Hey folks, We're in the final week of summer swim team which means I've spent every evening sweating out every ounce of liquid from my body. Sundried Blake over here. A couple things on my mind... 1. Wired Earbuds: One of the many confusing things I've noticed Gen Z doing is rejecting AirPods and reverting to wired headphones. Some of it is concern about Bluetooth radiation and some of it is that wired is simpler and cheaper. So I dug mine out of the junk drawer and have been using them for a...
10 days ago • 2 min read
Hey folks! Nice to be back after I took off last Friday for the 4th! A couple things on my mind... 1. AI Growth vs. AI Efficiency: This week I keep asking people - "do you know anyone who has unlocked a new level of growth for their business with AI?" I've yet to get a clear "yes" - so I'm throwing it to you. Just to be clear, I see TONS of people (myself included) who have unlocked new margin by reducing costs or making things more efficient - that is real. But I kind of thought by now we'd...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, Happy Friday! A couple of things on my mind… 1. Street Cat vs. House Cat (Round 2): Shared this a year ago, but it came up 3x this week. My friend Izzy wrote an excellent article on two different executive modalities. House Cats know how to manage up and down, cooperate, work within functions, and manage their reputation (don't take that as a pejorative, the best execs at places like P&G are absolute killer house cats). Street Cats are wired completely differently, and it really...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey folks! A couple things on my mind… 1. The Edge of LLMs: Chandler and I started leading premarital counseling for some friends at church this week. First time doing this, so I (obviously) had Claude help me build some questionnaires, analyze their answers, and map out themes for the sessions. Amazing. My plan was that Chandler and I would just take it from there and do the actual in-the-room part. But then I read Claude's week-one communication framework, and it was garbage. It gave me the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, A couple things on my mind... 1. How I Prep For Talks: I give 3-4 talks in a busy week, and each slide deck follows generally the same process: 1) Figure out what I'm going to say 2) Dictate/drop in writing/youtube transcripts/provide context to Claude 3) Claude and I co-create a coherent outline for the talk 4) I drop that outline into Gamma. 5) I edit it like Google Slides till I'm happy. I think I recommended Gamma a year ago and it's still the best IMO for building beautiful...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey folks, Just got back from FL last night and spent this morning getting everything back in order (thus the later send). Great vacation, but man I’m glad to be home. A couple things on my mind… 1. Career Strategy: Whenever I start to get worried or confused about what the future will hold for my career or for my children, I keep coming back to this Proverb: Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings - Proverbs 22:29 As a professional, no matter what, I have two goals:...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, Writing from an Airbnb in Birmingham AL on our way down to FL right now. (It's nap time for littles, thus the late send.) A couple things on my mind... 1. Default LLM Setting: I saw this prompt from Marc Andreessen maybe 2-3 weeks ago and have since used it as the default setting for my Claude and Claude projects. It's been the most effective thing I've tried to keep Claude from trying to please me (agreeing with me, affirming me, making stuff up) instead of actually telling me the...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey folks, Happy Friday! A couple things on my mind... 1. Focus: I was helping a friend with his VC pitch this week. He has a small team launching multiple simultaneous e-comm brands and scaling them lean, powered by AI. So I asked how he'd respond to the Alex Hormozi line that "focus is everything", that running 5 companies at once means you grow none quickly. His response: "That is 100% true for humans." (Great line.) It's got me challenging my assumptions: what startup principles are real...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, Happy Friday! Looking forward to a Saturday w/ literally nothing on the calendar this weekend. Amazing how pumped that makes me vs. when I was younger. A couple things on my mind… 1. Are you designing landing pages in Claude yet?: We’ve reached a tipping point on most of the businesses I’m working on where, at least for landing pages, it makes more sense to design and code them in Claude than to work with a designer. If nothing else, design in Claude first and then hand it off to a...
2 months ago • 2 min read