Glowforge CEO, Wharton Research Fellow, Robot Turtles creator, Proud Dad
My wife pointed out that most of my shirts predate the pandemic, and it was time to shop for something new. This is not something I enjoy. So, like most things I don’t enjoy, I decided to try and delegate it to AI. I started playing around with image generators. I used the prompt “Full…
Tuesday, 9:40am, Seattle. Whatsapp buzzed. Harper sent a link – a new project from Steve Yegge that makes AI agents more effective. Worth a try. I opened Codex CLI* in Powershell and said, “Install Beads“. I didn’t read the compatibility notes. I didn’t check to see if it had Windows support. I needed coffee. Spring…
Something new is possible. Four weeks ago, I braved the gaggle of Waymos nosing around the Presidio to check out Connected Stack. I plopped next to my buddy James Cham, notorious partner at Bloomberg Beta. We started swapping stories while earnest founders pitched their wares on stage. James started telling me strange things about his…
June 2023. ChatGPT was six months old. We’d launched our first AI feature, Magic Canvas, three months before. I was meeting with our friends at Joann Fabric (may they rest in polyester) to explain what GenAI was about. They weren’t alone. Everyone was trying to figure out what it meant. Not much has changed since…
Every time I travel to a city, I wrack my brain to try to remember who lives there so I can reach out to visit. And I’m terrible at it. So I found a new solution. Step 1: Download your whole calendar. I used Google Takeout. Step 2: In ChatGPT with o3, upload the file…
(Yes, the day job is still Glowforge and lasers, and I still love it!) I’ve signed on as a research fellow at Wharton’s Generative AI Lab with the incredible Drs Ethan and Lilach Mollick. I’m working with them to share some of the the lessons we’ve learned building generative AI tools at Glowforge so more people can…
Last week, I attended an unconference called ORD Camp. At the event, attendees create sessions together around their passions and expertise. Everyone is a “speaker”; there’s no hierarchy of VIPs and attendees. Participants this year included astronauts, public school teachers, national reporters, government officials, and radio and TV show hosts, to name just a few.…
Six years ago, I wrote a story about how someone might have died because I procrastinated dealing with my inbox. In short, I signed up two decades and change ago as a marrow donor. 1% of people are ever matched. I was matched. And I missed my chance to save the life of another human…
In Chapter 16 of my book I talk a lot about angel investing. First up: “Angel investor” is a stupid and meaningless term, right up there with “stock market investor” or “bank account holder”. It means someone did something, once. It means nothing more. Angel investors have little in common, and range from occasional dilettantes who…
In my new book “Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook“, I got to retell some amazing stories from CEOs of companies large and small. One of them was from Elissa Shevinsky, CEO and founder of Glimpse. There’s a few details that the story left out, though, and I wanted to touch on those here. I deeply respect…