iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Dopamine shot, A.D. 2016: Seeing likes under your posts. Dopamine shot, A.D. 2026: Clicking "seems like AI slop" on posts in your feed.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"LinkedIn is continuing its efforts to reduce AI slop. Within the first two weeks after launching the "Seems like AI slop" feedback option in August, more than one million members have used it to help improve content quality." news.linkedin.com/2026/how-lin...

news.linkedin.com

How LinkedIn is Continuing to Tackle AI Slop

Within the first two weeks of launching the "Seems like AI slop" feedback option, more than one million LinkedIn members have used it to help us improve content quality. Recent efforts have already he...

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

There are plenty of examples that throwing near-unlimited effort and money on a product doesn't win the product niche. Think Microsoft's mobile, Google's social media, Meta's metaverse. And yet, we believe that the pace of AI coding fundamentally changes product development. Curious.

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Reposted by Pawel Brodzinski

Tudor Girba @tudorgirba.com · 17/09/2026

"Software engineering has changed radically. It is now mainly about reading code. But reading code does not scale. We need to delegate to AI." I am glad you now recognize code reading as a problem. However, the broader problem statement is not quite correct and neither is the conclusion.

software engineering has not changed radically.

it has always been mainly about understanding code.

but reading code does not scale.

we need to augment our understanding through contextual tools.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It shouldn't have been "good to great." It should have been "good to still good a couple of decades later."

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

At Lunar, we've been appreciating a flexible and broad skill set over a deep one. For years, it felt like an uphill battle. Enter AI. Suddenly, the job market is all like, "You were right all that time." pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/product-de...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

Product Developer A.D. 2026: Jack of All Trades

T-shaped skills still work as metaphor for a decent product developer. It’s just the shape of the T has changed.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Today I learned: Thuesday. I just need to figure out whether it's: a) another name for Wed b) all three days Tue-Thu c) 8th day of the week, neighboring with Wed on either side d) a new name for never-never day (I'll do it on Thuesday) Because, clearly, it couldn't have been a typo :D

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Also: Women (and in broader terms, all diverse groups) pushed out of the industry. The industry, again, becomes more homogeneous, which isn't a welcome change (at least for me).

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

After all the improvements in AI models, I got back to my claim that you can't vibe-code a product. Not much has changed on that front. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/you-still-...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

You (Still) Can’t Vibe-Code a Product

After more than a year I revisited my “you can’t vibe-code a product” claim. It aged well.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

In data analysis: Would we infer "valuable lessons" from whatever constitutes 0.001% of data points (or less)? Curiously, in the startup world, it is the main discourse. Lovable this. Thinking Machines Labs that. Best lesson? Ignore them. They aren't applicable to just about any other startup.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

If you expect something not to work and it doesn’t, you learn little. Ditto if you expect something to work and it does. It’s when you are uncertain about the outcome that any result teaches you something. A well-designed experiment, thus, should be a 50/50 chance of succeeding.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I've seen the "past success and wealth making people believe they are infallible" many times. On a small scale and big. Which is why I'd choose not to be there. I want to live with the consequences of my actions. Excerpt from @edzitron.com www.wheresyoured.at/hyperscale-n...

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

On Lovable: "3 valuation step-ups (from $1.8B to $13.3B) inside 13 months is happening largely because credit-based and usage-based pricing models convert new users into revenue almost immediately" Actual answer: unlike SaaS, they need money badly to operate. It's not like they turn a profit.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Headline: What Lovable's Round Means for Founders Raising in AI Tools Right Now? The actual answer: It means nothing. You are not Lovable. Also: VCs are all about herd behavior these days. Don't look for too much signal in there.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

"Have done" is signal. "Would do" is noise. Same in recruitment. Same in user interviews. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/have-done-...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

“Have Done” Is Signal, “Would Do” Is Noise

Storytelling is a neat hack to make user interviews not suck.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

There are two types of HR: 1. Where H stands for humans and R for respect. 2. Where H stands for headcount and R for resources.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

In user interviews: "Have done" is signal. "Would do" is noise. Now that I think of it, it's true in many more contexts.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

"How to avoid Claude watermarking your content?" Um... how about: Write it yourself?

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

If they know it's a "user" interview, you're doing it wrong. User interviews can be an awesome product discovery tool. They can also make you shoot yourself in the foot. With confidence. Tread carefully. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/they-shoul...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

They Shouldn’t Know It’s a “User” Interview

Done well, user interviews are a staple for product discovery. Done wrong, they’ll make you shoot yourself in the foot. With confidence.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Have you noticed how Build-Measure-Learn, OODA, PDSA, et al., are all learning loops? No matter which angle we take, we have always tried to optimize for learning. Learning is THE outcome. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/code-is-no...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

Code Is Not the Outcome, Learning Is

There's a build-learn trade-off. We can't optimize for both. For early-stage startups, the choice should be a no-brainer.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

"I want the world to be a better place and it starts with building software industry on meaningful returns on investment and actual useful tools." Whoa! That would require digital startups to plan for making profits. From. The. Outset. That would be new, indeed.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Each time I see one of those, followed by some "do AI" advice, I'm like Revenue per employee: OnlyFans: $37.6M PornHub: ~$8M If anything, it's not "do AI." It's "do porn." Sarcasm aside, it's comparing apples to oranges. Doesn't make sense.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

"Why don't managers use throughput/lean accounting to manage, and cost accounting to report?" -- @jrothman.com Just realized, I was doing precisely that in the late 2000s. It made intuitive sense. Even if it required translating two worlds back and forth continuously.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

The latest iteration on controlling AI spend: the budgets (per team, per tool, etc.) Next up: "Why do people use *all* the budgets whether they need them or not? We should have more control over how these budgets are planned."

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The useful part of user journey mapping isn't the big picture. It's finding the one part where the experience is genuinely crappy. The shitty outliers are the whole point. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/user-journ...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

User Journey Mapping: We Want It to Be Shit

The useful part of user journey mapping isn't the big picture. It's finding the one part where the experience is genuinely crappy.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Arguably, the most socially valuable contribution of LLMs is all the pats on the back and appreciation we get in response to our prompts. So much support available for everyone. Just one prompt away. Discuss. :D

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

The story is: Netflix got AI to redesign the recommendation page. It increased engagement. Me: When Facebook threw away friends' content and pushed non-familiar stuff to our feeds, it did improve engagement, too. Did it make the service better, though? bit.ly/4psHAZc

bit.ly

GenPage: Towards End-to-End Generative Homepage Construction at Netflix

Authors: Lequn Wang, Jiangwei Pan, and Linas Baltrunas

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

When we look for a response, it’s easy to rely on an LLM, and parrot its output. That’s good enough. When we look for a thinking process, an AI response is useless. Even if it answers the question. A word-based response is (typically) general-to-specific. A thinking process is specific-to-general.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain is a spiritual godfather of assumption mapping, my favorite product discovery technique. And yes, Twain-o-Meter is a thing. Read on. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/my-favorit...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

My Favorite Product Discovery Tool: Assumption Mapping

A simple technique that generates a ton of insight and can redraw the roadmap before we even start building.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

"As animals, human primates tend to correlate CONFIDENCE with COMPETENCE." -- @derekwwade.bsky.social

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Google: "While we remain deeply committed to sustainability, reaching our climate moonshot is getting harder" Also Google: [see below]

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Reposted by Pawel Brodzinski

Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Not a great economy alert! Wall Street Bets users think Palantir spiked today because The Onion story titled “Palantir Acquires Pentagon for $800 Billion” hit their front page. They’re guessing trading bots indexed the top post on the subreddit reddit not understanding source.

A chart showing an immediate spike after the headline hit the front page of Wall Street Bets.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Modern startup playbook: Hypergrowth. AI. Hype. Ego. What actually improves the odds: Sustainability. Value for customers. Retention. There's hardly a better picture than the Icon (the admaker) story. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/the-case-f...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

The Case for Sustainability Metrics (or Don’t Be Kennan Frost)

The story of the admaker startup Icon is a warning tale for prioritizing growth over sustainability.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Someone on Substack: Mildly unpopular take: half the SaaS tools I pay for, I could rebuild in a weekend with an agent and never look at a pricing tier again. Me: Question: Why have you not done that yet?

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Discussion about YAGNI Me: With fewer than 5 customers, your defensive coding (addressing potentially catastrophic cases) doesn't matter. It's not code that will kill the business. Also me: That is, unless your fewer than 5 customers is a space mission. Then you definitely are gonna need it.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Consumeability vs engageability. "If you knew that an article was generated altogether by an LLM, would you write a comment? Would you engage in a discussion with a bot trying to share your experience or prove a point?" businessagilityreview.substack.com/p/engageabil...

businessagilityreview.substack.com

Engageability: Why Human-Created Content Makes Sense

If quality is all that matters we shouldn't care whether a bit of content was created by human or AI. However, if we consider engaging with it, it does matter who or what is behind.

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Reposted by Pawel Brodzinski

Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

It's really time we updated the conventional design process model to be more descriptive. We're in our third diamond era.

double diamond design process with a third diamond added labeled DESTROY

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

"Speed only helps if it is pointed in the right direction. Move fast on the wrong things and AI does not save you time. It manufactures waste at a higher rate." --Melissa Perri

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

When HR rebrands to People & Culture it's typically like a guinea pig. Neither Guinean nor a pig.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

For decades, we learned how to have less work in progress. When it finally looked as if we internalized the idea, with AI, we're making a U-turn. It's concurrency all the way. Let's have a swarm of agents work on a thing! Gonna be good so much better!

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Pay-once-use-forever used to be a smart tactic to get some early traction. These days, I consider it a smell. Too many folks with nicely looking vibe-coded stuff use that as THE business model. Get enough people to fall for that and then move on to another thing.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

A neat idea: Mom-and-Pop SaaS. Except it's either misleading or an outright lie. Generating code is not remotely enough to have a SaaS-based business going on. pawelbrodzinski.substack.com/p/its-not-mo...

pawelbrodzinski.substack.com

It’s Not Mom-and-Pop SaaS Era

The message that now anyone can build their own SaaS is misleading at best and an outright lie at worst.

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

If and only if we, as a hiring company, care and show care, can we expect the candidates to follow suit. Otherwise, the default assumption is that it's a volume game. Something that companies that outsource their initial screening to AI completely miss.

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