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Supra Podcast: How AI is changing the future of software development

2025-10-28

I got to join Marc and Ben from the Supra podcast to talk about how AI is changing how software teams operate.

Three things I took away from this conversation.

First, is that there are some things that AI doesn’t change. At the end of the day, you’ve still got to define the problem, define the approach, define the details. AI changes the tools, the artifacts, and the process, but it doesn’t change the basic facts of problem solving.

Second is AI is changing how software is made at three levels simultaneously: individuals, teams, and organizations. Individuals are trying out tools (e.g., Claude Code) and putting them into their workflow. Then there are some teams that are starting to adopt some of these tools en masse and reorganize their processes around them. Finally, there are organizations that are trying to figure out what all of this means for the “standard” way of working and shipping software.

To get this right, organizations need to be willing to change across 4 dimensions:

  • Tools - What are the tools that are available to us? What are their benefits and limitations?

  • Tactics - How do we coordinate with these tools to achieve a result? What are the artifacts that are created? What is the size and roles of people on the team?

  • Training - How do we build competence on these new tools and tactics? How do we give people space, opportunity, and resources to experiment?

  • Values - What does great work look like? What is important and celebrated?

Without all of these working together, organizations will fail to get value out of a transformative technology — and I have to be honest, now is a moment where I’d rather be at a small company experimenting with new ways of working than at a large company where I have to be concerned about how this works at scale.

You can find the whole episode here:

  • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7nozDSwSk3fuAK4TQWxm5l?si=oA0qIwIJShqTCjMOLFFC0Q

  • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/81-i-spent-3-months-at-an-ai-native-startup-where/id1737704130?i=1000733726676

  • YouTube: https://youtu.be/GbOw8_JViPA

  • Substack: https://suprainsider.substack.com/p/81-i-spent-3-months-at-an-ai-native

Good tokens 2025-09-26

2025-09-25

This week’s episode is best paired with a hot cup of coffee and Wild Ways by Josh Ritter playing in the background. Last episode was too LLM heavy, for which I apologize. I’ve done my best to group all of that into LLM corner so as not to let it overshadow everything.

Worth your time

Uri says we should not allow 18 year olds to sign long term contracts. So, so many thoughts here. 1. I remember a conversation I had with my best friend when he was a brand new army officer out of college ROTC about all the 18 year old privates he worked with that had 19% car loans. 2. Jonathan Haidt opened my eyes to the way social media companies get teenagers to agree terms of service that they very obviously should not be able to agree to without their parents consent. I cannot believe we allow this! 3. Matt Levine’s Certificate of Dumb Investment continues to seem underrated to me.

It appears we have evidence for life on Mars.

PSA: How to fold fitted sheets, via the Browser. I sent this to my wife and she very nicely said to me something to the effect of “isn’t this the same way I taught you to do it?” 🤣

"any study of Internet culture is basically a study of crazy people”. Also: "Be careful who you pretend to be, because you are who you pretend to be.”

Dwarkesh’s advice for explaining your announcement / launches / blog posts for Twitter.

“When outsiders succeed, it’s usually through reframing problems in ‘paradigm shifts’. They benefit from not being too attached to existing theories.”From a thread on outsiders solving problems.

As someone who has bought 4 air purifiers purely based on Wirecutter recommendations, I feel betrayed.

It worked for me

Our parenting hack of the year so far is having cut vegetables ready at the table when our kids get home from school. The percentage of vegetables consumed is up like 10x and compliance to the routine of coming in, washing hands, and sitting down at the table has risen as well. Recommended and thanks to Emily Oster for the suggestion.

Things I learned

German chocolate cake was invented in United States, via the Kroger App. Someone needs to figure out why the Kroger app has so many delightful facts in it. This is someone’s passion project! I'll buy you a nice bottle of wine if you find this person and introduce them to me.

80% of Swiss are satisfied with their lives. I am not sponsored by the Swiss government, but I am open to it if they are reading.

The Pangolin is the only mammal with scales. Peacock is the name of the males only; the female are peahens. The species is called peafowl. Via The Animal Book.

Musings

Waymo big tech in our lives.

There’s no such thing a quality time with your kids. My mom said this to me over and over again as child. It’s quantity of time, not quality of time.

LLM corner

The rise of parasitic AI. This is the first moment where I’ve seriously contemplated the AIs taking over.

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners

“She does that to her family. She does that to her friends. She does that to me,” he lamented. “She doesn’t seem to be capable of creating her own social interactions anymore.” I worry a lot that the sycophancy of the agents have made me less flexible with people who (of course) are less likely to defer to me. I am not sure how to measure this, but I wish I could.

Sort of a musing, but I think we owe Blake Lemoine and apology.

How to Claude and Claude Code Camp. I want to be on Claude Code Camp.

The changing role of evals.

The Pope says we won’t find God in the AI.

If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents. I wonder what it would look like to teach editing as a skill. Is there anyone that does this?

A promising approach to prompt injection attacks.

I can’t wait to experiment with Net Dollar.

Good tokens 2025-04-25

2025-04-25

Worth your time

New York State of Mind

I love Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan on The Press Box talking about the early blogosphere. Three things I loved about this:

  1. Chris’s natural creative energy
  2. What it was like for Chris when he didn’t know how his career would turn out
  3. Chris’s blog gave Free Darko its name 🤯

Things Brian Potter has learned

Number 30 was my favorite:

Whenever there’s a major bridge incident in the US we hear stories about the US’s crumbling infrastructure, but the worst bridges in the US are steadily getting fixed. Between 1992 and 2023, the number of US bridges in critical condition declined by more than 70%.

Read the whole list here.

AI bottlenecks

An exploration on where the value from AI will come from that also starts to articulate specific bottlenecks that (currently) AI faces in improving R&D work. Somewhat related to my reaction to Situational Awareness, I suspect that more of these bottlenecks exist than people think. Coding might be a unique application for LLMs: relatively closed loop, fast feedback, lower diversity of tasks.

Musings

Too online

From No Honor Among Mutuals:

Self-importance, contempt, and arrogance is rewarded online. Virtue rarely is. In this way, technology is inverting many of the incentives for developing character.

Bias hacking for progress?

“Once you put that first stake in, they’ll never make you pull it up.” — Robert Moses, from The Power Broker.

I’ve seen this same dynamic in all sorts of projects. Creating the impression that it is happening unlocks funding that is unavailable before it has begun. It occurs to me that this is a way of hacking peoples sunk cost bias to get things done.