Digital Markets, Elon, Biology, AI Meetings, and Apple

Weekly Roundup of AI, Technology, and UX

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Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:

• 💹 Digital Markets

• 💬 Chat AI

• 🐦 Twitter and Elon

• 👩‍🔬 Digital biology

• 🍎 Apple

• 🤝 AI Meetings

• 💁‍♂️ Digital Assistant

Podcast

Creating Online Marketplaces

In this episode, I interviewed Shirish Nadkarni, a serial entrepreneur and author. We talked about his early experience as a product manager at Microsoft, and his work on the acquisition of Hotmail, which inspired him to eventually start his own company. We discuss the companies Shirish founded, Livemocha and TeamOn Systems, and the lessons he learned from each of those. 

We also discussed his latest book, Winner Takes All, and the history of digital marketplaces as well as what we can learn from the largest marketplaces in the world. And how to compete against monopolies and regulate monopolies like TicketMaster and Amazon. You won’t want to miss this amazing discussion. 

News and Useful Reads

Is Chat the Future of AI?

This article asks an interesting question about the future of chat and AI. Is it the future? It isn’t a great interface, and that may be the reason it is useful—because it is part of the divergent thinking process:

ChatGPT is for rambling. It’s for rapid prototyping. It’s for getting up to speed quickly in completely unfamiliar terrain. It’s for the dreamers and the generalists—not for the specialists.

Elon Musk’s Unrecognizable App

We’ve discussed it a few times in this newsletter, from blue checks to Twitter blue. But Elon has put on a masterclass in what not to do to a product or company. No one is exactly sure what Twitter is any more.

But so far, the site has mostly just morphed into what its owner said it could never be. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape,” Musk wrote when he bought it…

Managing Up as a Product Manager

Managing your manager is an important skill for anyone, including product managers. I spoke with Jens a while ago on my podcast, so was interested in one of his latest articles and I think you’ll find it a good read as well:

As a product manager, you should be striving to continuously increase the leverage in both directions. This means increasing your impact and/or decreasing the time your manager has to spend managing you (increasing your manager’s leverage), as well as getting your manager to help you improve your impact in the most effective way (increasing your leverage).

A glimpse of the next generation of AlphaFold

Google announced more breakthroughs with AI in the biomedical field, which could have some fascinating implications for new drugs, among other things:

The model’s expanded capabilities and performance can help accelerate biomedical breakthroughs and realize the next era of 'digital biology’ — giving new insights into the functioning of disease pathways, genomics, biorenewable materials, plant immunity, potential therapeutic targets, mechanisms for drug design, and new platforms for enabling protein engineering and synthetic biology.

New Hardware from Apple

If you’re in the market for some new Apple hardware, especially a new MacBook Pro like me, then the most recent Apple announcement will be important to you:

DESPITE THE YEAR coming to a close, Apple still has new hardware to unveil. During a spooky-themed virtual event held the day before Halloween, the company took the wraps off of its next-generation M3 chipsets: the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. Additionally, Apple announced some new machines powered by these updated processors: a new MacBook Pro in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes and a 24-inch iMac.

Sick of meetings? Microsoft’s new AI assistant will go in your place

I can’t even begin to describe how much I’ve been waiting for this. I was literally in a day filled with meetings wishing I could send an AI version of myself to take notes, give any updates, and then follow up with me after for action items to save me hours of my day. I’m here for this.

And as part of the new offering, staff at firms that subscribe to Microsoft’s Copilot will theoretically be able to send their AI assistants to meetings in their place—effectively enabling them to skip or double-book meetings and turn their attention to other work.

Other Interesting Finds

Xembly

There are more and more tools like this now, but this may be one you want to check out. I find it fascinating because I pitched this idea several years ago to create something very similar. We created a working prototype and got some initial traction, but then didn’t pursue it. We were probably slightly early or maybe not persistent enough.