What I'm up to - April 2026

My monthly newsletter about what I'm up to, which I send in place of social media:

What I did in March

• Published Software in the AI era and updated my personal website.
• Wrote Agent experience about optimizing products for AI agents, featuring a Chroma collaboration with Stripe Projects.
• Launched a sync product at Chroma. I recorded a walkthrough and wrote about it in Sync, phone numbers, and webhooks.

Things to share

• Articles: Craig Mod's Software Bonkers captures the moment well: he used Claude Code to build a bespoke accounting system for his complex multi-country finances, arguing that individuals can now build tailored tools instead of subscribing to off-the-shelf SaaS. Terry Godier's The Last Quiet Thing argues that modern connected devices have shifted from finished products to demanding relationships requiring constant updates, subscriptions, and notifications. Drew Austin's Worn Out in Real Life Magazine examines Silicon Valley's indifference to fashion as a deeper contempt for public space. Beth Mathews explains why so many control rooms were seafoam green, tracing the color back to Faber Birren's 1944 safety color code for the National Safety Council. Kate Lindsay in Embedded argues that being chronically online is gauche now: offline living and analog hobbies have become the new status symbols. Blackbird Spyplane’s interview with Kareem Rahma, the comedian behind Subway Takes, is worth a read. He recommends taking weekend trips to African cities instead of defaulting to Europe: "Short-sleeve shirt and short pants, you look like you are on your way to daycare." A NYT opinion piece on housing and communal parenting among friends made the rounds. I have been to Radish and find it intriguing.
• Podcasts: Peter Zeihan on The Prof G Pod discussing how a period of isolationism could reshape the global economy. Also enjoying What's Next by F1 driver Valtteri Bottas and photographer Paul Ripke, a casual weekly show where they recap their weeks and share observations.
• Films/TV: Watched Chan Is Missing (1982), Wayne Wang's independent film following two taxi drivers searching San Francisco's Chinatown for a friend who disappeared with their money. Watching The Pitt Season 2.
• Videos: ROSALIA and Bjork at the BRIT Awards 2026. James Blake at TheLotRadio. Action Bronson eating with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford on Barack Obama: "I'm not sure if any of you are constitutional lawyers or you've been around one, but President Obama read everything we gave him."
• Apps: Acme is a new weather app from the founders of Dark Sky.
• Thinking about: Gell-Mann Amnesia: you read an article about a subject you know well and notice it is riddled with errors, then turn the page and trust the same publication on subjects you know nothing about. Stated vs. revealed preferences: what people say they want versus what their actual behavior shows they want. Rich Sutton's The Bitter Lesson, arguing that general methods leveraging computation consistently outperform approaches that encode human domain knowledge. And: I finally upgraded my iPhone 13 mini, and Apple Intelligence is shockingly bad.

Plans for April

• Launching some new Chroma features
• Spending time in NYC and Tucson