The task isn't the job
Sunil Pai reflects on starting a new role and the questions he wants to work through, arguing the visible task is rarely the actual work. A thoughtful read on craft and purpose.
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Edition 0322 August 202611 links
Taste, slop and the purple gradient tell
Two clear-eyed takes on how taste is actually built and why vibe-coded apps all look the same, plus a million clicks on LinkedIn's AI slop button and a language written for agents rather than people.
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Pocket by Meta
Meta's new app lets people vibe-code small games with AI and share them in a scrolling feed. A look at where prompt-built software meets social distribution.
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Zero, Vercel's language for AI agents
Vercel has released a programming language designed around AI agents writing and running code. A signal of how agent-first tooling is shaping the stack.
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A million people have hit LinkedIn's AI slop button
LinkedIn's "Seems like AI slop" feedback control has been used over a million times since July. A telling data point on how people feel about generated content in feeds.
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Antigravity agents move into your editor
Google's Antigravity now ships extensions that put its agents inside existing IDEs. Less context switching for anyone already coding with AI.
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Base44: 0 to an $80M Exit in 6 Months
Zero to an $80 million exit in six months. Maor Shlomo (Founder of Base44) on the small frustration that started Base44.
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Harvard's startup bootcamp uses AI avatars of its instructors
HBS Foundry charges $699 for a program where AI avatars give feedback during practice pitches and board meetings. An early test of AI-delivered teaching.
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How to Actually Develop Taste
Taste isn't something you have. It's reps with feedback, run enough times. Max Schoening (Head of Product at Notion) on why building taste works almost exactly like training a model.
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The Missing Layer: Design Taste in AI Agents — Hassan El Mghari, Together AI
Most people can spot a vibe coded app in two seconds and cannot say why. Hassan El Mghari names it: the purple gradient background, italics in the header, a scroll to explore prompt nobody asked for, all caps pills with wide letter spacing, too many emoji. He reckons you could list thirty such tells, and naming them is what lets you tell an agent to avoid them. That is most of what Hallmark does,
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An AI model trained on living human skin
Michael Polansky has quietly built a startup that keeps human skin tissue alive for weeks to discover new skincare compounds. An unusual application of AI in biology.
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