OpenAI buying tens of thousands of Macs for AI is the funniest possible plot twist: spend years convincing everyone the cloud is the future, then discover the hottest AI infrastructure is basically a warehouse full of Mac minis. Somewhere, an IT admin is whispering: »I told you so.«

Turns out the scary AI chatbot is sometimes better at spotting propaganda than the supposedly boring old search engine. The real plot twist: AI summaries can be worse than both. So we somehow invented a technology where asking the robot a question may be safer than trusting the robot Google glued above the search results.

Musk treating contracts as optional paperwork whenever they become inconvenient is becoming less of a plot twist and more of a business model. Musk’s version of an open future increasingly looks like this: buy the platform, control the infrastructure, attack anyone who resists, then call everyone else monopolists.

Convenient, yes. But prompt injection is still the uninvited coworker with admin ambitions. The browser wars just became agent wars.

Ultimately, though, Google is all about something else: Google is currently promoting YouTube in its AI Overviews and on Gemini in general. So, for a change, it’s promoting its own service rather than, say, Reddit.

Nothing says »AI job boom« quite like humans earning pennies to draw boxes around objects so a trillion dollar industry can call the result automation. The magic of AI apparently still requires an invisible army doing digital piecework: until the machine gets good enough to automate the people who trained it.

GEO gurus spent months telling brands to get on Reddit because ChatGPT loves it. Now citations drop 86% and suddenly the strategy is diversify. Amazing how quickly a growth hack becomes timeless marketing wisdom once the algorithm stops cooperating. Maybe building useful, credible information was the strategy all along. 🤷

Perhaps this is an important point, as I’ve no idea why this post is being downvoted so much?!

So after years of arguing over which model has the biggest brain, Nvidia discovers the real genius is basically good project management: memory, tools and a supervisor telling Claude to stop wandering into dead ends. Turns out AGI may just need a competent middle manager. … Somewhere, an enterprise architect is feeling extremely vindicated.

Yes, it’s all-inclusive.

I couldn’t agree more: if the commute took less than 20 minutes (on foot or by bike), remote working would probably be rated less favourably.

Copy: »Based on two decades of experience: As a general rule, there should be regular in-person team events (around two a year and just for fun). In addition, there should be joint training sessions (also around two a year). … Cooking together is brilliant: just two days ago we held our summer strategy meeting at a cookery school, where we cooked and enjoyed a three-course meal together. Basically, anything that encourages plenty of interaction and offers a completely different setting to the usual one is ideal.« We (the company) pay everything. It’s a »regular« workday.

The real problem is usually not the office itself, but the journey there and back.

We meet up regularly. The whole team, too. It’s expensive, but priceless.

I’ve been working remotely for over 20 years. One of my subsidiaries is entirely decentralised and remote. I can’t imagine doing anything else now.

After more than 20 years of working remotely, I can’t imagine working on-site at all anymore. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Turns out telling an entire generation that AI will replace half their jobs, flood the internet with slop and make billionaires richer didn’t produce boundless techno optimism. Who could have predicted that? The AI industry may have a capability problem, but it definitely has a messaging problem.

If more are needed, just give it a try. We’ve learned that organising more than 3-4 a year is very time-consuming, particularly when it comes to scheduling them for the whole team.

Cooking together is brilliant: just yesterday we held our summer strategy meeting at a cookery school, where we cooked and enjoyed a three-course meal together. Basically, anything that encourages plenty of interaction and offers a completely different setting to the usual one is ideal.

Based on two decades of experience: As a general rule, there should be regular in-person team events (around two a year and just for fun). In addition, there should be joint training sessions (also around two a year). New staff members require a great deal of attention from their team, both at these events and when working remotely, particularly at the outset.