This week, we unpack The Optimist, the new Sam Altman biography; revisit OpenAI’s early days; and break down Coatue’s AI strategy deck. Plus, tips for squeezing in side projects between thought leadership presentations.
Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 526 (https://www.youtube.com/live/1CnmEwdH6ME?si=64oVGDyCvXdzJeIj)
Runner-up Titles
Flow State
Altman and AI
Day 2 Thinking
Growth Mindset
Less of you
You don't need a Harvard Business Review subscription to know that
Running unnecessary hardware in your house
Lifelong Costco member here.
Pre-populate Everything
There’s no ROI on a good hotdog
Rundown
AI Native vs. AI Add-on (https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/525)
AI Frenzy
The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future (https://www.amazon.com/Optimist-Altman-OpenAI-Invent-Future/dp/1324075961?tag=googhydr-20&hvqmt=&hvbmt=%7BBidMatchType%7D&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_8w2bwd161h_e)
Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab valued at $10bn after $2bn fundraising (https://www.ft.com/content/9edc67e6-96a9-4d2b-820d-57bc1279e358)
ChatGPT's Enterprise Success Against Copilot Fuels OpenAI and Microsoft's Rivalry (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-24/chatgpt-vs-copilot-inside-the-openai-and-microsoft-rivalry)
Iyo vs. Io — OpenAI and Jony Ive get sued (https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/23/iyo-vs-io-openai-and-jony-ive-get-sued/)
Zuckerberg Leads AI Recruitment Blitz Armed With $100 Million Pay Packages (https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-recruiting-mark-zuckerberg-5c231f75)
After trying to buy Ilya Sutskever's $32B AI startup, Meta looks to hire its CEO (https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/20/after-trying-to-buy-ilya-sutskevers-32b-ai-startup-meta-looks-to-hire-its-ceo/)
Message from CEO Andy Jassy: Some thoughts on Generative AI (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-on-generative-ai)
Clouded Judgement 6.19.25 - The Dropping Cost of Intelligence (https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-61925-the-dropping?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F48bf3cef-6d79-4e10-8bb4-ccf48a08341b_1189x729.png&open=false)
Coatue's 2025 EMW Keynote Replay (https://www.coatue.com/blog/company-update/coatues-2025-emw-keynote-replay)
Slides in online PDF (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Srl8Y4pBoKtNVYZBxmfj2TEMYM5tp1mE/view)
Coatue’s Laffont Brothers. AI, Public & VC Mkts, Macro, US Debt, Crypto, IPO's, & more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JA7n0wTChw)
Agents and the Web
Remote MCP support in Claude Code (https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-code-remote-mcp)
Agentforce 3, it's agents all the way down. (https://siliconangle.com/2025/06/23/salesforce-launches-agentforce-3-greater-ai-agent-visibility-connectivity/)
Google Cloud donates A2A to Linux Foundation- Google Developers Blog (https://developers.googleblog.com/en/google-cloud-donates-a2a-to-linux-foundation/)
Linux Foundation Appoints Jonathan Bryce as Executive Director, Cloud & Infrastructure and Chris Aniszczyk as CTO, Cloud & Infrastructure to Oversee Major Open Source Initiatives (https://www.cncf.io/announcements/2025/06/24/linux-foundation-appoints-jonathan-bryce-as-executive-director-cloud-infrastructure-and-chris-aniszczyk-as-cto-cloud-infrastructure-to-oversee-major-open-source-initiatives/)
Relevant to your Interests
Amazon orders employees to relocate to Seattle and other hubs (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-orders-employees-relocate-seattle-212945920.html)
Microsoft announces advancement in quantum error correction (https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2025/06/microsoft-announces-advancement-quantum-error-correction/406175/)
Datadog DASH: A Revolving Door Of Operations And Security Announcements (https://www.forrester.com/blogs/datadog-dash-a-revolving-door-of-operations-and-security-announcements/)
the six-month recap: closing talk on AI at Web Directions, Melbourne, June 2025 (https://ghuntley.com/six-month-recap/)
Snap acquires Saturn, a social calendar app for high school and college students (https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/20/snap-acquires-saturn-a-social-calendar-app-for-high-school-and-college-students/)
Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure (https://tailscale.com/blog/frequent-reauth-security?ck_subscriber_id=512840665&utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%5BLast%20Week%20in%20AWS%5D%20Issue%20#428:%20One%20UI%20Gets%20Fixed,%20Another%20Falls%20-%2018055641)
Checking In on AI and the Big Five (https://stratechery.com/2025/checking-in-on-ai-and-the-big-five/?access_token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6InN0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LnBhc3Nwb3J0Lm9ubGluZSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJhdWQiOiJzdHJhdGVjaGVyeS5wYXNzcG9ydC5vbmxpbmUiLCJhenAiOiJIS0xjUzREd1Nod1AyWURLYmZQV00xIiwiZW50Ijp7InVyaSI6WyJodHRwczovL3N0cmF0ZWNoZXJ5LmNvbS8yMDI1L2NoZWNraW5nLWluLW9uLWFpLWFuZC10aGUtYmlnLWZpdmUvIl19LCJleHAiOjE3NTMyODQ4NzAsImlhdCI6MTc1MDY5Mjg3MCwiaXNzIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9hcHAucGFzc3BvcnQub25saW5lL29hdXRoIiwic2NvcGUiOiJmZWVkOnJlYWQgYXJ0aWNsZTpyZWFkIGFzc2V0OnJlYWQgY2F0ZWdvcnk6cmVhZCBlbnRpdGxlbWVudHMiLCJzdWIiOiIxNjY4NDg4My04NTYzLTQ1ZGEtYjVhYy1hYWY2MmEyYzZhZTciLCJ1c2UiOiJhY2Nlc3MifQ.rg-oA59aKciV6Pvwn1GezC8ElCYxg92wPMQ9ORYS5KXLFvsuSRlJj1hjn9rlcpqmY3BtiPSHpPHDC1Sos9J5ZIPaW3Rn7o-5Yu6Rn_0HyGkqHUSCAsU36SZ-9Q9bf7Ibd_fWcRN7G6nuIe2j0OMURacJ30W3jMm6_dBtR-IacPllW7q6yDxlDW-pX50I_xhZ_pZfTa7B7HXimMTOWiJ5S-uddGLDOOqxihxgIa3w96SnK7wiiyx5bwe5r0A7IQBvHOe5yVzrTSOxm5DBSZJwbGx_f36MzDGPtdwsMOojbs3yN5gWRZnlre6h1GkiukeAXHqXTWImfUfxyBS1ebOjOQ)
U.S. House tells staffers not to use Meta’s WhatsApp (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/23/meta-whatsapp-us-house.html)
How AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux Have Diverged Since CentOS (https://thenewstack.io/how-almalinux-and-rocky-linux-have-diverged-since-centos/)
AI search finds publishers starved of referral traffic (https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/22/ai_search_starves_publishers/)
10 years of platform engineering at SIXT: Lessons in scaling and innovation - Boyan Dimitrov (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtxWxkehkPE)
What Would a Kubernetes 2.0 Look Like (https://matduggan.com/what-would-a-kubernetes-2-0-look-like/)
kubectl-ai (https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubectl-ai)
Nonsense
Costco Executive Members get extended hours (https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/costco-hours-executive-members-early-shopping)
Listener Feedback
Warp (https://www.warp.dev/future)
Conferences
CF Day EU (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/cloud-foundry-day-europe/), Frankfurt, October 7th, 2025.
SpringOne (https://www.vmware.com/explore/us/springone?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cote), Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th, 2025. See Coté’s pitch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_xOudsmUmk).
Explore 2025 US (https://www.vmware.com/explore/us?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cote), Las Vegas, August 25th to 28th, 2025. See Coté’s pitch (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-COoeIJcFN4).
Texas Linux Fest (https://2025.texaslinuxfest.org), Austin, October 3rd to 4th. CFP closes August 3rd (https://www.papercall.io/txlf2025).
SDT News & Community
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Recommendations
Brandon: Discount Tire (https://www.discounttire.com/)
Coté:
Brimstone Angels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_Angels)
Rebels of Reason: The Long Road from Aristotle to ChatGPT and AI's Heroes Who Kept the Faith (https://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Reason-Aristotle-ChatGPT-Heroes/dp/B0FCD969SD?crid=2KBTZJS1P49C2&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.E2MZsF2Qb-y8u2F4mRTKt5KT39pbgvp_DiV9oA2bPgsqqPJMqdRhIlFh_wyf9wTvia5jPoenX4kfS9HWQAdt5LdXt4zy3NiHbluCozW2B0KUya8M4uCGKdxInNb6npHqJlko7hFE8pzIKtF1X8hJlk02C6nmAb1PN-MsiNB4mZVoFLa9KIFS1Y7zJ8QVc-K5ICucbOAsm6rH-ZgsoyiaO4eFT8-qlzMYHxM4TxUyXx8.hl_-MoO-eXVVzohj3CN42fh3IIQ5wWuiss_O0iiLuHI&dib_tag=se&keywords=John+Willis&qid=1750401917&sprefix=john+will,aps,186&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=coteicomthecoteb&linkId=5da48a792d65369c5b69ff1b351b16d6&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)
Photo Credits
Header (https://unsplash.com/s/photos/Flow?license=free&orientation=landscape)