Here’s a thought experiment I’ve been using in conversations lately.

Imagine you have unlimited resources. You can assemble any team you want and you have unlimited tokens. Would you launch a brand new product in two days, built entirely by AI?

Most people say yes, or at least a confident “probably.”

Now change the frame. You have a product with 500 million users, half of them paying. Clear market fit. Would you replace it tomorrow with something entirely built by AI?

In recent years, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has seen tremendous progress, particularly in the area of natural language processing. The development of powerful language models like GPT-3 has made it possible for machines to generate human-like text at a scale and speed that was previously unimaginable. This has led many to believe that we are approaching a tipping point where the speed of execution of ideas will become a key differentiator in a variety of industries.

The idea of something being “old-school”, “retro” or even “cyberpunk”, exists because we attach a feeling of nostalgia to it. I’ve been fascinated recently by this because culture sometimes reaches back in time to (re) experience something, or at other times might even be ahead of its time!

Tape

Last month Taylor Swift released her latest album Midnights with the usual fanfare, highly anticipated by fans and critics. Many things were written and said about the promotional cycle, which leveraged TikTok and cutting-edge features on Spotify like little explainer videos for each song.

In a distributed workplace it can be challenging to understand each other as a whole person, so I’m trying to share some personal things about myself with anyone I might collaborate with. I hope this will frontload the trust-building somewhat, and so far I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback.

By being open and upfront about who I am and how my brain ticks, I hope to build transparency and foster psychological safety. If you like this and create a manual too, please share it!

While some of us might feel comfortable with working from home, there might be others who don’t. There are plenty of resources available now on what tools, frameworks and other tips to help improve or maintain productivity, but between those it can feel very disruptive to suddenly find yourself at home alone without the structures you have in the office. I’ve found that we mostly talk about being efficient or productive but the aspects of managing our own well-being are just as important. I’ve written down some tips to try that can help organize your day or that can help improve the collaboration with your direct squad members.