Share, Don’t Perform: Build Genuine LinkedIn Impact
Here's a quick tip on how to build an effective presence on LinkedIn. Too many people on LinkedIn are "performing" for their current (and future) followers. Instead of self-centered performing, focus on generous *sharing*. We all have something to share that will be helpful/useful to others. Things we are experts in or passionate about. What's often even better is sharing mistakes we've made and lessons we've learned. Share, don't perform and you'll pull people in. * I fall into this "performing vs. sharing" mode sometimes too. ** "effective presence" is not just about the number of followers, likes or comments. It's about having genuine impact on somebody's thinking -- even if just for a moment.
Ensuring AI Coding Gains Outpace Technical Debt Costs
I'm a massive fan (and daily user) of agentic coding tools like Claude Code and Codex CLI. One of the questions we'll need to ponder in 2026: How do you make sure that the compounding value you are getting from...
Holiday Hustle: Building Now, Launching After Break
The Bad News: I didn't go on vacation this holiday season (had some personal things that kept my family in town). The Good News: I've been in beast mode when it comes to building. Having so much fun. Lots of...
Solve Customer Problems First; Worry About Inference Later
I agree, and I give this advice to my team regularly: Focus first on solving the customer problem and creating value *first* (don't fret the inference cost -- yet). By the time you have something deployed at scale where inference starts to...
Turn Boring Tasks Into AI‑driven Efficiency, Then Deliver Value
Pro tip: If you're doing work that is boring and feels like a grind, you can often inject excitement by spending some time on figuring out how to do it better/smarter or in a more automated way with AI. Don't get...
Improving HubSpot's Core Boosts 270k Companies
These are kinds of things that delight customers (and founders). When a core part of HubSpot gets better, 270k companies benefit.
Storyteller Roles Become High-Leverage Hires for Startups
I'm hearing that more startups and growth companies are hiring for the "storyteller" role. I think that's cool. It's a very high-leverage role/skill.
Sergey Brin Could Be Google's Satya Nadella
The question I've been asking myself for the last 3 years: Who will do for Google what Satya did for Microsoft? Turns out, it might be Sergey Brin. Not that he's going to take on the CEO role, but that...
Great Leaders Embrace Judgment, Diversity, and Contradiction
There's a lot to learn from Amazon in terms of how they execute and how they think about leadership. This is one of favorite snippets from the book "Think Like Amazon": “Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment...
Customer Conversations Beat Aggregated Data Every Time
I'm collaborating with a small team at HubSpot this week on a project. I'm meeting with them tomorrow, so they sent me a Loom to view in preparation for that meeting (smart). If you can provide context async, that's an...
Be Rank‑Worthy, Train AI Agents Like Teammates
Did a recent podcast appearance with Rowan Cheung of "The Rundown" fame (full YouTube video in comments). Some of the ideas discussed: * The best way to be rank in Google is to be rank-worthy. The best way to get...
From SEO to AEO: AI Insights and Quirky Strategies
I don't do a lot of podcasts, but I enjoyed this conversation with @rowancheung. Covered a lot of territory, including SEO->AEO, AI (of course) and some of my quirky ways.
From Hotel Rooms to HubSpot: Turning Crisis Into Growth
Always fun to be speaking back on the MIT campus. Fun fact: In the early days of HubSpot, the shared office we were working in had a fire in the building. We had to evacuate for days. So, Brian Halligan...
Focus Beats Custom AI Coding for SaaS Replacements
"Why should companies pay for SaaS (HR/CRM/ERP/etc.) when they could just vibe code them?" I get variations of this question or comment with some regularity (granted, it's sometimes just me talking to myself). Here are some biased (but hopefully, well-considered) thoughts: 1)...
Focus Beats AI‑built SaaS; Stick with Proven Platforms
"Why should companies pay for SaaS (HR/CRM/ERP/etc.) when they could just vibe code them?" I get variations of this question or comment with some regularity (granted, it's sometimes just me talking to myself). Here are some biased (but hopefully, well-considered)...
Group Bots and Recorders Into One Zoom Video Box
Idea for Zoom : Have a special designation/detection for participants in a meeting that are agents, bots and meeting recorders. Put all of these participants in their own single "box" in the video gallery (so you could show up to...
Mission Defines Today, Vision Guides Tomorrow
What's the difference between a company's mission and vision? Here's how I think about it... A mission states who the company is, what it is pursuing and why. It's describes what is (hopefully) happening *today*. A vision describes where the...
Domain Names Now Tokenized, Investor Highlights Doma
tl;dr: We now have tokenization of domain names. Full disclosure: I'm an indie investor in Doma.
Seeking Simple, Consistent UI Without Unwanted Design Elements
CURRENT STATUS: Trying to get really professional web UI/UX out of Codex 5.1, but struggling. Looking to build a mini "design language" for my projects. Current issue: Despite specific instructions to avoid purple accents and buttons and such, it just...
Claude Opus 4.5 Streamlines Tool Calling, Cuts Token Bloat
BREAKING: Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.5 Several of the upgrades are squarely at people like me, developers building agents. I'm particularly impressed with how elegantly they handle one of the biggest issues developers are dealing with: tool calling. MCP is...
New AI Agent Adds Visual Timeline to Company Research
It's shipping Sunday! (Not all days are Shipping Sundays for me -- but today is). As you may recall, a few weeks ago, I launched a simple but super-useful (at least for me) AI agent called CompanyResearch .ai The premise...
AI Image Generator with Real‑Time Revision and Nano Banana Pro
OK, so it's past 2am (my usual bedtime), but I have something too exciting not to launch/share. It's not really quite ready (consider it "alpha"), but when it works, it's super cool. Here's the deal: I have a business-focused Image...
Rapid Iterations Boost CompanyResearch.ai with GPT‑5.1
It's almost 3am, but I'm on a roll. UPDATE: It *was* 3am last night when I started writing this, but I (wisely) decided *not* to post this last night. Day 3 of the CompanyResearch .ai launch. Just released an update:...
From FOMO to TOBI: Thrilled by GPT‑5.1 Codex
BREAKING NEWS: GPT 5.1 is out...and there was much rejoicing. It has been about a week since I last used Claude Code (I've written about why previously). OpenAI's Codex CLI is now my default daily driver for vibe coding (agentic...
Launch: All-in-One AI Company Research Tool
Woo hoo! Launching my latest project, the Company Research agent. Was going to launch it at 1am last night, but decided there was no reason to tempt the fates. It's an agent that lets you...umm...easily do company research. I built...
AI Curiosity Outpaces Capability; Innovators Reinvent, Not Trim
The latest McKinsey State of AI 2025 report just dropped and I'll cautiously say it's pretty good. (Cautiously, because I'm a bit leery of reports from big management consulting companies -- they're often very mega-enterprise focused and I'm a startup/SMB...
Cursor Team Delivers Hot Quality‑of‑life Upgrades
Have to hand it to the Cursor team, they are on 🔥! Love these quality-of-life improvements.
Ship Small Wins Daily to Boost Customer Delight
Never spend more time debating the priority of a product improvement than it would take to actually go ahead and do it. Small improvements add-up and they're morale boosters for both customers and the team. In the early times at...
Lean on Instinctive Team Members When Decisions Matter
You likely have people on your team that have been consistently *right* most of the time. They tend to push for a particular decision/path and turn out to be right over the fullness of time. Let's call them "Ingrid The...
HubSpot Acquires XFunnel to Accelerate AI Search Optimization
Woo hoo! Thrilled to announce that HubSpot is acquiring XFunnel . The fantastic team at XFunnel has been on the frontier in helping businesses monitor and strengthen their presence across AI search engines. Yes, this the AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)...
Real‑time Voice Will Dominate AI’s Next Interface Layer
Whoever nails real-time voice stands to win the interface layer to AI. Not screens. Not chat bubbles. One of the startups doing great work in this area is @Cartesia (disclosure: I'm an indie investor in the company). Their Sonic-3 low latency models are...
Serverless Python Hits 250 MB Limit, Trim Dependencies
CURRENT STATUS: Pushing up against the Vercel 250M size limit on a serverless Python function (in my case, app.py for a Flask app). This used to be a 50M limit (which is why I hosted my Python apps elsewhere). When...
Launching Professional Image Generation Agent – Stay Tuned
Happy Diwali! Note: I'm working on a new image generation agent built for professionals/businesses. Still early, but stay tuned.
2000+ Public Agents, 54k Citizen‑Built Private Agents
Woo hoo! There are now 2,000+ public agents on Agent.ai and we've made it easier to search/discover them. And, if you can't quite find what you're looking for, you can use our Agent Builder to create your own. 54,000+ private...