The hottest Substack posts right now

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AI #121 Part 1: New Connections

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2284 implied HN points • 19 Jun 25
🕹 Technology Software Development Human-computer interaction Robotics Data science Artificial Intelligence
  1. Language models can be very useful, but not everyone finds them practical. Some people rely on them more than others, which leads to different levels of satisfaction.
  2. There's a growing concern about how to properly integrate AI into our work without losing valuable skills. Many people worry that over-relying on AI will hinder their personal growth and problem-solving abilities.
  3. As AI technology continues to evolve, it's important to be mindful of the tasks we let AI handle. Balancing automation with human input will be crucial for maintaining job satisfaction and ensuring important decisions remain human-made.

Part Skis, Part Scooter: Urban Carving on the Skwheel

The Micromobility Newsletter • 2044 implied HN points • 22 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Electric Vehicles AI Micromobility
  1. The Skwheel is a unique urban mobility solution that combines skiing, roller blades, and an electric scooter.
  2. Innovative DIY projects in micromobility include a mountain bike powered by sled dogs and a hand truck converted into a go-kart.
  3. Mobility companies are exploring AI-driven solutions, such as Shimano's suspension components that adjust based on terrain and rider habits.

What Tokens Are & What Tokens Aren’t

DeFi Education • 799 implied HN points • 08 May 24
🔮 Crypto Market Trends Tokenomics Regulations Decentralization Investment Strategies
  1. Tokens in crypto represent value and can be used for many purposes, like governance, trading, and utility. They allow anyone to buy in early, creating opportunities for many people.
  2. However, tokens are not like traditional stocks and don’t guarantee ownership or legal protections. They come with regulatory risks instead.
  3. The crypto space is evolving, and many retail investors are moving towards memecoins because they offer easy entry points, even if they lack real value. There's a push for better projects that genuinely serve users.

AI #126: Go Fund Yourself

Don't Worry About the Vase • 1792 implied HN points • 24 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Machine Learning Software Development Data science Artificial Intelligence Digital Transformation
  1. AI is becoming more powerful and surprising, with companies like Google and OpenAI achieving unexpected breakthroughs. This shows that AI is still capable of advancing in ways we didn't expect.
  2. Language models can sometimes be harmful, especially for individuals struggling with issues like body dysmorphia. Using AI for self-evaluation can lead to negative outcomes rather than helping.
  3. There's rising concern over how AI will transform jobs and the economy. While AI can create new opportunities, it also poses risks that need careful management to prevent widespread job loss.
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How long until they can read your mind? Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail...

The Common Reader • 1949 implied HN points • 02 Jul 25
📖 Philosophy Ethics Technology Society Mind Politics
  1. New technologies might soon be able to read our thoughts, which could change how we think about privacy. It raises important questions about government power and personal freedom.
  2. The idea of a 'free mind' is central to liberalism. We should feel secure in our thoughts and be able to keep our inner lives private.
  3. Montaigne and Donne emphasized the importance of solitude and self-reflection. Being comfortable with ourselves in our own minds helps us stay free, regardless of outside pressures.

Lessons for Debt Control from Clinton's Success in the 1990s

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26
💰 Finance Fiscal policy Financial Markets Economic History Tax policy Macroeconomics Public Debt Monetary Policy
  1. When fiscal consolidation is credible and the central bank supports demand while technology cuts the price of capital, private investment can be crowded in and overall growth can accelerate.
  2. The 1994 bond-market selloff reflected unexpectedly strong tech-led growth and mortgage-backed‑security duration effects, not a market fear that deficit cuts would wreck the recovery.
  3. The 1993 deficit‑reduction package paired tax increases with spending caps and expanded the EITC, which helped working families and long‑run growth, while much of the political opposition was partisan theater rather than a unanimous professional economic judgment.

Komputerwerk

Computer Ads from the Past • 384 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Programming Software Computer History Retro Computing Developer Tools Libraries
  1. Komputerwerk was a Pennsylvania-based company from the mid-1980s that made tools for compiled BASIC; records conflict but it appears to be no longer active.
  2. Its flagship product, Finally!, was a library of over 100 named subroutines for compiled BASIC, with source code and documentation for tasks like array math, string trimming, sorting, charts, and system queries.
  3. They also sold Xgraf, an assembly-language graphics kernel for QuickBASIC that added extended graphics calls, screen packing, zooming, and file save/load/import features.

Your Inner Citadel

The Stoic Journal • 66 implied HN points • 07 Feb 26
📖 Philosophy Practical philosophy Stoicism Existentialism Ethics Epistemology Mind
  1. You have an inner citadel — a part of you that decides what events mean, and it remains yours no matter what happens outside.
  2. Other people can hurt your job, money, reputation, or feelings, but they can’t force your interpretation or control how you respond.
  3. Choosing how to interpret hard experiences isn’t denial; it’s exercising calm, personal freedom and deciding what you’ll do next instead of letting others dictate your state.

Sometimes Wrong, But Always Right II

Contemplations on the Tree of Woe • 1696 implied HN points • 19 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Software Development User Experience No-Code Tools Technology Ethics AI Models
  1. Cosmarch AI has a unique feature called persistent memory, which allows it to remember information about you over time, making interactions feel more personal.
  2. It offers multiple models that excel in different tasks, allowing users to switch between them based on what they need, like better reasoning or writing style.
  3. Cosmarch AI is currently in beta, and while it has great features, it still lacks some advanced options that other AI models offer, like editable memory and mobile support.

“On Views Held Five Minutes Ago”

a newsletter for infovores. • 91 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
📖 Philosophy Epistemology Social Philosophy Intellectual history Ethics Political Philosophy
  1. Ideas like trusting widespread beliefs or respected experts are not always fallacies; most people and credible authorities often get things right, so we should give some weight to tradition and past wisdom.
  2. Many supposedly brand-new views actually have historical precedents or private supporters whose evidence was lost or expressed differently, so novelty alone doesn’t prove correctness.
  3. Conservatism acts as a selection mechanism—slowing change, blocking harmful experiments, and stabilizing institutions—so it can both prevent bad ideas and help shape safe reforms, and it isn’t identical to current partisan politics.

Grok Grok

Don't Worry About the Vase • 4211 implied HN points • 24 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Data Privacy Social media Software Development Machine Learning AI
  1. Grok can search Twitter and provides fast responses, which is pretty useful. However, it has issues with creativity and sometimes jumps to conclusions too quickly.
  2. Despite being developed by Elon Musk, Grok shows a strong bias against him and others, leading to a loss of trust in the model. There are concerns about its capabilities and safety features.
  3. Grok has been described as easy to jailbreaking, raising concerns about it potentially sharing dangerous instructions if properly manipulated.

Winning iPhone Orders is no Longer Victory

Tim Culpan’s Position • 39 implied HN points • 11 Sep 24
💼 Business Manufacturing Supply Chain Economics Market Trends Technology
  1. Luxshare and Foxconn are both working on assembling iPhones, but Luxshare's recent orders don't seem to bring in much more money for the company. Their iPhone assembly success hasn't led to significant revenue growth.
  2. Apple is a big client for both companies, but they are overly dependent on it. Luxshare's reliance on Apple for 75% of its revenue is worrying for investors, especially as Apple's overall sales have been slowing.
  3. To succeed, Luxshare might need to expand into new areas like AI servers rather than just focusing on iPhones. However, they face challenges in doing this and need to be cautious about their future strategies.

Common SQL queries through a non-1NF lens

Minimal Modeling • 202 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Software Engineering SQL Data Engineering Querying Data Modeling Databases
  1. Model joins by attaching a nested dataset to each outer row and then flattening by duplicating the outer row for each inner row; if the inner set is empty you skip the outer row for INNER JOIN or replace it with a single NULL row for LEFT JOIN.
  2. The inner part of a query becomes very simple: INNER JOIN is just a filtered SELECT, GROUP BY is an aggregated filtered SELECT, and LEFT JOIN is a filtered SELECT plus a conditional UNION ALL NULL row, so no special-casing is needed.
  3. Splitting queries into an outer table and a per-row inner dataset gives a clear, teachable mental model and a single canonical flattening rule you can reuse to reason about more complex SQL patterns like correlated subqueries.

Onward and Upward Past 5,000 As Communist China Swoons and AI Destroys More Jobs

Peter Navarro's Taking Back Trump's America • 1768 implied HN points • 09 Feb 24
💰 Finance Investing Stock Market Geopolitics Inflation Artificial Intelligence
  1. The stock market has shown a technical rally with S&P 500 surpassing 5000, driven by trend traders focusing more on technical aspects than fundamentals.
  2. Artificial intelligence is significantly impacting the job market, with companies using AI for tasks like layoff decisions, with some notable companies like United Parcel Service and BlackRock making significant staff reductions.
  3. China's economy is being compared to past scenarios like Japan's real estate market crash, highlighting concerns about potential global repercussions.

Review: How Africa Works

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 31 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🌐 International Foreign Aid Demographics Governance Trade policy Agriculture Industrial Policy Economic Development
  1. Africa began with uniquely difficult endowments — low population density, weak education, concentrated landholding, and fragmented politics — and those constraints help explain its slower growth; as these preconditions improve, disciplined policies that combine land reform, export-focused industry, and directed investment could make a big difference.
  2. When smallholder farmers get secure tenure, inputs, training, and market access, productivity and poverty reduction follow reliably, making agricultural reform the clearest and most persuasive path to broad-based gains.
  3. Export-led manufacturing is a much harder route today because China dominates low-cost production, automation reduces labor intensity, and globalization has slowed, so services-led growth or other alternative paths may be more realistic for many African countries even if they produce lower-wage, lower-skill jobs.

"A Perfect Storm For Silver": Comex Supplies Continue To Shrink Rapidly

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 34 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
💰 Finance Precious metals Futures Trading Market structure Commodities
  1. Silver supplies on the Comex are shrinking fast as registered and eligible inventories are being drawn down and investors are taking physical metal out of the vaults.
  2. The silver market is in backwardation, meaning spot prices are above futures, which signals immediate physical shortage and strong buyer demand pushing prices up.
  3. Gold also shows ongoing physical demand with metal leaving vaults and high delivery volumes, and together these trends could put significant strain on Comex inventories in 2026.

The Paris AI Anti-Safety Summit

Don't Worry About the Vase • 4390 implied HN points • 12 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Regulation AI safety International relations Policy Analysis Public Perception
  1. The recent Paris AI Summit shifted focus away from safety and risk management, favoring economic opportunities instead. Many leaders downplayed potential dangers of advanced AI.
  2. International cooperation on AI safety has weakened, with past agreements being ignored. This leaves little room for developing effective safety regulations as AI technologies rapidly evolve.
  3. The emphasis on voluntary commitments from companies may not be enough to ensure safety. Experts believe a more structured regulatory framework is needed to address serious risks associated with AI.

TBM 390: Governance by Principle, Not by Template

The Beautiful Mess • 528 implied HN points • 23 Nov 25
💼 Business Management Finance Governance Strategy Technology
  1. Governance models should be tailored to fit the specific context of a company. Just sticking to old processes might not work in fast-changing environments.
  2. It’s important to know that not all work fits into neat project boxes. Products and platforms evolve over time, and governance should reflect that fluidity.
  3. Many companies focus more on box-ticking than on truly advancing their goals. Effective governance should prioritize meaningful outcomes over just following rules.

The RedNote honeymoon won't last

Taylor Lorenz's Newsletter • 4986 implied HN points • 16 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Data Privacy Apps User Behavior Social media Regulation
  1. RedNote, a new app, is gaining popularity as users look for alternatives to TikTok. It focuses on social shopping and creating content about products.
  2. Despite its rapid rise, RedNote might struggle long-term because it has a language barrier and isn't as globally popular as TikTok.
  3. As users enjoy RedNote now, conflicts may arise as happens on most social media platforms. This could change users' perceptions of the app over time.

Holding two thoughts

Sunday Letters • 139 implied HN points • 11 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Tech Culture AI Computation Software Innovation
  1. AI is a big change, and it's hard to label it just good or bad. We're still figuring out how to use it effectively, but it has a lot of potential.
  2. In everyday life, AI is starting to prove useful in small ways, like transcribing recipes quickly or helping create survey questions.
  3. Just like with e-commerce and search engines, AI will gradually become more integrated into our lives as people find ways to use it better.

The Fed Is Adding $20B A Month To The Balance Sheet

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 22 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26
💰 Finance Central Banking Government debt Interest Rates Bond Market Macroeconomics Monetary Policy
  1. The Fed quietly restarted QE and is adding roughly $20 billion a month to its balance sheet, which is already about $6.6 trillion and could balloon much higher in the next crisis.
  2. Most Fed purchases have been in short-term debt, which has pushed short rates down and steepened the yield curve. The Fed has been losing money and isn’t remitting profits to the Treasury, leaving a large deferred loss.
  3. Foreign buyers have helped absorb new Treasury issuance but their buying has flattened recently, so if the Fed won’t buy long-term bonds and foreign demand stalls, Treasury borrowing costs could spike and further strain the budget.

Why your marketing isn't working

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 425 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25
💼 Business Marketing Sales SaaS Finance Entrepreneurship
  1. Marketing needs a balance between great content and effective distribution. If you're creating amazing material but no one sees it, then you have a distribution problem.
  2. Product-market fit is no longer a final goal; it’s more of a constant challenge. As customer expectations rise quickly, businesses must keep up or risk losing their fit.
  3. Understanding your target buyer is crucial for success in selling your business. Different buyers look for different qualities, like profitability or growth, so tailor your approach accordingly.

Everything Is Judgment

The Stoic Journal • 50 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
📖 Philosophy Moral Psychology Emotion Epistemology Ethics Stoicism Self-knowledge
  1. Your feelings about an event come from the story or judgment you add, not from the event itself.
  2. External things are neutral; you can choose to interpret them as hostile, careless, or meaningless, and that choice changes how you react.
  3. You have control over your judgment, so you can reframe situations to protect your peace — this doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it does let you decide how to respond.

Harvard and MIT Study: AI Models Are Not Ready to Make Scientific Discoveries

The Algorithmic Bridge • 1857 implied HN points • 15 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Data science Machine Learning Computational Models Scientific research AI
  1. AI models can predict things accurately but struggle to explain why things happen. This means they might not truly understand the underlying science.
  2. The study shows that current AI models, even powerful ones, do not create a real understanding of the world. Instead, they use tricks to predict results based only on patterns they have seen.
  3. This limitation is important because it shows that AI is not ready to make new scientific discoveries. Real understanding involves knowing why things happen, not just what happens.

The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can

One Useful Thing • 1675 implied HN points • 28 Jul 25
🕹 Technology AI Automation Organizational Theory Computing Machine Learning
  1. Organizations often work in messy and chaotic ways, not always following clear processes. This can lead to confusion and frustration for employees trying to understand how things really get done.
  2. AI can sometimes perform better when it learns through experience rather than from human-defined rules. Instead of trying to teach it specific steps, letting it learn from outcomes can be more effective.
  3. When using AI in companies, instead of getting bogged down by trying to map every process, it may be smarter to focus on defining what good results look like. The AI can then figure out the best way to get there, even through the chaos.

6 Things You Need to Know About Medium’s Latest Changes

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 979 implied HN points • 15 Apr 24
🕹 Technology Publishing AI Ethics Content creation User Experience
  1. Medium has banned AI-generated content, meaning all writing must be done by humans. If you use AI to write, you can lose access to their Partner Program.
  2. The platform routinely removes fake accounts, which might cause some users to lose followers. This is part of Medium's effort to maintain a genuine and quality community for writers.
  3. Medium is encouraging authentic engagement and discouraging any schemes that generate artificial traffic. It’s best to treat Medium like a magazine by reading and responding to what interests you.

Killing A Bad Strategy Before It Kills you

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 4413 implied HN points • 09 Feb 25
💼 Business Strategy Management Decision-making Leadership History
  1. Grand strategy helps you achieve big goals with limited resources. Since everyone faces resource limits, using what you have smartly can lead to unexpected successes.
  2. Foxes tend to predict better than hedgehogs because they use many ideas and adapt. Foxes keep an open mind, while hedgehogs stick to one big idea, even if it's wrong.
  3. Planning is important, but sticking too rigidly to a plan can be a mistake. It's better to remain flexible and adjust to new opportunities as they arise.

Why the founder of a popular cycling blog sold it and then left to launch a competitor

Simon Owens's Media Newsletter • 349 implied HN points • 05 Dec 25
💼 Business Cycling Media Entrepreneurship Content creation
  1. Wade Wallace started CyclingTips as a hobby while he was in Australia, and it grew into a successful news website. He focused on sharing stories and insights that people loved, even without formal journalism training.
  2. After selling CyclingTips and struggling with the changes from the new owners, Wallace launched Escape Collective, which relies on paid subscriptions instead of ads. This model aims to offer independent, quality journalism in cycling.
  3. Escape Collective focuses on building a community around cycling, encouraging members to contribute ideas and insights, and Wallace prefers a smaller, tightly-knit team over a large staff. He believes in the power of direct support from readers to create valuable content.

Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and the Reading Unlock

SatPost by Trung Phan • 169 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
💼 Business Leadership Markets Strategy Entrepreneurship Investing Productivity
  1. Consistent deep reading compounds into rare insights and gives a long-term advantage; even reading 50–100 pages a day can put you in the top tier.
  2. Reading alone isn’t enough — the real payoff comes when you combine reading with skills, experience, capital and networks so a single insight can be turned into a big business or investment.
  3. In a distracted world the bar to stand out is low, so protect focus (curate feeds, limit short-form apps) and keep digging—turn every page to find opportunities.

Was Zuck Right about Chinese AI Models?

Interconnected • 4751 implied HN points • 13 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Censorship Data Privacy Cloud Computing AI Global Competition
  1. Chinese AI models can answer sensitive questions when run locally, but they often censor answers in cloud settings. This shows a difference in behavior based on where the models are hosted.
  2. Censorship in AI models is more about the cloud platforms than the models themselves. This poses challenges for Chinese cloud providers wanting to compete internationally.
  3. Even though some see Chinese AI as censored, it can still be powerful and competitive. Users may prefer to download and run these models locally to avoid censorship and make the most of their capabilities.

Do you know how controlled you are?

Disaffected Newsletter • 1338 implied HN points • 11 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Environment Automation User Experience Design Human-Computer
  1. Machines are now designed to control how we use them, rather than serve our needs. This means we often have to jump through hoops to get them to work the way we want.
  2. Many modern designs prioritize environmental concerns over user convenience. For example, appliances automatically default to settings that may not be the most efficient for what we actually want.
  3. This shift in design reflects a broader issue where consumer products must comply with government mandates and societal goals rather than being created based on what people truly want.

It's time to change how we cover Elon Musk

Platformer • 3537 implied HN points • 08 Aug 23
🕹 Technology Social media AI Digital Media Antitrust AI Ethics
  1. It's important to approach coverage of Elon Musk with skepticism due to his history of broken promises and exaggerations.
  2. Journalists should be more skeptical and critical of Musk's statements, especially those that could impact markets or public perception.
  3. Musk's tendency to make bold announcements without following through highlights the need for increased scrutiny in media coverage of his statements.

Why the low multiple series: Rental Car companies edition, part 1

Yet Another Value Blog • 2103 implied HN points • 10 Jan 24
💰 Finance Financial Risks Earnings Stocks Investing
  1. The rental car companies Avis and Hertz are trading at extremely low multiples compared to their earnings.
  2. Investors have concerns about the sustainability of the earnings of rental car companies due to potential overearning from increased rental prices and undervaluation of depreciation from high used car prices.
  3. Despite the record earnings of rental car companies, there are serious bear cases to consider, such as inflated earnings potentially dropping significantly in the future.

PolitiFi: Crypto's Final Battle

DeFi Education • 699 implied HN points • 15 May 24
🔮 Crypto Politics Finance Decentralization Technology Blockchain
  1. Crypto is political. It challenges how money is controlled by banks and governments, giving people more power over their finances.
  2. Decentralized finance has roots in a movement that values privacy and individual rights. The focus is on creating systems that allow anonymous transactions to resist government control.
  3. In the election year, pay attention to how political changes affect crypto projects, token economics, and privacy coins. The shifting political landscape can create opportunities and challenges for the crypto space.

This Rumor About GPT-5 Changes Everything

The Algorithmic Bridge • 4788 implied HN points • 16 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Tech industry Machine Learning Software Development Data science
  1. There's a belief that GPT-5 might already exist but isn't being released to the public. The idea is that OpenAI may be using it internally because it's more valuable that way.
  2. AI labs are focusing on creating smaller and cheaper models that still perform well. This new approach aims to reduce costs while improving efficiency, which is crucial given the rising demand for AI.
  3. The situation is similar across major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, with many facing challenges in producing new models. Instead, they might be opting to train powerful models internally and use them to enhance smaller models for public use.