Andy Vandervell

Content for @posthog. Recovering journalist. Optimist.

[tim glaser @timgl]

Self-driving is out of beta

- we got pricing wrong at the start. we were charging $15 per pr, and reports were free

- agents do most of their work while creating reports. that's where the value was, and what people actually cared about

- now every run is billed, including reports, based on how long the agent spends in the sandbox and how much context is read

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@rowlsmanthorpe The Market: The AI companies are spending too much on data centers.

Also The Market: We are concerned AI companies won’t be allowed to spend lots of money on data centers.

[PostHog @posthog]

Gamers, rise up.

We're building an Unreal Engine SDK. Not ready for prod (yet), but already supports
- Product Analytics
- Session Replay (on Mac)
- Feature Flags

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

skill issue

[Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon]

Artificial Intelligence might make us more productive eventually, but right now it is a waste of time.

Link below.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@rowlsmanthorpe definitely laugh. imagine walking around being this ignorant? i’d have some sympathy if it weren’t for the sheer laziness and lack of curiosity.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

not news, but opus 5.5 is such a baller

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@vladsavov Gemini is far more impactful, imo. Told a friend recently to start using Claude and he’s genuinely shocked at how much better it is.

[PostHog @posthog]

Confirmed: https://t.co/wSOHaQxLdi works on Wii browsers

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

Prediction. Apple will buy Instinct to roll it into iOS.

[Noah Shinn @noahrshinn]

Instinct on the Action Button

You can now make Instinct your iPhone’s Action Button. Press and hold, say what you need, and Instinct will take it from there, without you needing to leave the app you’re on.

To set it up:
1. Go to https://t.co/mkmhtYazuT and tap Add Shortcut
2. Go to Settings → Action Button → Shortcut → Instinct.

This is available to all Instinct users on an iPhone 15 Pro and newer.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@elliehuxtable @braelyn_ai we like software kitchen

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

I’ve been at PostHog long enough that i take our transparency for granted, which i shouldn’t.

if i ever end up working at a “normal” company again, the whiplash will be extreme.

[tim glaser @timgl]

Making everything public has made PostHog easier to copy, meant we haven’t closed every hire we wanted to, and companies we’re selling to know our every move. Long-term, we still think it’s worth it.

- externally, this builds trust. we write about what we’re working on so others can take advantage of it too and know how to work with us better.

- the more context that lives in public, the less time is spent asking or looking for it. just as important now, it lets agents handle more things.

- write about your strategy, share real numbers, publicize post-mortems. our post-mortem of the Shai-Hulud attack was one of our most-read blogs last year.

- internally, we go further. managers tell you to share feedback directly, financials and board slides are shared, and team changes happen in public. if i think a team should be split up, i’ll literally post in their channel: “i think this team should be split into team A and team B, because you’re working on too many things together.”

- it’s more efficient, and builds trust too. you get more feedback, the team aligns on direction, and there’s less resentment and politics.

- ask (dumb) questions, share sales updates, and have disagreements in public channels. we trust people to spend in the company’s best interest, but have an expense-defense channel to back it up. i’ve called people out for using AI to write RFCs.

- practically, putting things in public is uncomfortable. do it anyways. literally just ask yourself "if i was dutch, how would i handle this".

- for example, i recently closed our private exec channel, which was reasonably active. nearly all exec discussions are now public, even significant positioning changes and their criticisms.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@rowlsmanthorpe ages ago, i read an article about how (for most people) winning at table tennis is mostly about avoiding unforced errors. just keep the ball in play.

often think the same about government. the best ones tend to make the fewest unforced errors.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

This is a great read

[Rowland Manthorpe @rowlsmanthorpe]

“This distrust has evolved in the direction of more diffuse contempt for older generations (based on their supposed inability to open pdfs and so forth). This is often combined with the view that the inability of previous generations to realize more ideal outcomes in our institutions is due to some moral infirmity, from which younger people are miraculously exempt”

Excellent as always
https://t.co/KCprtCj6WD

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

The Thick of It was a documentary.

[Polly Clark @MsPollyClark]

There are reviews and then there are analyses like this which render the book obsolete.

Did no one at Alistair Campbell’s publisher think, hang on this book is going to lay us all open to total humidicule?

https://t.co/aHWiHgilNJ

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

This is a wild take.

A significant percentage of signups to PostHog never visit our website now.

If your business is just monetizing visits to your website then this probably is true today, but do you want to bet your future on that being true months or years from now?

No thanks.

I can buy the argument that people shouldn’t overcorrect here, but to call GEO a distraction is a reach.

[Marie Haynes @Marie_Haynes]

New blog post: GEO is a distraction.

I looked at 12 months of GA4 data across 100 sites - more than 145 million sessions.

ChatGPT sent 0.62% of the traffic Google organic did. With all the other LLMs included, it's 0.73%.

While ChatGPT visitors converted better at 13.8% vs 3.02% for Google organic, Google still drove 27x more conversions than all the other LLMs combined.

And remember how we thought ChatGPT visitors would increase exponentially? Overall visits from ChatGPT have actually been declining since GPT-5 came out in August 2025.

I think GEO is a distraction. Google is the surface that's likely sending the most visitors to your business. Yes, AI is changing how people use the web, but the real opportunities are just emerging. I'd encourage you to spend time preparing for the agentic web - UCP, Universal Cart, WebMCP, intelligent eyewear and more!

The full post is here, plus a prompt you can use to brainstorm on what agentic search means for your business.

https://t.co/qMnz1nq0eW

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

things you don’t admit

[Nick e/code @nicksdot]

You gotta be kidding me.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@IanVanagas @LiorNn in before Andy comes along and suggests deleting the intro ;)

[tim glaser @timgl]

The cost of coordination is often way larger than the cost of some duplicative work across an org.

This came up last week in our slack when someone cross checked our teams' Q4 goals.

- it costs a lot in overhead to silo tasks

- in most cases different teams' work will be better if it bleeds over anyways

- it's dumb to spend too much time directing people

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@s8mb “Reportedly”?

Unless there’s some other source you’re not sharing here @s8mb, there’s no evidence the UK gov is considering anything of the sort.

A vague aspiration for me legal alignment does not equal consideration.

[Andy Vandervell @andyvan]

@rowlsmanthorpe i really wish jensen had a message for me, personally. you should ask him next time you meet him.

more seriously, germany ditching nuclear power was wild. not quite brexit level of self-damage, but not far off.