Greg Isenberg - You asked.

Hey folks,

Lots of you have asked if I can do more "spicy takes" on the tech industry. I say "let them eat takes".

I’m feeling spicy today. I’ll say the quiet parts out loud:

1. Corporate job security in is an illusion right now. Somehow it's more safe to be an entrepreneur with no health insurance than working at a mid-level job at Google.
2. No-one is talking about how Discord opened up their platform for apps a few days ago. All of a sudden you have access to their 200M users. Fortunes will be made.
3. AI will put hundreds of thousands out of work. When I scroll through X, I see people saying there’s zero chance that AI replaces jobs, arguing “It will make them more productive.” I don’t think so. It’s not rocket science. If they are more productive, there will be less need for people. Those people will have other jobs. Am I missing something here?
4. People made fun of Mark Zuckerberg over the metaverse for like 2 years. Zuck was right. More and more interest in VR is coming from everyday people. More and more applications are becoming interesting. As soon as they stop looking just like “face computers,” that’s when it’ll take off. For now, reality is the ultimate “virtual reality.” Can we agree that Zuck was onto something with this metaverse thing?
5. Memecoins are gambling. What is the difference between going to a casino and trading memecoins?
6. Creators become the next presidents and prime ministers. We saw reality TV stars and celebrities become presidents—Trump, Schwarzenegger etc. Soon, creators will be too. Ron DeSantis spent $6,831 for every vote he received this year. Wild. If it cost Biden the same thing, and he gets as many votes as in 2020, he will have spent $550 billion dollars getting elected. Creators will be way more efficient at distribution than legacy politicians, for better or worse.
7. Every social app looks exactly the same. Like literally the same. It’s all short-form videos and algorithms optimized for time spent. There will be a breakout social app that looks nothing like what we’ve got going on right now and it's going to be glorious.
8. The average software engineering job is one of those jobs that’s going to get automated like crazy. The days of a computer science intern getting $10k/month right out of college are soon gone.
9. The HEIC file format is a sham. If Apple had a heart, they would use JPEGs.
10. Workshops are the new webinars. Most people don’t realize they are subscribing to a bunch of newsletters by signing up.
11. VCs are in soul-searching mode. Founders are realizing they could bootstrap 99% of the startup ideas they have. Prices of deep tech, clean tech, medical device, and AI chip companies are set to skyrocket as VCs look to fund capital-intensive businesses.
12. The average founder of a GPT wrapper company will make more money than the average venture-backed AI startup. The talent war among venture-backed AI companies is fierce. If you can keep your GPT wrapper startup really niche and under 5 employees, you’ll probably do well. ChatGPT is getting unbundled, and unbundled fast.
13. Building a newsletter business isn’t much of a startup. I love building newsletters; it’s way easier but virtually zero “product risk”.
14. SaaS is moving to one-time payments and it's going to work. People think one-time payments or lifetime deals are not sustainable. I disagree. One-time payments are sustainable. You just need a growth loop and a high enough price point. We’ll see more of this.
15. You’d be surprised how many startups spend millions of dollars a year of other people’s money trying to scale a business without a dialed offer.
16. No-one listens to podcasts ads. Okay maybe not no-one, but like 1%. I definitely don't, do you?
17. ‘Clean’ has become the new ‘fat-free’—a marketing masterstroke. From food to cleaning products, this label has captured the hearts of health-conscious consumers. It’s not just about the quality of the products; it’s about the brilliance of branding.
18. You’ll swap LLMs like you change your clothes. People think ChatGPT will be the next Google, but the reality is the next Google will be spread out among hundreds of LLMs.
19. The most entertaining creators will be known. It's a serious world and people are looking for a little fun. If you're creating content, don't take yourself too seriously.

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Next up, bookmarks I saved this week worth reading

#1

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Chief AI Officer @chiefaioffice VC-backed AI employee startups are a trend. Here are some that raised in 2024 + total funding: Software Engineer - Cognition ($21M+) Software Engineer - Magic ($145M+) Product Manager - Version Lens ($1.6M) Data Scientist - TextQL ($4.1M) Data Analyst - Fluent ($7.5M) Chief… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1767680581112873242 6:34 PM • Mar 12, 2024 275 Retweets 1719 Likes Read 49 replies

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Makes sense. The agent war has begun.

#2

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Orange Book 🍊📖 @orangebook_ Your most valuable assets will be the same in twenty years: - a healthy, fit body that shows discipline - a clear mind that shows ambition, curiosity - a loving family and loyal friends who care - the freedom to live on your own terms - a meaningful purpose that makes you grow 10:22 AM • Mar 10, 2024 820 Retweets 4166 Likes Read 41 replies

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Could not agree more. "Simple" as that.

#3

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Ben Lang @benln When I joined Notion, we had one channel: general It worked quite well for a few years. Any update related to engineering, marketing, people, product, or anything else was posted in general. Three reasons I thought this was great: 1) I would think twice before posting… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1767571173427023926 11:19 AM • Mar 12, 2024 7 Retweets 153 Likes Read 20 replies

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No one needs another Slack channel. This was an interesting approach to Slack channels. 1 channel.

#4

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Darius Dan @idariusdan GAP logo redesign is estimated to have cost around $100 million, back in 2010. After one week only they returned to the original logo. 👌 3:30 PM • Mar 14, 2024 2 Retweets 107 Likes Read 28 replies

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I'm a big believer in the power of design. But this is next level. No-one should spend $100M on a brand. That why I love Dispatch so much. Brand/design for cheap. It reminds me of that Ralph Caplan quote:

”Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.”

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Thank you for reading Greg's Letter. I hope you found it valuable. Forward to a friend if you did or share on social to get others thinking.

I'll keep writing if you keep reading. I read every reply if you care to reply :). You might get an answer back.

Until next week.

Be well,

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