Hacktoolkit

Open-source library. Win hackathons by using refined APIs and bootstrap code to build complete websites and apps in 24 hours.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If you know anyone looking for a good and fairly AI-proof career, watchmaker (= watch repairer) seems a promising one. Every watchmaker seems to have more work than he can handle, mechanical watches are increasingly popular, and it will be a while before AI does this.

[Jonathan Tsai @jontsai]

TIL the term “slop grenades”. Guilty 🙈🙋‍♂️

Tobi Lutki is extremely grounded; despite being CEO of Shopify, he is an engineer at heart who still codes (not necessarily on production code, but AI productivity tools and the like).

[Paul Graham @paulg]

A founder of a startup I funded had these brass plaques made to put up over his and his cofounder's desks. (He's Build Stuff, she's Talk to Users.)

[Ace @Acemation_]

🚨WOW 🚨

Elon Musk just dropped a serious warning:

“You have at most 10 years left to make money by selling your work.”After that, AI will handle most tasks — and paying someone for their time simply won’t make sense anymore.

The 200-year deal of trading your hours for a salary is ending.
And this shift is going to move more money than anything else in modern history.

Real question:
Are you still only selling your time… or are you already learning how to build income with AI?

[Hacktoolkit @hacktoolkit]

@garrytan @snagged @rob Stop teasing… what’s the domain name?

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

The “AI capex is a bubble” and “SaaS is dead” narratives getting shredded this morning. NVDA +8%, SFDC +20%.

NVDA: $96B q2 revenue (+106%), ~$60B net income, 75% gross margin. Highest core-business quarterly profit ever. Guided FY28 rev +70% vs Street exp 45% — and that’s a supply-constrained number.

SFDC: bookings reaccelerated (fastest in 4 years) and Agentforce is showing up in ARR. Benioff: “the UI is the AI.” They’re putting Salesforce inside Claude. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Still need systems of record.

Congrats @JensenHuang @Benioff

[Paul Graham @paulg]

I'm never buying a BMW.

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

The entire tech industry (save for Anthropic) has come out in favor of open source AI.

So what happens next? Will Anthropic change its lobbying efforts? Not likely. Now the gaslighting begins:

“Nobody is trying to ban open source.”

“We just want to limit who can use it.”

“We just want to limit who can contribute to it.”

“We just want to limit how powerful those models can be.”

“We just want to make sure the guardrails (we lobbied for) can’t be removed.”

The net effect will be the same. They won’t stop until they kneecap open source. The rest of the industry needs to watch these guys like a hawk.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

Ryan has been responsible for many of our legal wins at @coinbase, and creating regulatory clarity for crypto.

Excited to have him stepping up as Vice Chair to do even more for economic freedom.

[Royally Sage @sage1411]

My brother posts this every year in the family chat on the 4th. Still hilarious.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.

—Augustine

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

Uber employees using $100k of Claude tokens to respond to an email

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

Me using Claude Opus 4.8 to rename a file

[jonathan liu @jonathanzliu]

what a wonderful use of VC money.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Everyone thinks "do things that don't scale" is about building relationships with early users.

Yes AND it's about generating mistakes at maximum density.

When you're doing everything manually (onboarding, support, delivery) you hit errors every hour. Each error teaches you something the dashboard never will.

The manual work IS the learning. Automate too early and you freeze your ignorance in code (and now markdown).

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

This is an email I sent earlier today to all employees at Coinbase:

Team,

Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the future.

Why now
Two forces are converging at the same time. We need to be front footed to respond to both.

First, the market. Coinbase is well-capitalized, has diversified revenue streams, and is well-positioned to weather any storm. Crypto is also on the verge of the next wave of adoption, with stablecoins, prediction markets, tokenization, and more taking off. However, our business is still volatile from quarter to quarter. While we've managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth.

Second, AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. Non-technical teams are now shipping production code and many of our workflows are being automated. The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day.

All of this has led us to an inflection point, not just for Coinbase, but for every company. The biggest risk now is not taking action. We are adjusting early and deliberately to rebuild Coinbase to be lean, fast, and AI-native. We need to return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.

What this means
To get there, we are not just reducing headcount and cutting costs, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate: rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it. What does this mean in practice?

- Fewer layers, faster decisions: We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. Fewer layers also means a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles.

- No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.

- AI-native pods: We’ll be concentrating around AI-native talent who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era. This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.

To those who are affected
I know there are real people behind these decisions — talented colleagues who have poured themselves into this company and our mission. To those of you who will be leaving: thank you. You’ve helped build Coinbase into what it is today, and I am sincerely grateful for everything you've done.

All impacted team members will receive an email to their personal account in the next hour with more information, and an invitation to meet with an HRBP and a senior leader in your organization. Coinbase system access has been removed today. I know this feels sudden and harsh, but it is the only responsible choice given our duty to protect customer information.

To those affected, we will be providing a comprehensive package to support you through this transition. US employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA. Employees on a work visa will get extra transition support. Those outside of the US will receive similar support, based on local factors and subject to any consultation requirements.

Coinbase prides itself on talent density. Our employees are among the most talented people in the world, and I have no doubt that your skills and experience will be highly sought after as you pursue your next chapters.

How we move forward
To the team that is staying, I know this is a difficult day. We’re saying goodbye to colleagues and friends you've been in the trenches with. But here’s what I want you to know as we move forward together:

Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry. We’ve made it this far by making hard decisions and by always staying focused on our mission. This time will be no different – nothing has changed about the long term outlook of our company or industry. And most importantly, our mission has never been more important for the world. Increasing economic freedom requires a new financial system, and we’re building it.

The Coinbase that emerges from this will be more capable than ever to achieve our mission.

Brian

[Mostly Peaceful Memes @MostlyPeaceful]

Pretty certain every husband sent this video to their wife today

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

I came back to code because AI made it possible for me to build at a level I couldn't before.

I'm not coding despite being CEO of YC. I'm coding because this is the most important technological shift since the internet and I'd be an idiot to experience it from the bleachers.

I'm 45, running the most important startup institution in the world, and I can ship production software at 2am. That's not a distraction from the job.

That is the job understood correctly.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

New item in my SOUL md tonight

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

AI needs open markets and open access not whatever is happening here