And those decisions are being made by guys who fundamentally don’t understand the tech

Real conversation a Wall Street guy just relayed to me.

Partner: Claude is so good at analysis, we should get rid of our analysts

Quant: no, I’ll show you how easily hallucinations happen

Partner: pshh I have an easy workaround. *types “Claude, don’t hallucinate this time.”*

Willy Wonka is a prescient parable about the main 4 types of overconsumption.

Mike Teevee: screen time
Augustus Gloop: gluttony
Veruca Salt: greed
Violet Beauregard: likes gum too much (??)

Tidy — Agency Time Tracking, Invoicing & Client Management Replace Harvest and Bonsai with Tidy. All-in-one agency management with time tracking, invoicing, scheduling, e-signatures, and a client portal.

Running and agency or being a freelancer is risky in 2026. But you can eliminate a lot of that risk by keeping your operations tidy. Tidy is launching soon. Join the mailing list to get early access or to support us as we approach launch day. tidyup.agency

This is awesome. And our new landing page is already looking way sharper. tidyup.agency

It was unbelievably helpful

Talking Businessly | 89: The zero risk agency (empaneling Justin Jackson) After hemming and hawing for 20 minutes, we are joined by the inimitable Justin Jackson. He gives us an absolute treasure trove of good advice for launching and marketing Tidy.

As we start marketing Tidy, @justinjackson.ca swings by to drop like 100 gems on us from building @transistor.fm. He explains how marketing actually works in the age of LLMs. There is so much genius in this one. Get ready to take notes. podcast.thunk.dev/episodes/89-...

it’s called building suspense.

This isn’t the marketing blitz chris!!

Talking Businessly | 87: tidyup.agency We have quietly launched our client management app. It has invoices, agreements, schedules, time sheets, reports, and more. We'll be doing a full marketing blitz soon. Daniel has been cooking up an...

🤫 we quietly launched our client management app. Invoices, agreements, scheduling, time sheets, and a whole lot more. More features and a full marketing blitz coming soon. But here’s the skinny: podcast.thunk.dev/episodes/87-...

I'm making a game that takes place in the past and the present. I'm giddy. notesonplay.transistor.fm/episodes/19-...

Thank you!

thanks you 🥲

New brand, new site. You should hire us. But don't take our word for it: the new site is chock full of testimonials from our amazing clients. thunk.dev

Thanks for sharing. Super interesting.

Talking Businessly | 85: Our billion dollar theory of the future It feels like there's a dark cloud over web development right now. So where does Thunk fit into the future, and how do we win? We lay it all out here.

There's a big vibe shift happening in the agency world. Here's our hypothesis of where we fit into the future. podcast.thunk.dev/episodes/85-...

longer than we care to admit

The cool thing about being at 80% is that you only have 80% to go.

The cool thing about being at 90% is knowing you only have 80% to go.

The cool thing about being at 99% is that you only have 80% to go.

18: Every prototype I made in 2025 YouTube video by Catacombian Games

I prototyped a LOT of new games last year, and haven't talked about most of them. Now it's time to pick one to finish. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRGR...

Aaron Swartz downloads academic articles from JSTOR. Arguably, he broke no laws. He faces 35 years in prison.

Nvidia uses a pirated database of books to train LLMs. They spawn a new generation of billion dollar companies built on plagiarism. They're hit with a meager civil suit.

Wonderful essay. "The important details you haven’t noticed are invisible to you, and the details you have noticed seem completely obvious and you see right through them... If you wish to not get stuck, seek to perceive what you have not yet perceived." johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/re...

Writing code is so easy, even Claude can do it. But an extremely low percentage of products actually find market fit. People who are good at executing, and reaching / understanding / listening to humans still have an unfair advantage.

Fascism indicator. At a game convention in suburban Pennsylvania. Lots of Star Wars cosplay. But literally all of them are cosplaying as the Empire. Zero Resistance cosplayers.

Prague's Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport YouTube video by The Onion

I always thought this was funny.

So many great details.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyF...

Producing code is easier than ever. But being responsible for a real software product is still very hard.

Why my basketball board game didn't work. Full episode here: notesonplay.transistor.fm/episodes/17-...

Talking Businessly | 83: Do a good job ™ Our goal for 2026 is to do a good job. John wants to start doing some serious, long term business development.

My theme for 2026 is "do a good job." podcast.thunk.dev/episodes/83-...

recession indicator: all the spam I receive is for fake job postings

15: Paying attention to "desire paths" YouTube video by Catacombian Games

Desire paths are fascinating. When players try to play my game over and over in a way I didn't intend, I can either fight them, or accommodate them. I recently pivoted to the latter and the results were awesome. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxvB...

Talking Businessly | 81: We set up pay bands We hired someone. We set up standardized pay bands. We discuss how we use AI, and what makes a bad AI-driven pull request. We like Three Body Problem. John sang in choir.

We established pay bands at Thunk. Also, we discuss what makes a for a terrible AI-driven pull request. podcast.thunk.dev/episodes/81-...