From a VPE I talked with, a month ago (paraphrasing:) “It’s wild how here, in NYC, all these AI co’s buy billboards. So many of them. There’s eg all these Devin ones everywhere I go. What a waste of money.” Talked to them recently and they’re signing with Devin. Will never know if it’s correlation or not, but maybe those ads aren’t a total waste of money?

Interesting to recall the last new IDE launch (a coding tool with an interface resembling an IDE): it was Antigravity, in November 2025. From around January 2026, most devs I know spend less and less coding inside IDEs (and more with terminals): after decades, this category of coding tools seems to be slowly going extinct / rapidly losing market share.

It’s now been closer to a year for everyone trying and using various AI coding harnesses, and a bunch of folks found their favorite. So inside any given with “use what works for you” guidances company 100 devs will use 5-8 different ones Only a matter of time to centrally consolidate and have 1 or 2… because consistency, costs, compliance, same config etc etc

It’s a weird complaint to have but with AI agents, that “flow state” during coding is gone (because the coding itself is gone.) Every time I talk with a dev about work now vs before, it seems to come up, like today with a former colleague. Are we over-glorifying it (I mean it wasn’t all roses, it was also frustration) or is it something important / relevant they we had but now don’t really have?

Lots of startup founders+CEOs love the idea of going on a large podcast. For distribution, fame, status or whatever else. So they hire a marketing team or PR agency to make it happen. Those PR people send an almost identical AI-generated email to me, this: It won't work. I now get closer to 50 pitches like this per month. What works: build something epic, that people (e.g. devs) love. Put your focus there, not on a marketing team spamming every ranked tech podcast on the planet. I used to not send any response to these, but now I'm sending a link to this blog post with more of my thoughts:

Well guys, I'm sorry to tell you that we are not officially in a Bitcoin bull market because Gareth Solaway says we have to hit a higher high above $82k...🤣🤣🤣 Fak you Gareth!!