"Subscribed for quick summaries of topics. Saves time. Googling and Youtube and collating info isn't convenient."
— RB
Making practical sense of software and AI.
What is Google doing with AI?
Inside Google's full-stack cloud bet, and how it differs from Microsoft and AWS.
How to use open-weight AI models
Picking a model, a harness, and where to run the thing.
What's going on with open-weight models?
How open-weight models went from a curiosity to great in 2 short years.
Neural Network
Neural networks are the mathematical brains behind modern AI—think of them as simplified versions of how your actual brain processes information.
Pre-Training
Pre-training is the "undergrad degree" phase where the model builds its foundational knowledge and world model.
Model weights
Model weights are the numbers a model learned during training — an astoundingly unsexy name for the single most important component of an AI model.
Post-training
LLM post-training turns a model from a knowledgeable blob that produces rambling answers, into a helpful assistant.
Databricks is apparently worth $100B. What do they even do?
What we should really be asking is “What does Databricks not do?”
Data warehouse
A data warehouse is a special type of database designed for analytics instead of transactions.
A/B Testing and Experimentation
Experimentation is one of the ways that companies understand if their product efforts are working, and ipso facto, what they should be spending time on.
Databricks
Databricks sells a data science and analytics platform built on top of an open source package called Apache Spark.
OpenAI
OpenAI is the most popular provider of generative AI models like GPT-4.
Software Eng for Vibe Coders: Databases + Storage
Where your vibe coded app actually keeps its data, and how it might break when real users show up.
What does Turbopuffer do?
And what's going on in the category formerly known as vector databases?
Migration
Migrations mean a lot of things in software, but they usually entail some sort of important change.
Vector Database
A vector database is a place where developers store specially formatted data to use for machine learning and AI.
Confluent
Apache Kafka is a framework for streaming real time data, and Confluent offers Kafka as a managed service.
Elastic
Elasticsearch is a popular open source database for storing and searching unstructured data.
Software Eng for Vibe Coders: On Frontends + Backends
A new series to help non-engineers build products that can handle going viral.
What are code sandboxes?
Why coding agents need a safe place to play, just like we all do.
All about Infrastructure as Code
The deceptively simple text files that help you avoid huge mistakes when shipping software.
Sandbox
A code sandbox is isolated infrastructure that gets created on demand, so untrusted code can run without being able to touch anything that matters.
Version control
Version control lets you track and manage changes to your code in a more sophisticated way than you’re used to.
Heroku
Heroku was and is one of the first cloud platforms as a service (PaaS).
New Relic
New Relic is observability software: teams use it to monitor the performance of their apps and infrastructure.
VPN
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) lets you route your internet access through a specialized server that keeps your sensitive information private.
Tokenization
Tokenization is one of the ways that backends protect sensitive information, like credit cards or social security numbers.
Okta
Okta is an enterprise-focused identity provider: they take care of managing usernames, passwords, and permissions.
Snyk
Snyk helps developers make sure that the code they're writing is secure.
"Technically has allowed me better bridge the gap between user problems and how our system works under the hood."
— Adelaide Hallowell
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Learning Tracks
Curated collections of foundational articles to guide you through the basics of getting more technical at work.
AI, it's not that complicated ↗
How to understand and work effectively with AI and ML models and products.
- How do Large Language Models work?
Breaking down what ChatGPT and others are doing under the hood
- What's RLHF?
How AI models learned to stop being weird and start being helpful.
- What's GPT-3?
GPT-3 is a Machine Learning model that generates text.
- What’s a data science notebook?
Data Science Notebooks help data teams explore data with code.
Analyzing Software Companies ↗
The products and business models of leading software companies.
- Databricks is apparently worth $100B. What do they even do?
What we should really be asking is “What does Databricks not do?”
- What does Snowflake do?
Snowflake sells a powerful cloud data warehouse for analytics and data science teams.
- What does OpenAI do?
OpenAI is the most popular provider of generative AI models like GPT-4.
- What does dbt do?
dbt (no capitals) is a tool for transforming and organizing data in your warehouse.
Building Software Products ↗
How to make positive contributions to your product roadmap.
- The top 5 things PMs should know about engineering
Engineering and code basics that can make you a better PM to work with.
- What's code?
Code is step by step directions, but for computers.
- What's the internet?
A network of computers all connected to each other and sharing information.
- What's cloud?
Cloud is how companies rent infrastructure over the internet.
From Spreadsheets to Databases ↗
You've outgrown Excel, but you've got to put that data somewhere besides your parents basement.
- The Beginner's Guide to Databases
There are 300+ databases; what do they all do?
- SQL for the rest of us
If you’re not a data scientist but you have questions, you want to know SQL.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Schemas
Why that schema change is going to take your engineers two weeks.
- The Excel User's Guide to Databases: Migrations
Why your feature is held up by a migration and why this is actually good.
How AI Models Actually Work ↗
Under the hood of today's powerful AI models: how they're trained, implemented, and otherwise used.
- What is Machine Learning?
How computers learn patterns from data — and why it’s the foundation for everything from stock prediction to ChatGPT.
- How do Large Language Models work?
Breaking down what ChatGPT and others are doing under the hood
- How do you train an AI model?
A deep dive into how models like ChatGPT get built.
- The beginner’s guide to AI model architectures
Unlike an onion, hopefully these neural network layers won't make you cry.
Software Engineering for Vibe Coders ↗
Your AI wrote the app. This is everything that happens after — where it runs, how it stays up, and what breaks first when real users show up. A six-part series, made with our friends at Railway.
- Software Eng for Vibe Coders: On Frontends + Backends
A new series to help non-engineers build products that can handle going viral.
- Software Eng for Vibe Coders: Databases + Storage
Where your vibe coded app actually keeps its data, and how it might break when real users show up.
- Software Eng for Vibe Coders: Auth + Security
How to make sure anyone on the internet can't just delete your app's data, and other security considerations.
- The Vibe Coder's Guide to Deployment
How your app gets off your laptop and onto the real internet, and what to do when a deploy breaks.
Working With Data Teams ↗
How to make positive contributions when working with analytics and data science teams.
- How do product analytics work?
Product analytics is how teams instrument and analyze data about their product usage.
- What your data team is using: the analytics stack
A deep dive into all of the tools that data teams use to do their work.
- SQL for the rest of us
If you’re not a data scientist but you have questions, you want to know SQL.
- What's the Modern Data Stack?
The new set of tools data teams use to get their jobs done.