#86 | Four Ways to AI, Punk, Skills for Life

Ben's NewsletterNov 5, 2026

#86 | Four Ways to AI, Punk, Skills for Life

Benjamin Joffe

Nov 5

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

1. WORK

SOSV Events

I’m curating / producing several events free + virtual events this month:

Deep Tech Summit (Nov 4-6): 75 top speakers. Check out Jennifer Doudna and Steve Blank (Lean Startup), 6,000+ participants. Videos here.
Deep Tech Co-Founder Search (Nov 9-13): matchmaking to find your co-founder (with or without a project). 400+ participants.
Deep Tech Matchup (Nov 16-20): matchmaking for startups and investors. 1,500+ participants.

Past Event

Before there is a startup, there is a team. I moderated a panel on “How to Find the Right Deep Tech Co-founder” with the founders of Entrepreneurs First and Conception X. Some takeaways: (1) It’s the most important hire - treat it as such (2) Align skillsets, goals, values (3) Test-drive the relationship: are you much more productive together? More on LinkedIn and in the video.

2. HOW I AI

The Four Uses Of AI

Here is my current mental model for how AI can be used:

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Crutch: “AI, do” as my friend V. said. Am I abdicating learning? Can I stand by the results, or am I just creating AI slop for others to clean up?
Scaffold: Use AI to help me do faster what I already know how to do and evaluate.
Amplifier: Help me do things I could not do before. In my case: complex code including in languages I don’t know, Android, Mac apps and even hardware devices.
Mirror: a thinking partner for decisions and reflection. I ask “what did I do right? what can I improve?” and (sometimes) “am I the asshole?” during daytime. I ask “what have I learned recently about X or Y?” and “how am I doing regarding Z"?” when the day ends, to reflect or give me a morale boost.

Here is a simple analogy with mobility:

A self-driving car is a crutch: we lose the ability to drive or exercise. Think of the floating humans in Wall-E.
A bicycle is a scaffold: you can go farther or faster and you’re still the engine.
A car is an amplifier: you drive, but do not power it.
What about the mirror? That would be a running, cycling or driving coach.

Jobs called computers “bicycles for the mind” - what does that make AI?

The Rise of the AI Engineer

AI OG Andrew Ng recently called AI engineering “the most exciting profession today”. Interestingly, he doesn’t mean a specific job title, but a set of skills increasingly valuable across technical roles (and beyond). His team at DeepLearning.AI analyzed 10,000+ job postings and interviewed developers to create an AI Engineering Skills Map, identifying four core competencies.

I asked ChatGPT to assess me against Ng’s four dimensions, based on my projects, experience, and coursework. I scored high on:

Shaping the build: Knowing what to build and how to approach it.
Using coding agents: Getting AI to build effectively.

And lower on:

Building AI applications: Developing, evaluating, and deploying.
Software engineering fundamentals: The principles behind reliable software.

As a self-taught builder with a background in tech and VC, some CS coursework, but no professional software engineering experience, this feels right directionally. Of course, these broad categories hide significant differences: I’m strong at rapid prototyping, but much less experienced with scalable deployment. Some gaps I’ll try to fill.

I see a rising importance of product managers with domain knowledge, who can now build without help. Everything is a product: a prompt, a workflow, a personal app. It might not be a scalable, commercial one, but it could still be useful to you or a handful of colleagues.

In companies, it has become increasingly clear to me that the problem of AI is not tools, but adoption. And solving for that has much more to do with culture, processes and incentives. And - maybe in some cases - “if you can’t change people… change people”.

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel***Quite the surprising documentary about how their band-mate (and his mom) changed their lives by believing in them. Also, here’s Dani California for you.

SHOWS

James Acaster: Repertoire*** (Netflix)
Many comics are shouty or complaining. James Acaster is more of an absurdist of the “silly goose” type - somewhat Pythonesque maybe. Upon further research, our man James today also has a very successful podcast which makes every other economic activity optional. Well done!

Louis CK** (Netflix)
I was surprised to see him back on Netflix - but it did take him a while since his 2017 #MeToo moment. He survived largely thanks to his existing following and own platform. I still find his shows pretty good and his delivery is impeccable.

4. THOUGHTS & EXPERIENCES

The Fourth Humiliation

Freud described the “three great humiliations” (or narcissistic wounds) inflicted on human self-love by science.

1. The Cosmological Humiliation (Copernicus)
Earth (and humanity) is not the center of the universe.

2. The Biological Humiliation (Darwin)
Humans are not uniquely created in God’s image.

3. The Psychological Humiliation (Freud)
Humans are driven by unconscious desires, instincts, and psychological conflicts.

4. The Intellectual Humiliation (Jimmy Carr ;p)
Humans created machines that surpass many of our cognitive abilities, potentially challenging our control over our own future.

AI has already come for many professions: copywriters, translators, graphic designers, and is coming for drivers and even mathematicians. There are parallels with photography and frozen food: they made portraits - and varied foods - more accessible and affordable, but also put plenty of people out of a job, while creating new ones.

Will the fourth humiliation be humbling, liberating, or both?

On the Record

In The Dark Knight, cell phones are temporarily made into listening devices to identify the location of the Joker. After it’s done, that capability is supposedly destroyed.

An emerging trend today is to record everything, all the time.

In a work context, I love meeting transcripts - they’re more accurate, easier to analyze than notes, shareable, and ensure better follow-ups.
In a private context, I am not recording things but I have sometimes wished I had recorded a particularly interesting conversation, or a difficult one to get advice on (possibly from AI too).

What happens then?

Is transparency the best disinfectant or will it affect both public discourse and private conversations?
In Norway, tax records are public, but since 2014 you must log in, and the person you looked up can see that you did. Norway’s answer is transparency with accountability. Could the same work here, when there is no central authority holding the data and doing access control?
Will everyone need to put up a facade at all times, or will people simply accept the humanity and imperfections of others behind the curated facade? Will there be a long and painful transition between those two states? As smart glasses are getting regulated, we might be closer to a resolution than we think, but “smart microphones” are so small and ubiquitous it could also be a losing battle.

On Punk

A few weeks ago I attended an event featuring an interview with Swiss product designer Yves Behar.

Among the several memorable moments was his mention of being part of the punk movement as a youth, which greatly influenced his life: without any formal training or “permission”, punks pick up instruments and play music or sing, or make art with their heart. Later, he wasn’t the best at drawing in art school, or at anything, but he dared to do things and take on projects outside his skillset.

I think that today, AI allows that too, and opens up the joy of creation (and sometimes economic benefits) to people who embrace the “punk” creed - ideally with a perspective of improving their skills too ;)

Similarly, a friend and former colleague is the founding designer of Lovable.

He stumbled upon an early version of the product, tracked down the creators and showed them what he could do in record time. While this is how he joined what became a rocketship, I think the source of it all is what he shared in an interview: he quit uni when his teacher told him he could not use Ajax, that Google had just released to create responsive web pages. He refused to be slowed down.

I think that mindset, combined with real care about product, was his winning combo. Are you feeling the same with your environment?

Skills for Life

Since becoming a parent, I have been thinking about what the job is besides survival. Some people talk about “love and discipline”, values, or even family heirlooms. My current take boils down to what I think are the few core human skills for a good life:

Curiosity: it all starts with varied exposure, and a spark
Growth mindset: confidence in improvement
Persistence: even during slow times

The above three are interdependent: for instance if you’re not persistent, curiosity and confidence will not suffice.

But while those three alone can lead to competence and achievement, they might not be enough for a good life. So I added:

Joy: don’t forget that, tiger parents! What’s the point of playing piano at concert level and hating the keyboard? Follow your joy (too)
Pay-it-forward / karma: all of the above could lead to a pretty selfish and lonely life. It feels incomplete. Supporting others with no expectation is a great way to solve partly for that.

Now if we look at HOW to build those skills, I can’t help but think they are already built-in in almost every baby (aside from the pay-it-forward, which requires some social training). They have fun, they don’t calculate, they are curious and incredibly determined when they set their mind to something.

So the question becomes: if it’s already there, what strips it out of them and us? Parenting? School? Aging? Humans have quite unique “neotenic” qualities: for instance, we play late into adulthood.

The easiest (and hardest) way might be to “not teach” and simply embody and live those qualities ourselves, create opportunities, and occasionally reframe during “teachable moments”. We shall see.

Tumultuous, yet exciting times!
— Ben

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