Episode 526: The Optimist, the Origin, and the Deck

Software Defined Talk

This week, we unpack The Optimist, the new Sam Altman biography; revisit OpenAI’s early days; and break down Coatue’s AI strategy deck. Plus, tips for squeezing in side projects between thought leadership presentations.

Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 526

Runner-up Titles

• Flow State
• Altman and AI
• Day 2 Thinking
• Growth Mindset
• Less of you
• You don't need a Harvard Business Review subscription to know that
• Running unnecessary hardware in your house
• Lifelong Costco member here.
• Pre-populate Everything
• There’s no ROI on a good hotdog

Rundown

• AI Native vs. AI Add-on
• AI Frenzy
  • The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future
  • Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab valued at $10bn after $2bn fundraising
  • ChatGPT's Enterprise Success Against Copilot Fuels OpenAI and Microsoft's Rivalry
  • Iyo vs. Io — OpenAI and Jony Ive get sued
  • Zuckerberg Leads AI Recruitment Blitz Armed With $100 Million Pay Packages
  • After trying to buy Ilya Sutskever's $32B AI startup, Meta looks to hire its CEO
  • Message from CEO Andy Jassy: Some thoughts on Generative AI
  • Clouded Judgement 6.19.25 - The Dropping Cost of Intelligence
• Coatue's 2025 EMW Keynote Replay
  • Slides in online PDF
  • Coatue’s Laffont Brothers. AI, Public & VC Mkts, Macro, US Debt, Crypto, IPO's, & more
• Agents and the Web
  • Remote MCP support in Claude Code
  • Agentforce 3, it's agents all the way down.
  • Google Cloud donates A2A to Linux Foundation- Google Developers Blog
• Linux Foundation Appoints Jonathan Bryce as Executive Director, Cloud & Infrastructure and Chris Aniszczyk as CTO, Cloud & Infrastructure to Oversee Major Open Source Initiatives

Relevant to your Interests

• Amazon orders employees to relocate to Seattle and other hubs
• Microsoft announces advancement in quantum error correction
• Datadog DASH: A Revolving Door Of Operations And Security Announcements
• the six-month recap: closing talk on AI at Web Directions, Melbourne, June 2025
• Snap acquires Saturn, a social calendar app for high school and college students
• Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
• Checking In on AI and the Big Five
• U.S. House tells staffers not to use Meta’s WhatsApp
• How AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux Have Diverged Since CentOS
• AI search finds publishers starved of referral traffic
• 10 years of platform engineering at SIXT: Lessons in scaling and innovation - Boyan Dimitrov
• What Would a Kubernetes 2.0 Look Like
• kubectl-ai

Nonsense

• Costco Executive Members get extended hours

Listener Feedback

• Warp

Conferences

• CF Day EU, Frankfurt, October 7th, 2025.
• SpringOne, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th, 2025. See Coté’s pitch.
• Explore 2025 US, Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th, 2025. See Coté’s pitch.
• Texas Linux Fest, Austin, October 3rd to 4th. CFP closes August 3rd.

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Recommendations

• Brandon: Discount Tire
• Coté:
  • Brimstone Angels
  • Rebels of Reason: The Long Road from Aristotle to ChatGPT and AI's Heroes Who Kept the Faith

Photo Credits

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