The newsletter for the technically curious. Updates, tool reviews, and lay of the land from an exited founder turned investor and forever tinkerer.
Hey folks,
I have some news to share with you all. (also posted on Twitter)
Before I talk about the now, let’s briefly touch on my past.
Started in tech, working at Product Hunt (2015)
Built stuff with no-code tools
No one signed up for any ‘startup’ I launched
Started Makerpad - a company to teach no-code building (2018/2019)
Sold it to Zapier (2021)
Started (the first) daily AI newsletter (2023) - this one btw :)
Started an AI fund
I cannot code, like seriously not a line. My whole career was banging the drum that you don’t need to learn to code to start a company and make money. I proved that with Makerpad.
AI came along and I felt like I was right on my message, wrong on the format (not drag ’n’ drop tools).
AI has changed a lot for me. I’ve become more technical by just being curious. Getting ahead of myself with AI coding tools then learning backwards (what’s a dependency, wtf are linters, how do I use GitHub, etc). I still can’t code, but I understand a lot of the stack now.
And I’m more convinced than ever that the future of work will be directly related to how technically-able you are. Not whether you can code per se, but how well you can work alongside developers and contribute.
I’m a ‘tech worker’ who wants to be more technically-able. Like many of you reading this.
So I’m coming out of retirement - an exited founder turned investor usually stays there - the comfortable life. But I’m 35, not 75. I like testing myself, I like meaty challenges. It’s time for me to get back to operating and teaching again.
I’m excited to announce my new position: Head of Developer Relations at Factory. You’ll notice I’ve been talking about them a bit (I invested back in 2023). It’s a team and mission that I’ve watched grow (tremendously) in that time, and my conviction along with it. The team is doing incredible things with AI, they believe in an agent-native future with coding tools across the browser, cli, slack, linear and more. We have a BIG launch soon 👀.
I want to bring this software closer to the people who can do great things with it.
I’ll be building things, sharing them, teaching it, talking to developers and being at the bleeding edge of AI software development. So, same as I have been doing, but just with a real job 😅.
The newsletter will stay as is. I will cover the entire industry, and I’ll share stuff I’m working on, just as before.
If you want to be more technically-able, I want to talk with you, help you and learn from you.
I will also still be investing from Ben’s Bites Fund II - I focus on AI developer tools and infrastructure - I’ll continue to invest in this community. If you want to get involved as an LP - let me know here. If you’re a founder - DM/email me!
I want to sign this off with a thank you to all of you reading for your support - we’re just getting started. And most of all, I want to thank Keshav, Shanice and Adam for sticking with me and helping this newsletter run. I couldn’t do everything I do without them.
Looking back at my career, all the dots make a beautiful connected arc. But from the start, there’s not a chance I’d think I’d ever be here, shipping code, using a terminal, working closely with developers and now teaching others. From not technical at all, to technical non-technical member of technical staff.
Come along for the ride! I’ll be sharing a lot on my Twitter.
Now, back to regularly scheduled programming.
First, ”thinking” in ChatGPT is getting 4 levels of intensity: Light, Standard, Extended and Heavy. Light and Heavy are only available on the $200 Pro plan, with Standard and Extended available on Plus, too. Your choice is sticky, so you won’t need to switch to Extended every time.
Next, GPT-5 Thinking ranked #1 at the ICPC World Finals (college-level programming contest), beating humans. Gemini Deep Think solved 10/12 problems, ending up tied with humans at #2.
Finally, OpenAI shared its stance on privacy, freedom and safety. Privacy and freedom take the front seat for adult users, but safety is the only priority for teens. No flirty ChatGPT, plus parental controls to prevent self-harm in users under the age of 18.
In other news, Meta released new Ray-Ban glasses with AI, a display and a neural wristband with some failed live demos (which might not be that bad). YouTube is adding another suite of AI tools for creators, the headliner being Veo3 for Shorts.
Attio is the AI-native CRM for the next generation of teams. Sync your email and calendar, and Attio instantly builds your CRM—enriching every company, contact, and interaction with actionable insights in seconds. Join fast growing teams like Granola, Flatfile, Modal, and more. Start for free today.*
*sponsored
🌐 What I’m consuming
Everyone wants to be an RL startup.
How OpenAI uses Codex - use cases and best practices.
State of startups and their approach to AI in 2025.
How the current UX for NotebookLM came to be.
Making an email agent using the Claude Code SDK. Also, a practical example showing the difference between agentic search and RAG.
Technical breakdown of why Claude models were performing so badly for the last few weeks.
Prototyping Google AI Studio by vibe-coding.
⚙️ Tools and demos
Radiant is a new Mac app that turns your meetings into completed work. Emails, prompts, docs, followups, summaries... all done in seconds.*
Mocha - An app builder that actually works. 100k+ founders use it to ship real, useful apps with DB, auth, payments & AI, not just prototypes.*
ElevenLabs Studio 3.0 - A single editor with audio models for voiceovers, sound effects, music and much more, plus video support.
Stitch by Google - Generate screens and multiple variants before you dive into coding.
Macroscope - Summarise product development activity based on your codebase.
Gamma Agent - Create or edit across your presentation with prompts. (+ Gamma API is live)
Monologue by Every - Best voice dictation app that you’d enjoy using. One of my daily drivers. (how it was built)
AI that stays silent in a group unless it’s needed. No camera, no wake words. (demo)
Figma is soon bringing a “prompt to edit designs” feature to its canvas.
*sponsored
🥣 Dev dish
ai-sdk-tools - Essential utilities that extend and improve the Vercel AI SDK experience.
Tessl Framework - Keep your coding agents on track using specs + Tessl Spec Registry - Help your agents use open source better with 10,000+ specs. (read more)
Chef by Convex, the database and backend first app generator, is now open-source.
GitHub released an MCP Registry with 35+ MCP servers from official partners that you can use anywhere.
📊 Charts I saw this week
🍦 Afters
HackerRank is introducing Model Kombat - Another arena where models can compete against each other on coding tasks, and developers review the generated code to pick the better ones.
Groq (the fast inference platform) raised $750M at $6.9B valuation.
Come work with me - see open roles at Factory.
That’s it for today. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts. 👋
📷 thumbnail creds: @keshavatearth
Hey Ben... Congrats on your "Out of Retirement" decision. I have a good friend who made the same decision at the same age (albeit, 25 years ago) and never regretted it. I'm 60, and your newsletter is a huge benefit to me. Not preachy, doesn't make me feel dumb if I don't understand something... and I'm much more AI savvy than most guys I know (I'm in luxury aviation and maritime). Your stuff gives me an edge that keeps me in the C-suite and helps me (almost) keep up with you guys in your 30's. Just wanted to say thanks and good luck at Factory!
Have fun !!! 👍