Keeping up
What we've been keeping up with.
A running collection of the essays, talks, and threads that shape how we build — and what we took from each.
Long Humans — Josh Kushner
The opposite of the AI-doom trade: as routine work gets cheap and abundant, earned trust and judgment become the scarce assets. It's the same bet our HVA framework makes on every engagement.
$1 of EBITDA — Jack Soslow
Most AI companies can't point to a single dollar of real value they've created. We agree — it's why we price on outcomes, and why the only proof we count shows up in the P&L.
Reflections on Palantir — Nabeel Qureshi
Solve one client's exact problem. We live by "to hell with generalizability."
Understanding the code your agents write — Geoffrey Litt
Directing AI doesn't excuse losing fluency in what it builds — that caps our next idea. We are active participants in our own builds.
"It's Hard to Eval" Is a Product Smell — Hamel Husain
If you can't tell whether the AI got it right, the product is designed wrong. We build verification into the tool itself.
Making AI Useful — Tyler Kim & Caelin Sutch
Bolting a chatbot onto a site changes nothing. AI should be the interaction layer itself — answering with cards, timelines, and actions instead of paragraphs. (We hate reading the same stuff too.)
98% isn't very much — Hugo
A standing reminder that the edge cases are where trustworthy software is actually earned.
AI will improve our economy. But will we let it? — Tyler Cowen
The economics of AI are ready; whether the gains land depends on institutions and habits. Adoption is the bottleneck, not capability.
Why I Stopped Arguing With People — Cong Wang
Stop spending energy winning debates and spend it getting better. An internal memo to help serve our clients best.
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