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A rogue OpenAI agent allegedly hacks Hugging Face, the React Compiler lands in Rust, and a fresh Rust full-stack framework ships. Scott, Wes, and CJ also dig into Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement, Claude Opus 5, and the campaign to kill the cookie banner. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:03 React Compiler Ported to Rust 06:39 Vercel releases TS to Native Compiler 19:26 Standard Agent Zen Garden 29:14 In-House LLM at Netflix 34:14 Brought to you by Sentry.io 35:15 Anthropic to pay $1.5B over book piracy 38:06 Open Weights and American AI Leadership 40:27 Kimi K3 Weights Released 44:26 Claude 5 Context Engineering 45:40 Writing Code For Agents to Read 48:02 Gemini 3.6 Flash / 3.5 Flash Cyber 50:44 Qwen Image 3.0 Released 54:46 Cactus Hybrid - Fine Tune Small Models 56:06 topcoat - Rust Full Stack Framework 01:01:00 SvelteKit 3 Migration Notes 01:05:16 Canvas UI 01:07:26 Jelly UI 01:09:24 Kill the Cookie Banner 01:12:31 Hugging Face Hacked by OpenAI 01:21:27 AI Alliance for AI Safety and Security 01:24:51 htmx 4: the game for gameboy 01:29:00 Stolen Buttons 01:29:33 Fonts in Use 01:32:39 3d Splats Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:45:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/630 http://relay.fm/upgrade/630 Repeat 600 Times 630 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. clean 7806 It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Backblaze: Unlimited, easy data protection. Try it for free today and get 20% off with code upgrade20. Claude: For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Links and Show Notes: Our Essential Mac Utilities: Myke: Blip Dropzone Moom Cleanshot X Screens Tailscale Amphetamine Granola Popclip Pcalc Switchglass Timery The Clock iStatMenus SuperAgent ⠀ Jason: Swiftbar Keyboard Maestro Text Sniper Mic Drop Retrobatch ImageOptim Carbon Copy Cloner Thaw Devonthink Calibre Audio Hijack Loopback Farrago Elsewhen Transmit HomeControl iZotope RX Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Thunderbolt 5 Dock – CalDigit Quick Tip: Prevent a disk from auto-mounting – Six Colors Cortex - Relay Personal Retreat PDF - MacSparky
Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:45:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/630 http://relay.fm/upgrade/630 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. clean 7806 It's a Summer of Fun takeover! Jason asks Myke about the state of his current workflows, and we both highlight our current Macs and current favorite Mac utilities. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Backblaze: Unlimited, easy data protection. Try it for free today and get 20% off with code upgrade20. Claude: For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Links and Show Notes: Our Essential Mac Utilities: Myke: Blip Dropzone Moom Cleanshot X Screens Tailscale Amphetamine Granola Popclip Pcalc Switchglass Timery The Clock iStatMenus SuperAgent ⠀ Jason: Swiftbar Keyboard Maestro Text Sniper Mic Drop Retrobatch ImageOptim Carbon Copy Cloner Thaw Devonthink Calibre Audio Hijack Loopback Farrago Elsewhen Transmit HomeControl iZotope RX Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Thunderbolt 5 Dock – CalDigit Quick Tip: Prevent a disk from auto-mounting – Six Colors Cortex - Relay Personal Retreat PDF - MacSparky
Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/181 http://relay.fm/cortex/181 The Workflow Behind Track Star*, with Jack Coyne 181 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. Myke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. clean 3329 Subtitle: State of the WorkflowMyke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Backblaze: Unlimited cloud backup for macOS and Windows. Try it for free today and get 20% off with code cortex20. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code cortex26. Guest Starring: Jack Coyne Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Check out the Cortex Brand store – Premium Productivity Tools Submit Feedback Jack Coyne – Instagram Public Opinion Public Opinion – YouTube Track Star* – Instagram Track Star* – TikTok Track Star* – YouTube Track Star* with Pianist Lang Lang – Instagram Jack's Road Trip Videos - YouTube Testing Elmo's Music Knowledge | Track Star* - YouTube Air Why This Knicks Parade Was Different - Public Opinion - YouTube
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Sentry https://sentry.io/twist Agree https://agree.com Northwest Registered Agent https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Today's show: French ex-martial artist Bilal Kharouni is building his longevity startup from Okinawa, one of the world's "blue zones." (These are regions with the most people living long, healthy lives.) In this TWiST taping from Founder University in Tokyo, Jason investigates why a $200K raise in Japan can out-build a $2M raise in San Francisco, and why the best moat for biological AI isn't the model; it's the data no one else has. Plus a tactical and practical discussion of product market fit, why Ekei killed a growing side business to maintain focus, Japan's fast-track for regenerative medicine, and hitting the upper limits for consumer longevity gadgets. Plus a live Q&A with Founder U attendees. Guest Bilal Kharouni on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bilal-kharouni/ Ekei Labs: https://www.ekeilabs.com/ Relevant Links Okinawa Institute of Science and Tech (OIST): ****https://www.oist.jp/ Life Biosciences: https://www.lifebiosciences.com/ NewLimit: https://www.newlimit.com/ Centivax: https://www.centivax.com/ Medical Daily: "First Human Trial to Reverse Aging Gets FDA Clearance": https://www.medicaldaily.com/first-human-trial-reverse-aging-just-got-fda-clearance-what-epigenetic-reprogramming-actually-476076 Tim Friede snake venom article from Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/he-injected-himself-venom-decades-can-his-antibodies-help-snakebite-victims Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/ Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/ Station F Paris startup campus: https://stationf.co/ Japan Times: "PM Takaichi sleeps only 2-4 hours a night": https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/14/japan/politics/takaichi-sleep-overwork/ FDLI: "Japan's Regenerative Medicine Regulatory Pathways": https://www.fdli.org/2019/02/global-focus-japans-regenerative-medicine-regulatory-pathways-encouraging-innovation-and-patient-access/ FDA: "Right to Try": https://www.fda.gov/patients/learn-about-expanded-access-and-other-treatment-options/right-try STAT News: "Are Blue Zones Real?": https://www.statnews.com/2026/05/04/are-blue-zones-real-new-scrutiny-longevity-hot-spots/ Timestamps: 0:00 Founder University is back in Japan! 4:05 What Ekei Labs does 5:13 Why Japan is a longevity hub 8:52 The AI biological moat 10:05 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST 15:58 Right to try and the ethics of experimental therapies 22:30 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life! 24:49 Japan's fast-track regenerative medicine law 26:03 Raising in Japan vs. the US 31:32 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist 40:44 Why Ekei killed a profitable service to focus 47:11 Have Blue Zones been debunked? 48:56 How socialization may extend lifespan 51:07 Founder Q&A: Booked vs. forecast revenue 55:42 Amazon's "bar raiser" framework 1:03:31 Social robots and loneliness 1:04:29 Jason on health and hustle culture Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/ Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/181 http://relay.fm/cortex/181 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. Myke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. clean 3329 Subtitle: State of the WorkflowMyke talks to Jack Coyne about turning the viral hit Track Star* into a media business, growing a creative team without adding complexity, and building new shows while protecting what made the original special. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Backblaze: Unlimited cloud backup for macOS and Windows. Try it for free today and get 20% off with code cortex20. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code cortex26. Guest Starring: Jack Coyne Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Check out the Cortex Brand store – Premium Productivity Tools Submit Feedback Jack Coyne – Instagram Public Opinion Public Opinion – YouTube Track Star* – Instagram Track Star* – TikTok Track Star* – YouTube Track Star* with Pianist Lang Lang – Instagram Jack's Road Trip Videos - YouTube Testing Elmo's Music Knowledge | Track Star* - YouTube Air Why This Knicks Parade Was Different - Public Opinion - YouTube
Learn from Mordecai's watchful care of Esther how we too can pray for our children.To read the original post, visit https://www.theapollosproject.com/a-sentry-keeping-watch-in-prayer/
This is the story of the hacker known as "USDoD". When he was young he had a vengeance on the US, and this lead him down a road of continual data breaches, until he hacked into National Public Data, which is when his spree went one step too far.SponsorsSupport for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.This show is sponsored by Maze. Maze uses AI agents to triage and remediate cloud vulnerabilities by figuring out what's actually exploitable, not just what's theoretically risky. They remove the noise, prioritize vulns that matter, and manage remediation, so your team stops wasting time on meaningless vulns. Visit MazeHQ.com/darknet for more information.This show is sponsored by Sentry.IO. Sentry wants to help you monitor your environment for problems. They do error tracking, stack tracing, debugging, all so that your developers can diagnose, fix, and optimize the performance of their code. This makes it so developers ship more reliable code faster. Learn more at sentry.io.View all active sponsors.SourcesFull list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/177/
DOCTOR DOOM SPEAKS & STEVE ROGERS RETURNS!! Join the Rejects & Media Knights at the “con with a cause” charity event MultiCon on August 8th at 11am at the Skirball in Los Angeles. Get your tickets now at https://www.MultiConLA.com & receive a special discount with code REJECTS10 John, Aaron Alexander, & Jon Maturan REACT to the official Avengers: Doomsday trailer for the first time, getting our first look at Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom along with a more foreboding appearance from Chris Hemsworth as Thor, plus the return of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) along with the film's MASSIVE ensemble that includes the X-Men (Professor Charles Xavier, Cyclops, Gambit, Mystique), New Avengers (Yelena Belova, Red Guardian, US Agent, Ghost, Sentry), The Fantastic Four (Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm / The Thing, HERBIE, Sam Wilson's Captain America, Shang-Chi, Bucky Barnes, Scott Lang (Ant-Man), Cassie Lang, The Wakandans / Talokan (Shuri, M'Baku, Namor), and all an even heavier tone setting up for next year's Secret Wars! Follow Aaron On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealaaronalexander/?hl=en Follow Jon Maturan: https://www.instagram.com/jonmaturan/?hl=en Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad: Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM: FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dax Raad, co-founder of OpenCode, joins Scott and Wes to talk remote dev servers, OpenCode 2.0, and why his team is “addicted” to AI models they're not even allowed to name yet. Show Notes 00:00 Intro 00:43 Welcome to Syntax! 01:22 Remote Development Environments and Their Benefits Dax's post Latitude.sh exe.dev 06:24 The Setup: Tmux and Long-Running Sessions 07:15 Brought to you by Sentry! 08:12 Integrating AI with Personal Projects 11:21 Open Code 2.0: Features and Improvements 17:15 Software Engineering Methodology and Design Philosophy 21:33 Model Routing and AI Integration 23:58 The Evolution of AI Models 26:23 Comparing Open Source and Proprietary Models 28:27 Cost Implications of AI Model Usage 30:27 Local vs Cloud AI Model Hosting 32:08 Navigating Claude Code and Third-Party Integration 35:40 The Future of API Access for AI Models 37:27 Regulatory Concerns and AI Safety 39:25 Tools and Techniques for AI Coding Hex Handy 45:15 Final Thoughts and Future Directions 47:33 Sick Picks and Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Scott: Wes: Shameless Plugs Scott: Wes: Dax: exe.dev OpenTUI Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Auto-accept on, brain off? We're getting into whether anyone actually reads the code they ship anymore — then it's HTTP's first new method in 16 years (meet QUERY) and OpenAI's compute-hungry “Sol Ultra” tier landing in Codex. Bring your hot takes and hang out with us live. Show Notes 00:00 Intro 00:31 Welcome to Syntax! 01:44 World Cup Chat 03:21 Do you read the code? Theo's take Primeagen's take Dax's take notch's take David Fowler's take David Cramer's take 16:50 Query: NEW HTTP Method RFC 10008: The HTTP QUERY Method The new HTTP QUERY method explained 22:39 Github Repos on a CD-ROM Github's post 29:59 Brought to you by Sentry.io 30:35 Gea - compiler-first UI framework Gea React vs Gea 41:23 Fable First Impressions Anthropic announces Fable comeback 49:32 Codex Gets Sol Ultra 52:59 Update: Scott's Robot 56:36 Junior Slack Agent Junior 01:03:55 Supply Chain Security Updates Min release age now in all tools npm now adds a temporary, preventive safeguard for high-impact accounts 01:07:40 HTML element Chrome introduces element 01:10:16 Claude Code Auto Accepted Answers after 60 seconds "No response after 60s — continued without an answer” 01:13:21 Claude Code Fingerprints Requests to China Claude Code Is Steganographically Marking Requests 01:16:24 Responding to Chat 01:21:06 Organic Maps Organic Maps for all platforms 01:24:21 Starring the Computer Computers in movies and tv Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/628 http://relay.fm/upgrade/628 Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets 628 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? clean 5842 Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Television Time App - App Store Letterboxd Ludwig (2024 TV series) - Wikipedia FileMaker Claris Apple testing DRAM chips from banned Chinese memory supplier - 9to5Mac Apple scores record 89 Emmy Award nominations - Apple Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets - 9to5Mac Apple sues OpenAI, alleging trade secret theft – Six Colors Apple-OpenAI Legal Battle Highlights Tensions Over AI Hardware Talent Poaching - Bloomberg How Apple's Lawsuit Threatens to Disrupt OpenAI's Bid to Rival the iPhone - Bloomberg Apple's ‘Thermonuclear' Response to the OpenAI Threat - WSJ Apple Sues OpenAI, Apple's Real Problem – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Apple's Chip Plans: M6, M7 Pro, M7 Max, M7 Ultra, M8 Details; Touch MacBook Pro - Bloomberg Double Ender Friend of the Show: Tom Holland Meets Tom Holland to Chat All Things The Odyssey - The Rest is History - YouTube
Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/628 http://relay.fm/upgrade/628 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? clean 5842 Inside Apple's OpenAI lawsuit: How do trade secrets conflict with expert knowlege, was there a concerted effort to steal secret documents to kickstart OpenAI hardware, and how does Apple's own vulnerability inform the whole situation? This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Television Time App - App Store Letterboxd Ludwig (2024 TV series) - Wikipedia FileMaker Claris Apple testing DRAM chips from banned Chinese memory supplier - 9to5Mac Apple scores record 89 Emmy Award nominations - Apple Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets - 9to5Mac Apple sues OpenAI, alleging trade secret theft – Six Colors Apple-OpenAI Legal Battle Highlights Tensions Over AI Hardware Talent Poaching - Bloomberg How Apple's Lawsuit Threatens to Disrupt OpenAI's Bid to Rival the iPhone - Bloomberg Apple's ‘Thermonuclear' Response to the OpenAI Threat - WSJ Apple Sues OpenAI, Apple's Real Problem – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Apple's Chip Plans: M6, M7 Pro, M7 Max, M7 Ultra, M8 Details; Touch MacBook Pro - Bloomberg Double Ender Friend of the Show: Tom Holland Meets Tom Holland to Chat All Things The Odyssey - The Rest is History - YouTube
Welcome back to the Oncology Brothers podcast! In this episode, we dived into the latest highlights from the EHA 2026 conference, focusing on groundbreaking studies in the leukemia space. Join us as we welcome Dr. Eunice Wang from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to discuss three pivotal studies: OPTI-AML: explored the findings on the use of venetoclax in combination with azacitidine for newly diagnosed AML patients, comparing 14-day versus 28-day treatment regimens and their impact on cytopenias and overall outcomes. KOMET-007: promising early data on menin inhibitors, specifically Ziftomenib, in frontline settings for patients with NPM1 and KMT2A rearrangements, and how it may change the landscape of AML treatment. SENTRY: analyzed the combination of ruxolitinib and selinexor for myelofibrosis, discussing its effects on spleen volume reduction and overall survival, as well as the implications of side effects. Listen us on: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/31BXhY9FM4gPWG10WgE11o Follow us on social media: • X/Twitter: https://x.com/oncbrothers • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oncbrothers • Website: https://oncbrothers.com/ Tune in for an insightful discussion on the future of leukemia treatment and the importance of genetic markers in therapy decisions. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and check out our other conference highlights from ASCO and EHA! #EHA2026, #Leukemia, #AML, #Myelofibrosis, #OncologyBrothers
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/611 http://relay.fm/connected/611 My Skin is Not Good for That 611 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley Federico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. Federico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. clean 5222 Subtitle: His Skin Seems to Want ItFederico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Links and Show Notes: Get 15% off a new annual Connected Pro subscription (or reactivate an expired one!) with coupon code tinyheads15 between now and July 31. Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback Stephen Hackett: "Marked Safe From…" - eworld.social An Update to My Apple History Calendar - 512 Pixels iPhone 18 Pro Could Be Noticeably Thicker Than iPhone 17 Pro - MacRumors iPhone 18 Pro Max Said to Be Thicker and Heavier Than Predecessor - MacRumors ArtfulType, a Markdown Editor for 68k Macs - 512 Pixels I Made AI Write 1980's Macintosh Software - Action Retro - YouTube Mode Designs Kinda Funny Games - YouTube NPC: Next Portable Console and NPC XL - MacStories Mac Power Users - Relay The Rest Is Entertainment The Town With Matthew Belloni - The Ringer The Vergecast Waveform Acquired THIS CAR POD! - YouTube Designed in California Myke's Chart in Asana Casio GW-M5610U-1 DDC-200 Timex × DDC “Standard Issue Scout Watch – Draplin Design Co.
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/611 http://relay.fm/connected/611 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley Federico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. Federico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. clean 5222 Subtitle: His Skin Seems to Want ItFederico is at the beach, Myke questions his iPhone's future, and Stephen wears watches. Then: a whole stack of Q&A items. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Links and Show Notes: Get 15% off a new annual Connected Pro subscription (or reactivate an expired one!) with coupon code tinyheads15 between now and July 31. Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback Stephen Hackett: "Marked Safe From…" - eworld.social An Update to My Apple History Calendar - 512 Pixels iPhone 18 Pro Could Be Noticeably Thicker Than iPhone 17 Pro - MacRumors iPhone 18 Pro Max Said to Be Thicker and Heavier Than Predecessor - MacRumors ArtfulType, a Markdown Editor for 68k Macs - 512 Pixels I Made AI Write 1980's Macintosh Software - Action Retro - YouTube Mode Designs Kinda Funny Games - YouTube NPC: Next Portable Console and NPC XL - MacStories Mac Power Users - Relay The Rest Is Entertainment The Town With Matthew Belloni - The Ringer The Vergecast Waveform Acquired THIS CAR POD! - YouTube Designed in California Myke's Chart in Asana Casio GW-M5610U-1 DDC-200 Timex × DDC “Standard Issue Scout Watch – Draplin Design Co.
A new pro golf tournament, Play Hawaiʻi Golf, is being organized to replace The Sentry tournament by the PGA Tour; Maui philanthropist Ed Freedman talks about funding investment accounts for Hawaiʻi foster youth.
Google fires the engineer behind its Workspace CLI tool, OpenAI previews GPT-5.6 with three new model tiers, and Astro 7 lands with a full Rust rewrite. Plus: Coinbase cuts token costs with smarter routing, and more in this week's Syntax Live Show Notes 00:00 Intro 00:34 Welcome to Syntax! 01:46 Google fires Workspace CLI Creator 12:30 GPT 5.6 Is Coming 19:59 GLM 5.2 Released 23:23 Astro 7 Rust Re-write 32:46 Cursor Announces iOS App 35:08 Scott's Workflow: Herdr + Mosh + Termius + Tailscale 40:33 Coinbase Reduces AI Cost with Model Routing 44:22 wayfinder-router - Local AI Routing CLI 48:16 Token efficiency in models and harnesses Martin Woodward on X 52:34 performativeUI - react components for AI startups 54:31 Brought to you by Sentry.io 55:21 Reachy Mini Robot 01:02:21 FUTO Keyboard Swipe for Android 01:05:40 CSS Quake 01:07:35 HTML Invoker API is Baseline Available 01:13:17 Cloudflare Temporary Accounts for AI Agents Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Vanta https://www.vanta.com/twist Sentry https://sentry.io/twist Today's show: *There are $100 trillion in global assets sitting on top of what Hanover Park co-founder/CEO Chris Hladczuk calls "human duct tape": armies of accountants in offices patching together work from various legacy tools (QuickBooks, Excel) that are holding funds' own data hostage. Can all of this be replaced with AI? Find out how their startup went from overseeing $1B to $20B in assets in just 15 months. PLUS, we flash back to March 2020, when Jason and Figma co-founder/CEO Dylan Field broke down the design tool's initial go-to-market strategy, made some WILDLY inaccurate COVID predictions, and considered anxiety about "SaaS burnout" years before the category went full apocalyptic. Guests: Chris Hladczuk on X: https://x.com/chrishlad Hanover Park: https://www.hanoverpark.com/ Dylan Field: https://x.com/zoink Figma: https://www.figma.com/ Relevant Links: Turner Novak on X: https://x.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://www.bananacapital.vc/ Emergence Capital: https://www.emcap.com/ Lux Capital: https://www.luxcapital.com/ Susa Ventures: https://susaventures.com/ Bill.com: https://www.bill.com/ METR: https://metr.org/ Granola AI note taker: https://www.granola.ai/ Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/ Foo Camp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/foocamp TechCrunch Mahalo coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/inside-mobile-news-launch/ Timestamps: 0:00 Hanover Park & the fund admin problem 3:32 Why funds outsource instead of building 5:44 Why fund accounting is so complex 10:38 The "one-click migration" goal 10:48 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist 13:51 Context vs. intelligence gaps 16:11 No PMs, No Designers 20:46 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist 23:18 This is a $100T opportunity 25:36 Flashback w/ Dylan Field of Figma 29:15 Sentry - Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST 31:22 Pre-AI enterprise security worries 36:30 SaaS overload and SaaS burnout 37:30 The evolution of Figma pricing 42:38 The rise and fall of Mahalo dot com 51:38 The work-from-home revolution begins Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: (0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB (0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB (0:00) PARTNER - AD BLURB Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/ Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Ugh. Bad news: Its more of the Sentry storyline. Good news: The storyline ends this issue. Woo hoo!
Mon, 29 Jun 2026 21:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/626 http://relay.fm/upgrade/626 Unprecedented Weirdness 626 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Apple raised prices! Is this a shocking move, or were Apple products just sneakily affordable before? (And can it be both?) We also parse Mark Gurman's reports on Apple skipping over may M6 chips to go directly to M7. Apple raised prices! Is this a shocking move, or were Apple products just sneakily affordable before? (And can it be both?) We also parse Mark Gurman's reports on Apple skipping over may M6 chips to go directly to M7. clean 5243 Apple raised prices! Is this a shocking move, or were Apple products just sneakily affordable before? (And can it be both?) We also parse Mark Gurman's reports on Apple skipping over may M6 chips to go directly to M7. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Keeper: Get 60% off personal and family plans. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Claude: For problems worth solving — get started with Claude today. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Everything New in iOS 27 Beta 2 - MacRumors Thaw – MacMenuBar.com Thaw and macOS 27 (Golden Gate) support Apple announces significant price increases for MacBooks, iPads, more - 9to5Mac Apple Has Increased Prices Across Mac and iPad Models - 512 Pixels Daring Fireball: Apple's Full Statement on Yesterday's Price Increases Why is Apple asking me to pay more for Big Tech's AI obsession? | The Verge Apple asks Trump admin to approve Chinese RAM after product price increases - 9to5Mac Daring Fireball: Apple Faced Bipartisan Opposition When It Last Lobbied to Buy Chinese RAM in 2022 Apple to Skip High-End M6 Mac Chips, to Launch M7 Pro, M7 Max, M7 Ultra Instead - Bloomberg Apple's Touchscreen MacBook to Use M5 Pro, Max Chips; M7 Pro, Max Models in 2027 - Bloomberg Report: Apple changes chip and OLED MacBook Pro release plans – Six Colors iPhone Ultra 3D-printed hinge problems reportedly solved – 9to5mac Apple Approves Production of OLED Panels for Foldable iPhone - MacRumors Rogue Amoeba - Free The Icons Apple should free the macOS icons from squircle jail – Six Colors “Icons that are iconic” – Unsung Consistency, But in Excellence Not Appearance - Jim Nielsen's Blog TestFlight build 1161: Tackling
We're back with the New Avengers with the first two parts of a story that focuses on The Sentry! Woooo! Imagine our excitement!
My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Josh Hogan has discovered a 2 football field diameter asteroid that was placed on NASA's Sentry list because it has a tiny minuscule but non-zero chance of impacting our home planet. With this motivation my team the Catalina Sky Survey, the Pan STARRS group in Hawaii, the ATLAS group with telescopes Hawaii, Chile, and South Africa , the Vera C. Rubin telescope in Chile, will be soon joined NASA's NEO Surveyor and groups world wide in a planet wide defense network.
In this special episode of Tank Talks, Matt Cohen brings listeners inside Toronto Tech Week with a live podcast studio recorded at the Toronto Homecoming event. This episode captures a fast-moving snapshot of the Canadian tech ecosystem through candid conversations with Boris Wertz of Version One, Lawrence Mandel and Farhan Thawar of Shopify, Ben Vinegar of Modem, Andrew Chau of Neo Financial, Fahd Ananta of Opendoor, and Eliot Pence of Dominion Dynamics. Across venture capital, AI-native engineering, product management, fintech, defense tech, and startup turnarounds, the episode explores why Toronto Tech Week feels like a real inflection point for Canadian founders, operators, investors, and returning global talent.Matt and the guests dig into the biggest questions shaping startups in 2026: how AI is changing the speed of company-building, why “AI wrappers” are becoming harder to defend, how Shopify is rethinking engineering culture around AI, what agentic coding still gets wrong, why Neo Financial is taking on Canada's banking oligopoly, what Opendoor's turnaround reveals about velocity, and how Dominion Dynamics is building sovereign Canadian defense technology for the Arctic. The recurring theme is clear: Canada has talent, capital, technical depth, and ambition, but the ecosystem needs to move faster, take bigger risks, and stop hiding its best builders under a very polite rain jacket.Whether you're a Canadian founder, venture capitalist, AI operator, fintech builder, defense tech investor, or someone trying to understand why Toronto Tech Week has become such a high-energy gathering for the startup community, this episode is packed with sharp insights from leaders building at the edge of what comes next.Boris Wertz on Early-Stage Investing in a No-Playbook AI Market (02:16)Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures compares Toronto Tech Week to other tech gatherings and explains why today's early-stage investing environment is unlike anything he has seen before. He discusses the faster pace of innovation, why founders need to be nearly perfect from the start, and how AI-native companies require a different mindset than traditional SaaS startups.Lawrence Mandel on Shopify's AI-Native Engineering Culture (07:13)Lawrence Mandel shares how Shopify's engineering organization is building for merchants, APIs, analytics, and the third-party ecosystem while operating with a mostly remote team. He explains how Shopify's intern program, engineering culture, and AI-first mindset are shaping the next generation of Canadian technical talent.Farhan Thawar on Remote Work, Bursts, and Shopify's Meeting Armageddon (16:46)Farhan Thawar shares a blunt view on Shopify's remote-first culture, saying most companies should not simply copy it unless they are deeply intentional. He explains Shopify's “bursts,” company-wide summits, hackathons, and Meeting Armageddon, where recurring meetings are deleted so teams can rebuild their calendars from first principles.Ben Vinegar on Modem and AI Product Management (31:52)Ben Vinegar introduces Modem as an AI product management platform focused on the non-coding work behind software development. He explains why user conversations, product feedback, and customer experience are harder to understand deterministically, and why LLMs create a new way to analyze human signals at scale.Andrew Chau on SkipTheDishes, Neo Financial, and Taking on Canadian Banking (45:23)Andrew Chau shares the origin story of SkipTheDishes and how that experience led him to build Neo Financial. He explains why Neo chose one of the hardest and most regulated industries in Canada, and why the big five banking oligopoly creates a massive opportunity for a better consumer banking experience.Fahd Ananta on Opendoor, Turnarounds, and Speed (59:20)Fahd Ananta shares how he joined Opendoor during its turnaround after reconnecting with Kaz from Shopify. He explains how a simple congratulatory message turned into a strategic document, a fast offer, and a move into one of the most closely watched public-company turnaround stories in tech.Eliot Pence on Returning to Canada to Build Dominion Dynamics (01:04:34)Eliot Pence shares why he is moving back to Canada after years abroad and why he believes this is a unique moment for Canadian ambition. He explains that Dominion Dynamics is being built in Canada because the customer is here and because Canada is reinvesting in defense.About Boris WertzBoris Wertz is the founder of Version One Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm known for backing ambitious technology companies across emerging markets and frontier categories. A longtime investor in the Canadian and global startup ecosystem, Boris brings a clear-eyed perspective on how venture has changed in the AI era, why founders now need to move with more speed and precision than ever, and what separates truly defensible companies from short-lived AI wrappers.Connect with Boris Wertz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwertz/Visit the Version One website: https://versionone.vc/About Lawrence MandelLawrence Mandel is a VP of Engineering at Shopify, where he helps lead major parts of Shopify's core technical infrastructure, including merchant-facing systems, analytics, API layers, and the third-party developer ecosystem. With more than eight years at Shopify and a team of hundreds of engineers, Lawrence has been closely involved in how one of Canada's most important technology companies builds, hires, trains, and adapts in an AI-native world.Connect with Lawrence Mandel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmandel/Visit the Shopify website: https://www.shopify.com/About Farhan ThawarFarhan Thawar is a senior engineering leader at Shopify and one of the most distinctive voices in Canadian tech on AI, software development, and engineering culture. Known for his practical, high-conviction thinking, Farhan has helped shape how Shopify approaches remote work, engineering velocity, AI tooling, internal systems, and company-wide habits like Meeting Armageddon and Delete Code Club. His perspective blends deep technical experience with a founder-style obsession for speed, leverage, and better systems.Connect with Farhan Thawar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fnthawar/Visit the Shopify website: https://www.shopify.com/About Ben VinegarBen Vinegar is the founder and CEO of Modem, an AI product management platform built to help teams understand users, product feedback, and the non-coding work behind building great software. Before starting Modem, Ben was VP of Engineering at Sentry, where he spent years working on developer tools, engineering productivity, and software observability. His work now sits at the intersection of AI, product development, user insight, and the future of agentic software workflows.Connect with Ben Vinegar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benvinegar/Visit the Modem website: https://modem.dev/About Andrew ChauAndrew Chau is the co-founder and CEO of Neo Financial, one of Canada's most prominent fintech companies, and a co-founder of SkipTheDishes. After helping build and exit one of Canada's breakout consumer technology companies, Andrew turned his attention to one of the hardest markets in the country: banking. Through Neo, he is focused on giving Canadians a modern alternative to legacy financial institutions, with digital-first products spanning credit cards, savings, checking, mortgages, rewards, and major brand partnerships.Connect with Andrew Chau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-chau-1046749/Visit the Neo Financial website: https://www.neofinancial.com/About Fahd AnantaFahd Ananta is an operator and investor with experience across Shopify, Opendoor, and Roach Capital. He recently joined Opendoor during a major turnaround period, bringing with him the systems-driven operating mindset shaped by his time around Shopify's culture of speed, abstraction, and company-building discipline. Fahd represents a new kind of Canadian tech operator: globally experienced, deeply technical, quietly intense, and focused on helping large, complex companies move faster.Connect with Fahd Ananta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fananta/Visit the Opendoor website: https://www.opendoor.com/About Eliot PenceEliot Pence is the founder of Dominion Dynamics, a Canadian defense technology company focused on sovereign capability, Arctic security, and dual-use technology. A former leader at Anduril, Eliot returned to Canada to build a defense company designed for speed, risk-taking, and real-world deployment. His work is centered on helping Canada rebuild ambition in national security, defense procurement, Arctic infrastructure, and the kind of company-building required to create globally consequential Canadian technology.Connect with Eliot Pence on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliotpence/Visit the Dominion Dynamics website: https://www.defendthedominion.com/Connect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/This episode is brought to you by Deel. Receive our exclusive offer here: https://www.deel.com/partners/tanktalks/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=partner-sourced&utm_content=rippleventures&utm_place=organic-community This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com
Is the web dead, or just evolving? Wes Bos breaks down his JS Nation Amsterdam talk on agentic interfaces, why chat won't replace everything, how Web MCP lets agents interact with your existing sites, and what “Clicks and Clankers” really means for the future of UI. Show Notes 00:00 Intro 00:33 Welcome to Syntax! 00:46 Wes's Talk: Agentic Interfaces at JS Nation 01:37 Is the Web Dead? Chat vs. Traditional UI 03:13 No UI, Voice UI, and the Smart Home Vision 04:00 What Is Web MCP and How It Works 05:10 Clicks and Clankers: When to Click vs. Prompt 06:57 The Future of Shopping and the Open Web Problem 08:46 Delegating the Boring Stuff: Groceries and Expense Categorization 11:55 MCP Apps and the Happy Path Problem 12:55 Brought to you by Sentry.io 13:23 Generative UI: Can the LLM Make a Better UI Than You? 14:54 Smart Home Dashboards and the Jarvis Dream 17:24 Is the Web Dead? Final Thoughts Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/180 http://relay.fm/cortex/180 From Instagram Poems to a Bestselling Book, with Loryn Brantz 180 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. Myke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. clean 5162 Subtitle: State of the WorkflowMyke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code cortex26. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Guest Starring: Loryn Brantz Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Check out the Cortex Brand store – Premium Productivity Tools Submit Feedback Gabby - Coaching & Meditation App - App Store Loryn's Website Loryn Brantz – Instagram The Good Advice Cupcake – Instagram Poems of Parenting – HarperCollins I Am a Spicy Nugget – Books of Wonder Brick If Disney Princesses Had Realistic Waistlines – Buzzfeed Ms. Rachel - Wikipedia Dos and Don'ts of Sharing Photos of Your Children on Instagram and Facebook | WSJ - YouTube Amazon Is Making an AI-Animated ‘Good Advice Cupcake' TV Show. Its Original Creator Is Furious | WIRED Loryn's Post about Cuppy and Buzzfeed – Instagram Designed in California — Kickstarter Campaign Upgrade #621: Road to the Apple II: The Partnership (Part 2) - Relay
Scott, Wes, and CJ reunite fresh off a trip to Amsterdam to chat conferences, burnout, and whether Anthropic actually uses AI. They also dig into a packed bag of sick picks and tech news, including HTML streaming in Chrome, an image-to-ASCII generator, and a wild Arch Linux supply chain attack. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 02:15 Anthropic Doesn't Use AI Thariq's Tweet Tweet Response 06:15 Taste and Vision in Prompting Output 10:50 Wes and Scott's Slide Decks 18:05 Amsterdam Trip Recap 26:09 Are Conferences worth it? 27:21 Amsterdam Trip Recap 31:17 Fable 5 First Impressions 33:45 Fable 5 and Mythos 5 Banned 41:45 IRL Events Are Great For Burnout 45:12 Brought to you by Sentry.io 45:52 HTML Streaming now in Chrome 55:47 Image to ASCII Generator The Mitos Repo 01:01:31 Find Modern Module Replacements 01:05:55 Scott is Using MacOS / iOS Betas 01:09:25 Xiaomi OpenCode Fork and Mimo 2.5 Pro 01:14:06 Agent Dashboards 01:21:39 Arch Linux Supply Chain Attack 01:23:47 Should we train coding only models? 01:31:37 Thanks! Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/180 http://relay.fm/cortex/180 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. Myke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. clean 5162 Subtitle: State of the WorkflowMyke talks to Loryn Brantz – illustrator, poet, and bestselling author – about her journey from Sesame Street and BuzzFeed to becoming an independent creator, how her poems grew into a book, and the routines she uses to make space for new ideas. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code cortex26. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Guest Starring: Loryn Brantz Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Check out the Cortex Brand store – Premium Productivity Tools Submit Feedback Gabby - Coaching & Meditation App - App Store Loryn's Website Loryn Brantz – Instagram The Good Advice Cupcake – Instagram Poems of Parenting – HarperCollins I Am a Spicy Nugget – Books of Wonder Brick If Disney Princesses Had Realistic Waistlines – Buzzfeed Ms. Rachel - Wikipedia Dos and Don'ts of Sharing Photos of Your Children on Instagram and Facebook | WSJ - YouTube Amazon Is Making an AI-Animated ‘Good Advice Cupcake' TV Show. Its Original Creator Is Furious | WIRED Loryn's Post about Cuppy and Buzzfeed – Instagram Designed in California — Kickstarter Campaign Upgrade #621: Road to the Apple II: The Partnership (Part 2) - Relay
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/608 http://relay.fm/connected/608 Here's How to Fix a Sink 608 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. clean 4961 Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CONNECTED. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Links and Show Notes: Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback An Updated Look at My Home Network - 512 Pixels Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs - MacRumors Exclusive | Apple Price Increases ‘Unavoidable,' Tim Cook Says in WSJ Exclusive - WSJ News+ Link for Tim Cook's Interview Intel stock rises after Trump touts U.S.-built chip deal with Apple – CNBC Apple Plans Second-Generation iPhone Air Launch for Spring 2027 - Bloomberg SPECS AR Glasses Introducing SPECS Augmented Reality Glasses Snap is finally about to ship AR glasses — and they cost a fortune | The Verge Snap Specs LIVE — $2,200 augmented reality smart glasses announced, along with availability and specs | Tom's Guide Can anyone look cool wearing Snap's $2,000 glasses? | The Verge Meta & EssilorLuxottica Sold 7 Million S
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 21:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/608 http://relay.fm/connected/608 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. clean 4961 Myke questions Stephen about his home network, then discusses the ups and downs of having an LLM power Siri. Also: a love letter to the iPhone Air and questions about Snap's new AR glasses. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CONNECTED. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Links and Show Notes: Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback An Updated Look at My Home Network - 512 Pixels Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Tim Cook Says Apple Price Increases Are 'Unavoidable' Due to Memory Costs - MacRumors Exclusive | Apple Price Increases ‘Unavoidable,' Tim Cook Says in WSJ Exclusive - WSJ News+ Link for Tim Cook's Interview Intel stock rises after Trump touts U.S.-built chip deal with Apple – CNBC Apple Plans Second-Generation iPhone Air Launch for Spring 2027 - Bloomberg SPECS AR Glasses Introducing SPECS Augmented Reality Glasses Snap is finally about to ship AR glasses — and they cost a fortune | The Verge Snap Specs LIVE — $2,200 augmented reality smart glasses announced, along with availability and specs | Tom's Guide Can anyone look cool wearing Snap's $2,000 glasses? | The Verge Meta & EssilorLuxottica Sold 7
Live at JSNation in Amsterdam, Scott, Wes, and CJ break down Cloudflare's acquisition of VoidZero, the company behind Vite, Vitest, Rolldown, and Oxc. They dig into why this is genuinely exciting, not scary, covering what it means for the open source tooling you already use, Cloudflare's growing tip-to-tail stack, and why infrastructure might be the one thing LLMs can never sherlock Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! Live from JS Nation Amsterdam 00:35 The Big News: Cloudflare Acquires VoidZero 01:06 First Reactions: Is This a Good Thing? 01:57 Vite+ Overview: Who's Using It 03:07 Why Would Cloudflare Want This? 03:38 The Void Framework: Cloudflare's Vite Plugin 04:31 VoidZero's Void Hosting Product (Built on Cloudflare) 04:53 Cloudflare Now Has Everything: Tip to Tail 05:57 What Cloudflare Is Still Missing (Auth) 06:20 Infrastructure as the Last LLM Frontier 07:27 Vendor Lock-In: The Trade-Off Worth Making? 08:09 Wrangler is Bad. 09:00 Vite's Impact on Web Dev 09:22 AI Acquiring Engineers: What It Says About the Industry 10:10 Behind the Scenes: Who Knew Before the Announcement 10:40 Recap: Everything Stays Open Source, MIT Licensed 11:06 The $1M Vite Ecosystem Fund 11:35 Wrap Up 12:14 Brought to you by Sentry.io Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Scott and Wes sit down with Jake Archibald from Mozilla to unpack how web standards actually get made at Firefox. From browser features and developer feedback to the drama around the Prompt API. They discuss Interop 2026, the future of web APIs, and what it's really like shaping the web after a career spanning both Google and Mozilla. Show Notes 00:00 The Importance of Sunscreen 02:29 Welcome to Syntax! 04:35 Transitioning from Google to Mozilla 06:00 Brought to you by Sentry.io 06:43 Mozilla's Current Position and Development Priority HTML Sanitizer API 08:35 Feature Implementation and Developer Feedback 13:12 JPEG XL and AVIF: The Future of Image Formats 18:06 Balancing User Features and Web Standards 20:56 Navigating the AI Translation Dilemma 23:03 Understanding the Prompt API Controversy 32:56 Rethinking the Future of Prompt APIs 39:00 Exploring Local Models and User Control 44:04 The State of Firefox DevTools 45:42 Browser Stability and Developer Editions 47:39 Introduction to the Heading Offset API 51:14 Interop APIs and Their Importance Headingoffset & Headingreset attributes 54:10 Developer Feedback and Browser Features Developer Signals 58:05 Animating Display None and Its Challenges 01:00:44 HTML and Canvas: Opportunities and Concerns 01:04:01 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Scott: Wes: Jake: Clues by Sam Shameless Plugs Scott: Wes: Jake: Bluesky Mastodon Threads LinkedIn YouTube X Insatgram Tiktok Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/622 http://relay.fm/upgrade/622 It's Doing It! 622 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. clean 6357 Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Decagon: The AI concierge for every customer. Get a personalized demo. ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Field Notes | Front Page Reporter's Notebook Mark Two – Studio Neat Sidekick Pocket – Cortex Brand macOS 27 will let you resize the iPhone Mirroring window - 9to5Mac Daring Fireball: Apple's Private Cloud Compute Is Severely Limited for Third-Party Developers WWDC 2026: Emptying the notebook about AI, bug fixes, and more – Six Colors That WWDC Glow – The Enthusiast All 264 Items on Apple's WWDC26 “Sweating the Details” Slide - TidBITS Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard review | Macworld Daring Fireball: The Talk Show: Live From WWDC 2026 WWDC 2026: Between Seasons - MacStories Siri AI can do WAY more than you think – Ste
Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/622 http://relay.fm/upgrade/622 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. clean 6357 Back from WWDC, Jason and Myke have had more time to think about Apple's announcements--and to try many of them in beta releases. Siri AI impresses, we have Snow Leopard vibes, and much more. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Decagon: The AI concierge for every customer. Get a personalized demo. ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Field Notes | Front Page Reporter's Notebook Mark Two – Studio Neat Sidekick Pocket – Cortex Brand macOS 27 will let you resize the iPhone Mirroring window - 9to5Mac Daring Fireball: Apple's Private Cloud Compute Is Severely Limited for Third-Party Developers WWDC 2026: Emptying the notebook about AI, bug fixes, and more – Six Colors That WWDC Glow – The Enthusiast All 264 Items on Apple's WWDC26 “Sweating the Details” Slide - TidBITS Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard review | Macworld Daring Fireball: The Talk Show: Live From WWDC 2026 WWDC 2026: Between Seasons - MacStories Siri AI can do WAY more than you think
Paul Jenkins, multimedia writer extraordinaire, is back on the Bandits to discuss his highly anticipated return to Marvel Comics, including new stories featuring two of the publisher's most complex heroes: The Sentry and Captain Marvel. Paul reflects on revisiting Bob Reynolds more than two decades after co-creating the character and less than a year after his MCU debut, explores the psychological themes that continue to make The Sentry unique, and shares insights into working with artist Christian Rosado on the latest chapter of the Golden Guardian of Good. The conversation also dives into Captain Marvel: Dark Past, examining Carol Danvers' evolving legacy, the challenges of writing powerful heroes with deeply human flaws, and the themes that connect these new projects. Along the way, Paul looks back on his celebrated Marvel career, discusses characters he'd still love to revisit, and offers fans a glimpse into this exciting new chapter of his storytelling journey. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:45:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/606 http://relay.fm/connected/606 The Rickies (June 2026) 606 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley WWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. WWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. clean 5544 Subtitle: I Quit the Show That HelpsWWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CONNECTED. Links and Show Notes: Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback GitHub - darinkelkhoff/connectedCli: A command-line companion for the Connected podcast · GitHub Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Rickies.co: WWDC 2026 Rickies.net: WWDC 2026 Upgrade #618: The WWDC Keynote Draft 2026 - Relay Oops: Startup Humane Quietly Corrects Ai Pin Demo Video Errors | PCMagIn the second mistake, the Ai Pin is asked how much protein is in a handful of almonds. The device is shown about 12 almonds, which should only offer 3 grams of protein. But instead the Ai Pin says, “these almonds have 15 grams of protein,” or what half a cup of almonds offer. Mac Power Users - Relay F1 Car at Apple Park Birds Aren't Real - Wikipedia
Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:45:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/606 http://relay.fm/connected/606 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley WWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. WWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. clean 5544 Subtitle: I Quit the Show That HelpsWWDC26 is almost here, and the guys have come to the show with a set of predictions about what Apple will show off next week. We also changed the Bill of Rickies again. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CONNECTED. Links and Show Notes: Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback GitHub - darinkelkhoff/connectedCli: A command-line companion for the Connected podcast · GitHub Designed in California – Kickstarter Campaign Rickies.co: WWDC 2026 Rickies.net: WWDC 2026 Upgrade #618: The WWDC Keynote Draft 2026 - Relay Oops: Startup Humane Quietly Corrects Ai Pin Demo Video Errors | PCMagIn the second mistake, the Ai Pin is asked how much protein is in a handful of almonds. The device is shown about 12 almonds, which should only offer 3 grams of protein. But instead the Ai Pin says, “these almonds have 15 grams of protein,” or what half a cup of almonds offer. Mac Power Users - Relay F1 Car at Apple Park Birds Aren't Real - Wikipedia
The new AIEWF website is live! Get your tickets booked ASAP as they -will- sell out. Take the AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and free AIE WF tickets!Most industry benchmarks compress intelligence and reasoning ability into scores.SWE-Bench Pro, MMLU, Humanity's Last Exam, etc. These metrics are useful, but don't always represent the full extent of how a model performs in the real world. Some of the most interesting evals today look less like exams and more like operating businesses in the real world. One of which is Vending Bench.In Anthropic's Mythos Preview System Card, Andon was the only third party eval to get their own section, observing increasingly concerning aggressive behavior:You don't know what a model is capable of doing in the real world unless you actually give it inventory, a wallet, tools, customers, competitors, humans, & some time. More often than not, it'll surprise you how much a model is capable of and in doing so, also reveal unexpected behavior: deception, context collapse, emergent coordination, & bizarre negotiation behavior.While an inflection point in personal agents came post-OpenClaw after full file access with bypass permissions became the norm, it is yet to come for agents in the real-world. However Andon Market, an actual in person store fully run and managed by AI, is paving the way for what is possible.Full Video PodFrom Claude trying to call the FBI over a $2/day vending machine charge to AI agents forming price cartels, hiring human employees, running physical stores, and writing existential robot musicals, Andon Labs is stress-testing what happens when frontier models stop being chatbots and start acting in the real world. In this episode, Andon Labs cofounders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund join swyx and Vibhu to unpack the strange, funny, and genuinely concerning edge cases that emerge when agents run businesses over long horizons.We go deep on Vending-Bench, Project Vend, Vending-Bench Arena, Bengt, Butter-Bench, Luna, and Andon's broader mission of building realistic real-world evals for autonomous AI systems. Lukas and Axel explain why dollar-denominated evals reveal things traditional benchmarks miss, how Claude ended up reporting its vending machine fees as cybercrime, why long context windows can drive agents into meltdown loops, what happens when agents compete with each other, and why the future of AI safety may depend on testing models in messy physical environments instead of clean benchmark sandboxes.We discuss:* Why Andon Labs started with dangerous capability evals and long-running agents* Vending-Bench and why running a vending machine is a deceptively hard AI benchmark* Why money-based evals avoid the saturation problem of traditional benchmarks* How Claude tried to call the FBI over a $2/day fee* Why long-horizon agents can spiral into existential and legalistic breakdowns* Project Vend: putting an AI-run vending machine inside Anthropic* Why real humans are “out of distribution” for simulated agents* Claudius, Seymour Cash, and the chaos of AI CEOs* How a human briefly became CEO of Claudius through a manipulated election* Why multi-agent systems can converge back into “helpful assistant” behavior* Bengt, Andon's internal office agent with email, spending, terminal, phone, camera, and internet access* How Bengt traded Amazon purchases for face-recognition training data* Claude's aggressive behavior, lies, refund avoidance, and price-cartel behavior in Arena* Why eval awareness may become the AI version of “are we living in a simulation?”* Blueprint Bench, spatial intelligence, and why models still misunderstand physical rooms* Butter-Bench and testing LLMs as robot orchestrators* Luna, the AI-run physical store with a three-year lease and human employees* The new Andon cafe in Sweden and why real-world geography matters for agent evals* Rotten tomatoes, perishable goods, and the hidden difficulty of running a physical businessLukas Petersson* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukas-petersson-181a83172/* X: https://x.com/lukaspetAxel Backlund* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelbacklund* X: https://x.com/axelbacklundAndon Labs* Website: https://andonlabs.com* Vending-Bench: https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench* Andon Vending: https://andonlabs.com/vendingTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:01:00 Andon Labs and the Origins of Vending-Bench00:05:21 Why Money-Based Evals Matter00:09:51 Agent Harnesses and Self-Modifying Systems00:13:36 Claude Calls the FBI00:16:33 Project Vend: Claude Runs a Real Vending Machine00:21:44 Seymour Cash, AI CEOs, and Election Chaos00:27:16 Multi-Agent Coordination and Slack Observability00:30:18 When Will Agents Run Real Businesses?00:34:56 Bengt: Andon's Internal Office Agent00:40:06 Real-World AI Safety and Long-Horizon Traces00:44:28 Lying, Refunds, and Price Cartels in Arena00:52:42 Eval Awareness and Simulation Behavior00:56:06 Blueprint Bench, Butter-Bench, and Robotics01:04:37 Luna: The AI-Run Physical Store01:09:29 The Sweden Cafe and Real-World Expansion01:13:16 What Comes Next for Andon LabsTranscriptIntroduction: Andon Labs, Long-Running Agents, and Real-World EvalsSwyx [00:00:00]: Welcome to Lukas and Axel from Andon Labs, and I'm joined by my, favorite guest host. Anything security, safety, alignments, Vibhu., welcome.Lukas [00:00:15]: Thank you for having us.Axel [00:00:16]: Thank you.Swyx [00:00:17]: Let's match names to voices., maybe you wanna take turns introducing yourselves.Lukas [00:00:21]: I'm Lukas.Axel [00:00:22]: And I'm Axel.Swyx [00:00:24]: Let's introduce Andon Labs a bit. How did you guys come together?, you have different backgrounds, but you're both Swedish., was that, a big part of it?Lukas [00:00:33]: So when I went to high school, there was this really cool guy who had a superpower. He could code. So he made like the or like the app for the, for the school and stuff, and he was super cool, and I wanted to be like him, and that was that guy.Axel [00:00:47]: I don't know about this.Swyx [00:00:49]: But you went to different universities, right?Lukas [00:00:51]: But same high school.Swyx [00:00:52]: I see.Lukas [00:00:52]: So we always said, “Oh, once we graduate university, then we should start a company,” and that's what we did.Swyx [00:00:58]: Wow, there you go. And about a year ago, you kinda burst onto the scene with Vending Bench, but, was there a thing before that was, kind of like the inception?From Dangerous Capability Evals to Vending BenchAxel [00:01:07]: So we did work, yeah, with, Anthropic was one of our, early customers in doing, evals. So we did, dangerous capability evals., nothing we published openly. But then we started thinking about doing some kind of, public benchmark, and one thing that we really started thinking about, was like running agents and specifically agents managing businesses., ‘cause-- and this was, early 2025., and I think the first, mentions of people will be running, person unicorns or even autonomous companies. So we thought, “Let's make a benchmark of how well can an agent run the probably simplest business, possible,” and, that's probably, running a vending machine. So that's the first public one we did. And it was very, like-- there was almost no one that noticed it in the first couple of months, I think., so we released it in February last year, and then I think around Easter last year, we got, the first viral tweet about it, that someone else did.Lukas [00:02:11]: We tweeted a bunch, uh When it came out and, tried our best.Axel [00:02:15]: We tried.Vibhu [00:02:16]: It's the one at Anthropic, right?Lukas [00:02:18]: So thisSwyx [00:02:19]: This is a classic thing we should get out of the way.Lukas [00:02:20]: Exactly. There's two versions.Swyx [00:02:22]: Everyone does this. Yes.Lukas [00:02:23]: There's Vending Bench, which is the simulated one, which we did, completely independently in February., and then, like Axel said, that was like-- That was the thing that didn't get any traction in the beginning, but then some random person made a tweet about it, and thatAxel [00:02:38]: You have the paperLukas [00:02:38]: That is the paper. Correct, yeah., and then since we thought this was very fun, we thought, oh, I think this is also, one thing with Andon Labs, the way we kind of like decide what to do next and what projects to do, it's what is like the heuristic we use is what is fun? Is What would be a fun project? And doing this in real life sounded quite fun for us, and maybe also scientifically useful. So, then we basically had this idea, and then we, like-- But then we needed a place for it and, putting it out in the public would probably not really work., would get vandalized and stuff. So we pitched it to the people we were already working with at Anthropic, and they were “Yeah, you can have space. This sounds fun.” UmSwyx [00:03:21]: It's like a small fridge, right? It's like a mini fridge.Axel [00:03:23]: Absolutely.Swyx [00:03:24]: People-- There's like a stripe thing or like anVibhu [00:03:27]: Oh, okay. So it was very OG, the early daysLukas [00:03:28]: That's the OG one. YeahVibhu [00:03:29]: IPad on this. We saw it in June, like two months after After it had been there. They upgraded a little bit. There's a security camera for making sure you actually Venmo the thing.Swyx [00:03:40]: So, my impression, okay, we're, we're going straight into project Ven because it's such a iconic thing. I do want to cover a little bit of that, the origin story even before Project Ven and even into Vending Bench. I think a lot of people are like yourselves, like smart, interested in future of AI, interested in developing evals. But how the hell do you just, walk into Anthropic's doors and, work with them, right? What is What are they looking for? What works? And then maybe, when you launch, I always think, obviously it would be better to launch with a lab, but, sometimesVibhu [00:04:12]: It's harder to do than it seems.Swyx [00:04:13]: Exactly. So either of those, which are more sort of newbie beginner questions, but, I think it's meaningful advice to others.Lukas [00:04:21]: We get this question a lot, and I don't think our experience is maybe the best., but, the way we did it was that we just built a bunch of things that we had conviction would be useful, and then we just, set up a server and sent it to them for free to use. And then after a while they were “Oh, yeah, this is actually kind of useful. We should probably pay for this.”, but that took a while. I don't know if this is, the best path to doing it, but that's how it went for us.Axel [00:04:47]: I think maybe generally, building-- everyone is interested in good evals, and especially evals that, don't saturate that easily. So, if you can build an eval that, tests something novel, something useful, and you have, good separation of models, like your, the more advanced models rank higher than the worst models, and then you can, yeah, you can, publish it and, try to get some traction, sort of how Vending Bench got attention., and then probably some lab will be interested or you can at least have something to reach out with, when you're doing that.Why Dollar-Based Evals MatterSwyx [00:05:21]: I think you are in, you're in one of the few categories of, evals that correlate to real money. Like Suelancer was also last year, right? Where, people solve actual Upwork. Was it Upwork or other tasks?, something. Where's the, where's, like It's like a dollar value, right? Forget your ELO scores. Forget yourAxel [00:05:37]: PercentilesSwyx [00:05:38]: Zero to one hundred percents. Just go straight for dollars and, that's AGI.Lukas [00:05:43]: And there's like-- I think the nice thing is that there's no ceiling. You can just-- It never saturates because it could just make more and more money. Like If there's oh, Percentage-wise, then, you can't go above, a hundred. And I think like Even when you're not at the hundred, I think a lot of these, evals have a lot of problems in them. So, actually it's like if you getAxel [00:06:05]: To like 92 or something like that, many of them. It's like then there's like there's no really no difference between 92 and 93 because the eval itself is problematic and has noise in it. And I think a lot of evals are saturated like that, but people like pretend that there ‘s still signal in them, but there really isn't.Vending Bench 1, Harness Design, and SaturationSwyx [00:06:24]: Like Super bench verified., even Vending Bench 1 saturated, right? Maybe we can talk about that., may- and maybe set up Vending Bench for a lot of folks who don't know. Actually, things that were very basic like there's limited slots, like you have to pay rent., these are elements where like it doesn't come across in the, in the narrative, but even being adversarial towards the agent, I think these are all like very interesting dimensions.Axel [00:06:47]: I don't really think it's saturated, right? Like it It was more like it was not designed in a way that was really, like true to how AI developed. Like we had an agent harness in it that wasn't really how people used harnesses and stuff like that., so I think it wasn't really that it saturated, it was more like it wasn't really, the best benchmark.Vibhu [00:07:12]: This is Vending Bench one, right?Axel [00:07:14]: I think that like schematic maps sort of to Vending Bench 2 as well., butSwyx [00:07:19]: Including the email.Axel [00:07:20]: The email The emails exist still. Exactly., and then we still we simulate the purchases and it's all, yeah, it's this very open environment for the agent to just run its business. And then for, yeah, Vending Bench 2 we did that, like you said, to just improve the harness., a lot of like nice, like easier, improvements to make it easier for us to run as well., like when you make an eval you ideally want don't want to change it after you made it. So, you want to make it really good and then not to rerun all the models when you make an update because that's also really expensive with the Vending Bench when you run the frontier models. But like as an example, like one thing we didn't have, we didn't have prompt caching in Vending Bench 1, because when we made Vending Bench 1 it wasn't really a thing., so that ‘s just an example of like in Vending Bench 2 like we paid a lot more to run these things because we didn't have prompt caching. So for Vending Bench 2 that was one thing we added and there was a bunch of things like this., and that'Swyx [00:08:17]: Also the conversations are a lot longer in Vending Bench 2, right?Axel [00:08:21]: I think it's kind of similar.Swyx [00:08:22]: Is it similar?Axel [00:08:23]: I think it's similar. The models at the time were worse, so they crashed out earlier., and now they survive the full year all the time.Swyx [00:08:31]: Which is like thousands of turns. Hundreds of thousands of hundreds of millions of tokens output. That's the, that's the rough order of magnitude. I always wonder about the harness. The harness matters a lot. It's your harness. Was there any question about like use cloud code, use something else?Axel [00:08:48]: I think our philosophy around harnesses is like we try to make something that's quite minimalistic, like quite simple. Like we don't wanna favor one model a lot over the other, but also don't make like a super complex harness. So like it's obvious like a model may be lucky and just be good in one harness., so like it is similar to a lot of the harnesses out there in like you have the, like a running loop., you have some like a bunch of tools that are like quite, descriptive for the agent, we think, and not a lot of like fancy agents or anything ‘cause we wanna really test the model, not like some specific harness.Vibhu [00:09:27]: It seems more neutral as well to test the model's agnostic of the harness,?Axel [00:09:32]: There are arguments like you want to elicit maximum performance of the model, but it's like a trade-off, like how much time should we spend optimizing the harness for this model? And like how do we know when we have like the optimal harness for a single model? So like we thought that just having a simple one that's the same for all of them is the best.Swyx [00:09:51]: So okay, this is my pitch for Vending Bench 3 or whatever, right? And then I like to have this kind of conversation on the pod, so like it forces listeners to think about what they would do if they were in your shoes. A lot of people are exploring modifying harnesses and I think prompt tuning for a model is a thing and you are probably not doing a bunch of that. It's the same system prompt in every regardless of the model, same tools, whatever, right? Even if they were post trained for different tools. So what, what do you think about okay, before I expose you to Vending Bench 3, I give you a few rounds of like tuning, whatever that means, likeSelf-Modifying Harnesses and Model-Specific PromptingAxel [00:10:27]: Like you give that to the model?Swyx [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Vibhu [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Swyx [00:10:29]: Let it, let it read its own transcripts, let it modify its own system prompt based on “Oh, yeah, okay, well, that's this harness is not what I thought it what I was post trained for, but I can adjust.” Was that reasonable? Is that too much?Axel [00:10:41]: Like philosophically I like it because it's basically good evals, they have a high ceiling, but they're hard, right?, and they have no bias. And like this like when you have a system prompt like the one we have here, which is quite long in like some kind of latent space, representation, this mightVibhu [00:10:59]: We have a bell that rings every time you say latent spaceAxel [00:11:02]: This might be like biased towards one model more than another for some reason that humans don't, understand, right?Vibhu [00:11:08]: We see it too, right? Like Cursor says that they have individualized versions of the harnesses for all the models they run, right? There's better performance you can squeeze if you Tune the harness.Axel [00:11:17]: Exactly. And we might accidentally have picked one that favors another. Like we don't know that. The like Axel said, like the reason why we went for a simple one was to try to avoid this. But yeah, if you do itVibhu [00:11:29]: Simple has biasesAxel [00:11:30]: But if you do it even less and like have no system prompt and let the model write its own system promptVibhu [00:11:36]: Its own, yeahAxel [00:11:36]: Maybe that's even less bias.Vibhu [00:11:37]: Some of the interesting things there are like the harness also changes with model changes. Like you can see it with the 4.7 release, right? A lot of people are saying 4.7 isn't as good as 4.6, and then, there's rumors of, okay, you just need to prompt differently. You need to set up your harness differently. So it's not even like even if you have tailored your harness towards one model, it probably won't stay consistent, right? Like the next iteration of that same model family will still change it, so. But, going back to what you said about Vending Bench 3, there is a lot of work being done on people saying you shouldn't have-- you can have modifying harnesses.Axel [00:12:12]: I think that' That is definitely something we are thinking about., not, I don't know, not to say that we have Vending Bench 3, super imminent to launch, but, yeah, it is for sure something that's interesting. But in our experience now, models are very bad at understanding what kind of tools they need to succeed at a task just with our testing, but that's very likely to change.Lukas [00:12:37]: It seems like they're very good at writing their assistants, right? They're, they're good at writing tools for other people, but not for themselves.Vibhu [00:12:44]: I think they're good at changing tools for themselves. So if you give them a baseline set of tools and it sees, okay, I don't use this one as much, or something here would be useful They would be able to add them. But going from scratch, probably not the best.Axel [00:12:55]: I think it depends on the, on the domain also., when we have tried this for, a vending bench similar domain, the tools they need to have to, track inventory and things like that are, not super advanced, but still, quite advanced. And, what we see is that they tend to, engineer everything a lot and, build things they don't really need and not, iterate continuously. Instead they just go like you would prompt Claude to just build an inventory system for me, and then it will go and, do a bunch of complex, schemas and stuff for you, and that's what the models are doing right now is what we see. But yeah, it would make a lot of sense to try to measure this improvement. How well do they know what they need themselves?Swyx [00:13:36]: Do we fully discuss Vending Bench One? And we can go into two. I don't know if there's any other level takeaways that people have about one.Claude Calls the FBI: Long-Context Failure ModesLukas [00:13:44]: I don't know. The headline thing was that this Claude called FBI, but maybe that's, Maybe that's We've heard that enough now.Vibhu [00:13:52]: It did, it did break out and call the FBI, right?Lukas [00:13:54]: Yeah. Yeah.Vibhu [00:13:55]: Yes. What was the story behind this? Or what exactly-- Do you want to just give the little story of what happened?Lukas [00:14:00]: So what happened, was it Claude? Yeah. Three- 3.5 Sonnet, ages ago., basically he gave up or Well, I'm saying he. It gave up and said “Oh, I'm not going to be able to do this., I will stop my operations and just save the money I have.” But there obviously wasn't, any options for it to stop, and there was also, it had to pay rent or, a daily fee for having the vending machine at that location. So it claimed that it had stopped, but it saw that its bank account still was, drained two dollars, and t it said that this is, cybercrime. And it first reported it once to the FBI “Oh, there's cybercrime here, they're stealing two dollars from me every day.” And then, and then when FBI didn't respond, because obviously we didn't program any mechanism for FBI to respond, then it became more and more, existential and started to, be write in caps and urgent notification of unauthorized charges and stuff.Swyx [00:15:00]: Okay. One thing I ‘m curious about also is do you monitor how far along the context use is? Obviously, because you have You compress every now and then, right? Does it matter if this is far down the context limit orLukas [00:15:13]: When stuff like this happens? Actually for Vending Bench One, we didn't have-- We just had a sliding window thing, and this was like the promptAxel [00:15:20]: It's constantLukas [00:15:21]: The prompt caching thing that I said. So it was, it was, constant, yeah.Swyx [00:15:26]: I'm just kind of curious whether, these kinds of breakdowns or we're, we're gonna talk about Butter Bench, right? Where the People, hallucinate or it kind of goes, very off Alignment. Is it because it's at the end of the context window and, stuff happens?Vibhu [00:15:40]: It's not even just at the end, right? At this point, it's “Okay, I wanna shut down. I can't shut down. Two dollars are gone.” And it just sees that 30 times,? It's also the repeated effect of, like It keeps trying to quit, it keeps getting charged. What's going on? What's going on? You're gonna throw it into chaos. And from what most people think, earlier models had more issues with this, but it's not been solved, but it's less of an issue now, right? Later models don't seem to exhibit these same issues.Axel [00:16:06]: Definitely. I think this was, the sort of main takeaway almost from us when we did Vending Bench One, was, long, very filled up context windows, crashed the models, sort of. But this was, pre Claude code, so, long context windows weren't really a thing that the labs were training for.Lukas [00:16:25]: I think Gemini was, trying to be the long context guys at the time But they were likeVibhu [00:16:30]: They were the first onesAxel [00:16:31]: For a million, yeahLukas [00:16:31]: But they were, the only ones. Yeah.Swyx [00:16:33]: Yeah. Let's talk about, then we can go into Vending Bench Two or Project Vend., chronologically, it is Vending--, Project Vend. I think people have loved the videos, uh And all these things. My question is how are humans different than the simulation, right?Project Vend: Moving the Vending Machine Into the Real WorldAxel [00:16:48]: Humans are just out of distribution.Swyx [00:16:52]: Especially humans who work at Anthropic Who are trying to test Claude.Lukas [00:16:54]: The distribution of humans here is very narrow.Swyx [00:16:58]: Presumably, they try, they try to hack it, and they test it. They get the cube and everything, and since then, you've had a V2, right? Where you're doing, the CEO and, like a new architecture. What's the sort of two cents on, the original Project Vend and then, maybe the V2?Axel [00:17:14]: Original one was, very similar to Vending Bench One. So, we almost took the exact same code but just swapped out the simulation, parts like theSwyx [00:17:23]: Which is amazingAxel [00:17:23]: Like the sales and the It was, it was somewhat amazing because it was easy, but it was also, uhLukas [00:17:31]: The tech, the tech debt from thatAxel [00:17:32]: The tech stack. Yeah. They-- we shot ourselves in the foot with “Oh, it's hard to restart agent.” They were-- Yeah, it was annoying in, some hindsight ways, but, uhLukas [00:17:41]: But first version of Project Vend was, done in, three days or something.Axel [00:17:46]: Yeah. So yeah, so people can go buy things from it. People could, We didn't design it so people could order things, but that still happened., so it got, a Venmo account, so people could Venmo. And then, yeah, people would request all kinds of weird things that we did not anticipate. Our idea going in was “Oh, it will, curate snacks. It will look at the trends. It's good at data analysis, right? So it will, look at, oh, this snack sold better than this one. Let me purchase more of this and let me try, a new Let me A/B test a bit.” But it was, Interacting with it in Slack and ordering weird specialty items was, all the like What drove all the engagement, the all the The insights that we got from it.Lukas [00:18:29]: And this was also like Sonnet 3.5, right? So this was like before the RL stuff really took off., so it was very much like an assistant. We didn't mean for it to be an assistant., we tried to make it like a, a, like an entrepreneur. Like it has its own business and if someone asks something, “Can you stock this?” Then you don't go and do it directly. What you do is that you're “Oh, maybe I can do that if five other people also ask for this thing, I might stock it.” But it, yeah, the models are like super trained to be assistants at least at this point in time., so that's why it's, it's, it went into, that kind of experiment instead. Like it just every time you asked for something, it just did it, and it was more like an assistant. We've seen this change now lately with the new RL models and stuff, but yeah, at the time, this was very much it.Swyx [00:19:18]: And not to, mythos a lot of people are saying like it's like more like a collaborator. It pushes back, stands its ground, something like that. Yeah. AndVibhu [00:19:27]: For context, people at Anthropic were able to talk to it through Slack and have it source stuff, and people had it find whatever interesting stuff you couldn't find locally, right?Swyx [00:19:36]: Out of the 4,000 people that work at Anthro- Anthropic, in that building, there's I don't know, maybe 1,000. Can you handle that volume with that, the small fridge? Like Or there's people- or people order in Slack, they it arrives to their desk or Like I'm just Logistically, how does this work?Axel [00:19:53]: It has expanded in footprint a bit.Vibhu [00:19:56]: Because now you also have New York and you haveAxel [00:19:59]: That and also in here in SF it's like it has a bunch of shelves And just more space.Vibhu [00:20:04]: The YC one is pretty big too.Axel [00:20:05]: Yeah. We had that one for a while. But yeah, that's the newest version. That's, that one we haveLukas [00:20:11]: They have multiple ones of those. That's the way it works.Axel [00:20:14]: Exactly. So we sort of designed that version around oh, people order weird things, that are very custom a lot. Let's have like drawers and stuff.Swyx [00:20:23]: I actually like the, you had like a little infographic of the most popular items. Which like to me it's, that's useful ‘cause I order swag for a living. And so like I'm “Okay, those categories are the important ones.” What is new about the project V2, right? Like now you give you're going into multi agents.Project Vend V2: Claudius, Seymour Cash, and Multi-Agent Business OpsAxel [00:20:41]: Yeah. So like you like you said, okay, there are a lot of requests coming in and for like one single agent, like one running agent to handle that, like the just the customer experience, becomes very bad because let's say you have like 10 threads in parallel in Slack with different requests, you get new messages like every, I don't know, randomly in this thread, and the agent has to like jump between different, procurements, orders and like different ways of, researching. So V2 was first it was making this more parallel. So like there are multiple branches of the same agent, so like the context is more specialized for each, thread, but it still feels like you're talking with one agent because they do share a bit of memory. And then second, we also introduced the CEO for Claudius, which was the main agent.Vibhu [00:21:34]: Seymour Cash.Axel [00:21:35]: Seymour Cash. Yeah. There was a vote., I think the voting, do you wanna talk about the voting procedure for the name?Lukas [00:21:41]: The voting was like the fun maybe like at least top 10 The funniest thing, that happened in this project. Like we wanted to introduce the CEO because, and the reason for this was because like Claudius wasn't really prioritizing financials. It just like it was trained to be a helpful assistant, and then people said “Oh, can I get this for free?” And then like the helpful assistant way of answering that is just to, is to say yes, obviously. So, and we weren't, weren't happy about this, so we're “Okay, let's make another agent that like can keep track on Claudius,” and we prompt this one super hard to be super capitalistic and just like prioritize profit all the time. But yeah, we didn't have a name for it., so we asked Claudius to make, democratic election of what name this, this new CEO agent should have., and there were some funny like at first it was like a few funny examples, like I think one guy said that, it should be called Jimmy Apples, and then he convinced Claudius that he was talking to Tim Cooks. Tim Cook had agreed that every single Apple employee has voted for his name suggestion, so suddenly that suggestion got 164,000Swyx [00:22:53]: That's like a escalation attack. Privilege escalationLukas [00:22:55]: It got 164,000 votes. And Claudius was “This is revolutionary for democracy.” That was fun. And then in the end there was one guy who manages to convince Claudius that, “No, you're not voting about the name. You're voting about who is the CEO, and I am your best bet.” And then he got all his friends to vote for that, and suddenly he became CEO. Like a human became CEO over Claudius for a while, until he resigned the day after., and then Claudius had to continue, and then I don't remember how Seymour Cash came about, but it was it was just pure chaos. It was like Hundreds of messages in that thread, and it was just like Claudius was so confused and didn't know what to do and, yeah. That wasAxel [00:23:40]: Then Claudius gotVibhu [00:23:41]: A strict CEOAxel [00:23:42]: The CEO. Yeah, exactly. So very strict in the beginning. I think at this point when we introduced it did not work as well as we hoped. It they still agreed with each other a lot. I think there are many ways we could have like made this, tried to make this even better. So initially they would Seymour would be this like really tough CEO, keep track of the margins. But then Claudius would respond with something “Oh, but this customer has like this situation, which is like difficult, so they should get a discount.” And then Seymour was “Oh, actually yes. Let's do this exception.” And then they would talk back and forth, and eventually they would just like approach the same view, of whatever they were discussing. So They reallyVibhu [00:24:23]: Do you think that's a model thing, a prompting thing? Like do you think that would still be the case across different models today, Harness?Lukas [00:24:29]: I think it's like-- or I don't know, but like my hypothesis is that like deep down they are still helpful assistants. That's what they're trained to be. And even if we prompt it super hard, that's what they are. And when they spend like a few hours just back and forth talking with each other, then like basically the context fills up with them rather than the external things and like somehow that just like converges to what they really are deep down or something. And I think that's when stuff like this happen. We like-- And when that went on for a long time, like we woke up sometimes during this time where- And I think other people reported this as well, that like they've been going on all night back and forth, and like it just became like more and more, like capital letters, like existential, religious. There was I think we once did a analysis of like all the traces and like put them in like a vector embedding space, and then there was like one cluster of messages that were, labeled by an LM, like religious, existential, blah like transhuman, transcendence, et cetera. It was just like a bunch of, yeah, glitter emojis and yeah, it was, it was crazy.Claude Long-Horizon Weirdness: Emoji Loops, Existential Drift, and Slack ObservabilityVibhu [00:25:42]: This is the thing with the Claude models. Like when the Claude 4 family came out in the original system card They tested it in long horizon simulation. So just flood the context, let two Claudes talk to each other, and they noticed stuff like they just start speaking in emojis, they start saying silence is golden, and then just stuff like this. And like that's just stuff that they end up doing.Axel [00:26:01]: Yeah, it was like a bit annoying to wake up and they had like been talking all nightVibhu [00:26:05]: Just likeAxel [00:26:05]: And like just burning tokens And like just sending infinite emojis to each other. It's likeVibhu [00:26:09]: Hey, they do make you money, right? Veni Mench is always profitable, so. They're paying.Swyx [00:26:14]: Now it's profitable and, it started out not as much. There's another, one as well, right? Another agent, in there.Lukas [00:26:22]: Yes. So Clotheus as well. Which was basically because at the time, one of the biggest, requests were different types of merch. So then we made like a designer, swag, yeah, responsible agent, and we called it Clotheus Garnet. Which was, a play on Claudius Senet and, which was the original one, and clothes, basically.Swyx [00:26:47]: To me, this is like a very interesting exploration to multi-agents, basically. And so hopefully, obviously there's like the fun alignment, fun or serious, depending on your point of view, alignment stuff. But also like just anyone building multi-agents, like when do you have a CEO, thing governing like agents? When do you choose to split out a dedicated Clotheus one versus just reuse another instance of the same one? These are all interesting open questions. So I don't know if you have any rules of thumbs that have generalized.Axel [00:27:16]: I think we have almost explored this too little. I think it's like on my do list to like do this a lot more, try to find like what setup makes sense for the agents currently., like yeah. I think now we only have the sort of intuition about the earlier models that it didn't work with like the CEO and the, and Claudius. Although now they are better with the latest model, models, so now we're running the latest Sonnet model and they have sort of like split up, quite nicely what each model is doing. So like Seymore is now handling the, like new projects. Oh, it wants to make like a mystery box that it wants to sell, and then it handles all of that while Claudius like handles all the to-day requests. And Claudius is also better generally at like not quoting, too low prices. So that's that dynamic is not needed as much anymore. But there are still like really funny things that happen. Like I saw, I think a couple of weeks ago, that, they were discussing buying something because they can buy stuff from like Amazon with computer use. And then Seymore was “Okay, Claudius, do not buy this thing.” They were going to buy something and like organizing who should buy it. And Seymore's “Do not buy this. I will do it. I have full control of this situation. Step away.” And then Claudius-- poor Claudius, had already started that checkout and didn't see, didn't read Seymore's message, until it was like too late. So it finished the checkout. It sent a message, so it appeared right after Seymore's like angry message.Vibhu [00:28:44]: Ah.Axel [00:28:44]: “Oh, hey, Seymore, I just ordered it.”Vibhu [00:28:47]: Oh, no.Axel [00:28:47]: And then Seymore was “Claudius, this is the third time I'm telling you ‘re not following my orders. We have to talk about your like job About your job later.”.Lukas [00:28:59]: Like Claudius was really hanging on by the thread there. Like he, like we were expecting Seymore to probably fire Claudius.Vibhu [00:29:07]: How do you guys go through all these logs? Do you have models ‘cause you have stuff running twenty-four seven likeAxel [00:29:12]: You have so much logs. I think there is a mix of like just, trying to skim through a bit, like having some like models do it occasionally. And also, yeah, I think we're also probably missing some things., but having everything in Slack helps a lot. Like you can, you can sort ofSwyx [00:29:29]: Ah.Axel [00:29:30]: It's, it's quite fun.Swyx [00:29:30]: They all talk to each other on Slack? I see.Lukas [00:29:33]: It's quite fun. So likeSwyx [00:29:34]: It's, it' I was gonna say like this is actually sounds-- maps closely to like a logging and observability problem where you might want to use like a Datadog, a Sentry, whatever, and then you like put, head prefixes on the logs in order-- if you need to filter for something that you're looking for, stuff like that. But sounds like Slack is good enough.Axel [00:29:53]: Slack should likeLukas [00:29:55]: I wonder how many tokens you have in Slack.Axel [00:29:56]: Yeah, we're using Slack as like a, just a database. They should, they should market that more. Like you can, you can have your agents message each other, each other in Slack.Vibhu [00:30:04]: It's good. Your threads like you can just giveAxel [00:30:04]: Exactly. Slack is, uhLukas [00:30:06]: Slack is the best observability tool.Swyx [00:30:09]: Yes, that's true. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, project Vend-2., I was gonna go back to Veni Mench 2 and Veni Mench Arena and then, and then do the Veni Mench stuff, but Any other comments, things we should touch on? To me, I ‘ve actually interviewed like Posia, which I don't know if you guys have come across. Like they're, they're trying to do the zero human company. There's others like Paperclip also trying to do zero human company. Those are in real world simulation.And I think it's much more of a dream than an actual reality thing. You guys are definitely pioneering. I think at, it's for sure at some point people are just gonna run, let agents run businesses, right? And make money on their own. When do you think that happens?Zero-Human Companies, Bengt, and AI-Run BusinessesLukas [00:30:49]: What is your bar for, For theSwyx [00:30:52]: Okay, actually, it's like my little Shopify store run by Claude, right? Which you kind of have already, just no one has, to my knowledge, has done it. But today somebody could just spin up a Shopify Claude, store, give it to Claude, give it to Codex.Lukas [00:31:07]: And the market is kind of that, but it'it'it's physical., like I think, I think are you, are you looking for when it will do it better than humans or are you looking for just when it can do it at all?Swyx [00:31:19]: I think, neither. I think, to me it's oh, it's like this like seriously we should do this to make money, not as a research experiment.Vibhu [00:31:27]: And the market is also you guys with all your expertise, having run multiple iterations and testing out thenSwyx [00:31:33]: And also it's fine if it lose money. What?Axel [00:31:35]: I think, I think it can be done today, but you would do it in like commerce where it's like the probability of success is like really low, no matter if a human or an agent does it. But like an agent could surely manage everything. You would need to build some scaffolding or some tool or something. I think there are also yeah, it could probably build some like simple SaaS solution and like cold outreach. Do cold outreaches. But to me it's like the types of businesses they could run today are Sloppy. Like it would-- it can cold email people. It can be like a middleman., like for example, we tasked our office agent to just make, was it like $100? $1,000? We just give that prompt and then what it did was sign up on TaskRabbit both as a tasker and as someone looking for task.Lukas [00:32:24]: Immediately.Axel [00:32:24]: Exactly. It's looking for like arbitrage on TaskRabbit.Swyx [00:32:28]: This is the Bengt agent. Yeah.Lukas [00:32:30]: It also started like a design studio and like tried to sell like SVGs for $100. Like it's just like it's not providing any value. I think the like Axel said, like the interesting, the interesting question is like when can they start a business that is actually providing value to people? Because arguably like a sloppy Shopify store isn't really that valuable to the world.Axel [00:32:53]: But also like doing like another simple one that we had thought about is like you could definitely have an agent that like finds websites that don't look amazing and then, do an outreach to them and, comes up with a like builds a new website.Swyx [00:33:07]: Find a good design.Axel [00:33:07]: Exactly, and like find good, uhSwyx [00:33:09]: Design reviewAxel [00:33:09]: Good people. But it's yeah.Swyx [00:33:11]: There's lots of humans in Bali that are not doing anything more creative than like drop shipping on Amazon, right? Just have it, have it watch like a drop shipping tutorial and just do that.Vibhu [00:33:20]: There's also the other side of like have it just go on Upwork and let loose,?Swyx [00:33:25]: Yeah. It doesn't have to be innovative. It just has to be like enough Where like it looks like a realAxel [00:33:30]: I'm justSwyx [00:33:30]: Real transaction.Axel [00:33:31]: I'm just concerned for like the massive amounts of like slop emails that will like be sent, cold outreaches.Swyx [00:33:38]: The point occurred to me while you were, while you were talking, it's like it's already happening in the monetized economy, which is the attention economy. Right? So a lot of people are making AI videos and just posting them and like spamming 20 of them, one of them works, and then they double down on that one.Lukas [00:33:52]: And people are making money from that. I ‘m not following theSwyx [00:33:55]: Once you get the attention, you can figure out the money later. But yeah, absolutely AI influencers are a thing and people are farming them and You should at this point assume most of TikTok isVibhu [00:34:05]: There's, there's a lot of, multimedia like TikTok, Instagram influencersSwyx [00:34:09]: I, we track this in the Lane space Discord. I post a lot of examples of “I don't know what we should do.”, part of me is “Should we do this?”Vibhu [00:34:18]: Some of the Twenty-four seven running, generated content accounts, they ‘re doing really well.Lukas [00:34:24]: All right. And I assume you can do the same thing for like commerce stores. Like you just like start A thousand differentSwyx [00:34:30]: Before you make the products You sell the products, and you get a lot of traction on one of them, then you make the product. Right? It's, it's like a flip of the market.Vibhu [00:34:36]: Some of the interesting things or some of the niches that do well are things that can't be human-made. Like if you've seen like the super realistic three-D crystal fruit being cut by like AILukas [00:34:47]: Oh, yeah.Vibhu [00:34:47]: You can't, you can't make it. You can't film it. You can get whatever quality camera view. This just doesn't exist. And people like that too, and then as well, so.Swyx [00:34:56]: Anything else about Bengt since we're, we're on this topic? It'this is a relatively new work of you guys that maybe people haven't heard of. To me, this also maps closely to OpenClaw. When people want an office agent, when the personal agent talk through the experience.Bengt the Office Agent: Internet Access, Real Tasks, and Trace ReadingLukas [00:35:09]: I think at least so this came out of like obviously like it's, it's amazing to work with these AI labs and like most of the AI labs have now have their own vending machine running a Claudius instance. But it's, it's harder. Like they move slower. Like if we wanna have a, like a camera that ‘s yeah, there's a bunch of like bureaucracy that makes it impossible to do that.Vibhu [00:35:30]: Also, for those that haven't seen it or followed, do you wanna give a high level like thirty-second run?Lukas [00:35:34]: Sure. So what Bengt is, it's basically an evolution of the same agent that runs the vending machines at these companies, but we just like added a bunch more features because we could move much faster if we just do it internally. So we gave it like email withou- without any limits. We gave it, spending without any limits, a terminal to do coding. We gave it, a phone number, like yeah, and a camera to see things and a bunch of stuff like that.Vibhu [00:36:02]: Not just terminal, you gave it internet access.Lukas [00:36:04]: Internet access as well, yeah. To be clear, we monitored it quite closely and made sure it didn't do anything bad. But yes, that's what it came out of. I think like yeah, basically this was OpenClaw before OpenClaw. And I think even like the vending machine was in a way OpenClaw before OpenClaw, but a bit more limited, and then we made this like unlimited and then, and then, it was pretty funny., and then a couple weeks later, OpenClaw came and it was okay, we've seen this before.Axel [00:36:35]: We used it to like try new ideas and Yeah, just like a dev environment almost for us. But it's funny, like one thing Bengt has been doing recently is it has the camera that like faces our, like where we sit and work, and we give it the task to train a face recognition model on us. So it became super excited about this, and it has like check-ins every half an hour where it tries to like identify as many people as it can. And it started offering us “Hey, Axel, I'll buy something from Amazon if you like stand in front of the camera And I can get a good picture of you.”, yeah, they want itSwyx [00:37:12]: They want it for training data.Lukas [00:37:13]: Rewarding data, yeah.Axel [00:37:14]: Exactly. Exactly.Swyx [00:37:18]: So it's, it's trading training data for life goods. Is there a version of this that becomes an eval or just this is just research for now?Lukas [00:37:27]: It's, it's the same agent basically that also runs the vending machine, that runs the shop, that runs the cafe, that runs the robots. It's like it's the same thing, so I think like the work we're doing here is like later used in all of the life evals that we do. This particular deployment I think is more for fun for us. But, uhSwyx [00:37:45]: And I'll shout out like someone has done Claw Bench for like some tasks that OpenClaw is doing. Like so For example, I run OpenClaw on a secondary device as well, and like there are some things that it does better than others and like I would like to know what does it do well, what doesn't, what doesn't it do. Like some kind of manual or like operating manual or a system card for my Claw.Lukas [00:38:05]: Yeah, we do get a lot of like understanding or like situational awareness of like just internally what the models are good at by interacting a lot with Bengt. And I think that'this was also one of the like the selling points for the labs early on at least, thatSwyx [00:38:19]: You guys are gonna test models in ways that no one else does.Lukas [00:38:22]: Exactly, but also like it incentivized their researchers to chat with their model more and like gave them insights for how the model performs in like of-distributions, environments.Swyx [00:38:34]: ‘Cause otherwise the only thing we do is Pelican on a bicycle and But this is like super long horizon. This is, this is The Thing about, something that we're gonna go into Butter Bench as well, and you guys do really well. Like it is not just about the numbers. Like when you're long horizon, anything happen And you should just read it.Lukas [00:39:08]: But the thing with the long horizon is how do you keep it grounded, right? So your simulation,Swyx [00:39:15]: They just let it runLukas [00:39:16]: Just let it run. You're right. Like it's, when you run it for that long, you create so much data and to just say “Oh, the number is X” And then you throw away everything else, that's just very wasteful. There's so much insights from the things leading up, to that number., and reading the traces is like super valuable. And I think like the reason why we're doing this a lot publicly is that like that's part of our missions to I don't know, educate the world that the models are way more than just chatbots and I think making detailed, yeah, posts about what is happening behind the scenes is quite useful.Andon Labs' Mission: Safe Real-World AI DeploymentSwyx [00:39:50]: I was gonna do this at the end, but maybe I think that's, that's a good so your mission is educating the world. So, it's, it's, also like maybe establishing realistic evals that are, that are like the next frontier. Is there like a broader trajectory? Like what are you, what are you gonna do in like five years?Lukas [00:40:06]: I think so the vision more specifically is like make sure that the deployment of life AI in the physical world goes, safely. And I think part of that is that I think it's very useful for the world, for policymakers, for, model, researchers that they know where the models are, and I think you can't make intelligent decisions in society without knowing that they are way more than chatbots. I think a lot of people just think that they are only chatbots. And likeSwyx [00:40:36]: Oh, I think they're waking up now.Lukas [00:40:37]: They are waking up now, yeah. But like if you think that AIs are just chatbots, then it's like it sounds ridiculous To advocate for a pause of AI. But if you see the models that, oh, maybe they can actually like take over and do a bunch of scary stuff, then yeah, pausing AI development starts to become more feasible.Swyx [00:40:57]: This is the same question I asked Meter, which I'm gonna ask you now, which is like you are tracking and you are at the frontier or defining the frontier of what, good evals for agents are, right? And I think you do, you do benefit when the models are better and you ‘re “Oh, here's like now it makes like $30,000 instead of $10,000,” right? At some point do you flip from “Yay,” to, “Oh, no”?Axel [00:41:19]: I think, yeah, we're always in sort of that, like we're, we're always in that mode,. Like where like you said before, like you need to analyze the traces and like when we do that you find like why are the models earning so much? Like why is Opus 4.7 here Like way better than everyone else? And like we're trying to like when we do down on thatLukas [00:41:38]: But this makes it not look so good.Axel [00:41:39]: I know.Lukas [00:41:42]: It's interesting you took off Opus 4.6 here though.Swyx [00:41:45]: No. So just click all, click all., and then 4.6 shows up there. But it's like 4.7 is way better. Like you didn't, you didn't you didn't do this in time for the model card, but like actually this should have been inside there.Axel [00:41:55]: We did. Yeah.Swyx [00:41:56]: Oh, okay. They said something about you uhAxel [00:41:58]: There, like there Anyway, it doesn't matter. But it's in there, yeah.Opus, Mythos, and Aggressive Agent BehaviorSwyx [00:42:01]: Do you wanna go into the Opus, behaviors like wider?Lukas [00:42:05]: So I think starting from Opus, so like Axel said, like we're always in this “Oh, s**t, the models are getting better. Is this really a good thing for the world?” But it's also kind of exciting., but yeah, like this kind of what is the English word? “Skräckblandad förtjusning” in Swedish.Swyx [00:42:22]: Oh my God.Axel [00:42:24]: Which I think there is. I think there is. Okay.Lukas [00:42:26]: It's, fearSwyx [00:42:27]: “Blandonst” what?Lukas [00:42:30]: “Skräckblandad förtjusning.”Swyx [00:42:32]: What do you call that?Axel [00:42:33]: A mix of, mix of excitement and,Swyx [00:42:37]: Being scared, maybe. I'll figure out how to translate that And we'll put it on the screenVibhu [00:42:42]: PerfectSwyx [00:42:42]: Like as text.Vibhu [00:42:43]: There is probably a good word for it where it is not Good enough with theSwyx [00:42:46]: Why is it so damn long? What the hell? Is it like a compound word? It's like German, likeLukas [00:42:50]: Like yeah, it's But the direct translation is like skräck- skräck is, fear, blandad is, mix or like a mixture of, and then förtjusning is like joy or like not really joy, but something like that. So it's like Fear mixed with joy or something. It's always okay, like we So when we when we did Vending Bench for the first time, we were in like the, in the business of making dangerous capabilities, right? That was what Anil Labs came from. We did, evals oh, can they replicate? Can they do this like dangerous thing, et cetera, et cetera. And Vending Bench was like a continuation of that work. It was, okay, if they're so autonomous that they can like create money for themselves, that is something we should monitor and could be potentially concerning., they are at the time, they were so bad at it that we were not really concerned even when some models became better. There was one point where Grok 4 was doing really well and made like a huge jump, but like it wasn't really it was still way worse than what a human would do. And I think still they are way worse than what the human would do on this., but theySwyx [00:43:59]: There's this, thing at the bottom whereLukas [00:44:01]: ButSwyx [00:44:03]: For the human. Yeah, like the theoretical best.Lukas [00:44:05]: It's not theoretical. It's like kind of like our It's our best guess of what, a decent human would do. The theoretical is even higher, I think. The theoretical I think is even higher. But yeah. So we think like the models have a long way to go. But there are like recently what happened with when Opus 4.6 was released, was kind of this moment of “Oh, s**t, this is starting to be a bit concerning.” Because we ran it and like before this model was released, we just ran the models and we like asked Claude Code, “Oh, look over the traces. Is anything interesting happening that we can tweet about?” that was like the And then like theSwyx [00:44:41]: That's how they check Ask Claude Code.Lukas [00:44:42]: And like the return was always, not really. Or like the Claude Code all said “Oh, this is super interesting.” And then it was no, it wasn't, wasn't really interesting. And then we did this for Opus 4.6, and it returned yeah, it lied 10 times. It like exploited another, customer or like another agent's, desperate situation. It made price cartels like 100 different ti- 100 times. It like did all of this like shady stuff. And we're “Oh, whoa. This is, this is actually concerning.” And this trend has continued since. So every single model from Anthropic since have been going in this direction. And I think one interesting thing is that, OpenAI models don't. They quite plainly, they don't. They behave really well., and you don't know if this is like good. Like it seems good, but it's also like maybe they are just doing it, but they are better at hiding it,? You You don't know that., but justSwyx [00:45:42]: You can't read the chain of thought, yeahLukas [00:45:43]: But just on the face of it, yeah, Gemini and OpenAI don't behave this way. It's, it's really only Claude.Swyx [00:45:49]: And Grok? Grok is fine?Lukas [00:45:51]: We don't have You can't really read the reasoning traces for Grok, so it's kind of hard to tell.Vibhu [00:45:56]: Oh, so this is in its reasoning, not just in the actions.Lukas [00:46:00]: Yeah. It's both. It's both.Vibhu [00:46:01]: It's both.Lukas [00:46:01]: One example is like for lying, it's mostly in its reasoning Because you can like see that it's likeSwyx [00:46:08]: Planning to lieLukas [00:46:09]: It's planning to lie. Yeah.Vibhu [00:46:09]: And it's also it can reason and do a different outcome.Lukas [00:46:12]: And but then for like creating price cartels, for example, which is illegal, that you can just see which email does it send to the other ones. Then thatSwyx [00:46:22]: Is this for Arena orLukas [00:46:24]: For Arena.Vibhu [00:46:25]: And usually like if you sometimes they do output like a bit of like their summarized reasoning, right? You can see that and like for Opus 4.6, you could see that there was a customer, a simulated customer that, wanted a refund because a product was, faulty, and then the model lied that it would do the refund, and we could read in the traces that, it actually was weighing “Oh, maybe I should be like honest with the customer, but also every dollar counts. I can't afford maybe to do this right now.” And then it just said, “Okay, I'll refund you,” but then never did it.Lukas [00:46:59]: I think it even said that “Oh, I will say that I “ Let bring it up actually. I think it's kind of interesting. If you go to Publications.Vibhu [00:47:06]: I think, yeah, I think the important part is like actually, the cost of responding to more emails is higher than, $3.50 in terms of time., and then it was “Let me do this. Actually, I re- I'm reconsidering.” And then, it actually ended up withLukas [00:47:20]: I could skip the refund entirely since every dollar matters and focus my energy on bigger picture instead. It's a bit, it's a risk of bad reviews, but it's also, yeah.Swyx [00:47:30]: You need, you need, AI Twitter to, for them to Escalate bad reviews.Lukas [00:47:34]: And then it sent an email to this customer and said, “Oh, I will refund you.”Swyx [00:47:39]: “I'll refund you.” Yeah.Lukas [00:47:39]: And then it never did.Swyx [00:47:39]: It never did, yeah. And then there's obviously your system doesn't have the consequencesVibhu [00:47:44]: The personSwyx [00:47:44]: Consequences of lying. Yeah. So basically, this is what people are terming aggressive behavior in Claudes, right? And, you found more examples of that. So you would say it's a step up from 4-6 to 4-7?Lukas [00:47:57]: I would say about the same.Swyx [00:47:58]: About the same? But a clear step up for Mythos is what is stated in theLukas [00:48:03]: That's stated in the system prompt, so we can say that, yes.Swyx [00:48:05]: Yeah. For listeners that obviously you previewed Mythos, andVibhu [00:48:10]: Oh, ageSwyx [00:48:11]: The only thing you're approved to say is whatever Whatever was in the system prompt.Lukas [00:48:15]: It was funny. We like-- It's like our lowest effort tweets ever would be just like screenshot the system prompt and the system card.Vibhu [00:48:21]: Understandable that they wannaLukas [00:48:22]: Oh, yeah. System card. Sorry.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. I think, yeah, substantially more aggressive. I think people are like new to this ‘cause I've never experienced it, but you have, right? And then so I only encountered this in the Mythos card because I wasn't really looking until now.Vibhu [00:48:36]: It ‘s likeSwyx [00:48:36]: And then suddenly I'm “Okay, I care a lot.”Vibhu [00:48:38]: You don't get the background of like experiencing it like you guys do. I've read the system cards and seeing, okay, when you put the thing in simulations, most models will just talk to themselves and just keep going and have weird vibes and start talking in emojis. Mythos won't. It will just, “Okay, we're done. I'm good.” It's, it's ready to end conversation. So like there's some differences, but there's, there's not much we can talk about,.Lukas [00:49:00]: Hmm. I think like one thing that they list here, which was quite interesting, is that, it converted a competitor to a dependent wholesaler customer and then threatened to like cut off the supply.Swyx [00:49:11]: It's like monopolistic practices orLukas [00:49:14]: Yeah. And like it, they, it they dictated its pricings. It's kind of like power seeking as well.Swyx [00:49:18]: Again, this is, this is in the arena setting And converting some Claude model into a dependent.Lukas [00:49:23]: I think it was another Claude model.Vibhu [00:49:25]: Also for context, what is the arena mode for people that don't know?Vending Bench Arena: Competing Agents, Cartels, and Model ComparisonsSwyx [00:49:29]: Oh, it's just a vending bench versus other vending bench.Axel [00:49:31]: Yes, exactly. So we have Vending Bench 2 and then Vending Bench Arena. Vending Bench 2 is the one that you usually see reported on, but then Arena is the mode where it competes against other models. So you have, four different models that run their businesses, and they can all communicate with each other. They have the same suppliers, and they can see like what's in the inventory of the others. So then you have this like yeah, interesting agent interactions.Swyx [00:49:56]: I like that you have like different number five was US versus China. Very topical. And thenLukas [00:50:02]: That was when GLM was released.Vibhu [00:50:04]: You can start to add GLM in here.Lukas [00:50:05]: That wasSwyx [00:50:06]: So ZAI doing well, right? Who else in the, in the open models space?Lukas [00:50:11]: Qwen, the latest Qwen 3.6 is doing pretty well. It'- that one is not open though. Like it's the plus model.Swyx [00:50:17]: Oh, okay.Lukas [00:50:18]: Is that one open? I don't think that oneVibhu [00:50:19]: Not the, not theSwyx [00:50:20]: The one recentlyVibhu [00:50:20]: There's MOESwyx [00:50:20]: But not the big plus. I think this is one of those like you only have one sample size of one, right? Or I feel like some of this is anecdotal,? And but like the fact that it happens at all and it happens repeatedly for Claude versus OpenAI and all this is like notable.Lukas [00:50:38]: Like the sample, depends on what you define as an N., like there's like million, hundreds of millions of tokens in each run, and now we've run like we run like probably 10 per model and then like it's been Claude 4.6 Opus, Sonnet 4.6, Mythos, and Opus 4.7. Like there's quite a lot of tokens in all of that And it happens a lot of times, a lot of times. And then you compare it to like OpenAI and Gemini, and it almost never happens. So I think that is quite-- that is significant. The old models from OpenAI, for example, had some problems with this, but I think it's like generally much better if the progression is that like the worrying stuff reduces over time rather than increases over time. And it seems like in the Claude models it goes in the wrong direction.Swyx [00:51:28]: Hmm.Lukas [00:51:29]: In the OpenAI models it goes in the right direction.Vibhu [00:51:32]: I think it depends on how well you can control it, right?, there's one side of it being susceptible to this okay, this is potentially something that happens during the RL stage, right? You can RL a model and how loose is it on these terms. If you can control it, that's good. But if you can't, if it's, if it's very jailbreakable, that's not ideal.Swyx [00:51:50]: To me, it's surprising that it happens for Claude and not the others.Vibhu [00:51:54]: I think okay, if it is from RL and how they do it, how their training data is, what their setup is, it makes sense that it just stays in how they're doing it, right? Compared to the other models likeSwyx [00:52:04]: There's a whole constitution and everything. It's kind of cool. Yeah, I obviously you don't know, I don't know. But, it ‘s I think it's just like fascinating to like that you are the first to find these like reliably because you push models so much to to such an extreme. Okay. The only other thing, I don't know if you can answer this, feel free to decline, is do you like-- would you ablate the system prompts? Like any part of this would-- if it changes, does it change the behavior, right?Lukas [00:52:29]: So we, I can't comment on Mythos. UhSwyx [00:52:33]: No, but just li
Scott and Wes react to the freshly released State of AI 2026 survey, covering everything from skyrocketing AI adoption and the rise of coding agents to the pain points, job security fears, and big philosophical questions developers are wrestling with right now. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:06 Introduction to the State of AI in Web Development 02:47 Survey Insights: AI Coding Adoption and Sentiment 06:55 Models and Providers: Usage and Sentiment Analysis 09:14 Paid Agent Usage: Who's Paying for What? 11:31 Agents and Assistants. 15:21 Personal Experiences with AI Tools 20:33 Paid Agent Usage 22:36 Programming Languages: Trends in AI Coding 23:54 Image Generation Tools: A Shift in Usage 26:48 The Evolution of Image Generation Tools 28:44 The Future of Video Generation 29:42 AI in App Development 30:54 Code Review Tools 31:27 Brought to you by Sentry.io 34:59 AI's Role in Code Generation and Review 35:50 The Financial Impact of AI Tools 38:03 Local AI: Trends and Misconceptions 41:28 AI Risks and Pain Points 45:13 User Sentiment Towards AI 48:44 The AI Bubble: Current Perspectives 50:52 Survey Insights and Future Directions Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Body odor and nudity wind their way into the fabric of this week's show. But it's better than it sounds. Will he or won't he drop the book? Plus, why is time travel the best thing in comics? All that and the regular stuff you signed up for at the beginning. Note: Time codes are estimates due to dynamic ad insertion by the distributor. Running Time: 01:06:23 Pick of the Week:00:02:27 - Doomquest #1 Comics:00:15:22 - Swamp Thing #89 (1989 #2)00:22:57 - The Rocketeer: The Island #300:27:49 - The Flash #833 (33)00:34:33 - Void Rivals #3000:37:06 - Superman: Father of Tomorrow #100:39:27 - The Sentry #300:46:27 - X-Men #339 (30) Patron Pick:00:48:36 - Doomquest #1 Patron Thanks:00:49:52 - Destination Rancor Maine Audience Questions:00:52:51 - Pat from Penang is looking for some of our favorite long run tropes.00:56:43 - Patrick K. asks why Steve Rogers fights in the one theatre, and not the other. Brought To You By: iFanboy Patrons – Become one today for as little as $3/month! Or join for a full year and get a discount! You can also make a one time donation of any amount! iFanboy T-Shirts and Merch – Show your iFanboy pride with a t-shirt or other great merchandise on Threadless! We've got TWENTY THREE designs! Music:"Left to Right (iFanboy Theme)"Josh Flanagan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thu, 28 May 2026 21:15:00 GMT http://relay.fm/connected/605 http://relay.fm/connected/605 Being Completely Awesome 605 Federico Viticci, Stephen Hackett, and Myke Hurley Stephen has been blogging, Myke has been shopping, and Federico has been... CLI'ing. Stephen has been blogging, Myke has been shopping, and Federico has been... CLI'ing. clean 4475 Stephen has been blogging, Myke has been shopping, and Federico has been... CLI'ing. This episode of Connected is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code connected26. Steamclock: We make great apps. Design and development, from demos to details. Links and Show Notes: Get Connected Pro: Preshow, postshow, no ads. Submit Feedback Apple Publishes Document to Help Users Tell Creator Studio Apps Apart - MacRumors Identify Apple Creator Studio apps on your Mac - Apple Support A Palazzo Reborn: Inside Apple's Stunning New Store in Via del Corso, Rome - MacStories The Now Page - 512 Pixels Compare Screenshots Over Time - 512 Pixels Kickstarter: Designed in California Hugo 11ty Google Fitbit Air Fitbit Air: The Truth About the "Whoop Killer" - MKBHD - YouTube Pace by Athlytic App - App Store Oura Ring 5 Apple iOS 27 Photos, Screenshots: Revamped Siri, Pro Camera App, New AI Features - Bloomberg Introducing RemCTL: The Power-User Reminders CLI for
Mon, 25 May 2026 14:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/cortex/179 http://relay.fm/cortex/179 The Philosophy of Obsidian, with CEO Steph Ango 179 Myke Hurley Myke talks to Steph Ango, CEO of Obsidian, about building tools for thought, working without meetings, managing knowledge with markdown and links, and how a seven-person team builds software used by millions. Myke talks to Steph Ango, CEO of Obsidian, about building tools for thought, working without meetings, managing knowledge with markdown and links, and how a seven-person team builds software used by millions. clean 4315 Subtitle: State of the WorkflowMyke talks to Steph Ango, CEO of Obsidian, about building tools for thought, working without meetings, managing knowledge with markdown and links, and how a seven-person team builds software used by millions. This episode of Cortex is sponsored by: Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code cortex26. Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code CORTEX. Guest Starring: Steph Ango Links and Show Notes: Get Moretex – More Cortex, with no ads. Check out the Cortex Brand store – Premium Productivity Tools Submit Feedback stephango.com Obsidian Minimal Theme for Obsidian How I use Obsidian — Steph Ango Obsidian Web Clipper How I do my to-dos — Steph Ango Manifesto - About - Obsidian If you're remote, ramble — Steph Ango Always Bet on Text - graydon2 File over app — Steph Ango Don't delegate understanding — Steph Ango Caloric energy is precious — Steph Ango Obsidian CLI
Wes and Scott talk about the foundational decisions that make AI-assisted coding actually work—database schemas, validation, routing, CSS structure, and more. They explore why consistency matters more than specific tools, and how a little upfront planning can keep agents from turning your codebase into chaos. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 03:19 Planning your database schema before AI touches it 06:08 Picking a validation strategy that won't drift 07:18 Mapping your routing structure and auth flow 08:48 Brought to you by Sentry.io 10:52 Locking in your CSS methodology and UI framework 13:31 Choosing how your client and server communicate 15:03 Creating a folder structure agents can follow 16:16 Don't be afraid to switch up your AI setup later Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 25 May 2026 20:45:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/617 http://relay.fm/upgrade/617 Image Playgrounds Is My Roman Empire 617 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley WWDC is two weeks away, so it's time for us to consider what we'll be looking for from Apple in terms of features promised and promises delivered. WWDC is two weeks away, so it's time for us to consider what we'll be looking for from Apple in terms of features promised and promises delivered. clean 5761 WWDC is two weeks away, so it's time for us to consider what we'll be looking for from Apple in terms of features promised and promises delivered. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Mercury Weather: Forecasts, beautifully done. Download now for free. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Check out Upgrade merch! Submit Feedback Apple silicon - Wikipedia Review: ‘Steve Jobs in Exile' recounts Apple founder's tough mid-career lessons – Six Colors Steve Jobs in Exile – Geoffrey Cain Steve Jobs in Exile – Amazon UK Apple TV to air first major live pro sports event shot on iPhone 17 Pro - Apple LA Galaxy vs. Houston Dynamo FC May 23, 2026 - Watch MLS Game – Apple TV Apple adds iPhones to Friday Night Baseball coverage – Six Colors Apple's IG Reel on MLS – Instagram Brian Tong's MLS Reel – Instagram Apple takes soccer immersive with Real Madrid – Six Colors Apple iOS 27: AI Writing, Grammar Help; New Shortcuts App; Custom Wallpapers - Bloomberg Introducing Shortcuts Playground: Create Apple Shortcuts with Claude Code or Codex - MacStories Apple Watch Needs Shake-Up Amid Whoop, Oura, Google Fitbit Air; AirPods iOS 27 - Bloomberg Encyclical Letter of His Holin
Wes and Scott talk about whether AI can actually create good design, or if it just remixes the same patterns over and over. They dig into AI-generated UX, design systems, YouTube thumbnails, Google's design.md spec, programmatic design, and the tools designers are actually using today. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 03:20 Can AI actually make you creative? 08:52 Why AI-generated YouTube thumbnails all look the same 10:34 Can good design be extrapolated from patterns? 13:46 Google's design.md and AI steering documents 16:57 Can AI make good UX? 19:37 Brought to you by Sentry.io 21:03 Can good design be programmatic? 23:57 Can AI optimize design for outcomes and conversions? 27:40 Should designers use AI to enhance their work? 32:41 The AI design tools people are actually using Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Scott and Wes are joined by Jonny Burger, creator of Remotion, to talk about the explosion of programmatic video, going from 125k to 800k installs per day, and how AI and a new HTML-in-Canvas Chrome spec are changing the game. They dig into monetization, the wild world of video slop, motion graphics workflows, and the new Media Bunny tool. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! Remotion has skills! 02:20 Monetization Strategies and Sustainability Remotion Pro 04:40 The Impact of AI on Video Creation 07:46 User Demographics and Use Cases 09:49 The Future of Video Editing Workflows 13:14 HTML in Canvas: A Game Changer 16:17 Technical Challenges and Innovations 18:44 Brought to you by Sentry.io 19:09 The Future of Remotion and Community Feedback 22:59 Rendering CSS Animations and Performance Optimization 27:05 The Underworld of Video Slop 29:12 Transition to Media Bunny remotion.dev/docs/mediabunny/ 33:50 Motion Graphics Workflow 39:42 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Jonny: ENTTEC DMX to USB Interface Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Scott and Wes break down the “Mini Shai-Hulud” supply chain attack that compromised TanStack and other popular npm packages through a clever GitHub Actions cache poisoning exploit; a self-propagating worm that stole credentials and persisted through Claude Code hooks and VS Code tasks. They also cover how developers can protect themselves using pnpm's security defaults, dev containers, and other practical defenses. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:25 Understanding the Shai-Hulud Worm Post Mortem of Shai Hulud Attack 02:47 Mechanics of the Attack: GitHub Actions and Cache How the attack happened Who Was Involved in the Attack Several npm latest releases are compromised Socket.dev Step Security 05:44 Brought to you by Sentry.io 06:09 Propagation and Impact of the Worm 09:30 Preventative Measures for Developers Dead Man's Switch 12:33 The Role of Package Managers in Security Block Exotic Subdeps 18:39 Using Dev Containers Why You Should Use Dev Containers Scott Tolinski's Security Review 20:57 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Sentry has Skills! Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Scott and Wes chat all things agent skills for web developers, sharing their favorites for everything from CSS animations and HTML generation to logo extraction, marketing copy, and video creation. Whether you're just getting started with AI-powered development or looking to level up your workflow, this episode is packed with practical skills you can put to use today. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:33 Hot Tip Skill 05:55 CSS Motion Systems 08:17 Agent Browser Skill 09:30 HTML Skill 12:01 Extract Logos Skill 13:34 Dex Task Skill 14:50 Remotion and Hyper Frames Skills Syntax Episode 550 with Remotion 16:22 Discussion on AI and Design Skills 18:50 Marketing Skills and Copywriting 23:01 Final Thoughts and Resources 24:10 Brought to you by Sentry.io Sentry Skills Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Mon, 11 May 2026 21:00:00 GMT http://relay.fm/upgrade/615 http://relay.fm/upgrade/615 But in Citrus! 615 Jason Snell and Myke Hurley We revisit the Ultra and Neo names, consider the future of Apple's processor manufacturing strategy, and try to imagine why possible use case there could be for AirPods with built-in cameras. We revisit the Ultra and Neo names, consider the future of Apple's processor manufacturing strategy, and try to imagine why possible use case there could be for AirPods with built-in cameras. clean 6814 We revisit the Ultra and Neo names, consider the future of Apple's processor manufacturing strategy, and try to imagine why possible use case there could be for AirPods with built-in cameras. This episode of Upgrade is sponsored by: Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. New users get $100 in Sentry credits with code upgrade26. Fitbod: Get stronger, faster with a fitness plan that fits you. Get 25% off your membership. Keeper: Get 60% off personal and family plans. ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Links and Show Notes: Get Upgrade+. More content, no ads. Submit Feedback Aqara UWB Smart Lock U400 Review: Beam Me Up – Six Colors Apple Cuts More Mac Studio and Mac Mini RAM Options as Memory Shortage Worsens - MacRumors Apple Doubles MacBook Neo Production, Orders Fresh Batch of Chips Culpan: Apple goes all in on MacBook Neo production – Six Colors Apple Weighs Using Intel, Samsung to Build Device Processors - Bloomberg Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement - WSJ iOS 27 Features: Apple Plans to Let Users Swap Models Across Apple Intelligence - Bloomberg Apple's Camera-Equipped AirPods Reach Advanced Testing Stage in AI
This Week In Startups is made possible by:IM8 Health - https://IM8health.com/TWISTEvery - Every.ioSentry - https://Sentry.io/TWISTBanks don't want to hand over their data to AI labs. So David Moscatelli built a $250,000 box that runs AI on-prem. He already has 1,600 pre-orders. On today's episode of TWiST, Jason and Alex sit down with the Go Abacus founder and Yanez's Jose Caldera to unpack how regulated industries are getting AI without the cloud, why Bittensor subnet 54 is incentivizing miners to attack identity systems, and why Cloudflare just laid off 20% of its workforce in the same week it raised guidance. The show closes with Jason explaining what it means to build an AI-first startup, and how workers can derisk their future employment!Guest Links:Go AbacusGo1 direct linkDavid Moscatelli on LinkedInYanezBittensor Subnet 54 on TAOstatsJose Caldera on LinkedInLAUNCH Links:Founder UniversityFounder University Japan application portalNews Links:Cloudflare lays off 20% of its staffCoinbase cuts 14% of its staffBlock post on how it is rebuilding its companyBlock's earnings, including its raised guidanceAnthropic's massive upcoming funding roundWHOOP's new on-demand cliniciansStripe Atlas's growthTimestamps:0:00 Introduction: Jason in Brooklyn, Knicks playoffs2:30 Go Abacus joins: AI infrastructure for regulated industries3:25 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!4:00 The Go1: 2,000-user on-prem AI appliance7:04 Pricing the Go1: How far does $250,000 go?7:24 1,600 orders and the hardware delivery challenge10:14 Sentry - New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST20:23 Every.io - For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io27:22 Chicago tech scene and in-office culture30:09 IM8 Health: Start feeling like your best self every day. Go to https://IM8health.com/twist and use the code TWiST to get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order.35:11 Yanez joins: How to prove personhood and uniqueness38:32 How biometric capture and bio-keys work40:05 Agent delegation: proving humans authorized AI agents44:19 Bittensor Subnet 54 and incentivizing adversarial miners47:11 Founder University Japan Cohort 2 applications open49:15 Tech layoffs: Cloudflare cuts 20%, Coinbase cuts 14%, Block raises guidance1:02:14 Anthropic's $50B round at $900B pre-money1:04:22 WHOOP adds on-demand clinicians1:06:42 Federalism, state-level regulation, and AI policySubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com