Kobby 🚀

Data & AI.

[Kobby 🚀 @PrinceNewmann]

"Id rather fail at trying to do something extraordinary than succeed at doing something ordinary" -- @FredSwaniker

[Kobby 🚀 @PrinceNewmann]

@Tripple____M hweeew!

[Adam Rankin @rankintweets]

gym before work no matter how early. reduce all friction to working out. Pay any amount of money to go to the closest nicest gym to you. Do body weight exercises and run sprints when time constrained. Cook all of your food. Treat yourself like a professional athlete

[Wode Maya ® @wode_maya]

What's the biggest financial mistake you've ever made, and what did it teach you? 🤔

[Pavel Durov @durov]

📚 If you’re a student choosing what to focus on, pick MATH. It will teach you to relentlessly rely on your own brain, think logically, break down problems, and solve them step by step in the right order. That’s the core skill you’ll need to build companies and manage projects.

[Ethan Evans @EthanEvansVP]

One of my biggest regrets is how stressful I allowed my career to be. I worried constantly while on the path to becoming an Amazon VP. Let me save you some stress. Career growth requires:

[OurFaveOnlineDoc 🇬🇧 🇳🇬 @OurFavOnlineDoc]

Every time I run into this video, I share it.

[Kobby 🚀 @PrinceNewmann]

@joshua_cleopas speaks so eloquently! The words come out well put together, as if he rinses them in his mouth before serving it out, like, 'this is good stuff for the ear, enjoy!" 😂

He makes it appear Eloquence persuades by sweetness, not by authority😅

@iamdanielampofo

[dEX Ghana @dex_ghana]

dEX Ghana’s Head of Branding & Comms, Joshua Cleopas (@Joshua_Cleopas), had a quick chat with @AdobeLive_ at this year’s @Cannes_Lions Festival talking design in Africa and what’s coming with #dEXConference2025.

🎥 Full video on @AdobeLive_

[Kobby 🚀 @PrinceNewmann]

@GyetLeona71025 @asemota to hell with you and your mum...eeii such a wicked mindset!! 😲😠

[Jay Yang @Jayyanginspires]

One of my favorite quotes of all time…

[Codie Sanchez @Codie_Sanchez]

I built five big companies in 3 years.

- I don't wait
- I don't ask opinions
- I don't sacrifice sleep
- I don't do coffee catch-ups
- I don't use 37-step morning routines

I start work at 7am, and I work. That's it.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Having now spent about half my life in each (and loving both), herewith the pros and cons of Europe and the US in everyday life:

Better in Europe
• Bike lanes and bike infrastructure. London, Paris, and Amsterdam are all excellent these days. (As are many other European cities.) Made even better by easy-to-rent e-bikes—now almost always the fastest way to get around.
• The urban walking experience generally. Partly for density reasons, and partly because of...
• Late-night cafe, brasserie culture. Is there an economic reason for this or is it just climate and contingent zoning?
• Architecture. Around 1920, we forgot how to make nice buildings. European cities tend to have more construction from before the Great Forgetting, and it makes the built environment much more pleasant.
• Pedestrianized streets. Often with cobblestones.
• In general, European cities are just more pleasant. Given how hard it is to build a good city (or indeed to retrofit one), this feels like a big deal.
• Cured and pickled food.
• Bread. Obviously varies by country, but it’s generally true.
• Voltage. What are Americans doing waiting so long to boil kettles?
• Beauty in the mundane. I find that you’re more likely to find tasteful touches in prosaic places in Europe.
• Motorway design and signage. Standardized, clear, and easy-to-use. The US is a mess by comparison.
• Bathroom doors. That is, in Europe, they’re proper doors. Why does America make us see others’ feet?
• The clangor of church bells on Sunday.
• Trains. Enough said.
• Pharmacies. I'd love to understand why they're so much nicer in Europe.
• Cheese. Again, lots of cross-country variation, but true in general.
• I'm not sure why, but European regulation on many everyday items seems better. Sunscreens in Europe are better, as are bike helmets.
• Wine.
• Languor, joie de vivre, hygge, gemütlichkeit, craic. I think Europeans are better at unwinding. Drawing contrast with what he found in the US, De Tocqueville observed that in Europe "idleness is still held in honor". This difference remains apparent.
• Road density. Europe generally has many more roads per square mile, which makes it easier to find nice places to run, walk, and cycle.

Better in the US
• Air conditioning. Consistently bad in Europe. (Partly for silly degrowth-related reasons?)
• Coffee. Opinions will differ, naturally, but third wave coffee has seen much more enthusiastic adoption in the US.
• Cookie banners. That is, the lack of them. (Well, there are some, but it’s not as bad as the fusillade one is subjected to in Europe.)
• Internet speeds. European wifi often reminds me of my dialup youth.
• Capital markets. If you need money (as a consumer, a small business, or a startup), it’s much easier to get it in the US.
• Being able to buy groceries on Sunday. Inexplicably challenging on the continent.
• Showers. Like the tepid air conditioning, daily ablutions in Europe are conducted beneath parsimonious trickles.
• Urban air quality. Maybe surprisingly, it is, on average, better in the US. The unpleasant whiffs of diesel exhaust is part of the reminder that one is back in Europe.
• Government efficiency. In general, things happen faster in the US.
• Labor laws. As covered in Stripe's annual letter this year, people are more likely to work in high productivity sectors in the US (and thus to earn more). Rigid rules impede this reallocation in Europe.
• Culture of general aviation with many thousands of small airports. There are around 700,000 pilots in the US—far more than there are in Europe.
• Hospitals. A controversial claim, perhaps, but I find that those who have received care in Europe and the US prefer the US.
• Beer. The microbrewery revolution of the US means that it’s clearly the better place for it.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

This week, a math professor at MIT told me that incoming students are, on average, noticeably worse at math than they used to be.

Harvard, of course, just added a remedial math class, Math MA5, "aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students".

[Sam Parr @thesamparr]

The co-founder of Loom sold his biz for ~$1B, made $50-70M personally, then walked away from an extra $60M

He has “no income right now” and is “looking for internships”...

@vhmth has a wild post-exit story. we talked about it on Moneywise:

-Turned down $60M in retention bonuses that would've vested over 4 years
-Said "the trees spoke to me" during a redwoods hike when deciding whether to stay. He wasn’t joking.
-He had a post go viral about his identity crisis after selling (1.5m views)

So I asked about his money situation now:

-Monthly spend: $25K (with $12K on NYC rent)
-Net worth allocation: 50% cash, 30% equities, 20% bonds/other
-Most expensive post-exit purchase: iPad

Now he’s studying physics 5-8 hours daily, hanging in Discord groups with 18-year-olds who think he's their peer… looking to intern as a mechanical engineer

(can you imagine the founder of a billion-dollar company being your intern?)

On the pod he explains why he’s betting his future on physical products instead of software and investing…

The full episode is live now. Check it out.

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

Writing software, especially prototypes, is becoming cheaper. This will lead to increased demand for people who can decide what to build. AI Product Management has a bright future!

Software is often written by teams that comprise Product Managers (PMs), who decide what to build (such as what features to implement for what users) and Software Developers, who write the code to build the product. Economics shows that when two goods are complements — such as cars (with internal-combustion engines) and gasoline — falling prices in one leads to higher demand for the other. For example, as cars became cheaper, more people bought them, which led to increased demand for gas. Something similar will happen in software. Given a clear specification for what to build, AI is making the building itself much faster and cheaper. This will significantly increase demand for people who can come up with clear specs for valuable things to build.

This is why I’m excited about the future of Product Management, the discipline of developing and managing software products. I’m especially excited about the future of AI Product Management, the discipline of developing and managing AI software products.

Many companies have an Engineer:PM ratio of, say, 6:1. (The ratio varies widely by company and industry, and anywhere from 4:1 to 10:1 is typical.) As coding becomes more efficient, teams will need more product management work (as well as design work) as a fraction of the total workforce. Perhaps engineers will step in to do some of this work, but if it remains the purview of specialized Product Managers, then the demand for these roles will grow.

This change in the composition of software development teams is not yet moving forward at full speed. One major force slowing this shift, particularly in AI Product Management, is that Software Engineers, being technical, are understanding and embracing AI much faster than Product Managers. Even today, most companies have difficulty finding people who know how to develop products and also understand AI, and I expect this shortage to grow.

Further, AI Product Management requires a different set of skills than traditional software Product Management. It requires:
- Technical proficiency in AI. PMs need to understand what products might be technically feasible to build. They also need to understand the lifecycle of AI projects, such as data collection, building, then monitoring, and maintenance of AI models.
- Iterative development. Because AI development is much more iterative than traditional software and requires more course corrections along the way, PMs need be able to manage such a process.
- Data proficiency. AI products often learn from data, and they can be designed to generate richer forms of data than traditional software.
- Skill in managing ambiguity. Because AI’s performance is hard to predict in advance, PMs need to be comfortable with this and have tactics to manage it.
- Ongoing learning. AI technology is advancing rapidly. PMs, like everyone else who aims to make best use of the technology, need to keep up with the latest technology advances, product ideas, and how they fit into users’ lives.

Finally, AI Product Managers will need to know how to ensure that AI is implemented responsibly (for example, when we need to implement guardrails to prevent bad outcomes), and also be skilled at gathering feedback fast to keep projects moving. Increasingly, I also expect strong product managers to be able to build prototypes for themselves.

The demand for good AI Product Managers will be huge. In addition to growing AI Product Management as a discipline, perhaps some engineers will also end up doing more product management work.

The variety of valuable things we can build is nearly unlimited. What a great time to build!

[Original text: https://t.co/OIeAQXpriK ]

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Steve Jobs on the most important job of a CEO

“The greatest people are self-managing. They don’t need to be managed. Once they know what to do, they’ll go figure out how to do it… What they need is a common vision, and that’s what leadership is. Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so the people around you can understand it, and getting consensus on a common vision.”

Steve continues:

“We wanted people who were insanely great at what they did… and the neatest thing that happens when you get a core group ten great people is that it becomes self-policing as to who they let into that group. So I consider the most important job of someone like myself is recruiting.”

[travis. @obengcasper]

celebrating the enduring beauty of our heritage in fabrics designed to be part of people’s lives, honoring tradition while pushing it forward. 🇬🇭✨

#AJABENG #heritageinmotion #madeinGhana

[Sam Altman @sama]

don't do the deferred life plan

[Paul Graham @paulg]

When To Do What You Love: https://t.co/kMDf3RYhW9

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

Nvidia CEO: Greatness does not come out of intelligence, it comes from character.

Character is not formed out of smart people: it is formed out of people who have suffered.