Todd Underwood

This is a fantastic article packed with history and lessons re: startups (esp. founders), product management, problem-solving, and more. I need to re-read it. https://lnkd.in/gxhpi_gg

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Satya Nadella and Brad Smith in conversation on the latest episode of Tools and Weapons. In this episode, Brad and Satya unpack what this means, how it connects to the company’s mission, the responsibility that companies have to create inclusive growth, and how software is one of the biggest deflationary forces during inflationary times. https://lnkd.in/gWcQdhF3 #Microsoft #ToolsAndWeapons

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Part 3/5 - 2025 Predictions and Trends 5-7 Yesterday, I covered what I think are the biggest and arguably most common trends and predictions that most people in the industry are already following. In simpler terms, my “no sh*t, Sherlock” stuff. Today’s points might be a little more controversial and open to interpretation, but let’s dive in: 5. Walled Gardens Continue to Win—And Win Big Eric Seufert has been saying this for as long as I can remember, but I truly believe that while we’re seeing the democratization of areas like app stores and the IAP landscape (which is great for developers), walled gardens and companies with the most varied and expansive datasets will continue to dominate. A clear and recent example is AppLovin vs. Unity. AppLovin is now approximately 12 times larger in market cap and could potentially swallow up Unity if it wanted to, a major contributor to this growth and success is because of extremely smart data plays with the acquisitions of MoPub and Adjust. That’s a scary thought for my old colleagues! The sheer scale of these data-driven giants means their dominance is set to grow even further. 6. AI Becomes Central to Game Ideation and Design AI adoption has been significant in areas like marketing (e.g., UGC and AI-generated actors for content) and within big studios for tasks like automating QA by mimicking user behaviour. However, very few companies are leveraging AI in the earlier stages of game ideation, design (beyond level creation), and production. I predict that in 2025, we’ll see the first game where over 50% of its foundation, such as the core loop, base code for the game mechanic, and initial documentation (GDD), will be generated by AI. A human team will polish it to completion, but AI will play a significant role in these early stages, changing how games are created. 7. Transmedia and IP Gain Traction in a Overly-Competitive UA World Cue Eric Kress rolling his eyes, but hear me out. Transmedia and integrated holistic experiences will begin to engage users on multiple levels. Think series, movies, and games all built around the same IP, drawing audiences deeper into their favourite characters lore and worlds. A great example is Arcane Season 2, but I think other players SEGA and The Pokémon Company International are following suit. Pokémon’s TCGP launch is a case in point, I believe it will generate at least $1 billion in the next 12 months (Phillip Black, mark my words). The real advantage of transmedia IP is clear: it enables mass-market acquisition for free (thanks to an established audience), effective cross-promotion across mediums, and cheaper UA through better creative performance driven by brand recognition. These may not feel as obvious as yesterday’s points, but there are enough recent signals to justify these assumptions. Tomorrow, I’ll round things off with points 8-10, and on Friday, I’ll try to get input from some industry friends before consolidating all of this and resharing!

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AWS re:Invent 2024 did it again! Every year, the announcements somehow manage to outdo expectations, and this year was no exception. While much of the buzz centered around (and rightfully so) Generative AI (shoutout to Project Rainier, Trn2 EC2 UltraClusters, Bedrock Knowledge Bases, and Bedrock Agents!), I’m especially thrilled about S3 Tables. By embracing the growing dominance of Iceberg and Parquet formats, S3 Tables introduces a first-class bucket type for Parquet tables, making it easier than ever to manage and query data lakes. It’s a game-changer for simplifying workflows and enhancing performance in the data space. What really takes the cake, though, is how S3 Metadata leverages these advancements. An absolute chef’s kiss from AWS! It’s incredible to see how S3 continues to innovate, simplify, automate, and redefine the standard for managed data lake storage. What new feature are you most excited about from re:Invent 2024? (Psst… not to mention much love to Aurora DSQL, DynamoDB Strong Consistent Global Tables, and the underlying Time Sync infrastructure. sooo good)

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It's great to see Victor Dibia, PhD and Chi Wang started writing a book on AutoGen with Manning Publications Co.! Building multi-agent systems is a frontier topic now, and AutoGen is one of the most interesting frameworks in the field. https://mng.bz/mRJM I had some experience writing multi-agent systems with AutoGen, and I like it. I truly believe in agentic workflows, as collaborative agents are the next step after using plain LLMs (even with all the magic of Chain-of-Thought, Self-Consistency, RAG, and even brand-new Reflection and Reasoning). Do not undervalue materials from the authors of AutoGen and AugoGen Studio! They know what they are talking about!

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Some straight talk about why #platformengineering initiatives fail and how to make sure that doesn’t happen on your watch. Check out the latest from The New Stack and Jennifer Riggins. #DevEx #DevOps

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Setting a vision is just the start. Think about the bold moves needed to make it happen. Sundar, Google's CEO, set a daring vision to tackle climate change. That's where the real work begins. Executing a vision requires bold and tough decisions. Google is buying nuclear energy to feed its AI data centers. Other big tech companies are following this lead. This is a big kudos to Sundar and his leadership team. They are executing on a sustainability vision. Leadership is about taking action. And Sundar is showing the way.

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This is a big deal. Even more features you're used to with traditional databases, but with the performance and scalability of NoSQL. The hybrid NoSQL+Relational data modeling and schema capabilities, as well as the long-term vision for Fauna's database, are the number one reason I came to work at Fauna. My favorite part is you can add schema controls over time, as you need them. It's not an all-or-nothing addition.

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Great to see more press coverage of the possibilities for AI + robotics to create new ways to help people and do things that have not already been imagined. I think the future of robotics will be different than what we see today, stranger and more amazing. 

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I always knew that Marc Petit was an excellent podcast co-host, but it really hit home when Julien Moutte, Bentley CTO, and I joined Marc as guests on our podcast to informally chat about why Cesium joined Bentley Systems; how we are fueling open source and open standards; and how we plan to increase developer community support with an open platform of Cesium & iTwin. Have a watch, listen, or read, and let us know your thoughts! https://lnkd.in/eTpTJgEH BuildingTheOpenMetaverse.Org

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I wanted to share a bit about an event I'm co-producing: The RegenAI Summit, in Ashland, Oregon, this September 13-14. More info here: https://regenai.co A couple years ago I made a crazy leap: after a lifetime of living in cities like San Francisco and Amsterdam, I moved to little ol' Ashland, Oregon. Population 21,285, within a metro area of <250,000. While Ashland is very cosmopolitan for its location in southern oregon (famously the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), it was quite a change for me! I was settling in at the very moment generative AI emerged as a big thing in the tech world. It's been eye-opening to experience how a region like this metabolizes a major new technology. Last June, with my friend Joe Shockman, we started the Rogue Valley AI Lab, a biweekly meetup at Scienceworks that occasionally spawns projects. What I've found amazing and inspiring is just who's turned up at the lab: a remarkably diverse range of personalities with obsessions that don't at all fit the tech bro pattern. Everyone from farmers, linguists, sculptors, climate activists, authors, students, teachers, and inventors. Most of them are drawn to AI in search of pragmatic ways to ways to support artists and scientists, foster healthy communities, innovate food systems, fight wildfires, restore ecosystems, etc. In other words, solving meaningful problems that are inherently local, and don't map to unicorn-scale outcomes. (Though a few startup founders here may indeed be onto big big things) Almost everyone who shows up comes in with awareness for how Big Tech promises have gone awry in the past. Yet a common thread is they believe that it's possible to reframe our relationship to technology – one in which folks at the edge are actively shaping our tools, not just receiving them as inscrutable gifts from the tech gods. And there's the sense that gen AI is creating new pathways for doing it...and of course new hazards that need to be taken seriously. The RegenAI Summit is an event that has emerged organically, as we've linked up with others from across the country drawn to proactively shape the way AI is integrated within and across our bioregions. The central question is how AI can be harnessed to enable and accelerate regenerative futures, those in which we're actively fostering healthy humans, systems, and ecologies. Our workshops will focus on six themes that resonate strongly in areas like this: arts & culture, food & agriculture, local economy, learning & education, health & wellness, climate & biodiversity. We'll be identifying problems worth solving and prototyping real solutions within each. Let me know if you'd like to learn more! #ai #regenai #oregon #events #regenerativefutures Aaron Moffatt Jay Golden Ian Ingram Amy Muller Brittan Heller

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Anthropic's Claude can now use computers like we do - clicking, typing, and working with actual software. Not through APIs. Through the actual interface. For our manufacturing & retail clients asking about AI automation - this is HUGE. AI that can actually help with any existing software stack, not just integrate through complex APIs. • Uses standard software like a human (still learning but improving fast) • Crushing it at coding tasks 93.7% 0-shot (This is fantastic) • Faster, cheaper version (Haiku) coming this month While everyone's hyped about the tech, we're already mapping out practical applications for our clients. Real automation. #AI #Innovation #Manufacturing #Retail #DigitalTransformation https://lnkd.in/geFkjfr6

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Read up on the first part of our approach at the Anti-Censorship Technical Committee (ACTC), as we discuss the problems of centralization and show how ContentSafe can be used to spread content across platforms. It's a lot less likely that content will be removed from more than a dozen platforms than just one or two! https://lnkd.in/ezAq4JBi