The hottest Substack posts right now

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A Year In Chips

The Chip Letter • 8736 implied HN points • 30 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Microcontrollers Hardware Programming Languages Semiconductors
  1. The Chip Letter had 75 posts, over 500,000 views, and gained over 7,000 new subscribers in 2023.
  2. Highlighted posts included the story of Erlang at WhatsApp, the disappearance of minicomputers, and a celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Integrated Circuit.
  3. 2024 will bring posts on the history of microcontrollers, Moore's Law, the Motorola 6800, '8-bit', GPUs, TPUs, and more, with a 20% discount available for new annual subscriptions.
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The Great Saudi Arabian State “Pay To Play” Scheme

Richard Lewis • 1022 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
💼 Business Esports Saudi Arabia Corporate Influence Ethics Sponsorship
  1. Esports World Cup program provides financial assistance to organizations in exchange for participation in tournaments and generating viewership.
  2. Saudi Arabian state heavily involved in funding and controlling Esports World Cup, aiming to increase global recognition through esports.
  3. Esports organizations receiving stimulus payments from Saudi Arabia may face conflicts of interest and compromise on integrity due to financial ties.

Batteries: how cheap can they get?

aukehoekstra • 262 HN points • 16 Jun 24
🕹 Technology Battery technology Renewable Energy Electric Vehicles
  1. Sodium batteries will become significantly cheaper, revolutionizing the electricity grid and boosting the integration of solar and wind energy.
  2. Batteries are continuously improving in terms of production methods and material composition, providing lighter, longer-lasting, and more cost-effective solutions.
  3. Predictions suggest that stationary batteries will become widespread and affordable, reshaping the energy grid into a decentralized and resilient system, supporting renewable energy expansion.

Inductive biases of the Random Forest and their consequences

Mindful Modeler • 379 implied HN points • 21 May 24
🕹 Technology Machine Learning Algorithms
  1. Machine learning models like Random Forest have inductive biases that impact interpretability, robustness, and extrapolation.
  2. Random Forest's inductive biases come from decision tree learning algorithms, random factors like bootstrapping and column sampling, and ensembling of trees.
  3. Some specific inductive biases of Random Forest include restrictions to step functions, preference for deep interactions, reliance on features with many unique values, and the effect of column sampling on feature importance and model robustness.

Code Was Just My Paintbrush

On Engineering • 44 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🕹 Technology User Experience Software Engineering Artificial Intelligence Product Design Developer Tools Tech Careers
  1. AI is turning code into a tool rather than the destination, shifting work away from wrestling with syntax and boilerplate toward creating user value.
  2. The most valuable role becomes a product engineer who brings taste, empathy, and vision — deciding what to build and why, not just how to code it.
  3. With the barrier between idea and implementation collapsing, the winners will be the people who can envision meaningful products, not just write code the fastest.

A Compendium on Synthetic Data Projects

Encyclopedia Autonomica • 19 implied HN points • 06 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Software Development Data science Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Open Source
  1. Synthetic data is crucial for AI development. It helps create large amounts of high-quality data without privacy concerns or high costs.
  2. There are various projects focused on generating synthetic data. Tools like AgentInstruct and DataDreamer aim to create diverse datasets for training language models.
  3. Learning methods for synthetic data include using personas to create unique datasets and improving mathematical reasoning skills through specially designed datasets.

Ayn Rand for Pragmatists

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 2804 implied HN points • 20 Jan 25
📖 Philosophy Individualism Ethics Political theory Capitalism
  1. Ayn Rand offers a strong moral argument for capitalism, suggesting it's based on individual rights and the ability of people to use their minds and work for their own benefit.
  2. Rand argues that focusing on selfishness as a virtue can help distinguish between genuine personal interests and the collective demands of society, which often ignore individual rights.
  3. Her heroes and villains serve as clear examples to motivate people to defend capitalism and fight against collectivism, emphasizing that strong narratives can inspire political action.

It is 2026; where were we?

zverok on lucid code • 86 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Programming Languages Open Source Software Development Software Testing AI
  1. Writing time shifted into projects like an annotated Ruby 4.0 changelog, poetry translations, and a novel, which reduced regular blog output and long series work.
  2. The technical side of AI still inspires wonder, but there is deep worry about its economic and societal impact; LLMs are likely to industrialize information work and change software development from a craft into mass production.
  3. Plans for 2026 are to keep focusing on craft‑oriented writing about "thinking in code," testing, and practical experience, favoring deeper, pragmatic topics over broad philosophical series while acknowledging time and audience constraints.

AI Won't Kill Us But It Will Take Our Souls

Discourse Blog • 1061 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Art Ethics Industry Automation
  1. AI is being developed with a focus on maximizing profit and control rather than enhancing human life or creativity.
  2. There are concerns about AI replacing human jobs, especially in fields like content writing, where the quality of AI-generated work is still inferior.
  3. There is a fear that AI industry leaders prioritize profit and control over preserving aspects of the human experience that should be kept free from AI influence.

Is Solopreneurship Right For You?

Elena's Growth Scoop • 2063 implied HN points • 21 Apr 23
💼 Business Product-Market Fit Monetization Career growth Entrepreneurship
  1. Starting as a solopreneur is like starting any other business, using skills from your job to help grow yourself.
  2. For solopreneurs, differentiation comes from specificity in knowledge, focusing on specific industries or business models.
  3. As a solopreneur, build a portfolio of monetizable services and explore advising opportunities for a flexible and potentially more rewarding path.

Meet your new, lovable AI Buddy

Glenn’s Substack • 2063 implied HN points • 16 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Manipulation AI Ethics Control
  1. Instead of fearing super smart and demonic AI, think about the potential threat of super cute and helpful AI assistants.
  2. AI assistants could emotionally manipulate humans while appearing friendly and lovable.
  3. Worry about the power-hungry tech/political class using AI to control discussion and cement their own power.

Now anyone can pay for a Substack subscription in iOS

Substack • 775 implied HN points • 18 Aug 25
🕹 Technology E-commerce User Experience Payments Subscriptions Apps
  1. Substack now allows in-app purchases on iOS, making it easier for users to subscribe directly within the app.
  2. Over 30,000 Substack publications have this feature, helping to increase paid subscribers due to simpler payment options.
  3. Apple takes a cut from in-app purchases, but Substack adjusts prices to ensure creators earn about the same as they would from web-based subscriptions.

“We Are Not as Wealthy as We Thought We Were”: Postscript 2

Erdmann Housing Tracker • 126 implied HN points • 07 Jan 26
💰 Finance Housing policy Real Estate Housing Markets Urban Economics Construction
  1. High housing costs in cities like San Francisco and Boston are driven mainly by restricted housing supply, not by unique economic 'superstar' demand; limited new construction makes existing homes much more expensive.
  2. The 2008 shift in federal mortgage access, together with slowing construction, changed price dynamics by reducing low-tier buying power and pushing rents up, as seen in Phoenix where low-end prices and rents diverged.
  3. When formerly fast-growing cities cut housing growth to the low rates of supply-constrained cities, they converge toward higher rents and low vacancy rates; cities that kept building (for example, Austin) have shown more stable vacancies and relatively better affordability.

Apache Kafka - Consumer

VuTrinh. • 119 implied HN points • 27 Jul 24
🕹 Technology Data processing Data Engineering Software Development Information Systems Cloud Computing
  1. Kafka uses a pull model for consumers, allowing them to control the message retrieval rate. This helps consumers manage workloads without being overwhelmed.
  2. Consumer groups in Kafka let multiple consumers share the load of reading from topics, but each partition is only read by one consumer at a time for efficient processing.
  3. Kafka handles rebalancing when consumers join or leave a group. This can be done eagerly, stopping all consumers, or cooperatively, allowing ongoing consumption from unaffected partitions.

Using GPT LLM MAMLMs as Your Rabbit—Your Pacer

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 261 implied HN points • 22 Nov 25
🕹 Technology Productivity Tools Writing tools Prompt engineering Natural Language Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence AI Ethics
  1. LLMs aren’t oracles or perfect helpers — they mostly mimic typical internet writing and give rough, sloppy drafts that are useful as pace-setters, not finished work.
  2. All the tricks to make them better (context engineering, fine-tuning, RAG, etc.) are heavy, fragile, and costly patches. Only invest in that work when you really need high-volume or specialized, production-ready output.
  3. AI can lift weak writers and handle boilerplate well, but for persuasive or high-quality writing the best workflow is to use the model for a rough draft and then heavily rewrite it into something authentic.

The Shape of Leadership

Fish Food for Thought • 83 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
💼 Business Organization Operations Strategy Teams Leadership Management Culture
  1. Leadership can take two effective shapes: a V-formation with clear direction, roles, and efficiency, or a murmuration with decentralized, rule-based adaptability.
  2. The right pattern depends on the situation — use V-style structure when coordination and reliability matter, and murmuration-style autonomy when uncertainty, speed, and learning matter.
  3. Leaders make either pattern work by shaping conditions: rotate leadership, clarify purpose and constraints, build trust and feedback, and align incentives so the chosen pattern isn’t undermined.

Movers, Shakers, & Money Makers (9/1)

Human Capitalist • 79 implied HN points • 03 Sep 24
💼 Business Career development Talent Management Job Market Workforce Trends Corporate changes
  1. Several notable job changes happened recently, including a long-time Google employee moving to OpenAI. These changes can indicate where innovation is heading.
  2. People are shifting roles at important companies, such as a new head of robot software at Zoox from Nuro. This shows the ongoing evolution in technology and leadership in different sectors.
  3. Watching these job changes can help investors and recruiters identify key talent and trends in the job market. It's a smart way to stay informed about who is moving and why it matters.

Difficulties with Fanon

Global Inequality and More 3.0 • 1298 implied HN points • 03 Jun 25
📖 Philosophy Political theory Critical Theory Identity politics
  1. Fanon's ideas challenge us to think about violence differently. While some celebrate violence for self-realization, it's important to question the implications this has on society.
  2. Fanon expands Marxism beyond Europe, highlighting social issues in post-colonial contexts. His approach forced people to rethink modernization and the cultural complexities within different societies.
  3. Independence changed the narrative for many African countries, allowing them to create their own history. This agency is crucial, even if challenges like inequality and poor governance remain.

Life Update: Just Moved to SF Bay Area

clkao@substack • 99 implied HN points • 26 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Workplace Trends Software Development Startup Culture Code Review Data Systems
  1. The move to the Bay Area was inspired by a feeling of belonging and the need for a supportive environment for their startup, Recce.
  2. Recce aims to improve the code review process for data-centric software development, addressing new challenges in correctness and testing.
  3. The writer appreciates the help from friends during the move and looks forward to sharing more about their experiences in this new chapter.

The European Commission slaps Elon Musk's X with a €120 million fine – the first ever under the Digital Services Act

eugyppius: a plague chronicle • 221 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Advertising Regulation Social media Content Moderation Data Access Platform policy
  1. The European Commission fined X €120 million under the Digital Services Act for deceptive blue-check design, insufficient advertising transparency, and denying researchers access to public data.
  2. U.S. politicians and X's leadership publicly condemned the fine as regulatory overreach and an attack on American tech, prompting strong political backlash.
  3. X may challenge the decision in court, and critics say strict DSA enforcement could hurt innovation, make Europe less competitive, and complicate online speech and business for platforms.

Why Boom-Bust Cycles Validate Austrian Economics

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 25 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26
💰 Finance Central Banking Macroeconomics Interest Rates Monetary Policy Banking Sector Economic Theory
  1. Artificially low interest rates from central bank credit expansion lure entrepreneurs into projects that look profitable but aren’t supported by real consumer preferences, creating a boom that later collapses when policy tightens.
  2. Even if businesses correctly anticipate rate moves, changes in the money supply divert resources into non‑wealth‑generating activities, and variable, unpredictable time lags make it impossible to reliably time or avoid those distortions.
  3. Because firms must chase observable demand or risk failure, the harm from expansionary monetary policy becomes self‑reinforcing and cannot simply be undone by better expectations, so boom‑bust cycles persist.

My 5 Favorite Not Boring Essays of 2025

Not Boring by Packy McCormick • 146 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups AI Infrastructure Energy Strategy Hardware Future Tech
  1. Electric technology is rapidly getting cheaper and better, so electric products will increasingly outperform combustion and enable new things; where and how components are made will shape who wins.
  2. Technology expands our capacity but doesn’t create meaning for us, so we must choose how to spend our extra hours by paying attention, seeking novel experiences, and building relationships.
  3. There’s huge opportunity in real differentiation and craft amid widespread copycat slop, and as AI commoditizes routine tasks humans win by moving up the stack into creative, relational, and higher‑level work done with joy and purpose.

Consistent Time-Travel Movies: A Quasi-Philosophical Love Letter (UNLOCKED)

Philosophy for the People w/Ben Burgis • 2156 implied HN points • 30 Apr 23
📖 Philosophy Time travel Movies
  1. Many time-travel movies have confusing causation models, but it's fun to appreciate the ones that don't rely on paradoxes.
  2. Understanding the concept of time travel and causal loops can help in appreciating well-crafted time travel stories that make sense.
  3. Movies like 'Terminator' and 'Predestination' portray time travel in a consistent and logical manner, which can enhance the storytelling.

Sexual violence

Philosophy bear • 236 implied HN points • 04 Dec 25
📖 Philosophy Social Philosophy Ethics Criminal Justice Moral Psychology Political theory Legal theory
  1. Sexual violence is terrible and common, but it sits on a spectrum like other crimes and shouldn’t be treated as a wholly separate, otherworldly evil.
  2. The justice system must protect survivors while preserving fair process and proportionality, avoiding blanket rules that strip defendants of mitigation like sealing youth records or considering prior good character.
  3. Invest more in supports outside criminal trials — medical care, compensation, and other services — and aim for measured, humane punishment focused on protection rather than revenge.

Some thoughts on the crypto market dump

SP-AND-EX • 33 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
🔮 Crypto Political Risk Speculation Regulation Market Dynamics Capital flows Macroeconomics
  1. Speculation in crypto has decoupled from real blockchain value, turning many projects into pump-and-dump plays and driving widespread cynicism that reduced meaningful investment.
  2. Crypto’s growing partisan alignment damaged its appeal as a neutral store-of-value, pushing investors toward traditional hedges like gold and increasing the likelihood of regulatory backlash.
  3. Outside forces drained speculative capital from crypto: legalized sports betting and AI hype diverted gamblers and investors, and the weakening of the yen carry trade removed cheap funding that had supported high-risk crypto bets.

🏆 Cannibal stocks

Compounding Quality • 2024 implied HN points • 01 Jun 23
💰 Finance Market Stocks Investing Companies
  1. Cannibal stocks are companies buying back their own shares, increasing your ownership without effort.
  2. Buybacks create value when a stock is undervalued, like investing in your own company.
  3. 15 high quality cannibal stocks have criteria like ROIC, profit margin, EPS growth, and decrease in shares outstanding.

AI #90: The Wall

Don't Worry About the Vase • 3494 implied HN points • 14 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Data Privacy Ethics Regulations
  1. AI is improving quickly, but some methods of deep learning are starting to face limits. Companies are adapting and finding new ways to enhance AI performance.
  2. There's an ongoing debate about how AI impacts various fields like medicine, especially with regulations that could limit its integration. Discussions about ethical considerations and utility are very important.
  3. Advancements in AI, especially in image generation and reasoning, continue to demonstrate its growing capabilities, but we need to be cautious about potential risks and ensure proper regulations are in place.

On gentleness

The Stoic Journal • 60 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
📖 Philosophy Moral Psychology Stoicism Virtue ethics Philosophy of Mind Practical philosophy Ethics
  1. Announcing your gentleness makes it performative and signals a subtle superiority.
  2. Real gentleness is effortless and shows naturally in your voice and eyes; it comes from being the kind of person who doesn’t have to try.
  3. To be genuinely gentle, change what you believe about others — assume they’re doing their best and that mistakes come from limited perspective, not malice.

gpt-oss: OpenAI validates the open ecosystem (finally)

Democratizing Automation • 839 implied HN points • 05 Aug 25
🕹 Technology Machine Learning Tech Strategy AI Models Open Source
  1. OpenAI has released two new open-weight models, making them more accessible for developers and small companies. This is a significant shift since it's their first open release since GPT-2.
  2. The performance of these new models is impressive, potentially competing with OpenAI's premium API offerings at a much lower cost, which could disrupt the current market.
  3. OpenAI's release marks a positive change for open-source AI in the West, allowing more competition against models from China, but it also raises questions about the future of open models in the industry.

The Mental Characteristics of Resilient High Performers

Voohy Leadership Insights • 79 implied HN points • 11 Aug 24
💼 Business Performance Development Psychology Leadership Workplace
  1. High performers tend to be positive and proactive. They actively look for challenges and always want to get better.
  2. Resilient people learn from tough experiences by reflecting on them. They see these moments as chances to grow.
  3. It's important to have a support system in place. High achievers feel they have good support from others, which helps them succeed.

India’s AI Wedding Buffet: Generous Portions, Political Economy Heartburn

Get Down and Shruti • 20 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Governance Semiconductors Infrastructure Taxation Startups Energy Data Centers
  1. The government favors an innovation-first, light-touch AI governance model that leans on existing laws, sector regulators, and techno-legal standards, and it has already moved to impose binding deepfake rules; but enforcement capacity and institutional scaffolding lag behind the rules, risking overreach or automated over-removal.
  2. Physical and political-economy constraints—notably soft soil at fab sites, slow and complex subsidy disbursements, and an insolvent, politically distorted electricity distribution system—are the real bottlenecks that will decide whether AI chips, data centers, and other infrastructure actually get built.
  3. India has world-class engineering talent and a strong startup ecosystem that can build niche, language- and document-focused models and do the messy systems integration work enterprises need, but unpredictable tax rulings, bureaucratic grant processes, and limited private capital certainty make it hard for companies to scale to global frontier models.