Willem

Investing and design · @terraincap ·

[Willem @vanlancker]

This is right but most people are quite poor at/uninterested in delegating tasks. Even the canonical example “book me a flight” comes with a dozen unstated preferences + decisions. It is still often more work to offload that context than just do it yourself.

[signüll @signulll]

i've been talking to a lot of normal ppl outside of tech about personal agents & the convos have been incredibly fascinating, particularly w.r.t. to retention.

most consumer products typically have one of two types of retention, one is desire driven which is just pure dopamine (like insta, tiktok, games). they often don't even need notifications because you know there is a reward for your desire always waiting. the second is dependency driven, like emails, calendars, even credit cards & banking. most ppl have to do this, it's not something they necessarily desire (unless they are a sociopath).

the challenge with personal ai agents right now is that they occupy a weird third space where they aren't emotionally rewarding most of the time to become entertainment like the first category, & they're not reliable / indispensable enough to become pure infra. i.e. they fail, & there is a lot of friction. outside of pure research driven tasks, even one failure is often enough to not come back for the utility value prop.

which is why i think vertical agents that focus on making your life more interesting & entertaining are worth deep exploration still. & even very focused vertically integrated utility agents that work reliably will still be in demand. tons of ppl still think in jobs to be done when reaching for anything & with general purpose agents that's just not as crisp yet on what those critical jobs are.

[Willem @vanlancker]

Care more than is reasonable. Have enough pride in what you make to go deep on it.

[Willem @vanlancker]

@pdotcv process 🔀 product

[Willem @vanlancker]

@yangyou congrats on getting this review out there - amazing to see it all together.

[Willem @vanlancker]

It was incredibly rewarding for @terraincap to support in the creation of @p0's first brand campaign.

We drew inspiration from Hockney's collages, scientific slide libraries, and the insights we draw from deep research.

See the whole picture in NYC, SF, and LDN now.

[yang you @yangyou]

we used Parallel to build Parallel’s first brand campaign.

here's a look at the research, connections, and creative decisions behind the artwork. https://t.co/f7TuwbKRaH

[Willem @vanlancker]

@yangyou @p0 dream team @reathchris

[yang you @yangyou]

last week, we launched the first batch of our @p0 brand campaign in NYC

every ad is a collage assembled with citations, representing a real research report built on Parallel's APIs

more to come on how we built this. in the meantime, share with us if you encounter it in the wild!

[Willem @vanlancker]

@jcap49 🎯

[Willem @vanlancker]

What’s one book we should include as we build the best office library?

Recommendations welcome across design, business, art, technology, fiction, history…

[Willem @vanlancker]

Terrain library install with a helper

[Willem @vanlancker]

@oliverhamrin A+ recommendations

[Willem @vanlancker]

@kevintwohy @grok is this true

[Willem @vanlancker]

@jstn @carlyayres no doubt

[Willem @vanlancker]

@justinrgraham @jlax Excellent one. Have it at home, need a copy at office

[Willem @vanlancker]

@philipwalford Eno da 🐐

[Willem @vanlancker]

@davidkurkov already have it 🤝

[Willem @vanlancker]

@elirousso a library wouldn't be complete without it

[Willem @vanlancker]

@lil_dill @stripepress certainly need to complete our stripe press collection

[Willem @vanlancker]

@ianzapolsky @terraincap @Oyster whew, I wish

[Willem @vanlancker]

Terrain library install with a helper

[Willem @vanlancker]

@CGeoffWilson Already there!

[Willem @vanlancker]

@notamitalegend Great one. Just gifted my copy to someone

[Willem @vanlancker]

@SamuelBeek classic