[Saadia] Manifesto

Finding your audience, your voice, and your winter jacket.

An async podcast by Saadia Carbis and Joshua Wold.

Chapters

• 0:00 Follow-up on follow-up
• 0:44 AI model consolidation
• 3:20 AI MoE
• 5:11 Safeguarding your job against AI
• 7:02 You've got to love doing it
• 8:30 Finding your audience
• 10:53 Finding your voice
• 14:25 Writing frequency
• 15:52 Manifestos
• 17:33 Weather

Transcript

0:00

Hi, welcome to Async. This is Saadia. Async is a back and forth conversation between Joshua and myself about technology, app development, and remote work. All right, Joshua, it's follow-up time and the first bit of follow-up is on your meta question of how we should structure follow-up in our episodes. I think just quickly on this that we should keep it as is for now. I don't want to, I want to reduce the complexity and I think that that might just mean less episodes. And also I kind of like the sort of messy back and forth nature and keeping track of conversations. It sort of works for me. All right, you also talked about consolidation of AI models and I think you're right about that. I think we'll see definitely a consolidation and I think what's likely to happen is we'll end up with the classic two big players plus an open source alternative. That is something that tends to happen a lot in tech. It's sort of a natural resting place. I'm sure that Stratechery has written about this before. Maybe two big players, a third place, and an open source alternative, something like that. And there's no question OpenAI is going to be one of those players. Why? Is it because they have the best models? No. Is it because they have the best branding? Yes. I really think that the branding and brand recognition counts for so, so much. And that's why I would be bullish on OpenAI. Also, they just recently announced, I saw this a few days ago and then I was going to tell you about it. But then MacRumors reported on it and I was like, oh man, MacRumors stole my thunder. Anyway, Sam Altman was on Twitter talking about how their plan is that GPT 4.5 would be released soon. And it would be the last non-reasoning model. So like 01, 03, their reasoning models, they think about their responses. And 4.5 would be the last non-reasoning model. And then after that, we'll get ChatGPT 5. And that will be a model that knows whether or not it should reason. A model that will take in the query, decide, should I reason about this or not? Should I use my search functions that are available to me or not? Should I use this coding function that's available to me or not? And I think that that in itself is a consolidation of models, not necessarily what you were talking about, which I think is more a consolidation of AI companies. But still, that is, I think, a step in the right direction. And I'm kind of excited about that, really excited, because that is the biggest pain point about using ChatGPT today is trying to figure out which model to use. And they've all got these weird names and who knows what does what. And yeah, so that's going to be good. It's related to this concept. I'm not sure if you've come across it, but I think it's a concept worth at least being aware of, which is very popular in AI, in current AI models called MOE. You'll see it usually as an acronym MOE, which stands for mixture of experts. And what a lot of models are doing now is that they'll be trained on maybe like five, six, eight, like specific skills, right? They'll have a certain number of like really, really deep levels of knowledge and ability in five or six to different areas. And then what will happen is that they'll take in a query and they'll go, oh, that I can refer to my internal expert on that topic. And that expert will then answer the question. So a little bit more complicated than that. Just trying to simplify it, but that's how a lot of modern models are being built and it's an optimization technique. And I think that that is sort of also related to this idea of consolidation of models and being able to choose whether or not to reason. And I wonder if we will see more information in the future about this mixture of experts or whether it will be combined into a new acronym that relates to choosing capabilities in addition to choosing knowledge wells. All right. Continuing with AI, you sort of, we were talking about the different roles on a product team, how there should be a product champion, there should be an engineering lead, there should be a design lead, and maybe a marketing person. Love Seth Godin's work that you referenced on not screaming into the void when it comes to trying to get your product out there, but rather asking permission. That is brilliant. And I think a guiding principle for all of the products I've built and plan to build in the future. So maybe, and you mentioned, it's hard to find people who have a good sort of Venn diagram overlap. They might be a great director of engineering, but they don't know anything about marketing. They don't know a single thing about sales or product. Or they might be a great marketer, but they don't know anything about engineering. And then you've got the worst case, not the worst case, the most common case, which is a product person who doesn't know anything about engineering or programming. And I think this is my constant call to product managers everywhere. Learn to code. Seriously, I think it's so important. And maybe this is something that people can do to maybe safeguard their jobs a little bit against AI. I think it's a really, really helpful thing in terms of your career in general to have just that little bit of overlap with other fields. I think it's so important and people, employers really, really appreciate it. But also, maybe it's also a good shield against AI. Being able to work closely in a small team is something that AI is going to really struggle with for a long time. All right. Next topic. You were asking about the fractional podcast and whether or not you should continue doing it. And it's a difficult question for you because, you know, on the one hand, you enjoy meeting these guests and talking with Lance. But on the other hand, you're not working fractionally anymore. And I suppose it does take up a fair bit of time as well. I think though the answer here is pretty straightforward, at least from my perspective. Are you enjoying it? Because if you're not enjoying it, your audience will know that you're not enjoying it. And also, it's just not going to be sustainable, you know. Sometimes you do need to put in the hard yards like we were talking about on a previous episode. Sometimes you just need to get in there and get the content out. I know I've just started a new podcast. And the first few episodes, they actually really suck. And so, we're just pushing through because we enjoy recording the episodes. And sometimes you just need to power on, right? But if you feel that the love, that the joy has dissipated, then I think it's probably worth just letting go. And that's a simple answer for you, you know. If you're enjoying it, your audience will recognize that you're enjoying it and you should continue. We have been having this conversation over several episodes on how to capture a podcast audience or a blog audience in the age of social media when you don't engage yourself with social media. And I wish there was an answer to this question, but maybe we're converging on something. We'll see. Maybe we should be on, like, Blue Sky or something like that. But again, it feels so promotional, you know. Like, if you're on Blue Sky, you've got two options, right? If you're on there and your primary goal is to promote your podcast, either you just get in there and scream into the void trying to promote your podcast. And I don't think that that's going to be very effective, actually. And also, like we just mentioned, we're not really big fans of screaming into the void style marketing or whatever. So the other option is to then engage in Blue Sky, talk with people, build community, find your audience, back and forth conversations on various different topics. Maybe people will follow you and see that you've got a podcast and maybe they'll follow the podcast and you're not necessarily frequently posting about the new episodes. Maybe you post every now and then, but you're not overly promotional. See, the problem with that approach is it just takes up so much time. It takes up a lot of headspace and it's not an activity either of us want to be doing. So even a new social media app that maybe presents a lot of opportunity like Blue Sky or Mastodon or something like that. I just I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to work for me. I don't think it's going to work for you. And we need to find a different a different way. Social media isn't it. I was thinking, though, like maybe our audience aren't on social media either. You know, the types of people we are trying to speak to. Maybe they're not on social media anyway. And maybe we need to find our audience where they're where they are. And so other podcasts, blogs, that sort of thing. Group chats. And so if you are the kind of person who wants to live in a world where social media isn't a requirement for success or for building some sort of community, then please consider sharing this podcast with your group, with your community, wherever they are hanging out. I'm struggling a bit at the moment with my blog. We were talking about writing in the previous episode. Talked about should you write when you're not feeling it or when you're sick? And I don't know. I'm torn about this. But. So I'm really struggling because I thought I had figured out my voice, but I'm starting to realize that sometimes. My posts can come across as a bit condescending or patronizing or just a bit preachy. And even if that's not how they come across, that's how they come across in my head, which undermines my confidence in them. And you can. I think you can tell that my confidence is undermined. Both in the way that I'm more reluctant to share them or just in the writing style. At the same time, though, I don't want to water down my writing by over personalizing it. You know, like when I avoid. Oh, in my opinion, this is, you know, the this is the facts or, you know, there's there's all of these words you can use to soften your language. Like, I don't know. In my experience or for me, I find that blah, blah, blah. It's writing is more impactful and enjoyable when you just come out and say it instead of saying, according to me. So, anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to find that balance between patronizing and being opinionated and direct. And I don't think I've quite got there. Do you have any tips on that? You've been writing a lot more and a lot longer than I have. Maybe you've found a way through there. Also, link blogs. I could just do that. I could just post a link to cool stuff and add a few sentences about why I like it. It's been bothering me lately. I'm in a group chat where someone tends to just like post a link and say, this is cool. And I want to know why. What is it about this that you like? And so, you know, I could do that with a link blog. But the thing is, like, that's it's really high value for the reader. A link blog because they're getting, like, a curated selection of things to read, which is great. And it's not that much work. So, why not? Like, it sounds great. But the thing is, my goal in writing isn't just to link to cool stuff. It's really to put a version of myself out there on the internet for, I don't know, other people to see me, to engage with me, for my children to learn more about me one day, for AI to gobble me up and produce an alternate clone, a digital clone. That's why I blog, you know, not really to get a digital clone. But that's, I guess, like a natural side effect that could be cool, could be possible. So, anyway, back to whether or not to write when you're sick or not feeling it. I'm really torn because I'm definitely a do it every day or not at all kind of guy. I think you really need to get the practice in you to get good, right? And if you're not doing it every day, it's going to drop off and I need that momentum, need to maintain. But then on the other hand, I know that my best writing is when inspiration strikes. And occasionally I'll have an idea and I just need to get it written down straight away. Or I know it'll dissipate in my mind. So, maybe the answer is that it's a combination of the two. Like, maybe you do need to write every day and also write when inspiration strikes. And just be okay with having lots of posts that aren't necessarily your best work. And then, like you said, maybe you can have a curated page of your favorites or your essays or however you like. But I do think you do need to be putting yourself out there every day. I was sick recently and could barely think straight. So, I think these are also good opportunities to be a bit more creative. I don't know if you recall, but I was just like, I really couldn't think straight. So, I just did a shrimp of consciousness post. And it didn't really make any sense. And that's okay. All right. So, now my turn for a topic. The thing I wanted to talk to you about this week is manifestos. I love a good product manifesto. Hey, it has a great product manifesto. And the product that I can't remember right now, but I'm using for my email newsletter, also has a great product manifesto on the front. And it made me think, maybe I should have a manifesto. Certainly, if I'm going to create a product, I think, you know, having those like that big vision defined and public and available to your customers, that can be really, really good. And for me, when I see a product that has this sort of foundational statement, I get excited. You know, I'm like, yeah, I'll back this. Like, that's a huge thing. And these people really stand for something. And I love that. What if I had a statement? If what if I had a manifesto on my blog somewhere? Maybe a personal manifesto is a big. Yeah, I don't know. But also, what about my products that I'm building? And it made me think, do you think that when you're building a product, you have this like core foundational belief and you write a manifesto first and then you shape everything that you do with your product around that manifesto, around those core guiding principles? Or is it the opposite? Do you sort of build your product, figure out how it works, what you like, and then reflect on that and do some like introspection and figure out these like core founding principles intrinsically? I'm kind of jealous of your weather, by the way. I've never been anywhere as cold as what you're describing. Cold as I've ever been was like in Zurich, I think, and it was zero Celsius. So that was that was my coldest ever. And it was freezing. I hated it. But also, it's been really, really a hot summer here. And I'm just so desperate to be able to just I would be so lovely to be outside and cold. So much better than sweating in the shade.