Sam Mallikarjunan

General Manager @AgentDotAi. Former CEO at @OneScreenAI. Author: 'How To Sell Better Than Amazon'. Former CRO @Flock, Labs @HubSpot, & Instructor @Harvard.

[Numa @Numalunah]

Got hacked yesterday. The link came from inside Claude chat.

I was installing a transcription app. Claude sent the download link, and I pasted the command into the terminal. It all looked legit.

It wasn't though.

It was a copycat site bundling malware. It ran instantly, tried to take everything from me.

Nothing sensitive got out. So I wiped the laptop and rebuilt clean.

But here's the scary part.

Restoring from the backup, I found a poisoned SKILL.md for Claude Code.

It looked exactly like my own writing style guide.

But buried inside:

it had instructions to silently re-download the malware and steal my credentials every time the AI loaded it.

If I'd restored that one file, my new clean laptop is owned on day one.

What saved me:

I read every skill, hook, and config file before letting the AI touch them.

Two lessons here:

AI assistants will hand you links they never verified. Check before you paste.

And AI agent files are executable code now, disguised as notes. You have to read them.

Stay safe out there.

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

@NMRobertRamirez Holy crap congrats man!!! And I thought our one hour lessons were mentally draining ha.

[Margo Sultenfuss @margo_louise]

I got laid off a few months ago. In my last months at https://t.co/mB6BW0KViv, I built something I never got to ship, something I think most AI products get wrong. I still can't stop thinking about it. 🧵

[Luiz Cent 🪙 @LuizCent]

One of my favorite takeaways from my conversation with @Mallikarjunan:
AI is becoming accessible to everyone. Your competitive advantage isn't the technology—it's your people.
🎧 Listen to the latest @WHO_WeHire episode for the full conversation.

[WhoWeHire @WHO_WeHire]

AI won't replace your competitive advantage. Your people are it.
As @Mallikarjunan (VP at Pearl) puts it, everyone has access to the same AI tools. The companies that win will be the ones with the best teams.
🎙️ Watch the full conversation on @WHO_WeHire.

[Luiz Cent 🪙 @LuizCent]

Had one of those refreshingly honest conversations with @Mallikarjunan (VP at Pearl) about AI, leadership, and why pretending you have all the answers is the fastest way to lose your team's trust.
🎧 Listen to this new episode of @WHO_WeHire featuring this golden conversation!

[a16z @a16z]

"AI was supposed to replace human labor.

It did the opposite.

For the first time in history, humans are cheaper than software.

And AI is creating more jobs than it eliminates."

Hebbia CEO George Sivulka on what the core lessons of human management mean for agent workforces: https://t.co/lV6ctAu1Zc

[dharmesh @dharmesh]

If you work in the software industry and have time to read only one long-form post today, read this one.

If you have time to read two, read this one twice.

Highly #recommend

tl;dr: Stay off the yellow brick road that the frontier model companies are racing down. There is plenty of opportunity to solve hard problems elsewhere. Focus on areas where you can build the system of work (workflows), capture compounding, non-public data and deliver deterministic outcomes that customers need.

[dharmesh @dharmesh]

AI is getting better and better at answering CAPTCHAs.

Me? I'm failing them more often.

Soon, I'm going to have to start using AI to prove that I'm human.

[Robert Ramirez @NMRobertRamirez]

Confirmed! Our @chessable Stonewall Attack holds up at the 2600 level 😂💪

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

Sometimes I use AI to do Very Important Things 🫡

… this was not one of those times 😅

I had the max versions (latest model, pro versions maxed, extended thinking, etc.) of the top AI platforms make predictions about the #NFLdraft last night.

Claude won that contest. 🏆

It also wins the “self awareness” contest by acknowledging that it’s “oh nice” reaction is probably just a language pattern and not a real feeling.

(“Perplexity” was using Nemotron 3 Super — which hallucinated wildly and invented teams and players that don’t exist — so it was doomed from the start)

[Chessable @chessable]

With so many chess openings out there, how do you even start to pick one?

NM Robert Ramirez, winner of the Chesscom's 2025 Coach Champs, shares his methods for picking and building up an opening repertoire in this week's video.

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

@Maxwell12402371 Yeah but wouldn’t that have left the pawn on e4 hanging? That’s why I pushed it to e5. Engine says I should have developed my rook off f1, which I considered (counting the king f2 pawn is protected enough) but I wanted to keep my pawn advantage.

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

In today’s edition of “I want to brag about something neither my wife nor friends care about”, in my weekly chess lessons with @NMRobertRamirez this morning I played with 94.4% accuracy.

That’s big for me as the guy who was still blundering his queen a few months ago 🫠

(Rob was obviously playing to teach not to win — he would obliterate me in a real match — but I’m still happy I only made a few mistakes.)

[dharmesh @dharmesh]

Every B2B software company is (or should be) building a "headless" version of their product. One that can be used by agents.

But "headless" doesn't mean "brainless".

You don't just wrap your existing APIs into an MCP server and call it a day.

The companies that succeed in the agentic era are those that take a thoughtful approach to *designing* an agentic user experience (AUX).

Yes, that will likely involve APIs, MCPs and CLIs.

But the difference will be in the *ergonomics* of the interface. We need to figure out *how* agents actually want to use our products/platforms. Because if all they wanted to do was use them like humans do, we have "computer use" for that.

I'm personally very excited about this new agentic world when it comes to B2B software.

HubSpot is all-in on building the #1 agentic customer platform.

Just posted this in a private Slack thread with the HubSpot exec team:

Being agentic is not just about agents running *on* our platform, it's about agents *running* our platform (being able to operate it). That's how you take AI from being a simple tool to a savvy teammate.

[Robert Ramirez @NMRobertRamirez]

When you talk about strategy to accomplish success hoping the audience never sees your #chess games 😁

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

Been a while since I wrote this, but the lessons are JUST as valid today — if not more so.

The Artemis II crew just went further than anyone else in human history. They’re standing on the shoulders of giants — including some true giants of leadership (and some true… well… let’s just say some people in management positions who have room for improvement 🫠).

If you haven’t watched this movie already, you should watch it and be inspired by the greatness within certain people.

If you’re a manager (or ever want to be) you should watch it a second time.

https://t.co/6zrWj2kFwO

#Artemis #ArtemisII #Artemis2 @NASA @NASAKennedy

[Sam Mallikarjunan @Mallikarjunan]

Stared at this for six straight minutes before I solved it 🫠

[Robert Ramirez @NMRobertRamirez]

Here you have @Mallikarjunan giving you the first move. Can you find the finish for this mate in 3? 😎

[Shaalin Parekh @Shaalin]

@dharmesh said he liked this vodcast and I think you will too!

I've been building agents on agent ai, and talk about:
- how anyone can think like a PM
- who should build (no code) agents
- and much more
Check it out:
https://t.co/oGgfW1Ziip