 model as a strategic collaborator. Talk with it about big ideas, use it to make plans, etc.

2. Use @lovable to vibe code something meaningful. A version of some old game you loved as a kid. A website or app for some side project idea you've had. A feature idea for your existing company.

3. Use @getlindy or @n8n_io to start building agentic workflows. Don't get caught up on semantics of "automated workflows" vs. "agents" -- just start to get a sense for how these automated processes are going to change how you work.

I'm confident that anyone who does these three things right now will be ahead of 99.9999999% of people when it comes to using AI.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

Lots of talk of what jobs AI/agents will destroy. But here are 20+ jobs it could create.

[Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw]

The drum I'm beating:

1. It's happening faster than we think.
2. It's going to be more disruptive than we think.
3. The winners of a decade from now are going to be made in the next 1-2 years.