Foundation models are starting to poke holes in the dirty PHP infrastructure holding up the internet. This is powered by a step change in model capacity enabling AI to handle hours-long tasks. Be afraid and excited at the same time. Watch out for bears.
🪓 Everything Will Be Attacked (Don't Worry About the Vase)
The terror of last week’s PHP vulnerability is just the first nightmare. The foundation models are finding flaws faster than anyone can patch them in every tool we built the internet upon. Everything will be attacked in short order. You don’t need to be faster than the bear. You just need to be faster than the slowest camper.
🔨 The Worst AI You Will Ever Use (One Useful Thing)
A little more than two years ago, in April 2024, researchers found AI could handle four-minute tasks. Current AI handles 17-hour tasks. The attacks are powered by exponentially better AI that will keep getting exponentially better.
🪛 Back to the DIY App Era (Stratechery)
The run-your-own-server internet ended last week, if it was not over a long time ago. But the build your own applications era is starting, thanks to AI making it much cheaper than ever to build for small audiences.
🚶 Walking and Talking (Box of Amazing)
In a world where everything is recorded, try to capture your decisions and hold the last ten minutes off the record. If it is truly important, ditch the recorders, take a walk and have a talk.
🚨 It’s PR, not ER (Track Changes On)
Lose the real print deadline, gain the fake emergencies of corporate PR. Mistaking responsiveness for commitment, plus poor planning, turns every email into high importance.
🔋 China’s EV Plan Was Drafted at Audi (The German Autopreneur)
Wan Gang spent eleven years at Audi and decided China would never catch up on gas engines, so it should skip them. By the end of 2025, Chinese brands sold almost 9 of 10 EVs in China.
✈️ The Air Rage that Was Not (Homo Economicus)
Everyone remembers air rage exploding in 2021. It turns out we just started counting mask refusal as an incident that February. The spike vanished with the mandate, and Chicago police records show no actual rise in incidents on airplanes for the same period.
👞 The Square Deal (Investing 101)
Two arches in upstate New York were erected by workers to honor their boss. George F. Johnson was president of Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company. He realized his workers were assets that returned investment. Paying well paid off for the company.
📸 The Shades of Photographic Memory (Cognitive Wonderland)
Memory athletes encode numbers into scenes so 997434 becomes a more memorable “Bob Barker kissing a Goomba”. People possessing superior autobiographical memory seem to cluster with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and are susceptible to false memories. There is no such thing as a photographic memory.
🎃 10 Fun Historical Costumes (weird medieval guys )
For your Halloween inspiration file.
The Look
Bruce Mehlman's Age of Disruption reminds you to mind the patch window, among other emerging gaps.
Did you enjoy reading this post? Hit the ♥ button above or below because it helps more people discover great Substacks like this one and it helps train your algorithm to get you more posts you like. Please share here or in your networks to help us grow!