I've been thinking about identity lately. Not in the existential, staring-at-the-ceiling-at-2am way (though that happens too). More in the professional sense. What do you call yourself when the boundaries of your role are shifting under your feet?
Developers are becoming architects. PMs are prototyping features. Writers are learning to work alongside tools that can mimic their voice. The lines between who does what are getting blurry, and I'm not sure anyone has fully figured out what that means yet.
This week's links sit in that space — the shifting identity of the people building and creating with these tools.
If you've been reading this newsletter from the beginning you may remember the same author's Read That F-cking Code from Issue 1. This is a solid follow-up. The argument is that as AI handles more of the typing, the value of a developer shifts to thinking — architecture, abstractions, the stuff that's hard to prompt for. The line that stuck with me: "the code is no longer precious." I mostly agree, but I'd add that knowing when the code is wrong is still pretty precious.
📰 Article
AI and the Human Condition
Stratechery
Ben Thompson tackles the paradox of being a content creator in the age of AI. LLMs are content producers. So what's the point of writing analysis when ChatGPT will deliver analysis on demand? Thompson's answer is that publications become something like community totems — the content itself is almost secondary to the people gathering around it. It is an interesting framing that I think applies well beyond newsletters and tech writing.
📰 Article
Claude Code and What Comes Next
One Useful Thing
Ethan Mollick (whose Co-Intelligence was our first Deep Dive gave Claude Code a single prompt: build a startup that makes $1,000 a month. The AI worked autonomously for over an hour, created hundreds of files, and deployed a working site. With very sketchy marketing claims. The point isn't really whether it makes money — it's that there's a capability threshold being crossed. What I appreciate is Mollick acknowledging these tools are still wrapped in interfaces that feel like a 1980s computer lab. The power is there. The accessibility isn't quite.
🎧 Listen
Are We All Developers Now?
The Aboard Podcast
Paul Ford and Rich Ziade dig into a question I keep circling back to in this newsletter. If AI coding tools let anyone build software, does that make everyone a developer? Their take is nuanced enough that I won't try to summarize it in two sentences. Worth a listen on your commute.
📰 Article
How to Use AI as Your Editor Without Losing Your Voice
Chris Lema
This one hits close to home. I use AI tools to help draft and edit but I've been particular about not letting it flatten the writing into generic AI slop. Chris Lema lays out a practical approach for using AI as an editorial assistant while keeping your writing voice intact. Pair it with YourVoiceProfile, a tool that captures your writing style so AI outputs actually sound like you wrote them.
I'll end with that article and this note. I didn't write anything that preceded this paragraph. The previous article made me want to experiment using AI to generate a voice profile of my own. I gave Claude Cowork access to my Obsidian directory I stash link and write every issue in and had it generate a voice profile. Next I told it to read the 5 links I had stashed and generate an issue. And this is the one-shot result.
Claude won't be writing future issues, but I wanted to experiment. Let me know if you felt it captured my voice or if it was noticeably changed enough.
All it took was 63% of my Claude Pro plan usage for the current session or about 7% of my weekly limit.
Thanks for reading,
Jason and Claude (but mostly Claude...this time)
