AI made competent output cheap. That raises the value of taste and exposes its limits. The real edge is judgment paired with context, stakes, and the will to build.
The Moat or the Commons — Warman Notes
American capital financed AI on the assumption it would be the next great monopoly. Open-weight models are commoditizing the capability that monopoly was supposed to protect. The collision between the two now defines the direction of the U.S. AI industry — and the country.
The Bitter Lesson: Rethinking How We Build AI Systems
The Race for AI Progress In 2019, Richard Sutton, wrote his groundbreaking essay titled ‘The Bitter Lesson’. Simply put, the essay concludes that systems which get better with higher compute beat the systems that do not. Or specifically in AI: raw computing power consistently wins over intricate human-designed solutions. I used to believe that clever orchestrations and sophisticated rules were the key to building better AI systems. That was a typical sofware dev mentality. You build a system, look for edgecases, cover them and you are good to go. Boy, was I wrong.
AI is probably not a bubble
AI companies have revenue, demand, and paths to immense value
AI is probably not a bubble
AI companies have revenue, demand, and paths to immense value
On Taste, Effort & Curiosity - again
When AI collapses how long it takes to ship, what’s left is judgment, experimentation, and knowing what not to build.
Up the Stack: How AI’s Escape From the Commodity Trap Risks Enterprise Lock-in
Critics and boosters are both looking in the wrong place
Alex Komoroske on Twitter / X
The real AI battle isn't about who has the best model—it's about who controls your context. I just published a piece on why keeping these layers separate is the most important design decision of the AI era: https://t.co/6bljxg7KIt— Alex Komoroske (@komorama) June 16, 2025
Infrastructure in the Age of AI Gatekeepers
What happens when AI agents choose your stack
Taking Jaggedness Seriously
Why we should expect AI capabilities to keep being extremely uneven, and why that matters
AI is now unpopular. That may not make a difference.
AI Cybersecurity After Mythos: The Jagged Frontier
Why the moat is the system, not the model
Protected by its moat, Apple has time to get AI right
Best of all, the hardware it sells today will run whatever Apple comes up with.
On the edge: the art of risking everything
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk-and the players raising the stakes In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape-and dominate-so much of modern life. These professional risk takers-poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors-can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset-including the flaws in their thinking-is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers"--
Good design hasn’t changed with AI — John Pham, SF Compute
