Michael

sweng

[Michael @michael_irl]

@elonmusk @xai Imagine you post something and your boss quote tweets you to his 200m followers to say this 😂😂

[Evergreen @evrgn11112231]

Tech people smarter than me:

How realistic is it that in the reasonably near future we get an open source model frozen in time around current Opus levels capable of running a harness locally on your desktop that feels like running Claude Code with a max plan?

What are the barriers to this over 3-5-10 years?

[JB @JasonBotterill]

You genuinely cant fake *big model smell* in smaller models like 5.3. The depth reveals itself no matter how RL maxxed it is.

Any prompt even asking for how spongebob is a communist you see the difference in depth

[Michael @michael_irl]

@pabloantonio They build them out of glass because that way you get more natural light and it’s better for the office workers

[Michael @michael_irl]

@ick_real Lack of manners. Biggest tell is not saying please and thank you. Second biggest tell is being greedy.

[Michael @michael_irl]

@tszzl Start eating a bulb of garlic every day, thank me later https://t.co/iFjTQRlm3s

[Michael @michael_irl]

@thdxr How are you using AI to do more with a smaller team? I’m assuming you use it heavily.

[Michael @michael_irl]

From Google:
<Voxel art is a 3D digital art style using "volumetric pixels" (voxels) as building blocks>

This art style is awesome!

[Michael @michael_irl]

@eastvillageguy https://t.co/wj6Fa2OAJQ

Wow he wasn’t lying 😂😂

[Michael @michael_irl]

SOTA rn is the work from @Gossip_Goblin. He has a big following on Instagram and posts about his process there. A well capitalised startup will eventually disrupt traditional film studios, similar to what Pixar did 40 years ago.

[Michael @michael_irl]

@codyschneider Link to the source code?

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

For Christmas I want a printout of all the posts that have shown up right as I open X that disappear forever after half a second when the page refreshes

[Gregory Kennedy @gregorykennedy]

Dave: "So let me get this straight, Michael. You started Cursor three years ago."

Michael: "Yes, Dave."

Dave: "And you just raised $900 million."

Michael: "Correct."

Dave: "At a $9.9 billion valuation."

Michael: "That's right."

Dave: "You're doing over $500 million in ARR."

Michael: "Yes."

Dave: "Which means your revenue has been doubling every two months."

Michael: "Pretty much."

Dave: "And OpenAI tried to buy you."

Michael: "They did."

Dave: "But you said no."

Michael: "We turned them down."

Dave: "So they bought your competitor Windsurf for $3 billion instead."

Michael: "That happened, yes."

Dave: "The competitor doing $100 million ARR while you're at $500 million."

Michael: "I'm aware of the math, Dave."

Dave: "And you're still just a fork of VS Code."

Michael: "Well, when you say it like that—"

Dave: "So your entire $9.9 billion company depends on Microsoft not changing its API."

Michael: "We prefer to call it 'strategic interdependence.'"

Dave: "Okay. Thanks for calling in."

THE VERY NEXT DAY:

Dave: "Michael, you're calling back already?"

Michael: "We just raised another round."

Dave: "How much?"

Michael: "$2.3 billion."

Dave: "At what valuation?"

Michael: "$29.3 billion."

Dave: "You were at $9.9 billion yesterday."

Michael: "Correct."

Dave: "Did you stop being a fork of VS Code?"

Michael: "No."

Dave: "Did Microsoft give you permission to use their code?"

Michael: "They haven't said no."

Dave: "So you tripled your valuation in 24 hours and nothing fundamentally changed."

Michael: "Our revenue is still doubling every two months."

Dave: "You're still one API change away from bankruptcy."

Michael: "Strategic interdependence, Dave."

Dave: "We're done here, Michael. Stop calling."

[Michael @michael_irl]

Please bring back the San Francisco where it was Steve Jobs riding on that cool motorcycle and wearing turtlenecks 😭

[Michael @michael_irl]

Disaster for the human race:
Reddit
Tumblr
Discord
Pinterest

Mixed bag:
TikTok
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

S-tier:
Snapchat
WhatsApp
Telegram

[Michael @michael_irl]

How many trillions of dollars of wealth has been destroyed because of mental masturbation in the tech industry. We’ve been learning new JavaScript frameworks and how to use pointless cloud services. When we could have been creating real abundance with software in construction, manufacturing, agriculture etc.

[Michael @michael_irl]

Almost all of the incentives in the tech industry are tending towards choosing overly complex solutions. Because complexity can be sold as innovation. Higher share price, promotions for those involved, and a flashy bullet point for the engineer’s resume. Also much easier to sell a more complex solution, and easier to retain customers because complexity gives you more opportunities to create vendor lock in.

[Michael @michael_irl]

The best, simplest solutions are less popular because tech companies can’t make money on them. Cron jobs, systemd services, nginx, Certbot / Let’s Encypt, SQLite, using file system instead of blob storage service, bash script for deployment instead of CI/CD pipeline + many more

[Michael @michael_irl]

Maybe they shouldn’t have killed Flash 🤭

[Zephyr @zephyr_z9]

> be Adobe, 40-year-old PDF jockey
> 2025, stock doing a perfect -33% swan dive
> “We’ll pivot to AI” says exec on 7-figure retention bonus
> can’t ship a model because legal says every pixel needs a 12-page EULA
> Midjourney drops v7, makes our Firefly look like MS Paint with a hangover
> OpenAI drops GPT-Image, Google drops nano-banana, both free
> our response: “Please login with your Adobe ID, install Creative Cloud, update 47 GB, restart, then pay $53.99/month”
> users collectively Alt-F4 into orbit

> watch in horror as ChatGPT/Gemini reads any PDF you give it for free
> enterprise cancels 10k seats overnight
> try to counter with Sora killer video model
> training cluster catches fire after someone uploads a 1998 clipart library
> PR tweet: “We are re-imagining creativity”
> quote-tweet ratio hits 1:9k, gif of dumpster bonfire tops replies

> premiere pro is now just a bloated launcher for 15 different subscription prompts
> 20-something with a phone and CapCut is making better edits
> our flagship feature: “Generative fill but now 3% slower”
> board meeting: “Let’s raise prices again”
> stock drops another 8% during the Zoom call
> our most innovative feature in 5 years is a "subscribe to annual plan" button that clicks itself

[Michael @michael_irl]

Why do they call it standup when everyone is sitting down

[Michael @michael_irl]

Agile is the Scientology of the tech industry.