Hi everyone!
I'm currently working hard on my very first startup. It's super exciting, and nerve wrecking at the same time. I can't share any details yet, but I do want to highlight our way of working.
As I was writing this introduction, I came across a post by Ryo Lu that perfectly articulates my thoughts.
the old way of scaling teams is dead
We used to hire specialists – designers, engineers, PMs – each in their lane, scaling by adding more people. but when Cursor [an AI coding agent] can take you from idea to code in minutes, execution isn't the bottleneck anymore. taste and judgment are.
what matters now: people who can see the full stack, move between layers, but specialize deeply in something AI can't replicate yet. T-shaped but way wider – conversant across domains, expert in one thing.
AI doesn't just make you faster. it ties teams together differently. no more waterfall – designer codes the prototype, engineer extends it, both work in the same medium. the gap between disciplines disappears.
This is exactly what we’re experiencing. The individual roles at our startup are fluid. We no longer have people who are experts in a single domain. We’re a team of generalists, using AI to cross the “boundaries” of our core knowledge.
As Ryo mentioned, our designer makes interactive, code-based prototypes to show how a particular element should feel or behave. The opposite is true as well, where I developed an entire feature before ever receiving a design.
He concludes by saying that human taste is the new bottleneck.
the new bottlenecks are deeply human: taste, vision, judgment, context. AI explores options, but can't tell you which is right. that's where specialization matters now – in judgment, not execution.
small teams, fluid boundaries, everyone working in the same tools. roles still matter but as overlapping concerns with different depths, not separate silos. tools handle execution, you handle vision.
I couldn’t agree more with his analysis. I’m curious for your thoughts. Hit reply and let me know!
Enjoy this edition,
Xavier
🤓 Cool Stuff I Found on the Internet
Anyone creeped out by spiders?
Scientists discovered 100,000 spiders living in one huge web. The web is inhabited by two different species, which is odd given that spiders are mostly solitary creators. It’s the first time we've found a web woven by multiple species in collaboration.
Elon Musk's $1 trillion bonus
Tesla shareholders have approved CEO Elon Musk's massive compensation package. To receive the full payout, Elon only needs to grow Tesla's market cap to $8.5 trillion, deploy a million AI robots, and launch a million-vehicle robotaxi fleet.
Pranking Waymo
This prankster called 50 Waymo’s to the same dead-end street to find out what would happen. Within minutes, the street was filled with empty cars, who all got stuck. Eventually, Waymo intervened and ordered the cars to leave the area. This was essentially the world’s first DDoS attack using robotaxis?
Goodbye cookie banners!
Europeans rejoice! The EU is getting rid of our beloved cookie banners! Instead of clicking “accept” on every site, the plan is to let you set your privacy preferences once, directly in your browser. Websites will then be required to respect that choice automatically.
⏳ On this day...
1877 - Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time. This invention was the first device capable of recording and reproducing sound, changing how we experience music, education, and communication.
1929 - U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd led the first expedition to fly over the South Pole. This historic aerial feat provided invaluable geographic data and was a major milestone in the exploration of the Antarctic continent.
1982 - Michael Jackson released his album Thriller, which would become the best-selling music album of all time.
👽 Space
Voyager 1: one light-day away
After nearly 50 years in space, NASA's Voyager 1 is approaching an incredible milestone. By late 2026, it will be one light-day from Earth, meaning a radio signal will take a full 24 hours to reach it.
Baikonur pad damaged
Russia's only launchpad for ISS missions got damaged during the most recent Soyuz mission. A service platform wasn't secured properly and fell into the flame trench below the rocket, causing significant damage to the launchpad. The Russian space agency says the damage will be fixed shortly. It's the only pad configured to launch Russian crew and cargo missions to the ISS.
⚡️ Energy & Environment
Powering a house with vapes
YouTuber Chris Doel built a DIY home battery from "disposable" vapes. Turns out, most vapes include rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that can be salvaged. I couldn't shake the feeling that this is unnecessarily wasteful. Why put a rechargeable battery in a disposable product? The video also highlights the difficulty in extracting and recycling the batteries inside these vapes.
Programmable plastic
Researchers developed a new type of plastic that self-destructs after a “programmed” amount of time. They copied how natural polymers (like DNA) break down relatively quickly and applied this principle to plastics, which normally don’t degrade.
Lake Vostok
Deep beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet lies Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake that has been completely isolated for at least 15 million years. Scientists drilled through the ice and found its teeming with life. This unique ecosystem could give us clues about early-life on Earth, but we must also be careful as drilling risks contaminating it with “modern” microbes.
Nobody wants EVs?
Sales of electric cars in the US have completely tanked after a major federal tax credit expired. This was somewhat expected, but the numbers are brutal. Hyundai Ionic 5 sales are down by 60%, Kia EV6 sales dropped by 66%, and Honda's Prologue sales are down 80%.
🧠🤖 Artificial intelligence
Neil DeGrasse Tyson deep fake
This deep fake of Neil DeGrasse Tyson promoting Flat Earth theory was so “good” that he had to publicly go on record to state, “That’s not me”. While I thought the deep fake wasn’t that great, it’s scary, nonetheless. Deep fakes could erode societal trust even further.
Electricity shortage
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made an interesting comment: his company isn’t facing a chip shortage. Their biggest bottleneck is power. He admits to having GPUs in inventory that he cannot use due to insufficient power infrastructure.
Gemini 3
Google has announced its new flagship AI model, and at the time of the announcement, it was the highest-scoring LLM ever (until Anthropic dropped Claude Opus 4.5). Google wasted no time and rolled out the new version across its ecosystem.
Back to research
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former Chief Scientist, argues that the AI industry’s recent progress, driven by “scaling” up models with more data and compute, is reaching its limits. He suggests that this five-year sprint is ending because we are exhausting the finite supply of training data. What’s next? He believes the industry will shift its focus back to research in the hopes of discovering the next breakthrough.
🏥 Health & Medicine
Artificial wombs
What if we could continue a pregnancy outside the body? Scientists are developing artificial wombs to give extremely premature babies a better chance at survival. These new devices are like high-tech biobags. The baby floats in fluid while an artificial placenta handles oxygen and nutrients via the umbilical cord. This allows fragile lungs to mature safely, without being forced to breathe.
RIP James D. Watson
James Watson, the Nobel laureate who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, has died at 97. His work was foundational to modern genetics. Unfortunately, his scientific legacy is overshadowed by controversies and racism.
Recording of dying brain
Researchers accidentally recorded the brain activity of an 87-year-old patient as he died from a heart attack. In the moments before and after his heart stopped, they observed a surge in brain waves, which are linked to memory recall, dreaming, and meditation. The lead scientist speculates this could be the brain orchestrating a final "life recall," replaying significant life events.