Never before has it felt more like there are two different worlds growing simultaneously.

In one world, tech is moving at such an absurd rate that we need to chronicle its updates in minutes, not days.

In the other? A plumber without a website is booked solid for months and will arrive sometime between 9AM and 9PM (hopefully).

Half of the world feels like it’s being upended in real time, never to return to normal.

And the other half feels like a glass of cool lemonade on a summer porch.

Alt title: Do you trust your friendly neighborhood chatbot?

By default, LLMs are sycophantic “yes men”. They tell us what we want to hear. This is good, in the short term, to help us get out of our own negative self talk.

But in the long term? It’s just another hit of dopamine. The very same we get scrolling through an infinite social feed.

Too much dopamine keeps us hooked on the chatbot experience itself, instead of letting us use the chatbot to make change in the real world.

This is an inherent conflict of interest in any LLM-as-a-business, that we must all keep in mind.

Legendary music producer Quincy Jones (RIP) famously said “Leave space for God to walk through the room”.

In any creative pursuit, we can’t plan our way into brilliance. If that were true, there’d be more spreadsheet Mozarts out there, and a lot fewer meddlesome, irrational, unpredictable artist/genius types.

As tempting as the idea is to schedule everything ahead of time in an Excel sheet, brilliance always requires a bit of randomness—a bit of chaos.

Are you trying to plan everything? Or are you leaving space for unexpected magic?

Top chefs wouldn’t be caught dead with salted butter.

In a world with Maldon Salt, Sel Gris, and even Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, why on Earth would a chef leave something as vital as the amount and quality of salt to chance?

Amateurs will always prefer salted butter for its ease and instant utility.

Experts will always prefer the control that comes with choice.

Even the smallest inconvenience can stop us from creating.

A camera in the closet is less likely to film us being creative.

A podcast rig that takes an extra five minutes to set up might prevent us from recording that day.

A guitar in its case is less likely to be played.

Creating anything is an enormous hurdle.

Anything you can do to remove friction will help.