It's been a while
If you're getting this, it's because you signed up for a newsletter I said I would write (and never did).
It's been a while! How have you been?
If you're getting this, it's because you signed up for a newsletter I said I would write (and never did).
I'm taking a new approach. I asked a friend of mine, a great writer, how he writes so well. He said he just writes like he's writing to a friend. So that's what I'm going to do.
ON MY MIND
AI has completely consumed me, my business, and how we operate day to day. I came across this from Nassim Taleb, and it stuck with me:
Crazy that it was written 3 years ago.
That second point is why I'm optimistic about our business. We have a deep understanding of ecommerce, retail, warehousing, operations, and how it all ties together. That's been our edge as times change. Today we're putting agents and structure in our clients' hands, so they get to market faster and with fewer mistakes.
Here are some fun ways I've used AI outside my business.
WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO
The apartment. My wife Hannah and I are doing a full gut reno, and working with the architect and contractors has really been a labor of love.
AI made its way into construction too. With Mandarin being the tile guys' language, I wanted to make sure they set the tiles right. So I gave Claude the tiles and the architect's plans; it made a diagram, and we texted it to him. He fixed it and hasn't made a mistake since.
My dad, with 30+ years as a building engineer, has been guiding me through all of it. It's great to watch my father in his zone of genius as he helps me finish the project. Since I was a kid, renovations always brought us closer together.
A jacket. I gave ChatGPT my measurements from a photo and the specs of an Arc'teryx jacket I wanted. It said it would fit. It did. Haven't bought it yet, but I will soon 😃
Max. When my family dog Max died, I started making a video game in Blender of him walking through the West Village with Frida, our 7-year-old Boston terrier, trying to find their way home. Never finished it, but it was fun to learn Blender through prompts and remember Max.
SOMETHING I READ
I've been reading Who Is Michael Ovitz? Michael founded Creative Artists Agency, one of the most influential talent and sports agencies in the world.
As my career changes, I've been thinking a lot about how I pitch, how things are perceived, and how to create win-win situations when the stakes are high.
When Michael was pitching talent, he curated the whole experience to make them feel special, from the moment they pulled into the parking lot to the moment they walked into his office. I love that. The book opens with how he pitched David Letterman, knowing he was going to tell him what he didn't want to hear, but needed to.
Anyway, that's what I've been up to. How you been?
John
P.S. A tool I found that's interesting: herdr (herdr.dev). It lets me run multiple LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) in one terminal, including 3–4 Claudes at once. Right now I've got one agent auditing a website, another scanning for specific leads, and one helping me build a sales deck. Maybe it's fake productivity; maybe it's productive. I don't know, but it's fun.