In this week’s newsletter, I share the different thoughts swirling in my head as the AI-related disruptions get faster and more dramatic. I am spending more time after my AI workshops chatting with people who are worried about their jobs and their level of AI proficiency. I’m glad they’re asking these questions and I’m also glad to share my philosophy with them.
Weekly recap
🔵 Theories on why people post slop on LinkedIn.
🔵 You shouldn’t ask me for career advice. I will tell you the things you don’t want to hear.
🔵 You also don’t want to meet a hiring manager who follows my posts. I will ask you to do this difficult thing during the interview.
🔵 Thoughts on investing your time, avoiding negativity, and rejecting The Average.
🔵 My counter to two AI-related arguments about upcoming job losses and Microsoft’s buyout offer to 60k employees.
🔵 The Attack of the Hangry Mynah
🔵 Testing new AI visual models with my froggy friend: Google Omni 1.2 and ChatGPT Images 2.6
🔵 A TLDR of how Binance had $6.3B stolen though sophisticated scamming and hacking techniques.
🔵 Your company will be eaten up by the supercompanies of the future.
🔵 How to be happy on LinkedIn.
Sunday Sundaes
My internal qi is running low today after conducting multiple NTU AI workshops over the past week, so rather than write a wonderfully coherent and try-hard essay to illuminate your day, I’m sharing some raw recommendations before they disappear from my brain:
Get a bigger display
Everyone should use a bigger display for everything. I’ve noticed that some participants in my workshops really struggle to use productivity apps because their laptop displays are very small (say 13″). It’s a pain to design stuff on Canva, study long documents, do e-commerce shopping, use AI apps like Gemini Notebook that have complicated menus, and so on.
Phone displays are good for messaging, photography and games. For anything involving work, they are just too small. OK, maybe I’m biased. I use only 16″ laptops and 32″ desktop monitors for work. I also try to use WhatsApp and social media on my computer instead of my phone. Oh yes, large displays also preserve your eyesight!!
Get your free AI agent but…
Everyone who can access Meta’s Muse AI should just start using it. It’s a free AI agent that behaves like your personal assistant and it can browse websites to do shopping and get some tasks done for you. I’ve asked it to give me daily updates on the prices of a few products I’m eyeing and also monitor some US share prices.
I warn everyone not to give Muse access to their important inboxes, credit card numbers and passwords, but I encourage them to use it for less critical things so they can learn how a personal assistant agent works. This is one of those AI things you need to try in order to learn what AI can do (i.e. gain AI Literacy).
I’ve never bothered with complicated agents like OpenClaw as I knew something simpler like Muse or OpenAI’s Dots would appear. At the same time, you need to be wary of anything that Meta offers you for free.
Get real about your salary
I don’t know if most mid-career people ever ask themselves this question, but they should: “Am I too expensive for my employer?”
I mean, we always read news headlines about why people get laid off and cannot find jobs – AI, restructuring, weak demand, etc., etc. But nobody ever mentions “these employees were too pricey.”
I had this conversation yesterday with one of my workshop participants. He asked me how would he know if he was getting too expensive when he was already seeing signs of upcoming job cuts in his MNC firm. I said, “Well, can someone do 80% of your job for 50% of your salary? And how much does your boss value the remaining 20% that is unique to you?”
You can infer some possible solutions. I’ll just leave them here:
🟦 Keep your salary depressed.
🟦 Make your boss love your 20% of value-add.
🟦 Take your boss’s job.
🟦 Become your own boss and decide your salary.