The hottest Substack posts right now

according to Hacker News
Category

Against "Brain Damage"

One Useful Thing • 3011 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Creativity AI Ethics Mental health Innovation
  1. Using AI can help or hurt our thinking. If you rely too much on it, you might not learn as well, but with proper guidance, it can improve learning outcomes.
  2. In creativity, AI can generate many ideas, but they often lack diversity. It's better to come up with your own ideas first before using AI to enhance them.
  3. AI doesn't damage our brains directly, but careless use can harm our thinking habits. It's important to think, write, and meet first before leaning on AI.

This Week in Marketing: The New Age of Influencers vs. AI’s Irish Exit from Ads.

The Social Juice • 63 implied HN points • 22 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Advertising Regulation E-commerce Platforms AI Social media Marketing
  1. Creator marketing is shifting — traditional influencers are losing ground while platforms and brands push subscriptions, gifting programs, and creator-first monetization. Brands will need better tracking and UGC management to prove real impact.
  2. AI is upending advertising and trust as companies struggle with moderation and harmful or hallucinated content; some firms are even dropping ads to protect credibility. Regulators and platforms are racing to limit or control AI-generated content and its monetization.
  3. The platform and ad ecosystem is being reshaped by major tech moves — Meta, Google, TikTok and others are rolling out new AI tools, ad products, and policy changes that shift attention and ad dollars. Marketers must adapt to new formats, measurement tools, and growing regulatory scrutiny.

Physical Intelligence Sweeps Humanoid Olympics

General Robots • 348 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Engineering Robotics AI Hardware Automation Sensors Research
  1. Physical Intelligence submitted robots for 11 humanoid Olympic events. They achieved these capabilities much sooner than expected, showing rapid progress in robotics.
  2. Many tasks that seemed to need special touch sensors or extra finger joints were actually solvable with standard grippers and cameras, and wrist force-torque sensing appears to help. This suggests clever hardware-software integration can overcome perceived limits.
  3. Teams make different trade-offs: some use more dexterous hands to collect teleoperation data while others add wrist force-torque sensors humans can’t provide. Those choices change what sensor data and training each approach can use.

PCBs, ground planes, and you

lcamtuf’s thing • 7142 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Hobbies Electronics Circuit Design
  1. Copper pours on PCBs help improve signal quality by providing better pathways for electrical currents. They make it easier for circuits to work well at high speeds.
  2. These copper areas also help reduce radio frequency interference to meet certain regulations. This is important for keeping devices running smoothly and within legal limits.
  3. While using copper pours can make PCB design easier, it's essential to be careful. Poorly executed layouts can create problems, especially in high-speed projects.

Enablers

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 64 implied HN points • 22 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Corporate Governance Regulation Markets Investing Financial Media Accounting
  1. Complex related‑party and off‑balance‑sheet transactions can make a company look profitable while the real losses are hidden elsewhere, masking its true financial health.
  2. Financial media and sell‑side analysts often accept surface answers because they rely on access and relationships, so they frequently fail to ask the follow‑up questions that would expose the substance behind the numbers.
  3. Retail investors end up paying the price for that selective incuriosity, so accounting, auditing, and journalism need more relentless, adversarial scrutiny — if the numbers are honest they will hold up, and if not investors will be harmed.
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Build AI or Be Buried By Those Who Do

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 3574 implied HN points • 30 May 25
đź•ą Technology Innovation Data science AI Machine Learning Automation
  1. There are three main views on AI: believers who think it will change everything for the better, skeptics who see it as just fancy technology, and doomers who worry it could end badly for humanity. Each group has different ideas about what AI will mean for the future.
  2. The belief among AI believers is that AI will become a big part of our lives, doing many tasks better than humans and reshaping many industries. They see it as a revolutionary change that will be everywhere.
  3. Many think that if we don’t build our own AI, the narrative and values that shape AI will be dominated by one ideology, which could be harmful. The idea is that we need balanced development of AI, representing different views to ensure freedom and diversity in thought.

7 Slack hacks for engineers and managers

Leading Developers • 122 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Communication Collaboration Productivity Workplace Developer Tools Team Management Remote work
  1. Show only unread conversations and group channels by priority so you only see what needs attention.
  2. Mute and unmute groups and silence noisy threads to control when things demand your time, and schedule short regular reviews for lower-priority channels.
  3. Use message reminders and the /remind command to turn messages into timed tasks, and spend a few minutes organizing sections so the small setup saves hours and reduces mental load.

BazelCon 2025 recap

Blog System/5 • 744 implied HN points • 24 Nov 25
đź•ą Technology Cloud Computing Software Development Open Source Programming Languages Build Systems
  1. Bazel is getting better with mandatory features like bzlmod and a real BUILD Foundation to support its community. This means it's growing up and easier to use.
  2. The Bazel team is really focused on making builds faster and more efficient, with cool new tools like Skycache for speeding things up on the client side.
  3. Community-driven tools are expanding Bazel's reach, solving old problems. For example, Aspect's task runner helps fill in gaps and improve work processes.

Fear and Consolidation in the Oil Patch

BIG by Matt Stoller • 20856 implied HN points • 14 Feb 24
đź’Ľ Business Finance Oil industry Competition Economy Mergers
  1. The oil and gas industry is going through a significant wave of consolidation, with mega-mergers happening between major companies.
  2. The mergers and acquisitions in the industry are driven by challenges in increasing production, high finance strategies, and the desire to showcase access to reserves to investors.
  3. The consolidation will likely lead to squeezed suppliers, reduced innovation, and a shift of industry power from domestic firms to global entities.

Chartbook 397 Dollar trap or empire by invitation? The global political economy of the dollar system.

Chartbook • 2589 implied HN points • 20 Jul 25
đź’° Finance International Trade Global Economy Currency Markets Investment Strategies
  1. The US dollar is still the main currency for global trade, but some people worry about America's declining economic power. There are doubts about how long the dollar will keep its leading position.
  2. Foreign investments in the US are strong because many countries benefit from higher returns on their investments here. Even though the US has a large debt to other countries, this system still works for both sides.
  3. In recent years, the benefits of US economic growth have mostly gone to advanced economies that are allies of the US. This situation creates a sort of dependency, as these countries have much at stake in maintaining the strength of the dollar.

AMD Client Update at CES 2026

More Than Moore • 326 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Semiconductors Gaming Embedded Mobile Graphics Software AI
  1. AMD’s CES updates are a mid-cycle refresh that makes AI a standard across its client lineup, pushing Ryzen AI into volume laptops rather than keeping it as a premium add‑on. This keeps the existing Zen 5 platform relevant without new silicon.
  2. AMD is relying on software to drive the next wave of improvements — ROCm for local AI and FSR Redstone for gaming — delivering bigger performance and features through optimization and ML-assisted techniques instead of new chips.
  3. The hardware moves are about segmentation and integration: Ryzen AI 400 targets mass-market laptops, Ryzen AI Max+ and the Halo developer platform aim at local AI mini‑workstations with large unified memory, and the P100 embedded APUs focus on industrial and automotive edge AI with integrated CPU/GPU/NPU designs.

Money, Drama, and China: Why AI’s Next Step Could Be Messy

Big Technology • 6880 implied HN points • 24 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Startups Competition Investment AI Open Source
  1. A new AI model called DeepSeek is cheaper and efficient, potentially making big investments in AI technology seem unnecessary. This raises questions about how much companies should really spend on AI.
  2. DeepSeek's success is surprising since it was developed in China, challenging the notion that good tech only comes from big investments in the West. Its ability to compete shows that smaller companies can innovate effectively.
  3. This development might shift the AI landscape significantly. Big players like OpenAI may need to rethink their approaches to stay competitive, especially now that cheaper models are proving their worth.

TBM 391: You’re Not Misaligned. You’re Thinking Differently.

The Beautiful Mess • 740 implied HN points • 27 Nov 25
đź’Ľ Business Management Strategy Cognition Leadership Collaboration
  1. People think differently: Some focus on details and concrete solutions, while others think more abstractly about purpose and possibilities. Understanding these styles can help improve teamwork.
  2. In workshops, participants have varying styles of engagement. Some jump right in with ideas, while others need clarity and examples. A good facilitator should help everyone find their comfort zone.
  3. Even if you know how you and others think, not everyone will care about self-awareness. It's essential to show up with good intentions and adapt as best as you can.

Freddie Mac House Price Index Up 0.7% Year-over-Year in December

CalculatedRisk Newsletter • 167 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
đź’° Finance Economic Indicators Regional Markets Real Estate Housing Market Mortgage Finance Market Trends
  1. National house prices barely rose — up 0.7% year-over-year in December and essentially flat month-to-month, marking a cycle low and raising the risk that YoY growth could turn negative in 2026.
  2. Many markets are down from recent peaks — 23 states and D.C. are below their previous highs, and the biggest city declines are concentrated in Florida, Texas, and California with Punta Gorda and Austin among the worst performers.
  3. Market signals point to further cooling — Freddie Mac and NAR measures seem to lead Case-Shiller, and rising inventory plus the lowest sales since 1995 have slowed national price growth and may push it lower.

Solving The Problems of HBM-on-Logic

More Than Moore • 490 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Design Memory AI hardware Semiconductors Packaging
  1. Stacking HBM directly on top of accelerators creates a severe thermal bottleneck that pushes GPU temperatures far above safe operating limits.
  2. Solving it requires many coordinated changes — removing base dice, merging/thinning stacks, adding conductive shims, and aggressive backside or double-sided cooling — and the single most effective move is halving GPU clock speed, which lowers temperatures but cuts raw compute.
  3. Those fixes bring big cost, yield, and supply-chain challenges and may only give modest net gains, so 3D HBM-on-logic looks like a research roadmap rather than a near-term commercial product, with vendors likely pursuing improved 2.5D or remote high-bandwidth memory alternatives instead.

*Unbeatable* Round-Up

Bet On It • 196 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Public Policy Liberty Ethics Social theory Political Economy Political Philosophy
  1. A wide-ranging, original case that free markets deserve stronger defense and often produce better outcomes than government alternatives.
  2. Many popular government policies sound appealing but often do real harm, and most market failures trace back to human irrationality rather than fundamental flaws in markets.
  3. The argument confronts mainstream assumptions and offers bold policy challenges—like revisiting Friedman's abolition ideas and accounting for social-desirability bias—to persuade unconvinced skeptics.

Financial Literacy

Points And Figures • 852 implied HN points • 15 Nov 25
đź’° Finance Investing Economics Market Analysis Government Policy Financial Literacy
  1. Financial literacy is about more than just managing money; it involves understanding complex financial concepts and government policies. Learning these concepts can help you avoid costly mistakes.
  2. Many people, including young athletes, often don't understand the real financial implications of contracts and wealth management. This lack of knowledge can lead to significant financial losses.
  3. Subsidies and government interventions in industries often don't benefit the public and can lead to misunderstandings. It's important to educate yourself to navigate these political and financial landscapes effectively.

The Dumbification of our smart screens

Product Identity • 753 implied HN points • 03 Jul 24
đź•ą Technology Screen Time Digital Culture Smartphones AI User Experience
  1. Smartphones were supposed to make our lives easier, but now they often feel overwhelming and unhelpful. Many people want to focus on simpler uses for their devices instead of getting caught up in unnecessary features.
  2. There's a trend of 'dumbification' where people are choosing less complicated devices and apps to reduce distractions. Instead of seeking out the latest tech, people want tools that help them focus and connect better.
  3. This movement might not be mainstream yet, but it's growing. Many are looking for ways to minimize their screen time and simplify their digital lives to find more balance.

Foundations of My Living Personal Systems

Human Programming • 38 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
đź“– Philosophy Metacognition Identity Ethics Self-governance Values Systems theory
  1. External, persistent prompts and simple systems can focus attention and direct actions toward your most important goals.
  2. Build adaptive, self-maintaining (autopoietic) systems that can create and update their own parts so values and processes emerge and evolve over time.
  3. Start with modest reflective routines—daily journaling and weekly reviews—to compel continual improvement and let the system self-modify toward leading a good life.

My Newsletter Just Became a Substack Bestseller (Although I Was Hesitant to Get Paid First)

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 1858 implied HN points • 22 Mar 24
đź’Ľ Business Online Writing Content creation Freelancing Marketing Entrepreneurship
  1. Building a subscriber base takes time and effort; it's not an overnight success. You have to be patient and keep working hard to grow your audience.
  2. Going paid from the beginning can be beneficial. It’s important to trust your content enough to ask for support early on.
  3. Understanding the difference between followers and subscribers is key. Subscribers want your content directly in their inbox, which is more valuable than just having followers.

This Is a Good Year to Build Something Small

Tiny Empires • 159 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
đź’Ľ Business Growth Product Marketing Startups Strategy Entrepreneurship
  1. AI has made building products much cheaper and faster, so attention — not development cost — is the scarce resource, making clarity and specificity more valuable than big ambitions.
  2. Small, narrowly scoped products convert and reach viability faster because they’re easier to explain, fit into communities, and don’t require massive scale to matter.
  3. Solo founders and tiny teams win early by iterating quickly and avoiding communication overhead, which reduces burnout and makes small, focused businesses more resilient and profitable.

Open Thread 366

Astral Codex Ten • 7089 implied HN points • 27 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Media Forecasting Education Consulting AI
  1. Anyone can share thoughts or ask questions in the open thread. It's a space for discussing anything on your mind.
  2. There are opportunities for people interested in AI safety, including a course that can help you get started in the field.
  3. An AI forecasting project is looking for news outlets to publish articles on future predictions about AI advancements.

An Interview With Brian Daugherty

ciamweekly • 62 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Developer Tools Standards AI Cloud Identity Authentication Cybersecurity
  1. CIAM helps make users' day-to-day identity and access flow secure and seamless across devices, apps, and multiple personas.
  2. The CIAM landscape is complex with many protocols and legacy systems, which creates hard choices, maintenance burdens, and organizational resistance to adopting better practices.
  3. LLMs and agentic tools will both simplify CIAM design and implementation and create new trust and security risks, driving rapid changes in protocols and products.

This Is Pretty Cool If You Are In A Lot of Meetings

Points And Figures • 186 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Productivity Tools Artificial Intelligence Startups Entrepreneurship Enterprise Software Venture Capital
  1. Failure is part of building something — smart entrepreneurs pivot, reuse what they built, and turn failed efforts into new successes.
  2. The founder of Riskalyze is launching a new company to solve problems found there, and the new tool is billed as revolutionary for people who spend a lot of time in meetings.
  3. Be skeptical about AI but don’t automatically reject it — adopting and adapting the right AI tools can make us more effective at work.

What makes you a classical liberal?

The Common Reader • 2622 implied HN points • 12 Jul 25
đź“– Philosophy Ethics Individualism Liberalism History Political theory
  1. Classical liberalism values individual freedom and equality for all people. It believes that everyone should be treated with respect and have the freedom to express themselves.
  2. A solid understanding of history is important for classical liberals. Knowing how past events shape our freedoms can help us appreciate and protect them today.
  3. For liberalism to thrive, society needs a supportive government and laws. Without proper legal frameworks, the ideals of freedom and equality can't be fully realized.

The $25B Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is Going to Fail

BIG by Matt Stoller • 19710 implied HN points • 28 Feb 24
đź’Ľ Business Monopoly Labor Politics Antitrust Merger
  1. The $25 billion Kroger-Albertsons merger is facing challenges as the Federal Trade Commission and nine states sue to block it due to potential negative impacts on consumer prices and wages.
  2. The case is significant because it involves a novel application of antitrust law, focusing on labor grounds and the impact on union bargaining terms.
  3. The merger's potential consequences, including higher prices and lower wages, have sparked political response from politicians and unions, indicating widespread concern and opposition.

vgr: The Twitter Years (2007-22)

Breaking Smart • 54 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Web Development Social media Archiving Publishing Machine Learning Data processing
  1. A personal Twitter archive was turned into an LLM-friendly online book that collects top threads and hundreds of single tweets, with print and ebook versions planned.
  2. The project deliberately avoids embedding others' tweets, using links and footnotes instead, accepting that serializing Twitter's nonlinear conversations is lossy but more practical and legally safer.
  3. Building the book required bespoke scripting and heavy data cleaning, and using Claude Code sped up the technical work; this is part of a broader effort to create a queryable archival self that can serve as a prosthetic memory.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 505 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Asset Valuation Housing policy Public Finance Macroeconomics Income Inequality Real Estate
  1. Much of the $58 trillion in U.S. residential real estate value reflects higher prices on existing homes caused by constrained supply, so it is rent extraction rather than new wealth from better housing.
  2. New home construction has lagged, reversing the old "filtering down" process so older homes now "filter up," raising rents and lowering real incomes—especially for lower-income families.
  3. Official household net worth is overstated because future rent gains are counted as assets while the costs to tenants are not counted as liabilities, meaning measured wealth rose without improving living standards.

Mission Control Center - brains of the Space System. How does it work?

Space Ambition • 319 implied HN points • 26 Jul 24
đź•ą Technology Innovation Space Tech Engineering Artificial Intelligence Data processing
  1. The Mission Control Center (MCC) is crucial for managing spacecraft. It collects data, controls systems, and predicts emergencies.
  2. Different specialists work in the MCC, each focusing on specific parts of the spacecraft. The center’s size varies based on the mission's complexity, from small setups to large control rooms.
  3. New technology, including AI, is changing how MCCs operate. AI helps with monitoring systems and predicting spacecraft movement, making the process more efficient.

On METR's AI Coding RCT

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2688 implied HN points • 18 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Research Coding Productivity Software Development AI Tools
  1. A recent study found that using AI coding tools actually slowed down experienced developers by about 19%. This surprised many who expected them to speed up.
  2. The slowdown might be due to developers being very familiar with their own projects, which made it hard for AI to add value. Also, many participants didn't have enough experience using the AI tools.
  3. Self-reports from developers on their productivity are often unreliable. The study shows that just thinking you're faster with AI doesn't mean you really are.

AI and Economics Links

In My Tribe • 243 implied HN points • 07 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Artificial Intelligence Digital Tools Labor Economics Economic Research Automation Machine Learning
  1. AI systems like large language models are deeply shaped by human behavior and social complexity. Using social-science ideas such as complexity theory can help us understand and improve these systems.
  2. AI can recreate historical thinkers to replay debates about technology and work. These recreations highlight disagreements over whether automation causes lasting unemployment or just temporary disruption through creative destruction.
  3. LLMs now let researchers draft and sometimes publish papers far faster than before, enabling quick 'vibe researching' from idea to paper in minutes or hours. This shifts how research is done and raises questions about quality, oversight, and the role of human judgment.

Choosing a microcontroller

lcamtuf’s thing • 6530 implied HN points • 08 Feb 25
đź•ą Technology Microcontrollers Automation Programming Embedded Systems
  1. When picking a microcontroller for simple projects, stick to 8-bit options like AVRs. They are easy to use and work well for tasks that don’t need a lot of speed or memory.
  2. For more demanding applications, like video processing or complex calculations, go for higher-end 32-bit microcontrollers. They are more powerful and can handle heavy data loads.
  3. If you need wireless connectivity and processing power, single-board computers are the way to go. They run full operating systems but can be more expensive and less efficient than microcontrollers.

I'll Take the Crypto Industry Seriously When Its Biggest Advocates Stop Saying "What Did You Expect?"

Freddie deBoer • 8384 implied HN points • 07 Dec 24
đź”® Crypto Scams Blockchain Investments Regulation Media
  1. The crypto industry has a problem with accepting responsibility for scams and fraud. Many people in the community brush off losses with a 'what did you expect?' attitude, which doesn't help their credibility.
  2. A serious industry should focus on cleaning up its image and ensuring accountability. If crypto enthusiasts want people to take their industry seriously, they need to demand better practices.
  3. If the crypto culture continues to mock victims of scams, it risks pushing more people towards stricter regulations. This could hurt the industry in the long run.

I'm glad I took the off-ramp from software engineering

Cloud Irregular • 6800 implied HN points • 22 Jan 25
đź•ą Technology Software Engineering Job Market Tech industry Artificial Intelligence Career development
  1. A career in software engineering isn't guaranteed to lead to high pay or upward mobility. Many people find that their progress stalls after a certain point.
  2. The rise of AI will significantly change the role of developers, making it less about coding quickly and more about solving human problems and understanding technology's role.
  3. Choosing to step away from traditional software roles can open up new opportunities. It’s important to explore other interests and skills to avoid being trapped in a limiting career path.

Practical Data Engineering using AWS Cloud Technologies

VuTrinh. • 339 implied HN points • 23 Jul 24
đź•ą Technology Software Development Cloud Computing Information Systems Data Engineering
  1. AWS offers a variety of tools for data engineering like S3, Lambda, and Step Functions, which can help anyone build scalable projects. These tools are often underused compared to newer options but are still very effective.
  2. Services like SNS and SQS can help manage data flow and processing. SNS allows for publishing messages while SQS aids in handling high event volumes asynchronously.
  3. Using AWS for data engineering is often simpler than switching to modern tools. It's easier to add new AWS services to your existing workflow than to migrate to something completely new.

Google, 2001: Don’t Be Evil

Marcus on AI • 6481 implied HN points • 05 Feb 25
đź•ą Technology AI Surveillance Corporate ethics Data Privacy Internet
  1. Google's original motto was 'Don't Be Evil,' but that seems to have changed significantly by 2025. This shift raises concerns about the company's intentions and actions involving powerful AI technologies.
  2. The current landscape of AI development is driven by competition and profits. Companies like Google feel pressured to prioritize making money over ethical considerations.
  3. There is fear that as AI becomes more powerful, it may end up in the wrong hands, leading to potentially dangerous applications. This evolution reflects worries about how society and businesses are dealing with AI advancements.

The Bear Cave #300

The Bear Cave • 699 implied HN points • 16 Nov 25
đź’° Finance Investing Corporate Governance Market research Financial News Stock Analysis
  1. Recent reports highlight concerns about several companies, suggesting they may be overvalued and facing liquidity issues. Investors should be cautious with their investments in these firms.
  2. Several companies have recently lost key executives, which might indicate instability or internal problems. Frequent leadership changes can be a red flag for investors.
  3. There are paid promotional activities for various stocks, which can sometimes mislead investors. It's important to be aware of these promotions when making investment decisions.

Infographics: How Liquidity Requirements Create Demand For Reserves/U.S. Treasuries

Concoda • 340 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Treasury Markets Central Banking Monetary Policy Banking Liquidity Regulation
  1. Liquidity rules push big banks to hold safe, liquid assets like reserve balances and U.S. Treasuries, which creates steady demand for those assets.
  2. Large banks face intraday liquidity needs that force them to keep enough reserves available to settle payments and manage cash flows during the day.
  3. Visual diagrams help show how those intraday requirements link to central bank policy and Treasury demand, clarifying why reserves matter for markets.

Announcing The Engineering Manager Survival Guide

Tech and Tea • 115 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Leadership Careers Professional development Training Software Engineering Engineering Management
  1. A new course helps engineering managers learn to handle the people side of the job and avoid burnout by teaching clearer mindsets and practical tradeoffs.
  2. It’s an 8-week, 4-module asynchronous program you can do in about 60–90 minutes a week, with frameworks, audio conversations, exercises, and personal feedback on your submissions.
  3. A cohort starts March 13, there’s early-bird pricing through the end of February, and there are options for corporate group discounts.