Most AI headlines focus on scale: capital, compute, and speed.

What’s getting less attention is how different labs are structuring their bets—and why those architectural choices may matter more than raw spend.

unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/the-quiet-...

The real problem with hustle culture? You can’t escape it alone.

Just like the Yondr pouch removes the pressure for students to stay plugged in,
AI removes the pressure for workers to look busy.

When speed is trivial, hustle culture lifts
and real work returns.

medium.com/@unicornopti...

AI research isn’t collapsing — the filters are.

A Berkeley professor says he “can’t keep up” anymore.
Feels familiar outside academia too.

This isn’t an info overload problem.
It’s a signal literacy problem.

unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/signal-lit...

We often confuse motion with momentum.

I’ve been thinking about how easily the noise of “busy” crowds out the quieter work that actually moves things forward.

This new essay explores the cost of constant motion — and the strength in slowing down enough to think.

medium.com/@unicornopti...

When systems get more complex, they don’t replace us — they reveal how much they still depend on us.

AI safety. Learning systems. Ecology.
Three domains, same truth.

unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/the-human-...

Sitting in a café full of MacBooks, something clicked.

Microsoft is building the future of work.
But it may be drifting away from the future of workers.

Here is the blind spot almost nobody is talking about.

unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/the-agents...

Apple’s outliers?
They’re not flops. They’re early drafts.

Newton, G4 Cube, HomePod, Vision Pro, iPhone Air…
All misunderstood. All foundational.

I wrote about the pattern.
unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/when-a-flo...

AI is peeling away the busywork layer and exposing the real operating system of work underneath.

My latest Substack on what becomes visible when the scaffolding fades:

unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/the-hidden...

That moment when you look up from your coffee in mid-November and realize the world’s already gone full Christmas.

Every year it hits like a corporate freight train.

I wrote about that dissonance — and the relief of a quiet café that lets you arrive in your own time.

medium.com/unicorn-opti...

Everyone’s chasing “autonomous AI.”

My latest Substack unpacks why the future of AI isn’t self-running systems but self-correcting ones — where humans stay in the loop by design, not by accident.

“Agentic AI: The Myth of the Self-Running Machine”
unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/agentic-ai...

Audacity is an underrated corporate asset.

Google’s Project Suncatcher—testing orbital AI data centers powered by endless sunlight—may never scale, but it proves something bigger: curiosity still deserves a budget.

🦄 unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-audacity

Walk into a great hotel and you don’t meet a door.

You meet the doorman.
Attention. Judgment. Humanity.

AI can open the door.
Only humans know why the moment matters.

The future isn’t replacement — it’s amplification.

📝 The Doorman Fallacy
unicornoptimist.substack.com/p/the-doorma...

Capitalism isn’t breaking — it's updating.

OpenAI’s move to a Public Benefit Corporation is a test:
Can we scale intelligence and responsibility?

Thoughts on Capitalism 2.0:

📎 medium.com/@unicornopti...

In a café, the distraction is part of the magic. It creates the flow.

Dispatch #4: Right Tech, Wrong Place
A short reflection on how tools shape not just our work, but our presence.

medium.com/@unicornopti...