Chris Bernkopf

Working towards energy too cheap to meter @podero_energy
Prev: @YCombinator W21, CERN

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Incredible

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

wait, when did grok get this good?
holy shit

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Linear is slowly turning into GitHub

As one platform bloats, another lighter one takes its place

Schopenhauers creative destruction continues

https://t.co/PNcojlDS0p

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Anecdotal, but: the smarter someone is, the faster they spot analogies across completely unrelated fields. The weaker the thinker, the more energy they spend explaining why the analogy doesn’t apply.

The best minds abstract. The rest protect their turf.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Example: Feynman

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Wrote my master thesis at CERN at 22. Smartest people I’d ever met, fighting for scraps of funding to publish papers about a detail of a detail established 50-100 years go. Research careers of 30+ years with nothing to show.

It seemed like technological progress was just not happening there. That’s what made me go all in on startups. The chances of making any meaningful contributions in academia were just far too low.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

@benedictk__ @lsjabbour Let’s do it!

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

@jeffdfeng Did something similar at Podero yesterday. The cost of not using AI is just too high.

Junior devs adopt it fastest, but a senior who uses it well is in a different league entirely. In the end, what separates people isn’t seniority, it’s agency.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Engineering candidate in interview: "I use AI as a search engine"

Thank you, we'll be in touch

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

@lauriewired @karpathy I’m sure people said the same thing about older folks using apps a decade ago. Today my 86 year old grandma texts me on WhatsApp.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

@lsjabbour @lillysharples @LeanderFreddy Chief @oneleet Officer

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

“I have zero interest in reviewing the 5,000 lines Claude PR that you didn’t bother reading yourself.”

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

@paulg @ConwayAnderson @dieworkwear thoughts?

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Good collab with AI is like good management: Don't get too attached to a specific solution approach, just get it done with reasonable quality

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

The last high-impact job to be automated: judging if work is good enough.

Every org has a handful of quality backstops. @keithrabois calls them barrels. Decisions bubble up to them, and they make the call. You know who they are.

AI just 10x'd them. One barrel can now review 10x more work, shape 10x more output.

Meanwhile execution focussed people that need permission from others to do their job will be automated away.

Will AI eventually supersede judgment too? Probably. But not yet. Right now barrels are getting absurdly valuable.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

AI is blurring the line between PM and engineer at my company.

Engineers now do discovery, customer interaction, product strategy. PMs ship features to prod.

When I was a data scientist, I always did “product work” and “engineering work” simultaneously. Never understood why that wasn’t normal. I assumed engineers were just too tightly managed to have time.

Turns out it’s a skill issue. Very easy to see now who’s capable of self-directed work and who needs their hand held.

Emperor has no clothes moment.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

PMs at Podero using Claude as much as the most productive engineers, shipping prod features

substrate wants to flow toward people who understand customers, not people who memorized compiler optimization

"coding" was never the real skill. it was just the only legible proxy we had for providing customer value. now the proxy is breaking down and the real thing is emerging

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Apparently, I've written the equivalent of one whole book on wispr

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Claude Code /insights sometimes has helpful suggestions for improving prompts too https://t.co/4Anru0Chb4

[Thariq @trq212]

We've added a new command to Claude Code called /insights

When you run it, Claude Code will read your message history from the past month. It'll summarize your projects, how you use Claude Code, and give suggestions on how to improve your workflow.

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Starting a thread of useful prompts: 🧵

[Chris Bernkopf @chrisbernkopf]

Creating a plan with Claude:

Interview me in detail about literally anything using the AskUserQuestionTool : training history, goals, injuries, recovery capacity, lifestyle constraints, equipment access, nutrition, scheduling conflicts, preferences, tradeoffs, etc., but make sure the questions are not obvious – be very in-depth and continue interviewing me continually until it's complete, then write the training plan to the file