“People underestimate how long it takes to win big.
You struggle for 10 years. Eventually, in one day, you achieve more than you did your entire life.
Be patiently aggressive.”
— Patrick Bet-David
Every time you think you need a dashboard to look at data, stop yourself.
Do this instead:
1. Ask your agent to make sure that you have all the data to analyze something actually stored in the database.
2. Ask your agent to write a skill to gather that data.
3. Ask your agent to do the analysis and create a temp and throw-away HTML dashboard to answer the question(s) that you have
In my experience, every dashboard that I've created gets less and less use over time and decays.
It's much better to make sure your agent can get the data you need and answer the questions you have, on-demand.
As engineering, product, design, DS, etc. melt into a new kind of role, I was reflecting on what roles might look like in the future. For example, when I look at the Claude Code team I see what I think is five archetypes:
1. Prototyper: comes up with brand new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship
2. Builder: quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra
3. Sweeper: cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance
4. Grower: takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve Product-Market Fit
5. Maintainer: owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales
Many people span across 2 roles, and sometimes 3 roles. I also notice that these roles are not really tied to job function -- eg. across Anthropic, some designers match category 1, some 2, some 3; same for engineers, PM, DS.
A healthy team needs a mix of these, depending on the product:
- A product that is new and pre-PMF needs people that are strong at 1+2+3
- A product that is growing and has found PMF needs 2+3+4 and some 5
- A product that has strong PMF needs 3+4+5 and some 2
Maybe product roles of the future will look more like this, and less like the domain-specific roles of today?
It is very easy to be pessimistic and right.
Most ideas are bad. Most markets are too early, too small, too crowded, too hard. You can build an entire worldview around seeing the flaw first, and be rewarded for it over and over again
But the strange thing about startups is that the only outcomes that matter come from the places where someone was optimistic and right
I used to underestimate how much this matters. But there is a whole world of difference between reacting to the world as it is, and having enough understanding of the world as it is to still stay open to what it could become
Long optimism
The reaction to midjourney scanner summaries everything that frustrated me in medicine.
I truly dont understand how medics went from innovators, experimenters, tech enthusiasts in early 20th centruy to being the “old-guard” today.
@nico_laqua Corgi Cafe is like the definition of SF. All hyped up and glorious until you visit. Where you are met with a mid cafe uncomfortable stools and no charm. Or in the case of SF, tp all on the floor.
It is all a house of cards.
@markpinc@skupor I think its more nuanced than that. I take advice from people I respect. Respect for what they built, achieved or raw intelligence whether IQ or EQ. But you cannot expect founders to take your word for things just because you are in a position to gate liquidity.
That was a short-term loan when I ran out of money in 2008. He did not receive any equity for it.
Antonio’s ownership stems from absolute support, even when it looked like SpaceX would fail, and many investments over 2 decades.
One could not ask for a better friend. He is a great man.