💪 Mighty Brief

1. Google strikes multibillion-dollar TPU deal with Meta — Meta renting Google's AI chips to train models, a direct shot at Nvidia's dominance. Meta also scrapped its most advanced internal training chip. The Information
2. Block cuts ~4,000 employees (nearly half workforce) — Jack Dorsey targeting $2M+ gross profit per person, 4x pre-COVID efficiency. Stock up 24%+ after hours. Jack's response
3. Netflix walks away from Warner Bros. — Paramount wins — WBD board deemed Paramount's $31/share bid superior. NFLX up 8%. David Ellison's mega-merger taking shape. CNBC / Techmeme
4. Bezos' Project Prometheus raising tens of billions — Buying companies hit by AI disruption. Valued ~$30B. Techmeme
5. DOD vs. Anthropic heats up — Pentagon in talks with AI cos to automate reconnaissance of China's power grids. Anthropic holding firm on no autonomous weapons / no mass surveillance. Could lose $200M contract by Friday. FT / Ben's Bites
6. Karpathy: programming changed more in 2 months than years — Step function since December. Lemkin: "If your startup hasn't gotten wildly more productive since December, something is wrong." Lemkin
7. Jared Friedman: dev tools need API-first account creation — "In the Claude Code age, Claude can't sign up on its own." Agent-first API design is now tablestakes. Link
8. NFX: "What comes after SaaS?" — Deploying intelligence at scale. Not bigger SaaS — completely different game, 100x stakes. NFX Newsletter

📊 Pipeline

Recent git activity (last 24h): Cowork training sessions planned (Open Book Mar 4, Tufin Mar 6, Tern River Mar 8), Dan/Elli 1:1 notes filed, PE portco AI ops playbook added, Highmark CakePop AI inquiry framework created, Open Book research updated.

👥 Team Activity (last 24h)

• Cowork Training Work Session — planned all 3 upcoming trainings, assigned roles (Mark leads Open Book, Dan takes Tufin + Tern River)
• Elli: capabilities deck work, shared pre-session client clarification doc
• PE portco AI ops playbook added from Dan/Elli 1:1

⚡ Dan's Plate

• 📧 Elli — Capabilities Deck (unread, needs review)
• 📧 Elli — Client clarification doc (Google Doc shared, needs input)
• 📅 Weekly Headlines — 7:00-7:15 AM
• 📅 Travel Day — 12:00 PM-6:00 PM (Aruba → Minneapolis, DL 1799 departs AUA 2:40 PM)

Opportunity Cost: Vacation day with 10+ workstreams touched. The breadth is impressive but tomorrow's a travel day — what needed depth today that got breadth instead? The Liz Cumby brainstorm and Keith geospatial meeting are both high-leverage relationships that reward focused follow-through over context-switching.

Second-Order (Narrative Gap): Koylan's Brain OS thread got 2.2M views describing architecture Dan already built. "Ahead on architecture, behind on narrative" — every week of delay means someone else's framing becomes the default. The "File System Is the Character Sheet" post isn't content marketing, it's competitive positioning.

Incentive Analysis: Keith at Lifetime is "surprisingly far along" on AI dashboards. Orgs that build internal AI first are the hardest to sell to and the best to partner with. The Wick Embed frame (partner, not vendor) matches the incentive structure correctly.

"Invert, always invert."

1. Agent-First Product Design

Captures: @petergyang (build for agents first), @danshipper (personal software = agents you have relationship with), @gregisenberg (AI-native vertical SaaS playbook), Simon Willison (agentic engineering patterns)

Why it matters: This is the _M training thesis made real — Cowork plugins, agent-first APIs, and "the user in UX is becoming an agent" all validate the consulting play Dan's running next week.

2. The December Inflection

Captures: @trengriffin/Karpathy (programming step-function change), @rohanpaul/Uber CEO (90% of engineers on AI, top 30% unprecedented productivity), @levie (weekend agents as normal), @paulg (techno-turbulence good for startups)

Why it matters: Validates compound engineering thesis (T3) and the window narrative. Every enterprise client _M trains is proving this — the ones who lean in now compound, the rest fall behind.

3. The Anthropic/Pentagon Tension

Captures: Ben's Bites (Claude conflicts — responsible scaling policy revised, DOD access denied), @lulumeservey (Pentagon losing info war to Anthropic), @tszzl/roon (open chaos as democratic strength)

Why it matters: Anthropic's position on military use is forcing a public reckoning on AI governance. If you're training enterprises on Claude, this is context they'll ask about.

• The Information: Google Strikes Multibillion-Dollar AI Chip Deal With Meta — Google TPUs for Meta's AI training, multi-year deal worth billions. Also: Meta's internal chip design efforts hit roadblocks, scrapped most advanced training chip.
• NFX (Gigi Levy-Weiss): "What Comes After SaaS?" — Deploying intelligence at scale, 100x larger stakes. Also linked: AI Games Are Coming, The Screenless Startup.
• Every (Dan Shipper): "How to Design Software With Weight" — Design philosophy for software that feels substantial.
• Ben's Bites: "Claude has some conflicts" — Anthropic revised responsible scaling policy, DOD contract tension, Claude Cowork scheduled tasks, Claude Code remote control, Cursor agents use computer for testing, Perplexity Computer launch.

• roon (@tszzl): Pentagon/Anthropic drama — "open hot mess is a great strength of democratic countries" Link
• Ethan Mollick: NanoBanana 2 demos — creative AI image generation capabilities Link
• Claude Code rate limit reset: Bug with prompt caching caused faster usage consumption, hotfixed in 2.1.62 Link
• Adam Brotman: Restaurant industry's AI agent moment — agents starting to feel real Link
• OpenAI/Stargate: First steel beams up at Milam County, Texas site
• Vincent van der Meulen / Cursor: Hacked Cursor cloud agents to narrate PR demos via TTS Link

• Jason Lemkin: "If your startup hasn't gotten wildly more productive since December, something is wrong" — QT'ing Karpathy on programming's step change Link
• Gil Dibner: Block cutting 4,000+ employees (~half), targeting $2M+ GPP. Investors sent stock up 24% Link
• Lulu Cheng Meservey: Pentagon losing the information war to Anthropic — "Dept of War needs to be able to neutralize propaganda" Link
• Paul Graham: RT of footage showing Border Patrol actions with refugees
• Garry Tan: SF education math crisis, Tom Steyer's $400M political spending, CA zoning

• Jared Friedman (YC): Dev tools need API-first account management — "Claude can't sign up on its own" Link
• Jack Dorsey: Defending Block layoffs — "targeting $2M+ gross profit per person, 4x pre-covid efficiency" Link
• Techmeme highlights: AirSnitch Wi-Fi attacks, Tesla zero autonomous test miles in CA since 2019, Japan investing $1.6B in Rapidus for 2nm chips, Bezos' Project Prometheus raising tens of billions
• Jason Cohen (@asmartbear): Weird sales call findings unrelated to product

• Aravind Srinivas: Perplexity Computer demos — animated chart generation Link
• Browser Use: Published infra behind their new API Link
• Interaction: WisprFlow journaling + Interaction reminders as AI daily life use case
• Jason Liu (@jxnlco): "Socrates thought written words were brain rot, Plato thought theatre was brain rot" — developer experience thread

• Finance & Commerce: Industrial properties in Minneapolis, Maple Grove, Otsego — 65K sf warehouse, 157K sf spec build, 6.4-acre site Link
• Charlie Youakim: Timberwolves trade analysis, MN autism care spending ($1M→$343M, 2017-2024)
• First Avenue: Cat Power tonight, Hawthorne Heights Mar 9, Emily Scott Robinson Mar 1

Techmeme

• Netflix walks away from WBD deal, Paramount wins with $31/share
• Google-Meta multibillion TPU deal
• Bezos' Project Prometheus raising tens of billions to buy AI-disrupted companies
• DOD in talks with AI cos for China infrastructure reconnaissance
• AirSnitch Wi-Fi attacks bypass client isolation
• Tesla: zero autonomous test miles in CA since 2019
• Japan investing $1.6B in Rapidus 2nm chips

Memeorandum

• Netflix declines to raise WBD offer — Paramount wins
• Media consolidation under Ellison/Paramount

Featured Podcasts

• Cheeky Pint: Reiner Pope of MatX on transformer-optimized chips (John Collison)
• Access: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on surviving the AI slop-pocalypse
• Lenny's Podcast: Cisco president Jeetu Patel — "AI is critical for humanity's survival"

Top trending on skills.sh (24h): agent-tools, remotion-render, agent-browser, ai-image-generation, nano-banana, ai-video-generation, twitter-automation. Microsoft's Azure AI/Observability Copilot skills climbing fast.

Agent-browser and agent-tools trending #1-3 — the "agents use computers like humans" wave Ben's Bites flagged is showing up in skill installs too.