I'd argue that (with one exception) there are no meaningful use cases for communicating with the help of LLMs.
For efficiency, let's use UIs and APIs. For empathy, stay fully human.
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/part...
A dream come true
If you prefer reading the full essay, here we go. You'll find links to the source code together with the SKILL.MD.
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/cura...
What would make me reconsider? Falling in love with a product and then finding out it was made by a single gal and her team of agents in a week.
Until then, I’ll be rolling my eyes reading industry Twitter, sorry.
8/8
A year ago, this project would’ve taken me a week. Now it took 3 days (and I optimized for learning, not speed).
The bar for tinkerers like me is lower now, and it’s enticing to try projects deemed unfeasible before.
But “The era of bespoke software” is not here. Not yet.
7/n
The good bits:
Compared to May 2025, when I had to manually rewrite sections of code because of undebuggable race conditions, I haven’t written a single LoC this time.
I also dictated, not typed, almost all my (stupidly long) prompts with @superwhisper. Nice experience!
6/n
24 hours later 🥲, it's up and running.
Getting to 80% is a walk in the park, getting to 100% is an Apollo mission. I spent 4 hours fixing memory consumption alone, not a fun experience.
5/n
So I’ve decided to build an old-school deterministic Telegram bot using the cutting-edge agentic engineering technology.
Certainly, my little bot is a 20-minute adventure. In and out.
4/n
Take one: Claude skill (~1h)
Once I understood the ecosystem, this was quite easy to achieve.
However, the experience is meh. Claude is slow, doesn’t show thumbnails, and hates it when I try to open links (the only purpose of this whole thing).
3/n
The goal:
I tell a bot or an agent what I’m interested in, and it suggests content from a curated list of my favourite creators.
(because the wider internet is often shit, especially when topics invite SEO terrorists)
2/n
I had a terrible FOMO reading industry Twitter where "coding is solved" and autonomous agents build an enitre browser without human input.
So I spent 25+ hours this week building a useful tool for myself to get the intuition of what LLMs are *really* capable of.
1/n
Let me google this for you → let me deep research this for you
I wish my favourite apps and creators were supported by some magic pixie gold dust. But the reality is usually either surveillance capitalism or fleeting enthusiasm.
That's why I pay for the things I appreciate, and I think you should too.
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/pay-...
Just look at these details
(I won't spoil the rest of the easter eggs)
We've made it with uncommon care 🥲
Turns out, my vacuum cleaner can suck harder than @sacramentokings.bsky.social
My favourite chart from our year-in-review article — monthly sales & marketing expenses.
At some point, we stopped doing "startup marketing": no ads, no SEO, no paid influencers, no stupid ProductHunt launches.
−85% marketing budget
+85% revenue growth
What a coincidence 🙃
How the 3-minute ravioli save me from spiraling into self-loathing:
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/fail...
I have not edited the HTML, ClickUp really says that on their homepage 🤦
Four horsemen of the curiosity apocalypse:
“You don’t know THIS?! That’s elementary school material!”
“I'll study computer science because it’s in demand right now. “
“I’ll read it later.”
“Why are you sitting at the computer all day? Go read a book!”
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/prot...
Oh, wait! It's was us 🙃
bsky.app/profile/fibe...
Someone has leaked our entire strategy doc for 2026 🫠
For a nice change, here's a small, practical, and maybe even actionable newsletter issue.
(back to introspection next week, though 😅)
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/two-...
— What do you do for a living?
— I’m a nurse. And you?
— 😰😰😰
For a long time, conversations like this have been awkward for me.
Not only don’t I have a satisfying public-facing answer, but I've also struggled to find a concise explanation for myself.
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/what...
It's this time of the year
"I tell myself my data obsession helps me stay grounded in objective reality, but it often borders on OCD and ends up feeding my anxiety.
Knowing that about myself, I’m cautious about what I measure in the first place."
newsletter.antoniokov.com/archive/dont...
🖐️
It's taken me three decades to accept the fact that I regularly get hostaged by data, not inspired by it 😅
Yep, my experience back in the 2010s was very different compared to now.
It shows how quick sometimes the progress can be with the right regulations.
No tectonic shifts in culture needed 🙃
Something I am proud of
