FT on Microsoft at 50: “Adaptability has been one of the hallmarks of Nadella’s leadership at Microsoft — something he has shown again as the generative AI market goes through convulsions. Despite the tie with OpenAI, the Microsoft CEO was quick to see how models like these might commoditise even the most advanced AI technology. Microsoft was one of the first to back Meta’s open model, Llama, and was offering access to DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning system less than two weeks after its launch.”
Andrew Chen: “In today’s tech landscape, where the product culture has turned so metrics-driven, the biggest opportunities might actually lie in areas that require intuition to discover. Taking an intuitive, qualitative approach can be faster than relying on A/B testing – especially for new products where low user numbers make data collection painfully slow. After all, your initial product direction requires exceptional judgment. Pick the right starting point, and you’ll be miles ahead of someone who chose poorly and tried to iterate frantically to success. The ubiquity of metrics-oriented thinking means that breakthrough opportunities often exist precisely where data-driven product leaders won’t look. This typically means entering mature markets or categories requiring significant upfront investment. After all, if it were simple and immediately measurable, big tech companies would have already pursued it.”
Crime Reads: “Let me be very obvious at the start and say: a murder victim can’t tell you who the killer is. Locked-room mysteries are puzzling because the only person you’re sure was in the room is the one person you can’t ask for testimony. That’s also what makes locked-room plots such challenging things to read or write — a baffling impossibility turns out to be an illusion with a material explanation. An airgun from the empty house across the street, a serpent in the ventilator, a disguise or an accomplice or a clock hand nudged to display a fraudulent time.”
NYTimes: “We’re seeing a meaningful transition in the way work is done in the white-collar world,” said Carl Tannenbaum, the chief economist of Northern Trust. “I tell people a wave is coming.”…A recent academic paper found that software developers who used an A.I. coding assistant improved a key measure of productivity by more than 25 percent, and that the productivity gains appeared to be largest among the least experienced developers. The result suggested that adopting A.I. could reduce the wage premium enjoyed by more experienced coders, since it would erode their productivity advantages over novices.”
WSJ: “After years of building up my ability to articulate nuanced ideas in French, AI had made this work optional. I felt my brain get a little rusty. I was surprised to find myself grasping for the right words to ask a friend for a favor over text. But life is busy. Why not choose the easy path? AI developers have promised their tools will liberate humans from the drudgery of repetitive brain labor. It will unshackle our minds to think big. It will give us space to be more creative. But what if freeing our minds actually ends up making them lazy and weak? “With creativity, if you don’t use it, it starts to go away,” Robert Sternberg, a Cornell University professor of psychology, told me. Sternberg, who studies human creativity and intelligence, argues that AI has already taken a toll on both.”
