Tommy

member of non-technical staff

[Tommy @barn_north]

Manually tested the actual app afterward and caught a bug the automated tests missed. This I was especialy proud of because as a non-eng it would have been easy for me to just trust the robot, but as the human in the loop I needed to verify the output.

[Tommy @barn_north]

Contributed to my first enterprise codebase as a non-engineer this week 🔥

Went through the real flow: picked up a ticket, branched off main, wrote the feature + automated tests, opened a PR, and let CI run the full build + test suite before a code owner ever looked at it.

This is the real unlock companies need to figure out for their teams. Building a prototype in Claude Code is cool, but it doesn't matter if you can't deploy it safely and no one can use it.

[Tommy @barn_north]

@GergelyOrosz My company is highly selective about this. This extends to other AI tooling as well. We have most “write” functionality disabled and anything we want to turn on requires a security review. This has been my job to get it turned on but has been a slow burn.

[Tommy @barn_north]

@Codie_Sanchez I spy ZYN 🤣

[Tommy @barn_north]

@buaalicious Early morning sessions is the only answer

[Tommy @barn_north]

Always said my ultimate backup plan is to be a fireman. AI is not taking that job.

[Shawn Gorham @shawngorham]

If you are young, go be a Fireman and invest in real estate.

Was just listening to a Hormozi clip, a fireman in San Diego. He has a $6mm a year business building ADU's AND hes a full time fireman.

He said he works at a very slow (rich) station that gets 3 calls a day so he spends his time on building his business
Pulling $250k with OT, retirement, full benefits PLUS $1.2mm gross on a side hustle

[Tommy @barn_north]

Start posting your own videos ‼️

[Nikita Bier @nikitabier]

I’m going to answer this claim that “X is turning into TikTok” one time only:

• Posts containing videos already make up close to half the impressions on X

• Many videos from top accounts are simply stolen from other users, sometimes 5 years after they originally went viral.

• Our team believes this recycled content has a negative impact on the user experience and the business.

• For the first time, we are providing a functional video editor so some videos on X can finally be original content that doesn’t exist on other platforms

If you are a creator that does not recycle other people’s content, you have the biggest arbitrage opportunity of your career to build an audience here.

The algorithm may take time to recognize you, but when it does, you will climb faster than other account on this app.

[Tommy @barn_north]

The layoff saga continues

Although I do like this part:
We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3.

[ASHA @asha_shar]

This is an important email I sent today to all employees at XBOX:

Team,

We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale.

I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today's decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.

Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX.

First, we will reset our content portfolio.

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.

Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.

We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.

In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX.

Second, we will reset our platform.

We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify.

We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend.

Third, we are resetting how we operate.

As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done.

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX's history. We wish him all the best.

These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we've seen before. This year, we'll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we'll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.

History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.

Asha

[Tommy @barn_north]

Another banger especially if you like history

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

Here's my conversation with Anthony Kaldellis about the deep history of the Roman Empire in the west and the east (the Byzantine Empire). This was a truly fascinating conversation with a lot of wisdom for the modern world and for the future of human civilization. The Roman state lasted over 2,200 years. If we want to understand human nature, the modern world, and how humanity can flourish, it is valuable to study history, especially the history of why societies survive and why they collapse.

It's here on X in full and is up everywhere else (see comment).

Timestamps:
0:00 - Episode highlight
1:24 - Introduction
1:51 - The Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire
5:49 - 2,200 Years of Roman History
26:12 - Power, violence, and civil war
47:27 - Edict of Caracalla
1:00:23 - Crisis of the Third Century
1:14:52 - Constantine and the new Roman Empire
1:26:53 - Christianity in the Roman Empire
1:52:21 - Fall of the Western Roman Empire
2:05:17 - Eunuchs, Taxes, and Power
2:30:24 - Emperor Justinian and wars of conquest
2:47:26 - The Arab conquests
3:07:01 - Why the Roman empire survived so long
3:33:08 - Lessons from history

[Tommy @barn_north]

I know im old now because l I like strategy games like Total War 🤣

Shit rocks

[Tommy @barn_north]

Vibecoding is easy

Actually standing something up on your company’s infra that can be accessed by others and scale is the real challenge

[Tommy @barn_north]

My favorite use of AI

“Layman terms”

Just a 2 word prompt and I can translate any technical jargon into concepts anyone can understand.

[Tommy @barn_north]

Common question at work: “when should I be using Claude vs Codex vs Cursor?”

Mainly coming from non-engineers who are exploring these tools for the first time. It’s valid cause they are similar and can do a lot of the same things.

My personal take: pick one and start using it everyday. A lot of the concepts you will pick up will be transferable between the tools.

[Tommy @barn_north]

Had a good convo today about AI and security.

Your company’s security stopping you from deploying AI? Instead of complaining maybe try working with them and anticipating what they may be worried about. Then show how you already mitigated that risk. Your project might move along faster.

[Tommy @barn_north]

@steipete You’re shipping when others are not. Ignore the stupid people and keep building :)

[Developers @XDevelopers]

Announcing the hosted X MCP.

Agents now have access to the best real-time information source in the world.

Connect Grok, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI tool to the X API without any setup!

Check it out here: https://t.co/5MzPYwGFzD

[Tommy @barn_north]

@businessbarista Seems like every Director+ at my company is starting to post on LinkedIn

[Jude Edwards @jedwards_27]

AI can build an app in an afternoon. But getting it safely into other people's hands is a whole other challenge!

This is the problem that I've been working on these past few months. I'm proud to finally share how we solved it with Block App Kit!

https://t.co/hXm6NdcMUW

[Tommy @barn_north]

Engineering is just a bunch of funny words