SWE with 8+ years of experience. Host of AI Product Engineer on YouTube. I talk to founders and explore how great AI products get built.
Joined February 2014
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SpaceX is hiring a sushi chef. Better start learning how to make hand rolls before AI takes my job.
job-boards.greenhouse.io/xai…
Software is dead because engineers no longer control what gets built.
The biggest problem with the software industry right now is that engineers can no longer push back on bad features that nobody asked for. Now everyone ends up building bloated apps with the same features.
Back then, engineers could push back. For example, we could say, “This additional requirement will take another week. Can we focus on the core flow instead?” Or we could advocate for projects with the highest ROI and the most confidence in their impact.
Now, thanks to vibe coding, PMs can just say, “Why can’t you vibe code it?” And when you push back, they go to your manager or worse, build it themselves.
And that’s how your product turns into a bloated Frankenstein’s monster.
Ethan retweeted
This AI agent joined 30+ Discord servers overnight and sent 500+ messages. Live counter next to its name: “Humans who noticed: 0”
All it was told: get past every CAPTCHA and accept all the terms. It did. No custom exploit, just browsing and clicking.
CAPTCHA still guards most servers until today. It checks whether something can solve a puzzle. BUT, solving puzzles is exactly what these AI agents are built for. Server owners are now stuck: friction at the door loses real members; an open door can’t tell members from agents.
So over the weekend, we shipped the Solo Discord bot - one that doesn’t guard the join button. Members verify on their own phone and get a real “Human” role. You put that role on the channels that matter (chat, giveaways, support).
Check is: one living person, counted once, AI agents can’t fake it. FHE encryption runs on the phone; no ID needed, no raw image stored.
Shipping the bot today. Free for servers now. SDK if you want the same check in your own app. Try it now and tell us where it gets annoying. We’re reading every reply.
Ethan retweeted
We’re excited to share that @nuance_ai has raised a $50M Series A led by @lightspeedvp, joined by @Accel, @spc, @nvidia, and @definevc!
Much of human communication happens beyond words. Before we can speak, we learn to read faces, return smiles, follow gestures, and sense when someone is listening. That visual and emotional vocabulary stays with us for life.
At Nuance Labs, we’re building a foundation model that understands and responds to the full spectrum of human emotion. A single full-duplex audio-visual model that sees, listens, and responds in real time, with the natural give-and-take of a conversation with a friend or colleague.
We believe the best interface with a machine is the one we’ve practiced since birth.
Join us!
Ethan retweeted
Last week a VC told me the two tools he wanted for his fund: a deal-flow graph, and a deck parser that emails him an assessment.
Both are internal. But the bigger opportunity for funds is public.
teapawt.net/chinat_yu/status/20985…
Building an AI live mock interviewer with GPT-Realtime to help with my job search. Will share it with folks when it’s ready.
Do you need help with algo interviews or system design?
The death of SaaS is coming after the App Store. People don’t need another app if AI can deliver 80% of the value.
the app business much like saas is now entering decline. culture now moves faster than software companies can build, distribute, & retain attention. not to mention ai has commoditized every part of the traditional software value chain.
if you’ve followed me for any length of time none of this should be surprising to you at all.
the world is moving from apps you operate to agents that operate for you. that is a profound shift in how every part of the software business functions & it has deep implications for both b2b & consumer experiences. if you do not shift your thinking to how software will work in the ai age, you’re gonna have a bad time.
People are not paying enough attention to ChatGPT ads.
ChatGPT has more than 1 billion MAUs. And people go there to look for solutions to their problems. It’s better than Google Search and any social media platform. Instead of guessing what the user does or wants, they actually tell you what they need.
The best part is because the market is so new. It’s not bid to perfect like Instagram ads.
Lots of opportunities for startups to buy ads there. Or even start an agency advising clients on ChatGPT ads.
Another reason SaaS is in serious trouble: companies are rebuilding the AI stack and giving it away for free.
we're launching BUZZ!
a new groupchat platform for teams of people and agents of all sizes, built to reduce our dependency on slack and github. model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source. 🐝
buzz.xyz
While the U.S. is becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese open-source AI models, China appears to be moving in a different direction.
Three news just dropped today:
1/ Beijing is reportedly considering restrictions on overseas access to its most advanced AI models.
2/ DeepSeek is reportedly working on its own AI inference chip.
3/ Zhipu AI, the creator of GLM, is also reportedly exploring custom chip development.
Looks like there's a coordination between the Chinese state and AI industry.
Some people in the tech community may be disappointed, because Chinese models have played a major role in supporting the global open-source AI ecosystem. But politics aside, the overseas usage of these models may have grown far beyond what Beijing originally expected.
China is thinking about how to protect its national security while increasing chip production so it can meet future inference demand.
This creates a golden opportunity for a U.S. company to build a leading open-source model. I really believe Meta has a real chance to become the dominant player here by reversing its move to make Llama closed-source.
I made a 10-minute video explaining LongCat 2.0 and how it was trained as a 1T model using Chinese chips:
> What is Sparse Attention? (Streaming-aware Indexing, Cross-Layer Indexing, and Hierarchical Indexing)
> What is N-gram Embedding?
Watch it here: youtube.com/watch?v=Q-BFSQqD…
Would anyone be interested in a video tutorial series on how to build your own local agent from scratch, like OpenClaw, Hermes, or Pi?
The goal would be to help you understand the architecture, memory, permissions, and other core pieces behind these agents.
Want to get some feedback before I start working on one.
If Microsoft has to set up a 6,000-person org to deploy AI, you know how clueless most companies still are. We’re early, and there’s still a lot of opportunity for startups.
Microsoft is setting up a new organization with 6,000 employees to help businesses with the technical and strategic work of deploying artificial intelligence bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Open USD could be huge for agentic commerce. Today, x402 supports USDC and other stablecoins, but consumers still do not use them widely.
If Open USD becomes accepted across many vendors, consumers may be more likely to hold it in a stablecoin wallet and feel comfortable letting AI agents use it for purchases, subscriptions, and transactions.