Reading up on career-growth

excellent

@jack

Fable 5 is so good at web design that I genuinely don't see how web design careers make it past the end of this year. An AI that can one shot designs this good means that the web design industry as a whole is in serious trouble. If you're in web design, it's time to pivot.

@markgadala

Career advice in the age of AI

@philhchen

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?

@bcherny

The 6 MOST valuable skills to learn in the AGENTIC era and how to learn them (clearly explained in 29 minutes)

@gregisenberg

In addition to your own @leerob, every company now needs their own @mattpocockuk. Role: someone who keeps up with every release, model drop, benchmark, loop, skills, paper and changelog. Then distills and briefs the team on Friday. I'm calling it Dev Intel. Who's hiring? :)

@shadcn

People have no idea what's coming with the next generation of kids who are AI native. My youngest teen just started an internship. On the first day he was given a "challenging" two weeks worth of work with very specific objectives, timelines, etc. By 10am the next morning he was done the entire list and asking for more work. They didn't think he could possibly be done. How? He used AI to help (with their permission). And he KNOW how to use AI (he's not using it like a google search bar). These AI native kids are gonna run laps around 25-40 year olds that are not using AI.

@shaneparrish

To All the Folks Who Are About to Be Rich

@joulee

tibo talking about the pain of an earnout is *real*. it was a huge reason i sold baremetrics for "just" $4 million. the fact that i refused to entertain any earnouts or contractual obligations after close immediately killed nearly every offer. i'd sold businesses before and knew that once i was "done" (i.e. willing to sell), that it was over. that every day i was still obligated to work on it would be torture. after spending *decades* being self-employed, working a job because i was contractually required to would kill my soul.

@Shpigford

wondering why I feel exhausted. maybe: the agents do all the easy stuff, and I have to work through the leftover hard bits, which means I'm perpetually locked in. and as the models get better, "my" work just gets harder and harder, until I'm basically underqualified to do the work (which... is better than the alternative, there's nothing left for me to do, and I'm paperclipped).

@threepointone

Spoke with many friends recently, designers and engineers, all people who've been doing it for 20 years or more and had a lot of success doing it. And they all say the same thing. The AI stuff is genuinely useful right now. It's fast and things that used to take a week take an afternoon. Things you never even attempted because there was no time, now you can just do them. It's the biggest enabler ever. But in the same breath, every single one also says that it's the least fun they've ever had in their entire career. They also mention it makes no sense to do it the old way. They're all in. It's a strange paradox which I feel myself. Everything is possible now and I've never cared less about any of it. Both things true at once. Not sure if thats just the feeling of the current moment, or if I just talked to people who're tired of the computer (since all of them been doing it for a long time).

@vanschneider

how to be good at your job - realize this one thing is actually made up of two separate things - realize instead of solving the direct problem you can solve a broader problem - instead of implementing thing, implement other thing that makes it easier to implement thing

@thdxr

Do you guys remember "Scrum Masters"? What was that all about???

@tunguz

"As the cost of writing software drops to zero, I find myself valuing ambition above all else. Unreasonable, unrelenting ambition."

@lennysan

the software rotation is happening don't miss yet another chance at generational wealth

@kevinxu

You can’t outwork the whole world. There’s always going to be someone somewhere willing to work as hard as you. Someone just as hungry. Or hungrier. Assuming you can work harder and longer than someone else is giving yourself too much credit for your effort and not enough for theirs. Putting in 1,001 hours to someone else’s 1,000 isn’t going to tip the scale in your favor. What’s worse is when management holds up certain people as having a great “work ethic” because they’re always around, always available, always working. That’s a terrible example of a work ethic and a great example of someone who’s overworked. A great work ethic isn’t about working whenever you’re called upon. It’s about doing what you say you’re going to do, putting in a fair day’s work, respecting the work, respecting the customer, respecting coworkers, not wasting time, not creating unnecessary work for other people, and not being a bottleneck. Work ethic is about being a fundamentally good person that others can count on and enjoy working with. So how do people get ahead if it’s not about outworking everyone else? People make it because they’re talented, they’re lucky, they’re in the right place at the right time, they know how to work with other people, they know how to sell an idea, they know what moves people, they can tell a story, they know which details matter and which don’t, they can see the big and small pictures in every situation, and they know how to do something with an opportunity. And for so many other reasons. So get the outwork myth out of your head. Stop equating work ethic with excessive work hours. Neither is going to get you ahead or help you find calm. [The Outwork Myth — It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work, 2018]

@dhh

I don't know anyone who quit their job to live of savings and built something that made money before their savings run out except @AndreyAzimov I always think it's the wrong way to do it I think you should build something on the side and once it makes equal or more money than your main job or freelance gigs and it's stable, quit the job and switch Being unemployed somehow makes people lazy and feel too relaxed to build something, like your day is fully free of commitments which sounds ideal but freedom isn't when stuff is built I think, you need constraints I had income from my YouTube channel Panda Mix Show in 2013 when I started, and it took over a year before I made enough money to switch Obviously I wish him well but I think better do the switch than hard quit

@levelsio

I'm a financial planner that works with the wealthiest 1% of people in their 30s and 40s I wish everyone understood these 10 critical lessons about finance:

@TKopelman

And we’re hiring across roles.

@karrisaarinen

There is a transition here for people across the workforce: the working world needs fewer measurers and more builders More revenue means there will be more activity and more building, and in the shorter term less measuring

@garrytan

In a way I think the top tech companies have just vacuumed up all the top talent worldwide for such great salaries + equity (for $500K to millions $ per year) And the top tech companies also have built such a great talent acquisition funnel that everyone else in the world who isn't working for top tech is either 1) already rich and retired, 2) a founder already or 3) just not good enough

@levelsio

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

@deedydas

recommended reading by @antirez > I worked 14 hours per day on average. My normal average is 4/6 since early Redis times, but the first few months of Redis were like that. this isnhow i work too, intense bursts followed by a healthier phase. https://antirez.com/news/165

@badlogicgames

Existential dread is a great motivator. Too much runway you get lazy. Too little runway you don't give yourself a chance. You need just enough runway for the dread to kick in, fight or flight mode, do your best work, charge money, get paid.

@yongfook

Learning on the Shop floor

@tobi

I have a friend with a $50M stock portfolio. I’m jealous of him. We’ve had roughly the same time horizon. He put his energy into picking stocks, I put mine into AppSumo and indexing on the side. His returns have absolutely crushed mine. Not even close. And every time we talk about it, the same thing happens. I get this itch. Maybe I should make some trades. Maybe I should pick a few names and try to catch up. Nothing crazy, just some moves to juice my returns. Then I actually asked him how he does it. • He calls employees of the companies he’s looking at. • He sits through earnings calls. • He uses the products at a depth most people never bother with. It’s not “read a Substack and buy the ticker.” It’s a job he treats like a job. That’s when it clicked. He’s a professional. I’m a hobbyist. And the reason my hobby trades would lose to his professional ones isn’t IQ or luck. It’s reps and time. He’s putting in the work I’m not putting in. The same is true in reverse. He could spend a year trying to compete with what we’ve built at AppSumo and he’d likely lose. Not because he’s not smart. Because I’ve spent 15 years in this seat and he hasn’t. The lesson I keep coming back to: everyone has some alpha. A thing where they’ve actually earned the edge. The trap is when you start looking sideways at someone else’s alpha and try to half-ass your way into it. That’s not investing. That’s distraction. You can be a professional stock picker and still suck. You can be a professional founder and still fail. But you have zero shot as a hobbyist trying to beat a professional at their own game. If you’re not the professional, hire one. Or just ask the people who are. Most of them will tell you exactly what they’re doing if you actually ask. Copy from the best instead of guessing on your own. So I’m back to indexing and chilling on the stock side. And spending the real reps where I actually have alpha. Running AppSumo.

@noahkagan

The Patient Capital of Recognizing People

@richzou

Tough day for folks (DM me if I can help!) but if I found myself suddenly laid off from a company that cited AI as a cause, this is what I’d do: - download codex and Claude/code - say: “this was my job and how I spent my day, how can you help me automate it w skills” - push a dozen of those skills to GitHub - open up Claude design and make a portfolio site, with an “agent” per skill explaining how you built it, what tools it interacts with, etc.” give to lovable or v0 or whatever to publish - post that site and link to GitHub on LinkedIn - search “ai for <job>” and try all the new startups, form an opinion, message their founders - try something scary like openclaw, form an opinion - take a course in tactical AI in your field - build, share, build The gap in AI adoption is getting bigger. Start reskilling now while it’s early. The time is now.

@clairevo

this guy is awesome btw, he deserves all his money and 100x more he is the reason i have a $30k/month business today

@jackfriks

No new instructions for the computer

@sivers

the 5 stages of ai grief since Claude Design launched, designers are grappling with the same existential recoil as when engineers first saw ai could code. the process maps to the stages of grief. 1. denial. "but design is more than just producing designs." engineers said the same thing. "coding is more than just writing code." both true. 2. anger. look how bad the output is. look at the people shipping slop. look at the execs who don't understand what we actually do. 3. bargaining. it's just a tool. i'll use it for the boring parts and focus on the strategic work. the craft is safe if i stay in charge of it. 4. depression. i can't believe i used to do all of this by hand. all those hours. all that time. 5. acceptance. i understand the nuance better than ever. i'm still the architect. and now i can actually build the thing. as a software engineer and designer of 25+ years, i've watched this cycle from both sides. the designers grieving now are where engineers were 18 months ago. when our core competency is threatened, we’re quick to defend what’s unique about it, romanticize it, and dig our heels in. what follow is a process of assimilation. i believe designers will eventually see Figma as an awfully archaic and cumbersome way to explore ideas. most designs already become interactive prototypes, so we'll just get there faster. much faster. in the end, taste and judgment is still what remains. creating successful work ultimately breaks down to a series of choices that add up to net value creation. those who win will continue to be involved in the most important choice-making, with a keen ability to discern between what choices are important for the human to make. think slow, move fast.

@chrysb

The Computer is Personal

@AravSrinivas

How I became technical AF

@thatguybg

If you’re making over $250k/yr Retire your wife immediately Not so she can do yoga and Pilates all day But so she can become the family real estate professional With the real estate professional status on your tax returns You’ll be able to claim enormous tax deductions from buying real estate Have your wife quit her job And you’ll secure generational wealth from buying tax deductible, cash flowing real estate My life changed forever when I had my wife quit her corporate job and we started buying a ton of section 8 rental properties Running this playbook till I’m blue in the face

@andyantiles_

Instead of watching an hour of Netflix, watch this 2-hour Stanford lecture on AI careers. It will teach you more about winning in the AI race than all the AI content you’ve scrolled past this year.

@Alokkumarzz

I met Jason in early 2020. Later that year, we both left the startups we founded. This article resonates.

@rrhoover

We analyzed hundreds of former OpenAI employees to see where they go next Alongside the big-name AI labs, one under-the-radar company stood out: @periodiclabs👀

@crustdata

I quit my job in May 2024, almost two years ago. I've spent $143k of savings, trying to make this work. Last month was the first time my bank balance didn't drop. LFG

@GregorySchier

sent this to the team today everything great comes from being able to delay gratification for as long as possible and it feels like we're collectively losing our ability to do that

@thdxr