# Michael Martinez > Follow @MichaelMartinez on Micro.blog. --- # How to Think About What's Next *2026-11-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/11/09/how-to-think-about-whats/ Having just relocated to the other side of town, I walked into an unfamiliar park with large walking paths, a lake with lots of active wildlife, and people — walking and running at their own paces around me. I sat down with my dog at a chessboard overlooking that lake. It made me think about a good number of things. The empty chessboard base reminded me that I always need to re-strategize and think about new moves. The sunrise over the reflecting lake made me think about what I've done in my career and many things moved through my head at the same time. I considered past careers in politics, data, retail, services, public service, and volunteering. I couldn't get that chessboard out of my head. What's next? I always think about what's next but have yet to put pen to paper on anything. My vast career has made me well-versed in many different industries, so there's a lot to consider. As I work to focus that energy on one salient point, I ponder what's actually a vast land of opportunity, not as narrowly focused into one niche area. We all have a lot to offer but only consider a linear career path based on our current or past positions. In an era of a shifting landscape anyway, we all must shift with it. I'm reminded that our paths are not simply laid out there for us but simply waiting to branch out into many facets that have shaped our lives. This is what I'm now considering as I think about what's next. We all must think about what's next, while not discounting our often-shattered lineage of what careers, gigs, or projects brought us to this single point in time. _This was originally a post for [LinkedIn](https://lnkd.in/p/eVJDB9Hb) on November 9, 2026_ --- # When I Rise Early — Reflections on Personal Productivity Upon Awakening *2026-07-14* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/07/14/when-i-rise-early-reflections/ I've never actually reflected on what it means to get up early, not by choice, just because I can't go back to sleep and have had enough rest for the morning. Here's what I find myself doing in these early hours when most of the East Coast of the United States is still asleep. After I make my coffee, I find myself switching between BBC, Sky, France24, Bloomberg, and CNBC Europe. I reflect and write down my thoughts for the past 24-hours in addition to what I'd like to accomplish for the next day. I consider topics of conversation on which I'd like to put into my writing portfolio — some are just two sentence ramblings; others are thoughtful paragraphs to turn into posts later. I contemplate what world occurrences while I was asleep mean for me, my career, and second order impacts for the world-at-large. This not only allows me to find my own place in the world, but plan for contingencies for what might come next. Synthesis is usually difficult, but it's even more difficult when you're just waking up. Exercising the brain to its maximum efficiency when you're at peak energy for the day is vital for the use it or lose it mentality when you have that energy. Your mileage may vary as to when that occurs. My maximum productivity oddly occurs at the early hours of the day, but it's paramount that we all reflect how what happens around the world while we were sleeping, and how it makes us reposition our thoughts, actions, and forward momentum; can benefit contingency planning, alternative futures, and what our new day holds. _This was originally a post for [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7482703772087955457/)on July 14, 2026_ --- # On News Articles and Understanding What's Behind the Headlines *2026-06-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/06/23/on-news-articles-and-understanding/ It's not just enough to keep yourself informed by watching television news, reading blog posts, or flipping through social media posts. These all contain bias to an extent and rely on sensational headlines to grab attention and your clicks. Sure, reading a WIRED article or swiping through that influencer on Tik-Tok may tell you what's going on, but what's the validity to it? Do you truly understand what message and information is being conveyed. In today's era of AI generated news clips and politically charged headlines, what does keeping up with the latest mean to you? Does it really make you understand the underpinning of why world events unfurl or are we really on the edge of some big space boom? These are questions that also took me a long time to answer. A few years ago, I began really digging in and reading "backstory" so to speak about what terms being thrown around mean, and histories behind certain industries' to better portray context. They used to say content is king, but I'd rather believe that context is king. To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. If you consider recent global headlines about tariffs, the Straits of Hormuz, Chinese technological embargos, SpaceX colonizing Mars, and AI taking your jobs, for example, you'd think that we have a lot to be afraid of. You might be right, but it all matters about context, and as most history goes — we've all been here before. To understand the history and to better inform yourself, I recommend seeking out books authored by subject matter experts in their respective fields. Recently, I've read "_Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare_" by Edward Fishman, a former diplomat and economist. In his rather lengthy but easy to read chronology, he discusses a brief and recent history of what 'blocking sanctions' do, how tariffs are properly used, and what the role the US has played in Iranian diplomacy in the past. Recent headlines don't have the time nor inclination to help the reader delve further into these topics, so understanding a primer to these terms in the news gives you a better understanding so better decisions can be made by the reader's part. To give another example, the wild, but speculative SpaceX IPO by Elon Musk is all the rage. In the S-1 filing, Musk promises "A million people on Mars" as a goal of its organization. But also, if you parse what the company is, it's not solely a rocket nor space exploration company. It's a rocket manufacturer with X (formerly Twitter), xAI (including Grok, the controversial chatbot), and Cursor AI, a firm that has absolutely nothing to do with space colonization all rolled up into one company. If you listen to the clickbait headlines, you'd assume that Mars colonization is only about a decade off. Can you be sure? I've been reading, "_A City on Mars_" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. A fairly levelheaded deep-dive into the complexities that Moon, Mars, and other off worldly colonization need to realize before any of SpaceX's lofty goals can be realized. Hint: It is not 10-years off. As far as SpaceX and it's S-1 have told us, there is nothing to protect potential habitants of Mars from dust storms, radiation, and basic necessities for moving around a habitat. It's important to create context for yourself when reading headlines and clicking news articles, especially with AI taking on a lot of journalistic activities — especially the errors. If you really want to learn more about why things work, books by SMEs are still your best bet to understanding what's going on in an ever-complicated world that sinks us in headlines, such as this one. --- # Health, Habits, and Exercise — Consistency is Key *2026-05-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/05/23/health-habits-and-exercise-consistency/ 🏃‍♂️‍➡️ What's a habit you have to break to improve your health and well-being? 🤸‍♂️ For me, I was taking on too much working out. It became an obsession to the point where it became unsustainable and created an environment of burnout. Consistency is key. 💪 I had to tone it down or else my body would tone me down. A new baseline had to be created. My new routine is to run 10 miles each weekday to improve weight and heart health. 📈 Running is a high-impact exercise. It must be coupled with lower-impact activities, and recovery. Each weekend, I make it a point to walk 10,000 steps each day. This is up from me being a slouch. Thus far, I've had positive results. 🤔 Think about what your health means to you — how it improves your emotional, cognitive, and physical wellness. Make adjustments as only you can see fit. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7463875114124894208/)on May 23, 2026._ --- # Quick Hit: Microsoft is Making Windows 11 Changes *2026-03-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/03/23/quit-hit-microsoft-is-making/ 💻 Microsoft recently [announced ](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/20/microsoft-rolls-back-some-of-its-copilot-ai-bloat-on-windows/)that it intends to make Windows 11 more reliable, while removing certain Copilot features that have been 'jammed' into the product with no rationale. 🧭 While Windows is no longer the largest revenue segment for the firm, always listening to customer feedback and beta testers is vital to improving software products — while continuing to use the platform as a gateway to its more lucrative AI, Office, and server-side segments. ⚖️ Causation is not correlation, but it worth mentioning that Chromebooks and Apple's new lower-cost MacBook Neo have and will slowly be eating away at these margins and user adoption rates unless changes are made. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7441774068976013313/)on March 23, 2026._ --- # Don't Discount What Smaller Tech Firms Have to Offer *2026-03-18* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/03/18/dont-discount-what-smaller-tech/ 🧑‍💻 In a world quickly shaped by 'big tech', we often forget that they are not the only hubs of innovation and feature enhancements. Smaller tech companies, like Notion, Affinity, Brave, and for these purposes—[Kagi ](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/17/kagi-small-web-human-authored-indie-internet-mobile-ios-android-devices/)remind us that breakthroughs can come from less known and capitalized firms. 🔎 Kagi, a pay search service that lets you choose LLM models and thrives on curation is a 'come back to Earth' moment with all the negative effects of AI-hype marketing. 🙋 There is still a time and place for human curated feeds, and at times we can all benefit from such work. 🛠️ As you search for new tools in the AI era for yourself, or your business—do not discount all of the other options out there. They may not have the market capitalization of an OpenAI or Microsoft, but there is also utility and productivity to be had elsewhere. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7439946427541164032/?originTrackingId=6eJwVUoOxintm0yBIUmXTQ%3D%3D)on March 18, 2026._ --- # MIT Tech Interview: Yann LeCun — LLMs Are Not Enough *2026-03-14* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/03/14/mit-tech-interview-yann-lecun/ 🚀 Yann LeCun recently created AMI (Advanced Machine Intelligence) Labs. In an interview with [MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/22/1131661/yann-lecuns-new-venture-ami-labs/), he revealed how we're focused too much on LLMs while ignoring (at our advancement peril), other methods of attacking the problem that GenAI is trying to solve. 💡LeCun states that while LLMs are useful for text and code, they lack a true understanding of the physical world. They cannot reason, plan, or predict consequences because they are limited to the discrete world of language—To reach human-level AI, we need a "conceptual breakthrough". Our currently application stack in the business world doesn't cut it. 🌍Instead of just predicting the next word, these systems learn by observing video and sensor data—much like a baby learns about gravity—to build an abstract representation of how the real-world operates, (i.e. digital twins). 🔓LeCun is an advocate for open-source AI, criticizing the "closed" approach of labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. He believes AI should be an open platform to ensure a high diversity of "AI assistants" reflecting different languages and value systems, rather than being controlled by a US-China binary system. 🏭The goal isn’t just better chatbots. AMI Labs is targeting agentic systems that can predict the consequences of their actions: Level 5 autonomous driving and truly useful domestic robots, and holistic modeling for complex industrial processes like jet engines and chemical factories. --- # World Book Day 2026: AI Snake Oil *2026-03-05* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/03/05/world-book-day-ai-snake/ 📚 In honor of World Book Day, I'll talk about my current read, "[AI Snake Oil](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249131/ai-snake-oil)" by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor from Princton University Press. 📱 Between the doomers and the accelerationists, there lies the middle ground of AI where most of us fall. Despite the promise of taking over the world, your job, and the planet, and the dangerous practice of bashing any new technologies—is where the truth lies. ⚖️ This unbiased book discusses the dangers of bias, the hype of predictive AI while also dissecting what's marketing and what's real, while quite bullish on the future of GenAI. ✅ It's a great primer to ground views. A few years old now, it still is relevant in this 'hockey-stick' growth era that we find ourselves in with developments for 2026. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7435268385002921985/)from March 5, 2026._ --- # Quick Hit: Warren Buffett's Final Quarter *2026-03-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/03/01/quick-hit-warren-buffetts-final/ 🧭 Berkshire Hathaway just [posted ](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/28/berkshire-ceo-abel-vows-to-keep-buffetts-culture-of-disciplined-investing-in-first-annual-letter.html)their last quarter's results under the leadership of Warren Buffett. 🪢 The culture of continuity with this 'brand" as I'll call it is important to those who follow the Buffett style of investing. 📈 New CEO Greg Abel believes the best way forward is to continue the methods that Buffett and Munger grew into the mainstream that made the firm so successful. 🎯 Discipline in all business is important, but especially in a large conglomerate such as Berkshire. 🚂 Slow and steady is an ultimate investment strategy. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7433790571762167816/)from March 1, 2026._ --- # The Netflix-Paramount-Warner Brothers Saga has Ended *2026-02-28* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/02/28/the-netflixparamountwarner-brothers-saga-has/ 🎥 It is fascinating after Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos met at the White House with President Trump, he [dropped ](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/under-a-paramount-wbd-merger-two-struggling-media-giants-would-unite/)his company's bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, literally handing it to Paramount-Skydance, ending the month's long saga. 💸 Either he understood the President would not allow it to happen, or he has great discipline in deal-making, or both. Either way, Netflix walked away with a $2.8b fee from WBD from walking away, which Paramount has already paid. 💼 This is a case in risk when considering the domestic regulatory environment and understanding what leveraging up debt means to a firm—a textbook and historic lesson in dealmaking. _This was originally a post on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7433498690792714240/)from February 28, 2026._ --- # When CISA Falls by the Wayside *2026-02-26* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/02/26/when-cisa-falls-by-the/ ⚡ Critical infrastructure is just that — critical to the well-being and national security of a nation. It is one of the most vital components of any coherent domestic threat mitigation strategy. 💡 Over the past year, CISA, the agency tasked with protecting the United States from cyber-attacks and infrastructure (power grid, election systems, water systems, etc.) has been [severely gutted](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/25/us-cybersecurity-agency-cisa-reportedly-in-dire-shape-amid-trump-cuts-and-layoffs/) of personnel and leadership for most of that time. 🪙 With vast underfunding and depriortization within the United States government, this space is a must watch for security experts and the general public moving forward. _This was originally a post from [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7432708153345175552)from February 26, 2026._ --- # Reflections on the Blizzard of 2026 *2026-02-24* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/02/24/reflections-on-the-blizzard-of/ Yesterday's Blizzard of 2026 was a forced reminder to enhance and reevaluate my work-life balance as it kept me in check to balance my productivity while embracing the outside world around me. As the snow kept falling, I was nudged in the back of my head to "chunk my work" into pieces and mentally forced me to take breaks so I could take care of the next 4 to 5 inches that had just fallen over the next 2-hours. For those twenty minutes of catching up with my own conditions outside like shoveling, plowing, salting, helping neighbors — I didn't think about what I had to come back to do for the day, it was my own personal productivity. Sometimes we have to be reminded that work-life balance is real thing. Taking the time to step away and complete a different, personal task, can be a powerful reminder that we are control of own lives. Breaking work into pieces is completely okay, and oddly enough (aside from the physical labor involved) can rejuvenate our brains into a fresh line of thinking when we come back and warm up ourselves inside, once again. Nothing is meaningful unless if you are safe. If you were affected by yesterday's blizzard, I hope you took the time to take care of yourself and those around you. That is the ultimate reward in life. _This was originally a [post ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7431990076546465792/)from LinkedIn from February 24, 2026._ --- # The Future of Xbox Can Tell Us About the Future of Gaming & GenAI *2026-02-21* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/02/21/the-future-of-xbox-can/ 🎮 Xbox veteran Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond are [leaving ](https://www.theverge.com/news/882241/microsoft-phil-spencer-xbox-leaving-retirement)Microsoft. This can tell us a lot about the future of gaming and AI. 💡 Microsoft's GenAI expert, Asha Sharma will be heading the division. With video and image creation AI tools becoming more common place, this will make game development more automated for open-world scenarios. 💹 As a result, these tools will create more options, less expensive development costs, and shorter windows between releases in future years. 🏭 The Xbox itself may be discontinued (hardware cost and availability issues aside), but Microsoft Gaming has an entire portfolio that can be revamped utilizing GenAI. Much like the film industry, gaming is ripe for this disruption. _This was an originally a LinkedIn [post ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7430970114226954240/?)from February 21, 2026._ --- # Use Your Public Library — A Case in Always Be Learning *2026-02-14* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/02/14/use-your-public-library-a/ In the United States, we often take our public libraries for granted. The old days of going to a physical location to check out a limited number of books, having to keep track of due dates by hand are long gone, yet many of us seem to forget that all of these institutions have been in the digital age for quite some time. In my reading journeys last year, over half of my books read either came in eBook or audiobook forms with lots of other free materials to spare (mostly through Libby). You can easily download materials to your eBook reader or listen to audio within the app. In most cases, it isn't just limited to Kindle devices. Be sure to check the available formats for a specific title before checking it out. I read 35 books last year and so far in 2026, I've completed my third title. This makes it easier than ever to consume relevant and interesting content. I'd still like to keep my goal in that general ballpark. With lots of us cutting back on spending (I spent incredibly too much money on physical books in 2025), it's time that we reconsider what we already pay for in taxes. If you don't use your library, your city, county or municipality will notice and ultimately decrease funding based on lack of use. Often the benefits go beyond this. I'll take my library, The Jersey City Free Public Library as an example. Just the other day, I received an email announcing that they had struck a deal with LinkedIn Learning for free use of over 16,000 courses and experiences, with even more on the way as the program rolls out. Currently, my library system also utilizes Udemy and various other learning-on-demand platforms as a service to you. As many of you know, I'm an advocate of the ABL (Always Be Learning) methodology. If you aren't constantly learning, you're falling behind. That affects your job prospects, promotions, and voiding yourself of crucial skills, especially in the era of GenAI. Between Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, Hoopla, Libby, and various other tools at your disposal, you can arm yourself with opportunities to succeed in today's rapidly changing global economy. At the very least you can utilize Kanopy to view different films from a variety of genres. To some of this, utilizing such a public resource may seem like a no-brainer, but if that's the case, why aren't more of us doing it? Limited funding and outreach can often to be to blame, so we must continue to do the work to spread the goodwill of these wonderful institutions for ourselves and future generations. I'm curious to know how you currently use your library's offerings. Please comment below on tools you've utilized or what you'd additions you'd like to see included. __Michael Martinez is a freelance strategic analyst and writer with experience in non-profit, government, and data. He has degrees in business management and intelligence management. He is also an AmeriCorps VISTA alumnus. You can read more of his work at michaelmartinez.co.__ __This article was originally published as a LinkedIn [article ](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/use-your-public-library-case-always-learning-michael-martinez-cdd2e/)on February 14, 2026.__ --- # Quick Hit: Merck and Moderna Skin Cancer Promising Developments *2026-01-22* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/01/22/quick-hit-merck-and-moderna/ 🧑‍⚕️ With health & science initiatives and funding under attack in the United States, it's important to always consider the capabilities of mRNA. The rest of the world will move forward into this frontier research—therefore, it will continue. >Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has railed against mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, making false claims about their safety and efficacy. In August, Kennedy unilaterally canceled $500 million in grant funding for the development of mRNA-based vaccines against diseases that pose pandemic threats. Moderna and Merck’s personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, when combined with Keytruda, maintained a 49% reduction in the risk of recurrence or death for high-risk melanoma patients after five years of follow-up. >In a small clinical trial, customized mRNA vaccines against high-risk skin cancers appeared to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence and death by nearly 50 percent over five years when compared with standard treatment alone." 🩺 This medical development is highly worth a read from [The Verge](https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/01/mrna-cancer-vaccine-shows-protection-at-5-year-follow-up-moderna-and-merck-say/). As mRNA brought society through the worst of the COVID pandemic, the breakthroughs are still quite in its infancy and has a lot of upside from here. --- # Quick Hit: The Hidden Cost of the Ocean Economy and Climate Change *2026-01-19* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/01/19/quick-hit-the-hidden-cost/ 🌊By including ocean impacts like coastal destruction, the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) has added $2 trillion to the annual bill. This is a wake-up call for the global finance sector. 🥬Including greenhouse emission projections, this report estimates the annual damages to traditional markets alone will be $1.66 trillion by 2100. This article by _[Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/01/ocean-damage-nearly-doubles-the-cost-of-climate-change/)_ discusses integrating ocean damage into economic models nearly doubles the estimated social cost of carbon, as previous calculations ignored trillions of dollars in projected losses to fisheries, coral reefs, and coastal infrastructure. >The social cost of carbon is an accounting method for working out the monetary cost of each ton of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. “[It] is one of the most efficient tools we have for internalizing climate damages into economic decision-making,” said Amy Campbell, a United Nations climate advisor and former British government COP negotiator. 🪸Taking into the account the ocean economy, the failure to act on climate change by integrating the economic cost (especially smaller island nations) can be detrimental to sovereign debt, financing, the cost of living, and quality of life are all ignored by most — something Wall Street and development corporations alike must accept. --- # It's Google's Year and their Momentum to Lose *2026-01-13* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/01/13/its-googles-year-and-their/ In the area where LLM products are [commodifying ](https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/09/the-great-commodification-of-llms/)each other, it's increasingly difficult for one company to jump ahead of another in this horserace. One day we see OpenAI, for example, release a new model that leapfrogs Anthropic, then DeepSeek does the same thing, then Google the next—and the process continues, but one thing is certain—Google made the most progress in 2025 and continues to build market share this early into 2026. Apple has [chosen ](https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/12/google-gemini-next-generation-siri/)Google's Gemini model to the backend of most of Apple's "Apple Intelligence" features moving forward, including Siri. Apple has famously [lagged ](https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/16/apple-loses-more-talent-to/)behind all competitors when it comes to any sort of innovation in this field. This is much needed to put the mostly hardware firm on level with Android and other platform capabilities. >The new capabilities will include better understanding of a user's personal context, on-screen awareness, and deeper per-app controls. For example, Apple showed an iPhone user asking Siri about their mother's flight and lunch reservation plans based on info from the Mail and Messages apps. - Mac Rumors Google found itself bursting out of a crowded field in 2025 with Gemini 3 improvements. Additionally late last year, Nano Banana; Gemini's innovative image creator ran circles around OpenAI and Anthropic's complimentary imagery products. On a personal note, I'm an entirely Gemini house when it comes to using these tools. Unless another firm leapfrogs with an equally innovative jump, I do not see myself jumping either. Wall Street also had a lot to [say ](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/31/google-stock-wraps-best-year-since-2009-as-ai-excites-wall-street-.html?msockid=152d93fb3f01645c2547852e3e4265c6)last year about Google's parent company, Alphabet: >Among the eight tech companies valued at over $1 trillion, Alphabet was by far the biggest gainer. The next sharpest rallies came from chipmakers Broadcom and Nvidia, which gained 49% and 39%, respectively. - CNBC On top of all of this, the catalyst (at least financially) last year was Google's 'slap on the wrist' [remedies ](https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/23/google-meta-share-a-common/)in this monopolistic court case which allowed them to move forward with additional Gemini integrations into its Chrome browser. Most recently, Google has had success in adding AI integration into its Gmail service, and continued integration into the Workspace suite of products. Google seems to be firing on all cylinders at the moment, but keep in mind this is the technology sector—any firm can be dethroned at any time, for any reason. Lack of innovation, falling behind competitors, or consumer's changing behaviors can rear their heads at any time and put another product (or product suite) on top. Riding into 2026, on top of a successful 2025—this seems to be Google's momentum to lose. This field is still considered new technology. It's always best not to rule out new entrance, but until there's evidence to the contrary—this remains to be true. --- # 2026-01-07 *2026-01-07* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/01/07/finished-reading-kitchen-confidential-by/ Finished reading: [Kitchen Confidential](https://micro.blog/books/9781596917248) by Anthony Bourdain 📚 --- # Leadership Isn’t Found in a Report—It’s Found in a Conversation *2026-01-06* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2026/01/06/leadership-isnt-found-in-a/ I recently reflected on a powerful [case study](https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/27/the-ultimate-management-feedback-case/): a CEO who realized his monthly town halls were becoming a formality rather than a tool for connection. His solution? He started calling his employees—one by one—for 30-minute candid conversations. In a world obsessed with "AI-ifying" everything, we often forget that growth cannot occur by cutting communication. Three takeaways for leaders today: **Break the "Planet" Barrier:** The gap between management and the front line is growing. If you don't proactively reach across it, you're leading in a vacuum. **Seek Radical Feedback:** Real insights don't show up in automated reports. They come from creating a space where people can speak without fear of reprisal. **Finish What You Start:** One of the biggest drains on team morale is "project jumping." Clarity and commitment to a goal are the ultimate synergies. Technology is a tool, but community consensus is the engine. Get your house in order, listen to the "alarm bells" coming up the chain, and remember— serious feedback is where real growth begins. _Michael Martinez is a freelance strategic analyst and writer with experience in non-profit, government, and data. He has degrees in business management and intelligence management. He is also an AmeriCorps VISTA alumnus. You can read more of his work at michaelmartinez.co._ _This was originally posted as a LinkedIn [article ](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-isnt-found-reportits-conversation-michael-martinez-8mexe/)on January 3, 2025._ --- # The Complete Listing of my Readings Throughout 2025 *2025-12-29* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/29/the-complete-listing-of-my/ After reading 35 books this year, on a diverse set of topics, I've learned a lot and blew away my own goals and expectations for 2025. I've included a link from Goodreads, summarizing all that I've read. You'll notice titles that discuss AI & technology, biographies, business & management, and international relations. * Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, _Chris Miller_ * The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, _Amy Webb_ * Autocracy, Inc., _Anne Applebaum_ * Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, _Jason Schreier_ * The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology, _Amy Webb_ * Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, _Satya Nadella_ * From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia, _Michael McFaul_ * The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet, _Jeff Jarvis_ * The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, _Chris Hayes_ * Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, _Sarah Wynn-Williams_ * Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, _Michael Hayden_ * Beneath a Surface, _Brad Sams_ * America's New Map, _Thomas P.M. Barnett_ * Facts & Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence, _James Clapper_ * On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, _Timothy Snyder_ * 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, _Yuval Noah Harari_ * Who Knew, _Barry Diller_ * Illiberal Trends and Anti-EU Politics in East Central Europe, _Astrid Lorenz & Lisa H. Anders_ * AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence, _Gary Rivlin_ * Nuclear War: A Scenario, _Annie Jacobsen_ * Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television, _Todd Purdum_ * No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, _Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer_ * Building a Second Brain, _Tiago Forte_ * Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future, _Saul Griffith_ * Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You, _Ali Abdaal_ * Zillow Talk: The New Rules of Real Estate, _Spencer Rascoff & Stan Humphries_ * Magazine, _Jeff Jarvis_ * Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Economy, _Patrick McGee_ * Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, _Hillary Clinton_ * A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, _James Comey_ * 107 Days, _Kamala Harris_ * Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, _Adam Aleksic_ * Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, _Rachel Maddow_ * Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less, _Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, & Roy Schwartz_ For more information about what I've read this year, you can find summaries from my [Goodreads ](https://www.goodreads.com/readingchallenges/gr/annual/2025/QTNBSFBYU01IT1dUV1QMjAyNQ)account. --- # 2025-12-28 *2025-12-28* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/28/finished-reading-smart-brevity-by/ Finished reading: [Smart Brevity](https://micro.blog/books/9781523520121) by Jim VandeHei 📚 --- # 2025-12-27 *2025-12-27* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/27/finished-reading-prequel-by-rachel/ Finished reading: [Prequel](https://micro.blog/books/9780593444511) by Rachel Maddow 📚 --- # The Ultimate Management Feedback Case *2025-12-27* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/27/the-ultimate-management-feedback-case/

We all may be familiar with management reviews and feedback styles such as SMART and 360 Degree, but here's an ultimate case (which is generally not-feasible) in today's post-COVID realignment, but a CEO of a smartboard company decided to call all 600 or so of his employees in 27 countries to flatten out and clarify any uncertainty that was occurring during the global shutdown.

One day, I decided I needed to call everybody. It was during COVID. Maybe it was just because I was sitting at home going, "I wonder what they're up to, what they're thinking, what they're worried about." 

Income inequality is soaring to all-time highs around the world, so the delta between those in management and in non-management often seem like residing on different planets. Breaking those barriers and building community consensus is paramount to repairing relations that exist between management barriers, especially in today's uncertain business climate.

Town halls are often seen as doing the bare minimum for employees, as just a formality — not actually listening to the concerns or alarm bells that may be coming up the chain. 

Smart Technologies CEO, Nicholas Svensson said the following:

It was astonishing to me that you could do that much work, and it had almost zero impact with respect to communicating some of the key things you wanted to communicate. We backed off on the town halls. It was monthly. Now, we're down to once a quarter.

Having a candid conversation without fear of reprisal is the trait of what good leadership looks like in an often-corporate world of mealy-mouthed CEOs. This is important and vital to righting the ship that is your company. This missed in the race to "AI-ify" everything in an organization. First you must get your house in order before creating synergies and streamlining operations.

Implementing AI for AI sake is a lost leader and creates more problems than it solves. It's back to the basics, and serious feedback is the logical beginning to this, especially firms that consistently miss the mark.

 One piece of feedback I got from talking to the product development group was "Man, we're always jumping around from project to project," and "You guys are changing your minds all the time." So, we said, "OK, once we start, we're going to finish a project."  

Candid feedback to management often doesn't show up in reports. Breaking down these barriers to communication and creating organizational synergies must come before line of business synergies, or any potential gains in growth will never occur in the first place. 

CEOs like Svensson understand this is vital to understanding what employees think. They are the ones completing the work and seeing first-hand what problems arise. 

 Calling employees has become more of an annual thing — about 10% of the job. The calls are 30 minutes a person. It gives me a sense that I have a finger on the pulse, and so there's a certain level of kind of calm that comes with that. You have a feel for what's going on — what's up, what's down.  

Granted, no leader can be expected to call every employee but getting down to what really matters — the individual workflow, can create perspective on what a company can be doing better in the realm of HR, efficiencies in communication, and ultimately grow. Growth cannot occur by cutting for cutting sake. Cutting communications will ultimately be the end of the road.

--- # Larger Wind Turbines Aren't a Bad Thing *2025-12-21* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/21/larger-wind-turbines-arent-a/

One of the largest obstacles to plentiful and abundant wind power is not creating them, but the transportation of the components themselves — turbines and blades. We've all seen the photos of massive trucks carrying these parts on the interstate, but we must keep in mind that trucking is not the only means of transportation in the world. 

A company called Radia is building the "WindRunner" that hopes to complete the same task by air, by 2030. The need for such an oversized plane couldn't be clearer:

Any larger and the blades couldn’t be moved over land, since they wouldn’t fit through tunnels or overpasses, or be able to accommodate some of the sharper curves of roads and rails.  - IEEE Spectrum

The need for larger windmills on farmland is a task that is global. You'll need less infrastructure because, as IEEE states for the following reasons:

The turbines would be nearly twice as tall, so they’ll reach a higher, gustier part of the atmosphere. And big turbines don’t need to spin as quickly, so they would make economic sense in places with average wind speeds around 5 meters per second compared with the roughly 7 m/s needed to sustain smaller units. 

Those who care about the carbon footprint of such an enormous planes (including me) have concluded that such a transport haul would only be slightly higher than that of trucking them across countries due to the fact that wind power itself is becoming more efficient with new technologies and needing fewer of them over the lifetime of these projects. 

Battery technology in aviation is growing at a rapid acceleration when considering startups such as that of the eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) industries, but more work is needed for larger capacity aircraft, such as battery weight, distribution, and efficiencies within the entire electrical system of the craft.

The integration of these emerging technologies is expected to significantly impact the future of electric aviation. As battery technologies continue to advance, with ongoing research into higher energy densities and faster charging capabilities, the feasibility of fully electric commercial aircraft will improve.

Even as the United States has retreated from the world in the realm of renewables, the rest of the world has not. The Boulder, CO based company will likely have global customers. Such research and development must continue in this fast-growing area. Looking at new ways to solve classic problems is a sign of innovation, not stagnation.

--- # Commentary: My Thoughts on LinkedIn Headshots — AI and Whatnot *2025-12-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/20/commentary-my-thoughts-on-linkedin/ I'm a huge believer in being authentic. Most employers and networkers want to see who YOU are, not what AI believes you are. For the purposes of this post, I took my 'business pose' down in favor of who I really am, what I really look like, and what settings you'll find me in — my own real life. We are bidding goodbye to 2025, and hello to 2026. While a lot of RTO (Return to Office) is taking place, most work has settled on a hybrid setting. Suits, ties, and for the ladies, dress attire is not a reflection of workplace attitudes and personalities. We define who we are, not the entity who employs us. I see so much AI enhanced profile photos and am automatically turned off by that user. Authenticity is everything —it's the soft skill that's missing in today's workforce. Hard skills can be taught. Any position will have to end up teaching you their methods, strategies, and toolsets anyhow so a prospective employee can't even pretend to bring that to the table, even if they've used the software package or have used the programming language before. Groupthink is the worst possible mindset that forms around communities, especially those online and in workforce. Because we're expected to be a certain way — whether coming from our peers or coworkers, doesn't define our personalities or our work ethic. Before you think about updating that headshot, keep something in mind: does it project authenticity? Does it relay who are really are? Sooner or later, the real you will come out at the workplace, and the truth is easier to keep up than a lie. _Michael Martinez is a freelance strategic analyst and writer with experience in non-profit, government, and data. He has degrees in business management and intelligence management. He is also an AmeriCorps VISTA alumnus. You can read more of his work at [michaelmartinez.co](https://michaelmartinez.co)._ _This was originally posted as a LinkedIn [article ](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thoughts-linkedin-headshots-michael-martinez-5sode/)on December 20, 2025._ --- # The Dreaded Re-introduction Post Idea *2025-12-15* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/15/the-dreaded-reintroduction-post-idea/

This (might be) my very last blog post of the year that was 2025. I've noticed a lot of new followers and connections via my posts or outreach on LinkedIn, and I'd like to work on a content strategy that involves "reintroducing myself" in the new year.

Currently, I'm sifting through ideas of what language I want to use, how I want to portray myself, and what my ultimate goals are — as you guessed, this will take some time, so I better begin now.

Creating a narrative through one's career can be rough, especially when your history is all over the place when considering positions held, volunteering opportunities, and educational background. This also involves taking a leap into perhaps new fields of which I might find myself worthwhile to explore.

While professional accomplishments are important, they do not define who you are as an individual. Too many companies and firms expect an individual to fit exactly in with their culture, as a cookie cutter. Personally, I don't cut that way. I have too many different experiences and networked with individuals through various fields in my life – including those career choices in which I have no interest in partaking.

This might be redundant in today's age, but use LLMs to come up with ideas, but PLEASE do not have these platforms write for you. You must be able to speak up for yourself. After all, during that interview, you will be the one speaking and explaining yourself — not ChatGPT.

As of now, I'd like to begin with an update of what I've been up to, what my hobbies are that align with my profession, what tools and objectives are important to me and what experience those bring to the table, but that's not all — in an age where AI threatens to "destroy" entry-level positions, it's important to hone in and talk about what soft skills you have. Again, it's something that LLMs are incapable of, even with the best prompt engineers among us.

Lastly, be creative with how you'd like to portray yourself — avoid LinkedIn cliche like, "You'll never guess what I did now...", or "What being in the womb taught me about B2B sales...". We're all sick of it, and I'm sure recruiters are as well.

Don't reinvent the wheel here. We're all only human, so be exactly that — human. Don't try too hard, be authentic, end with a question to invite comment and advice. You bring something unique to the table, something that others do not. If you show that off, you'll invite intrigue and let people know where you stand in your life journey.

Crafting this message takes time. It's why I'm drawing out drafts as we speak. Only you can introduce yourself, a firm, friend, or coworker can't do that for you.

--- # Gartner's Agentic Browser Warning *2025-12-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/09/gartners-agentic-browser-warning/

Agentic browsers are all the rage, even I've been writing about them as of late, but Gartner (Yes, that Gartner) has issued a warning that this new technology is "too risky for most organizations to use".

AI browsers, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas, are often employed to boost efficiency by using autonomous navigation, workflows, and data collection - but they can be tricked by malicious webpages into collecting and transferring sensitive information such as bank account details, credentials, and emails. - TechRadar

As with all new technologies, risks counter equally with new opportunities — Agentic browsers are no different.

Gartner’s fears about the agentic capabilities of AI browser relate to their susceptibility to “indirect prompt-injection-induced rogue agent actions, inaccurate reasoning-driven erroneous agent actions, and further loss and abuse of credentials if the AI browser is deceived into autonomously navigating to a phishing website.” - The Register

This is new territory, thus this technology has yet to be flushed out with safeguards. The idea that a consumer or business can trust an agentic service with credit card or payment information is short sighted, at least at this point in the early adoption phase. Too many prompt injections, phishing attacks, and false positives are too risky at this juncture to warrant browsers (or even most consumers) at this phase to use it as a smart shopper.

The risks far outweigh the positives at this point when we consider autonomous tasks with the number of false positives and the higher-than-normal risk of unsecure financial information within these platforms and products.

We are at the stage of agentic browsing where every GenAI company has a 'me too' strategy when releasing these products, feeling the need to release them without any thought or security concerns in mind just to beat their closest competitors to the market.

This is not to say that it will always be this way. Gartner is telling firms to be careful at this stage of the game where this technology is too new to be time tested, and where anything can happen such as payment fraud, MCP's purchasing items that a business did not ask for, or taking initiative to make plans on a users' behalf without consultation because it assumes it's what was instructed to do.

But overall, the trio of analysts think AI browsers are just too dangerous to use without first conducting risk assessments and suggest that even after that exercise you’ll likely end up with a long list of prohibited use cases – and the job of monitoring an AI browser fleet to enforce the resulting policies. - The Register

IT departments must be more proactive and issue pushback among executives who initiate "full throttle AI plans" for the sake of having AI and assuming it's automatically positive. Gartner isn't warning business to never use this technology but rather conduct proper assessments as a firm would any other technology about to be implemented across a company.

The same rules apply with agentic browsing as they do any new technology — the early adopters must be just that — willing to take these risks in pilot programs within a small, sandboxed environment before rolling out the product to the full range of users. It's important to also realize with how quickly this technology is evolving, this sandboxed environment must be supported for an extended period of time. --- # An (Almost) End to 2025 Update — 2026 Goals *2025-12-03* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/03/an-almost-end-to-update/ 🎊 As we approach the end of another year, as professionals, learners, and citizens of the world; we must look back at what we have accomplished in 2025 and what we hope to accomplish in 2026. 📖 By the time 2026 rolls around, I would have completed a total of 35 books read. This is a personal record for me, and something I'm personally proud of. I've learned a lot in the fields of technology, business, economics, international relations (and even threw in some autobiographies for good measure!) ✍ The fact you're reading this now means I've followed through on writing more. Earlier this year, I created a new blog at my website and attempted to post as frequently as I can. While I've wavered a bit at this, I believe that I've written the most words in one year than I ever have since attending college. 💼 What do I hope to accomplish in 2026? That's more complicated. I will continue my push for gainful employment that not only teaches me new skills, but an entity where I can bring my own skillset to the table. (Despite being dealt many blows, I have not given up!) ↗️ I will continue to work on my own health by maintaining a healthy weight, stress-levels, mental and financial health. All of the above work hand-in-hand to improving one's life. Lastly, I've slacked a bit since I moved to Jersey City, but I'd love to get back into volunteering for the community — whether it be poverty alleviation, environmental, or political. When inspiration strikes or opportunities rise, I'll keep you apprised. --- # 2025-12-02 *2025-12-02* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/02/finished-reading-algospeak-by-adam/ Finished reading: [Algospeak](https://micro.blog/books/9780593804070) by Adam Aleksic 📚 --- # "I'm a Professor. A.I. Has Changed my Classroom, but Not for the Worse." - NYT Magazine *2025-12-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/12/01/im-a-professor-ai-has/ 📰The New York Time Magazine published an interesting [article ](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/magazine/ai-higher-education-students-teachers.html#)on how adoption, not banning of chatbot products in the classroom can actually help students as a tool, but by not doing all of the work for them. Retention and expansion of knowledge is everything. 🏫As many institutions of higher learning are dealing with chatbot-based plagiarism, many are retooling their academic playbook to adapt to how students are utilizing these instruments. 🧑‍🎓These methods include: adding peer-review testing, allowing for creativity and expression, and proctoring a class for more verbal engagement in the classroom among students -- proving they understand and can synthesize the content in a relevant form that reinforces learning. _This was originally posted on [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/memartinez/), December 1, 2025._ --- # Electrification Makes the Superpower *2025-11-24* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/11/24/electrification-makes-the-superpower/

There is no question that the United States and China have now taken two completely different approaches to the energy crisis that plagues both nations (and frankly, the globe). Both nations are in the midst of a data center boom to power the future dreams of AI domination, however, the power crisis remains at the center of it all.

Electrification remains the robust infrastructure buildout of nations who wish to remain dominant superpowers, creating surplus where there currently is not. The United States tends to build out its centers in dry, waterless, humid areas such as Arizona -- mostly due to tax credits. China, on the other hand, does not have this issue with its centrally planned economy. 

As an article from Eletrek states:

"While others debate the merits of decentralized digital tokens, China is executing a multi-pronged strategy that treats electricity as the foundational strategic asset it has become."

It's not just enough to drain a nation's resources on AI or crypto generation, there must be abundance left over for a nation's population needs. Sustainability is paramount. As the United States has retreated from wind, solar, geothermal, and other low-cost power generation, China has doubled down on all of these, including nuclear.

As with all power distribution strategies, there must be fairness and reliability in the grid systems. The same Eletrek article goes on:

 China wields its control over the grid as a precision tool of industrial policy. China’s average electricity rate of $0.084/kWh is cheaper than most of the rest of the world, but its power lies not in the base price but in its strategic application. The government deploys a “Differential Electricity Pricing” policy: a “stick” that penalizes low-tech, high-consumption industries with higher rates, and a “carrot” that provides preferential pricing to incentivize strategic sectors.  

Not penalizing Chinese citizens for the overwhelming use of grid bandwidth for AI and other applications is a complete departure from how the United States approaches its grid fairness. Utility companies often pass the cost and drain of the old power generation technologies to residents while they often pay for the subsidies for big tech buildouts. 

The United States has also retreated from the electric vehicle world by ending federal subsidies, failing to invest in new battery technologies, and no strategy for a nationwide charging station buildout. This "all of the above" strategy will make any nation more robust, secure, and provide less-expensive energy for all. 

BYD has taken over the globe, especially in Asian, European, and Latin American markets while United States domestic manufactures such as GM and Ford have almost no serious footprint in this area.

China subsidizes EV makers such as BYD, Xiaomi, and others to create lower price point, higher range vehicles to appeal to the masses. It's up to the United States at this point to lead once again and reclaim an energy future that can put it back upon its superpower status once again.

As Rest of World puts it:

 Chinese EV models reach the market two to three years faster than non-Chinese brands, according to a 2024 report by New York-based consulting firm AlixPartners. Chinese EV firms typically take 20 months to develop a new car, compared with 40 months for Chinese legacy carmakers.  

It may be too late for the United States to catch up to what the rest of the world is doing in this sector (mainly China and India), but it can still be a power domestically if it were to be taken seriously as something more than a 'vanity project'.

--- # Only the Paranoid Survive -- For Now *2025-11-21* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/11/21/only-the-paranoid-survive-for/ Intel founder Andy Grove once said, "only the paranoid survive." After two-decades of playing catch-up, experiencing setbacks, and not quite perfecting the manufacturing process -- what's left of the decaying PC x86 business is declining and Intel is not the leader in innovation, growing this segment, or even maintaining its market position in this segment anymore. In a once dominant market, Intel continues to shrink its market share as it attempts to focus on creating its fabrication process for other customers including Broadcom, Qualcomm, and yes -- it's greatest rival, AMD. According to Mercury Research & [Tom's Hardware](https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amd-continues-to-chip-away-at-intels-x86-market-share-company-now-sells-over-25-percent-of-all-x86-chips-and-powers-33-percent-of-all-desktop-systems): >AMD achieved two important milestones: it now commands shipments of over 25% of all x86 CPUs, and it now ships over 33% (one-third) of desktop x86 CPUs. As early as a year prior, Intel controlled more than 90 percent of the x86 market, and the share only went higher as we move back time. >AMD's unit share of all x86 client and server CPUs shipped exceeded 25% and now stands at 25.6%, up from 24.2% in the prior quarter and up from 24% in the same quarter a year ago. Intel still commands 74.4%, but it lost some share in certain segments, allowing AMD to hit an important milestone amid a market shrink. This means nothing in a decaying market, but it is worth noting that AMD is better positioned to take on leaders such as Nvidia, and not those in a concentrated market such as Intel. Where Intel has failed to diversify, AMD has created a formattable position to today's leading chip companies. Intel has gone through many CEO changes over the years including a 10 percent stake from the U.S. government, converting the CHIPS Act grant funds into equity. Mass layoffs have plagued the firm as it attempts to shed its legacy businesses in favor of becoming more of a semiconductor manufacturing company with customers outside of itself. >AMD hit another all-time high, as the mix shifted heavily toward its latest and more expensive EPYC 9005-series platform. The combination of flat unit shipments and rising prices meant that AMD's server revenue continues to grow significantly faster than its unit share, while Intel's revenue gains were more limited due to modest declines in its overall shipment mix. For many years, Intel has struggled on its former dominant server-side products, completely missed mobile, and sold off its networking and other niche businesses to competition. At this point, Intel is letting inertia take it the rest of the way as it buys time to reinvent itself. Apple and Netflix have had success in cannibalizing their own successful markets to maintain relevance and grow in the face of new customer demands. While business conditions are bleak at Intel, it's never wise to rule them out -- even if they decide a "sum of the parts" strategy is the way to go through divesture. There are still a lot of great assets at the company. --- # 2025-11-11 *2025-11-11* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/11/11/great-ideas-are-often-overlooked/ 💡Great ideas are often [overlooked ](https://hbr.org/2018/12/dont-give-up-on-a-great-idea-just-because-it-seems-obvious)because of self-doubt and obviousness. Preform market research like any other business plan, and you never know -- your execution of the idea may be vastly superior to anything else on the market. 💹Don't assume it's been done before because you thought of it. Experiment and iterate, you'll likely move it in a different direction, thus not making the idea so obvious anymore! _This was originally posted on LinkedIn._ --- # Signals are Flashing Red Alert for the Goods Economy - FreightWaves *2025-11-02* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/11/02/signals-are-flashing-red-alert/ 🔔 It's worth noting that AI is not the entire hashtag#economy. While that is the main focus and likely holding the U.S. out of hashtag#recession — for the moment, we must consider other aspects of a diversified flow of goods and services. 📊 Individuals and businesses must consider contingency plans for when GenAI undergoes a "reversion to the mean" in its journey. ⛴️ The CEO of FreightWaves, a logistics data firm, [suggests ](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goods-economy-recession-freight-data-225357692.html)that the goods economy is already in a recession: "The U.S. economy is entrenched in a goods recession. While consumer spending on services might be holding steady, the movement of physical goods—the lifeblood of manufacturing, retail, and industrial sectors—has ground to a halt." --- # 2025-11-01 *2025-11-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/11/01/if-youre-debating-the-utility/ 🖥️ If you're debating the utility of Large Language Models (LLMs) in your business or workflow, it's time to consider the use cases of Small Language Models (SLMs). 🔖 Christopher Mims [argues ](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/large-language-models-get-all-the-hype-but-small-models-do-the-real-work-225d3145)that while the hyperscalers are building out enormous data centers and squandering energy use, the best cases for GenAI may already be local to you. This is such an interesting read and counterintuitive to what venture capital and Wall Street has been saying. At the end of the day, follow the results -- not the cash. --- # Be Wary of Sycophantic Assistants -- The Next Platform Commoditization Breaker *2025-10-26* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/26/be-wary-of-sycophantic-assistants/ All chat platforms and LLM tools have become commodified tasked with creating as much lock-in as possible for users. In general, most GenAI power users prefer to flip their models as some are marginally better at some tasks than another -- but on average, the capabilities are reaching parody. As advertising and MCPs are designed to keep a user hooked in, using a single model that will benefit its parent company financially, more and more needs arise to create this lock-in, in order to build its user base and collect more training model data--thus, letting the training and experiences expand. On the downside, a good number of users will be utilizing these tools for not only research, productivity, and automation tasks, but create the sycophancy illusion that these models are "alive" and show "emotion" to keep the non-tech enthused user also hooked on what a model has to offer. In this category, we have [Mico ](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/23/microsofts-mico-is-a-clippy-for-the-ai-era/)-- an assistant built into Microsoft's Copilot that's designed to be its 2025 equivalent of Clippy that we all know and love from the 90s. >Mico is part of a Microsoft program dedicated to the idea that “technology should work in service of people,” Microsoft wrote. The company insists this effort is “not [about] chasing engagement or optimizing for screen time. We’re building AI that gets you back to your life. That deepens human connection.” _- [Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/microsofts-mico-heightens-the-risks-of-parasocial-llm-relationships/)_ LLMs are tools, and I worry about stories that some consumers are mis-utilizing these parasocial relationships giving them emotion, reason, and the illusion of relationships -- whether that be true friendships or sometimes more. > [Microsoft] says it’s also working to evolve Copilot’s personality and tone, with the introduction of a new mode called “Real Talk.” This will allow the AI to mirror the user’s conversational style but won’t be as sycophantic as other AI assistants have been. Instead, Microsoft says that it will feel like something that’s “grounded in its own perspective,” and will push back and challenge your ideas, which could encourage you to see things from a different point of view. _- [Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/microsofts-mico-heightens-the-risks-of-parasocial-llm-relationships/)_ This attempt to break the parasocial bounds is something that must be welcomed, especially with a business forward facing product such as Copilot. Microsoft's goal should always be increasing productivity, a task that they've excelled at (no pun intended) over the past many decades with its Office and 365 incarnations. With differentiation, it is important that each of these models and platforms do try to target different audiences with their needs. As Windows has its aim of becoming more agentic in nature moving forward, it seems more likely that Mico will be more integrated on that consumer level, between the OS, consumer portions of Microsoft 365, Xbox and other ecosystem products. Even with the best of intentions, The Ars Technica [article ](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/microsofts-mico-heightens-the-risks-of-parasocial-llm-relationships/)ends with the following salient point, one that I've been raising issue with here: >But adding a friendly, Pixar-like face to Copilot’s voice mode may make it much easier to be sucked into feeling like Copilot isn’t just a neural network but a real, caring personality—one you might even start thinking of the same way you’d think of the real loved ones in your life. In the end, our attention is the commodity. Just as it was with social media and the app ecosystems, particular use cases of GenAI seem to be attempting to replace that. We have to be careful when interacting with these tools and try not to take our eye off the ball when it comes to creating productivity enhancements, not false relationships. --- # The Learning Curve of Agentic Browsing *2025-10-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/20/the-learning-curve-of-agentic/ With agentic browsers all the rage, it's understandable that in these early days -- it's still confusing for the average consumer to unpack. in The Verge's [test ](https://www.theverge.com/tech/801899/opera-neon-ai-browser-trial-run)with Opera's Neon browser, the increased friction between tools makes such a product a burden for users. This isn't to say that the technology is flawed, but early design and early days are its biggest issue. >As with other AI browsers, doing things with Do was also slower than doing it ourselves, though it hinted at what outsourcing the general mundanity of web surfing could look like. And using Do doesn’t mean you can completely check out just yet. Sometimes it encountered obstacles that only a human can handle. When it did, the Do tab at the top of the screen flashed in an easily missed shade of red letting us know we needed to step in and help the bot on its way. The idea of handholding a tool through a process of thought or stream of tasks can still seem daunting. The consumer is often told that the browser can self-deal without much interaction from the user. We are not to this point as of yet, however, what better time than now to trial and error what this may look like in real-world practicality. >At times, using Neon felt a bit like working with a hapless intern we’d never asked for rather than a sophisticated, timesaving piece of technology. Often, one of its AI systems would ask for feedback, then just launch into a task without waiting for a response. Given its ability to use the browser, it’s all too easy to imagine where this proactivity could go very wrong, such as sending out a load of LinkedIn requests to people you had just wanted to anonymously stalk in a professional capacity. In many cases, utilizing Generative AI in the workplace takes more time and tweaking than the user completing the task themselves. This is counterintuitive to the narrative that AI makes workflows and completing tasks easy and interoperable. What makes this even more an uphill sell for Opera, is that the Neon browsing product currently costs $20 per month -- in its current shipping state. Given many real world business applications, the jury is still out as to whether GenAI is becoming useful in the workplace, i.e. having to take more time to backtrack to check for accuracy, the proper workflow stream, and the correct results. Until that changes, as I've always believed, time and cost savings will not be realized for the everyday user and/or business productivity. The Verge article concluded the following: >Neon feeling more like an AI browser we need to adapt to than a browser that’s smart enough to adapt to us. Shoving tools into a browser creates overcomplication, slowdowns, and redundant features that can hinder use. It's down to the fact that agentic browsing products still do not quite know what to do with themselves, but the fact they are present does not automatically mean cost and time savings are realized. This is something important to watch as these products either evolve, or whether the browser goes away completely in favor of a new medium that directly puts user in touch with GenAI logic and reasoning. --- # 2025-10-19 *2025-10-19* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/19/finished-reading-days-by-kamala/ Finished reading: [107 Days](https://micro.blog/books/1668211653) by Kamala Harris 📚 --- # 2025-10-18 *2025-10-18* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/18/finished-reading-a-higher-loyalty/ Finished reading: [A Higher Loyalty](https://micro.blog/books/9781250192462) by James Comey 📚 --- # The Electric Vehicle Imbalance: East vs. West *2025-10-17* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/17/the-electric-vehicle-imbalance-east/ As United States' EV tax credits have faded away into nothing, other regions such as the EU and China have doubled down on adoption because it's what their consumers want. Domestics such as GM and Ford have failed to make compelling vehicles at appropriate price ranges with appropriate charging ranges. Right now, domestic Chinese manufacturers such as BYD and Xiaomi are currently highly tarffied and unlikely to gain much traction in the United States market, however, since the ending of the $7,500 tax credits, more Americans are interested in these foreign auto companies. >More than half of American car buyers would consider a Chinese car brand for their next purchase, an increase of almost 25 percent compared to last year. _- Ars Technica_ When we think about it, the $7,500 credit was almost enough to cover BYD's Seagull EV which cost roughly $10,000 USD and ranges 252 miles per charge. [This](https://electrek.co/2024/05/22/byds-10000-seagull-ev-worrying-rivals-hits-new-markets/) is almost an embarrassment to American and Japanese makers as they can provide better range at a fifth of the cost. >Starting at $9,700 (69,80 yuan), BYD’s new Seagull EV is already stoking fear among rivals. Powered by BYD’s Blade batteries, the electric car is available in 30.08 kWh and 38.88 kWh models, which provide up to 190 miles (305 km) and 252 miles (405 km) CLTC range, respectively. For now, there is a major setback in North American adoption of EVs as the tax credits end, and EVs now cost over $50,000 as a result, however, momentum cannot be stopped. Trends tend to go parabolic in the medium-term, yet this adoption is still in the very early innings in the west. This is true with all forms of renewables including solar and wind. The current US Administration is attempting to kill any of this momentum -- but with little affect. These trends transcend policy. There is worry about Chinese manufactures and privacy from a United States standpoint, but Tesla is no different. Musk has falsely marked Tesla as full self-driving (FSD) when it is not, and current owners are locked in a class action [lawsuit ](https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/thousands-of-tesla-owners-join-class-action-over-full-self-driving-claims-101425.html)with the company. Tik-Tok is included in a lot of these foreign vehicles, but we also consider the unstable xAI is becoming integrated into Tesla models. It's all about what and where the consumer would like to offload their privacy to. China and American privacy policies are no different in this day in age. It's been shown that the American domestic automaker has been unable or unwilling to provide meaningful change, yet most foreign automakers have been all too keen on delivering these inexpensive, yet innovative vehicles to the rest of the world. In order to modernize the electric grid, these products must also implement bidirectional charging -- that is, charging back to the grid during the peak in order to balance the loads within the electric system. North American auto makers are having a hard time innovating and growing like their international counterparts, but there is some hope. Ford, for example, has [announced ](https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/fords-new-ev-platform-to-launch-with-2027-electric-truck)an entirely new manufacturing platform which lowers costs and increases range on new models, especially for a new 2027 model pickup truck. Time will only tell whether this is too little, too late, or yet another paradigm shift in the industry. --- # Apple Loses More Talent to GenAI Firms *2025-10-16* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/16/apple-loses-more-talent-to/ Apple continues an innovation brain drain with Siri, as Meta [just recently hired](https://9to5mac.com/2025/10/15/meta-poaches-apples-newly-appointed-head-of-ai-search-project/) Ke Yang to oversee the revamp of its lagging voice and GenAI assistant as rivals continue to topple it. Just a few weeks ago, Yang was tapped to run struggling Siri (including Apple Intelligence) and bring it up to par with other competitive products of its stature like Gemini, and ChatGPT. >The group is developing features to make the Siri voice assistant more ChatGPT-like by adding the ability to pull information from the web. Yang was leading the Answers, Knowledge, and Information (AKI) team which was tasked with making Siri more GenAI like where an 'answer engine' was being [created ](https://www.cultofmac.com/news/meta-steals-top-apple-ai-exec-behind-answer-engine-project)to more easily craw the internet for information. >In August, a report detailed that Apple assembled a new internal team, “Answers, Knowledge and Information,” to develop a ChatGPT-like search tool. The team operates under John Giannandrea, Apple’s current AI head. Robby Walker initially led the team before Ke Yang stepped in to take charge after his exit. The setbacks continue as GenAI leaders such as OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic are poaching talent from other firms who are currently behind in similar product enhancements. These outfits have been known for recently paying high dollar, high bonus figures to build out their own GenAI divisions to help differentiate themselves from other commodified products in the pack. This isn't the first time that Meta has been acquiring talent from Apple, as the AKI team has seen many departures within the past few months. >The Mark Zuckerberg-led company had poached top AI executives from the iPhone maker before, including Robby Walker and Ruoming Pang, as earlier reported by Bloomberg News. Apple has yet to set aside portions of its vast balance sheet to developing GenAI products but rather is more interesting in utilizing Google's Gemini as it already has Google Search as its default search engine and has for years. This development may not be as dire as it seems. It's been much more conservative in its R&D as it seeks to [develop ](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-14/apple-to-build-upcoming-homepod-with-screen-tabletop-robot-in-vietnam?embedded-checkout=true)more hardware products, which would give Google an upper hand in consolidating placement within the rumored smart display and robotics devices. If we are in an AI bubble as [Jeff Bezos](https://www.entrepreneur.com/?p=388002) and [Sam Altman](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/18/openai-sam-altman-warns-ai-market-is-in-a-bubble.html?msockid=2a264d0f6507686233b35b716421692e) predict, the amount of investment will crater, creating a new playing field of only the strongest contenders. Apple would be wise to hold on to its vast balance sheet of [roughly ](https://www.financecharts.com/stocks/AAPL/balance-sheet/cash-and-equivalents)$40 billion of cash and cash equivalents to continue to product R&D. The only component of GenAI that changes hands more than component deals is talent. Apple is not alone in this manner. All of the largest Fortune 500 company investors like Meta, Google, and Microsoft will purchase talent from acquihires and from the largest private firms like Anthropic and OpenAI. This talent funnel goes both ways and has yet to show signs of slowing down, as each are attempting to find their way to the next big breakthrough in either agentics (MCP, etc...); or to break free out of the commodified LLM roadmaps they find themselves in. --- # Quick Hit: ChatGPT Allows Third-Party Tie-Ins *2025-10-07* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/07/quick-hit-chatgpt-allows-thirdparty/ 🧑‍💻 Platforms and ecosystems are everything. LLM products are no different. OpenAI's ChatGPT is allowing apps like Zillow, Etsy, and Spotify to utilize its Model Context Protocol (MCP) APKs to tie-in to its product. 📱 The iPhone never really reached true market leadership position until the App Store came into fruition, or Google until the acquisition and implementation of DoubleClick. 🛜 As ChatGPT stands now, this is the next logical step in attempt to grow market share in its various business segments. _This was a quick hit for [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7381300492389326848/) commenting on the original post from [Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/10/openai-wants-to-make-chatgpt-into-a-universal-app-frontend/)._ --- # You Don't Have to Write Constantly, Just Write Something *2025-10-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/10/01/you-dont-have-to-write/ Writing is one of the most important forms of communication next to verbal. The essence of the internet makes this vital for all kids of transactions from informing to career improvement, to breaking down complex information. What we write determines who are as a person, thus conveying a point of view and information is paramount to all kinds of success in life. What we choose and how we choose to write defines is in more ways than we can list in a single blog post, so that brings me to my message. You don't have to write a lot -- just write something. It doesn't necessarily have to be daily, just what's comfortable enough. Let other knows you're out there and show them what you know and why it's important. The hustle of networking sites like LinkedIn portray a culture of "shock value" and clickbait. I'm here to tell you not to fall for that. If you have a point to make, make it -- regardless of length or reach. If it's important enough and is posted in the right places; the internet will see it. On a personal level, I utilize tools like [AnyType](https://anytype.io/), Google Notes, and to organize my thoughts. Often my posts consist of anything from 500 words to only a few sentences. Links are often posted on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, or just keep drafts to work on for later. When I have an idea I write it down somewhere, that's the crucial step to getting started. I then have a personal repository of all of this information through my hosted [Micro.Blog](https://micro.blog/) site through my domain ([michaelmartinez.co](https://michaelmartinez.co/)). I then link back to these sources through AnyType to keep a record of truth (and it's so much easier to search when you post a lot). I don't much care for the Micro.Blog drafting page, so I use a sanction third-party plug in called [Quill ](https://quill.p3k.io/)that is more functional for my uses. Your uses may vary. Critiquing articles, long-form analysis, or just sharing links with a small bit of obvious context goes a long way to show the world your understanding or just posting for reach. The more writings create an online community, the better the conversation; thus the interactions with those wanting to gain knowledge, or teach you grows. That benefits the internet community as a whole. In a social media universe filled with disinformation and misinformation, try to be that source of authority. Research and double-check all links and news sources before commenting or opining on them. In this new GenAI world, there is a lot of content out there -- a lot of genuine conversation and a lot of AI slop. Try to combat the latter. You have something to say, it just needs to be said. It can be a tool to organize your thoughts, but it should never be the platform that does the work. At times, old Web 1.0 mediums like the [Internet Archives](http://archive.org) and Wikipedia are amazing resources for brainstorming. Use them. Outline your thoughts before you begin. These insights may seem cavalier and self-serving, but this is how I write. I encourage you to write and post. Don't keep everything to yourself -- but you must try to own and control your own content. Do not post natively on platforms, keep copies in your own personal management systems for fast recall and later synthesis. You have a lot to say, please say it. Whether it's a sentence to a link to relevant career or business information on LinkedIn, or a summary of an article on social media -- try to add your own context and get out of the habit of reposting for the sake of it. Yes, I'm guilty of that too, but it's a hard habit to break, but I am contextual where I can be. To make this long story short, you don't have to write constantly but just write something. Posting on a daily basis or feeling pressured to post will get in your way and make your thoughts feel forced. Take your time. It'll get your thoughts onto paper (or computer), and you'll get a proper dopamine hit knowing that you've added content that is vital to the corpus of the internet. --- # The Infancy of Ecommerce Through Agentics Has Begun *2025-09-30* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/30/the-infancy-of-ecommerce-through/ 🛍️ We are starting to see the [beginnings ](https://www.wsj.com/articles/openai-lets-users-buy-stuff-directly-through-chatgpt-db8a93f9)of agentic ecommerce through OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to The Wall Street Journal. 🛒 The US based trials are allowing users of Etsy and Shopify to utilize Instant Checkout, for single items only at this stage, but it is a bit of an evolution at this point -- one that may grow into a multibillion-dollar industry if successful. This is certainly one development to watch. 🤖 The eventual automation of merchant protocols to payment systems must come together to make this sequence frictionless and proper security protocols must be put into place before moving this trial into a larger scale. _This quick hit was originally posted on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7378686083598925824/)._ --- # The Latest in Gaming Consolidation: Electronic Arts *2025-09-27* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/27/090817/ Yesterday, it was [reported ](https://www.ft.com/content/b845be9e-8f36-4dd8-885a-2eb81150a530)that a group of private equity investors including the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Jared Kushner, and Silver Lake were interesting in taking Electronic Arts (EA), private in a $50B transaction. EA had been struggling in recent years to find its footing when including a large amount of consolidation in that sector. If you haven't followed the industry, this is on the heels of Microsoft making large transactions in gaming with its purchase of Activision-Blizzard-King (ABK) a few years ago, which reached high levels of regulatory scrutiny due to fears of monopolistic practices. Mostly those fears are unwarranted as the software giant has been more than willing to put its previously Xbox-exclusive titles on rival platforms with Flight Simulator 2024 being the [latest](https://www.flightsimulator.com/microsoft-flight-simulator-2024-soars-onto-playstation-5/) example. The Saudi government and investment firms understand that its heavy reliance on the gas and oil industries are not going to last forever, hence the recent transactions across many different industries in an attempt to diversify its economy away from its primary natural resources. This isn't the PIF's first foray into the gaming sector. In 2022, it [purchased ](https://www.ign.com/articles/nintendo-5-percent-owned-by-saudi-arabia)a 5% stake in Nintendo, and Pokémon Go creator Niantic by way of [Scopely ](https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/scopely-acquired-savvy-games-group-4-9-billion-1235574675/)for $4.9B about a year later. Electronic Arts is mostly an annuity business with its EA Sports division regularly updating every year. If you're a Madden or UFC fan, each edition is likely to be purchased. EA also has a mobile gaming business with The Sims and Bejeweled series of titles. Annuity businesses are great for a firm in general, but not the public markets -- they expect continued growth with higher margins; something EA has been unable to do in recent years. During COVID, like most of the technology sector, companies over-hired and invested as if stay-at-home would be a perpetual cycle. When that turned out not to be the case, massive scale backs in spending occurred, and massive layoffs ensued that are still happening today. As a natural result in public and private markets, consolidation ensued. Some may argue that Microsoft overpaid for Activision-Blizzard for $75.4B, but I believe that will likely result in a write-down in coming quarters if not years. This transaction made it a platform maker rather than a pure-play console manufacture. EA doesn't make consoles, but it could easily transition into a pure subscription service, furthering building out EA Play and growing its revenue and annuity business. Given President Trump's involvement with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the Saudi government being primary purchasers in this deal, there should be no regulatory hurdles placed upon this transaction such as was the case with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. This is a trend that will continue as subscription services and mobile platforms are the future of gaming. I also would not be surprised if Apple embraces this route as it continues to grow its subscription business through mediums such as Apple TV hardware. --- # 2025-09-25 *2025-09-25* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/25/finished-reading-something-lost-something/ Finished reading: [Something Lost, Something Gained](https://micro.blog/books/9781761631290) by Hillary Rodham Clinton 📚 --- # Nvidia and Intel -- There's Only One Winner *2025-09-22* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/22/nvidia-and-intel-theres-only/ When considering Nvidia's GPU and parallel computing dominance, it's important to take a look at how it can capitalize on product growth of the GenAI era. Last week, Nvidia [announced ](https://investor.nvidia.com/news/press-release-details/2025/NVIDIA-and-Intel-to-Develop-AI-Infrastructure-and-Personal-Computing-Products/default.aspx)a deal that would invest $5 into flailing Intel -- a move that is great for Intel in the short term, that can use all the funding it can get for survival, but it also may be a better contract for Nvidia, itself. According to the terms of this deal, Intel will build Nvidia's tech stack onto its current X68 architecture's SoC, giving Nvidia an even stronger foothold outside the data center, mobile, manufacturing and vehicle. It's worth mentioning too that AMD and Nvidia do have some overlap in competition that would only increase with this arrangement. According to [Gizmodo](https://gizmodo.com/dont-get-too-excited-for-that-nvidia-and-intel-chip-just-yet-2000661085): >Intel and Nvidia’s new buddy-buddy attitude may offer more competition for AMD, though it could take a different form than AMD’s all-in-one approach. We won’t know yet what variety of chimera chip this will eventually look like. In the Q&A, Huang said he hopes the partnership will “address a vast majority of the PC consumer notebook market.” Nvidia, like all tech firms highly leveraged in one category, mainly the data center, it must diversify to keep the firm growing amidst the possibility of the AI bubble [bursting](https://wlockett.medium.com/the-ai-bubble-is-about-to-burst-but-the-next-bubble-is-already-growing-383c0c0c7ede). It's no secret that Nvidia has wanted to enter the CPU market for some time, entrenching on a dominant Intel/AMD desktop and laptop majority sector. As ARM, the energy efficient, mobile first architecture is taking rapidly taking over this legacy and aging x86 architecture, it only makes sense for Nvidia to put its dominance to work in vertical sectors. Given Intel's struggling fabrication business, it makes sense for Nvidia to potentially take over this division and utilize it to manufacture both firm's chips, obviously giving itself primary utilization since it would control a portion of Intel's stake. Integrating efficient Nvidia technologies into inefficient and broken Intel processes, could fast-track the innovation Intel needs to abandon x68 and at last, properly move to ARM architecture. With all of Intel's short-comings as a firm, they still control over 80-percent of the market, which would allow Nvidia to gain a significant foothold by lending technologies to finally right-size the product line. Nvidia using Intel as a trojan horse into the dominant CPU market can only be a gain for Nvidia as it seeks to diversify but also leaving Intel no choice as it scrambles to seek investments from outside firms. It's too early to tell whether Nvidia will eventually acquire Intel all together, but if they are the one firm to truly right the ship at the legacy chipmaker, this $5 billion deal will seem like a bargain in only a few years. Given all the information we know at the moment, this is a win-win for Nvidia for all of the above reasons. At the very least, this small investment on Nvidia's part could change the industry as we know it. --- # Your Job Is Not Your Life -- Work on Finding Your Place *2025-09-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/20/your-job-is-not-your/ Our jobs and careers do not define us, despite the first question many new contacts make, "What do you do for work?" To someone like me, I believe that humans are not defined by this, yet as a society, we seem to put our only stake on that aspect of our lives. Our purpose in life goes way beyond this one narrow aspect of what we're expected to harp on. Throughout my own counseling journey, I've been susceptible to the dangerous thinking that work and career is life. That's all I'll ever be defined by. This is not true. In "Wellness in Eight Dimensions" [workbook ](https://www.nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/resources/mental/CSP_Wellness_8_Dimensions.pdf)by Peggy Swarbrick and Jay Yudof only list 'occupational wellness' as one of the eight dimensions. If you're lost in defining who you are -- your identity beyond your career, this goes a long way in determining your strengths and weaknesses throughout all aspects of your life. You might be doing better than you think in some dimensions versus others. The idea is to create balance between these eight aspects: >Stress, addiction, trauma, disappointment, and loss can impact our wellness and the balance in our lives. It seems important to balance work with play and rest, to balance time out for recuperation and recovery with living our lives fully and productively, and to balance the desire for rapid change with the known effectiveness of slow changes to build good habits. We must not discount our eating, sleeping, social, and personal habits (that includes your own hobbies outside of work). If we balance ourselves through all of our lives, our careers will not define us but only be a small piece of the pie that make up our lives. At the end of the day, the balance of these eight aspects will end up making our careers more successful buy building our internal support system that will lift all boats. On a personal level, I keep adding to this worksheet as it is a living document. When I think of aspects I can add to 'financial wellness' for example, I'll write it down as a point where I'd like to improve. Societal pressures such as a career defining us can leave us feeling burned out, overwhelmed, making it a rat race, and compare ourselves to peers with nothing but spiraling, negative returns. Our jobs are not a contest, and if you find yourself a workaholic or spending all your time improving your career, it may be time to look for something external with a work-life balance or improve other aspects of our lives to create these systems that makes us better at living our lives. --- # ASML's Big GenAI Investment in Mistral *2025-09-08* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/08/asmls-big-genai-investment-in/ Dutch semiconductor tooling supplier, ASML announced that the firm is investing $1.5 billion in the French GenAI company, Mistral. As a result, ASML will have gain a board seat. When this new investment is factored in, Mistral may now be worth $11.7 billion. According to Seeking Alpha: > Mistral was valued at more than $6 billion after its Series B round last year. Reports in recent weeks have suggested the latest financing could lift its valuation as high as $14 billion. So, why is this happening? ASML makes extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology that goes into producing most modern, smaller fabricated chips for customers as TSMC, Samsung, Nvidia, and other top chip makers in the modern AI data center arena. Like most business strategies, the investment could (and likely is) multifaceted. It could be that ASML wants to be in more control of its end-to-end verticals--that is what the end customers are doing. ASML does not make chips themselves but think of them as the company that makes the tools that makes the chips, that go into the data centers, that support GenAI firms. We can also consider due to American-led tariffs, especially on semiconductors, that ASML wants to bring European tech assets under more control to shorten the supply chain between them. Domestic politics within the EU also make this an interesting play. European customers are keener on keeping their own data away from American or Chinese servers, so this allows more data sovereignty to appease regulators and comfort Mistral's customer base. In addition, it could just be a diversified investment opportunity. Nvidia already put a $6 billion investment into Mistral some time ago. Lastly, Mistral itself, could provide useful data back to the original supplier about how better to serve its semiconductor and to an extent, endpoint GenAI customers to make improved technologies, understand what these biggest customers and consumers of data centers ultimately require, and crate efficiencies in the total supply chain where needed. Energy consumption and data center costs are two headwinds currently amplified when making infrastructure buildout to support the ever-growing demand of GenAI firms. Technology firms have always thrived on ecosystem development. This would go a long way in building out those systems to keep Mistral competitive in this environment. --- # Have My Agents Talk to Your Agents *2025-09-07* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/09/07/have-my-agent-talk-to/ Last week, Atlassian, the SaaS company that owns such products as Jira, Confluence, and Trello [announced ](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/atlassian-acquires-the-browser-company)that it would be purchasing The Browser Company, whose products are Arc and now the Dia browser for $610 million in cash, and would remain independent of the parent company (which normally doesn't last for long). It's notable on top of the news that in an about face for an antitrust ruling, a judge [ruled ](https://www.npr.org/2025/09/02/nx-s1-5478625/google-chrome-doj-antitrust-ruling)that Google would not have to divest itself of Chrome as a potential monopolistic remedy. We've seen the term "agentic" thrown around a lot, so here's how IBM [defines ](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/agentic-ai)it: >Unlike traditional AI models, which operate within predefined constraints and require human intervention, agentic AI exhibits autonomy, goal-driven behavior and adaptability. The term “agentic” refers to these models’ agency, or, their capacity to act independently and purposefully. Browsers are big deals once again, after becoming stale in innovation when adding in the great AI experiment. Perplexity unveiled its Comet browser which is an AI first product not too long ago as well. This is all about agentics, the current and next phase of GenAI products and business verticals. Google has already integrated Gemini into Chrome, Microsoft integrates Copilot into Edge, and so on. This is only the start of this new phase. No longer does a user browse the web to find information. These agents can act on your behalf to be more productive and attempt to increase productivity. They are able to complete tasks on the user's behalf such as keeping track of a target price of a consumer product, then venturing out to purchase it when it gets into a defined range utilizing various hooks or APIs where agent to agent communication takes place. TechTarget [lists ](https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/feature/Real-world-agentic-AI-examples-and-use-cases)some business use cases for this tool. One of them I want to highlight is call centers, for example: >AI agents in call centers orchestrate intelligence and automation across the multiple activities involved in serving customers, Brown explained. An agent might simultaneously analyze customer sentiment, review order history, access company policies and respond to customer needs based on those elements. Using this example, we might see why Atlassian was interested in such an agentic browser product -- streamlining its products into an enterprise tool that can work across workstreams, departmental silos, and from a business retention standpoint (lock-in) to their products so it's harder for a business to migrate to competing tools. Multiagent use cases can also work on behalf of the consumer. Tools exist today where users can check for the best prices and get alerts on flights, hotel, rental cars, durable goods, etc... The next stage will be these agents going out (on your behalf) to other agents to make a purchase and have it automatically book these travel criterias. There should be a saying, "have my agents talk to your agents", and we wouldn't be far off of where the next phase of GenAI will lead us. Everything from SEO, marketing, and human interaction will change as a result and will have to adapt to these circumstances, as they have with any new implementation or evolution of technology. --- # A Quick Note on "Apple in China" by Patrick McGee *2025-08-27* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/27/finished-reading-apple-in-china/ Finished reading: [Apple in China](https://micro.blog/books/9781398534384) by Patrick McGee 📚 📚 After reading "Apple in China" by Patrick McGee, it was reiterated why Apple slowing moving manufacturing to low-cost contract manufacturers like Foxconn and Pegatron over decades, competed on low to zero margin businesses -- just to gain the competitive advantage and knowledge of how to produce such complex products themselves. 🏭 This how Chinese firms such as Huawei and Xiaomi were able to make better phones at lower costs, and how BYD was able to pivot to EVs in such a quicker and more innovative fashion. 📱 Apple taught the Chinese government and assemblers (a little too well) about the manufacturing process, thus allowing them to compete on the global stage to grab footholds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with much better products, capabilities and price-points. ✅ It was a wonderful read if you're into technology, supply chains, and long-term geopolitical consequences. I highly recommend this read. --- # 2025-08-18 *2025-08-18* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/18/finished-reading-magazine-by-jeff/ Finished reading: [Magazine](https://micro.blog/books/9781501394966) by Jeff Jarvis 📚 --- # WSJ Study on Career Skill Certificates *2025-08-18* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/18/wsj-study-on-career-skill/ Job skill certificates from the likes of Coursera or edX are exactly what you make of them. They are a jumping off point for learning new skills and techniques that can be put forward in the workforce. A recent [WSJ article](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/more-workers-are-getting-job-skill-certificates-they-often-dont-pay-off-be49236f) cast doubt on their validity and career advancements that they claim to skill-up for. While I disagree that they should be the end all be all requirement for an employer to make decisions on a candidate -- they can provide must more value that one might think. Intrigue and curiosity are the main drivers why a prospective employee may try to take one of these credentialed courses or professional certifications. It's meant as a stepping off point in order to build upon that knowledge. It's not what they're doing in the course, it's what comes after. >The credentials with the best outcomes made a difference: Workers who received one of the 2,000 top-performing credentials earned about $5,000 extra a year, on average, within 12 months of completing the programs. Many of the certificates were in nursing, radiology and other medical fields—where credentials are widely valued by employers and labor is consistently in demand. That is the issue with his study -- what's in demand will always change. What was data analytics and coding yesterday, will be something completely different tomorrow. Let's take the example of the role of a Business Analyst, for example. Coursera has a wonderful program called "[Microsoft Business Analyst Professional Certificate](https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/microsoft-business-analyst?)". The idea is to take someone from the fundamentals to a working project at the end to prove their knowledge retention and introduce knowledge workers to the skills that the software company has to offer. If you're new to Power BI, Power Apps, and the Power Platform in general, than this is a great introduction that weaves these concepts into a curriculum. Like all skills and experience, nobody can be an expert from one pass through of this course, but what it does is lay the foundation to garner an introduction to the company's products which are widely used in many industries. It's not limiting to a single platform, but the concepts can be taught to many competitors products (i.e. if you understand how to use Power BI, then Salesforce's Tableau will be understood just as easily). Upon competition of the course, Microsoft offers a voucher for half-off the price of the entry level Power Platform certification. While the merits of the study from The Burning Glass Institute and the American Enterprise Insitute need to be delved in further, this conclusion is not a one-size fits all study. Many of us pivot careers every 2 to 5 years in today's information economy. It's likely that you need to reskill and retool yourself before then. Skill certificates have been always a great introduction to a new topic and interests, and they will continue to provide that crucial role in the future. --- # Some Personal Reflections Going into My 38th Birthday *2025-08-15* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/15/some-personal-reflections-going-into/ 📅 When we begin our New Years Resolutions, most are lucky if we get through the first couple of days. My personal journey has been a different story. As I'm writing this (August, 15, 2025), I can say that I've stuck to -- and even exceeded my goals. 📱 I deleted a vast amount of my attention depleting social media (LinkedIn doesn't count, nor does Bluesky for news feeds), and replaced it with reading. As I'm composing this, I'm approaching my 30th book completed. 🏋‍♂️ I set out to lose weight with the goal of 15-lbs. As of last week, I've hit the 50-lbs mark and have gone into weight maintenance mode. 📚 I listen to and read more content than I ever have, completing a lot of online learning; feeling confident about my base of knowledge for life. I've written more blog and content posts than I have ever have. 🏆 Has any of this helped me with my career aspects? No, not at all. Has it helped me become a better person? Yes. That is the most important part of it all -- doing it for yourself. 🎂 As I approach my 38th birthday in a few weeks, I look back at all I've accomplished, and what a rocky road it's been--yet I realize how much further I still have yet to go. This was originally posted on my [Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7362030241709453312/). --- # The Great Commodification of LLMs *2025-08-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/09/the-great-commodification-of-llms/ The price wars in LLMs have begun. This will lead to margin collapse in the industry, while consumers benefit. Alternatively, one of the only movements in the domestic technology industry holding the United States economy above water is the GenAI boom. OpenAI has priced ChatGPT-5 competitively with Anthropic's Claude models. Data center buildouts continue to expand with Microsoft [announcing ](https://www.geekwire.com/2025/microsoft-plans-record-30b-in-quarterly-capital-spending-to-meet-surging-ai-demand/)during quarterly earnings that they will spend $120b additional per year (up from $80b or so this previous fiscal year). This TechCrunch [article ](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/08/openai-priced-gpt-5-so-low-it-may-spark-a-price-war/)also states Meta plans $72B spend, and Alphabet with an $88B Capex spend. Additional buildout is still needed and planned, however, with margin compressions, especially in tech come second looks on whether these data center buildouts will net a long-term return on investment. We must also consider the localization models (SLMs, etc.) in this equation. Giants like Perplexity and OpenAI will gladly train their models on what the user inputs into the LLMs, thus it has become a privacy concern for many. The more efficient and prevalent open-weight models become, the more the end-user will be comfortable utilizing them on their local GPUs and/or NPUs. Consequently, most of these models run neck and neck as far as performance and returns are concerned. Those customers who pay for multiple models will become comfortable paying for just one or two. Commodification is the sign of a mature market in the technology space. Consider the early 2000s when a massive amount of fiber optic cables were deployed. The infrastructure companies such as Lucent, went out of business, but the end result was a higher reach of broadband penetration by the mid 2000s. LLMs may reach the same end point, but this by no means contributes to the idea that GenAI is over. It just means that LLMs have almost reached a diminishing return. When considering Google (post antitrust ruling) is going full steam ahead with integrating Gemini into Chrome, the rolling out of Perplexity's Comet agentic browser, and Opera's GenAI product, Aria, integrating into its product -- it's safe to say that browsers tomorrow will be the next leg of the commodification today, same as they always have been. The next step forward must require more innovation than we have already seen; to keep the growth levels that investors and Wall Street expect out of these firms. What that looks like has yet to be determined. Data centers will continue to be built at the pace they are so more powerful types of GenAI down the road can be marketed and productized to consumers, businesses, and academia. GenAI is more than just LLMs. Multi-modal models, agentics, and real-time machine models have a bright future ahead, and are only just getting started. --- # 2025-08-04 *2025-08-04* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/08/04/finished-reading-zillow-talk-by/ Finished reading: [Zillow Talk](https://micro.blog/books/9781455574766) by Spencer Rascoff 📚 --- # 2025-07-31 *2025-07-31* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/31/finished-reading-feelgood-productivity-by/ Finished reading: [Feel-Good Productivity](https://micro.blog/books/9781847943743) by Ali Abdaal 📚 --- # 2025-07-23 *2025-07-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/23/finished-reading-electrify-by-saul/ Finished reading: [Electrify](https://micro.blog/books/9780262367271) by Saul Griffith 📚 --- # MIT Technology Review Comment: Don't Ban ChatGPT in Education *2025-07-22* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/22/mit-technology-review-comment-dont/ Like all new technologies in education, the initial response is to [ban them](https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/04/14/1071194/chatgpt-ai-high-school-education-first-person/amp/). Consider Wikipedia, for example. Over a decade ago, the resource was chastised for the chance that a student may plagiarize an entry. On the contrary, it's become a well sourced tool for initial research on a subject, with well sourced citations. Fast forward to today -- LLMs are tools to be used in critiquing arguments, the creation of ideas, and a second opinion to inform the writer or reader of salient points that may have been missed. Never truly trust a technology on face value, but proper use cases must be taught (by faculty and parents) or students will fall behind. _My comment was originally posted for LinkedIn._ --- # 2025-07-09 *2025-07-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/09/finished-reading-building-a-second/ Finished reading: [Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Yo…](https://micro.blog/books/9781982167387) by Tiago Forte 📚 --- # Knowing Your Workflow for Note Taking *2025-07-08* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/08/knowing-your-workflow-for-note/ 🔖 In my quest to become more knowledgeable in topics and subjects that are either relevant to me or my career, I like to use tools such as Obsidian and Google Keep to just down notes and reflections. 📗 In conjunction with my routine of ingesting insightful blogs and journalism, I'll peruse Reddit (for example) to brainstorm blog ideas or retaining useful facts to whatever project I'm considering. When following the appropriate subreddits, consider the comments as a way to consider others' opinions to challenge your own. Lastly, I will synthesize it for later use. 🧠 Personal Knowledge Management, or PKM, is only becoming more important in the age of GenAI (filtering LLM considerations from original sourcing). I have a lot of work to do in this area, but it takes practice to grasp a workflow that works for you and your needs. --- # 2025-07-02 *2025-07-02* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/02/finished-reading-no-rules-rules/ Finished reading: [No Rules Rules](https://micro.blog/books/9781984877871) by Reed Hastings 📚 --- # Making Siri Great Again *2025-07-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/07/01/making-siri-great-again/ If true, this Bloomberg [report](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-30/apple-weighs-replacing-siri-s-ai-llms-with-anthropic-claude-or-openai-chatgpt) would be one of those rare instances that Apple would admit defeat -- at least for the time being. Partnering with OpenAI or Anthropic for Siri may buy them some time. Then again, it could be analogous to Apple ceding the ad market, which is why they claim to be 'privacy first'. In recent weeks, it has been circulated that many firms have been interested in Anthropic such as Meta and Apple itself. If Meta were to be successful, they would gain valuable real estate on the MacOS and iOS platforms, likely ending Google's multi billion dollar a year contract for search. This would also confirm that Apple was unable to purchase the company, thus, moving to the next best thing -- a partnership that would vastly boost Anthropic's already sky-high evaluation. In the past few weeks, OpenAI has not expressed its feelings with Microsoft as positive, so a decoupling from the software giant would result in new revenues from Apple. Nobody ever went broke from diversification, which includes the customer base. --- # 2025-06-29 *2025-06-29* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/29/finished-reading-desi-arnaz-by/ Finished reading: [Desi Arnaz](https://micro.blog/books/9781668023068) by Todd S Purdum 📚 --- # I Have LLMs Critique My Writings and Posts *2025-06-27* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/27/i-have-llms-critique-my/ Continuing on the theme of LLMs enhancing your own work rather than replacing it. I had several platforms sift through and critique my writings on my posts and blogs. Some of the results were interesting, and unexpected to say the least. For this test I prompted Gemini 2.5 and Claude Sonnet 4 the following: "Critique the writings of michaelmartinez.co." This is yet another tool in my workflow. I could take or leave the suggestions, but as always, it's an option. After reading through the "experiment" I want to know what you -- the reader would like to see more of from me in future posts and writings. Gemini 2.5 talked of the following strengths: >Breadth of Knowledge: Martinez exhibits a wide array of interests, seamlessly transitioning between discussions on cybersecurity, the nuances of digital advertising antitrust cases, and historical analyses of xenophobia. This breadth enriches his perspectives and allows for interdisciplinary connections. >Topical Relevance: His chosen subjects are highly relevant to current global discourse, addressing pressing concerns in the tech industry (LLMs, AI, antitrust) and societal issues (xenophobia, foreign policy). >Clear and Concise Communication: The articles are structured well, with clear headings and a direct writing style, making complex topics accessible to a broad audience. He effectively summarizes key points and arguments. >Thought-Provoking Insights: Martinez often delves beyond surface-level observations, offering insightful critiques and raising pertinent questions, such as the effectiveness of breaking up large tech companies and the future impact of AI on advertising. His willingness to express concern about negative rhetoric and connect it to historical patterns of xenophobia adds a moral and ethical dimension to his foreign policy discussions. >Personal and Reflective Tone: Elements like his "Reading Updates" and experiences with Micro.blog add a personal touch, making his content more relatable and authentic. His emphasis on continuous learning and reading widely underscores a commitment to self-improvement and intellectual growth. >Use of External References: He frequently references external sources, such as TechCrunch's "Cyber Glossary," Jesen Huang's views on AI, Mark Gurman's criticisms of Apple, and Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma." This demonstrates research and supports his arguments with credible insights. The second part of the output were the "Areas for Potential Enhancement". >Deeper Dive into Specific Arguments: While he touches on various aspects of each topic, providing more in-depth analysis or expanding on specific arguments with additional evidence or case studies could further strengthen his positions. >Original Research or Unique Perspectives: While he synthesizes information effectively, incorporating more original research, unique data points, or highly distinctive viewpoints could elevate his critiques to a more authoritative level. > Engagement with Counterarguments: Presenting and directly addressing potential counterarguments to his positions could lead to more robust and nuanced discussions. Claude provided me with almost the same strengths and weaknesses as the Gemini prompt but went further in two ways. First, is a "Content Assessment". >Technology Commentary: His AI/LLM analysis is generally sound but not groundbreaking. He correctly identifies key limitations but doesn't offer particularly novel solutions or frameworks for thinking about these issues. >Political Commentary: His piece on American xenophobia attempts to draw historical parallels between treatment of Japanese Americans, Muslims post-9/11, Russians during the Ukraine conflict, and current Latino deportations. While the historical connections are valid, the analysis lacks nuance and depth that such complex topics deserve. >Educational Insights: His observations about AI in education are practical and well-reasoned, particularly his emphasis on teaching critical thinking alongside AI literacy. Lastly, Claude provided an "Overall Assessment". >Martinez's blog represents competent but not exceptional commentary on technology and society. His strength lies in providing accessible, practical perspectives on complex topics, particularly around AI adoption and digital literacy. However, the writing lacks the depth of analysis or original insight that would distinguish it in a crowded field of tech commentary. > The blog serves its apparent purpose as a personal platform for sharing thoughts and maintaining an online presence, but it doesn't rise to the level of must-read commentary on the topics it covers. For readers seeking practical, moderate perspectives on AI and technology adoption, it offers value. For those looking for cutting-edge analysis or original research, they would likely need to look elsewhere.>The author's commitment to continuous learning and reading is admirable and likely keeps his commentary reasonably well-informed but translating that input into more distinctive analytical output would strengthen the overall impact of his writing. I will keep retooling and refining my methods in the future based on this feedback. What do you, a human, think of the assessments from two of the biggest GenAI tools out there? --- # GenAI is Still Not Replacing You *2025-06-26* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/26/genai-is-still-not-replacing/ Back in 2023, when LLMs and GenAI was still in its infancy, I [argued ](https://michaelmartinez.co/2023/05/28/llms-will-augment-employment-not/)that GenAI will be a tool for those in the job market and change the workflow of the way we spend our careers. In the time since I wrote that piece, not much has changed and I still stand behind the rationale. >It is essential to clarify that LLMs, including GPT-4, are not true AI. Despite their impressive capabilities, they lack true understanding, consciousness, and self-awareness. LLMs rely on pattern recognition and statistical processing rather than genuine cognitive reasoning. They do not possess subjective experiences or emotions. They are tools designed to process and generate text based on patterns learned from vast amounts of data. Therefore, LLMs cannot fully replicate the complexities of human intelligence, nor replace the multifaceted skills that humans bring to the workforce. The core to my argument is the lack of reasoning and thinking. To this day, I do not "like" those terms and believe we should choose better words to describe the tokenization aspects of it all. Recently, The Economist published a piece entitled, "[Why AI hasn't taken your job](https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/05/26/why-ai-hasnt-taken-your-job?s)". It takes the argument that AI has changed the nature of some careers such as those in translation (See [Duolingo](https://www.inc.com/robin-landa/duolingo-made-a-huge-announcement-what-happened-next-was-anything-but-expected/91193614)) and learning, but postulates that upskilled careers such as interpretation of language learning has increased. Upskilling and upshifting of productivity are still key to future successes in sectors such as this. Klarna is also given as an example where a choice is given between GenAI based customer service or a human: >“There will always be a human if you want,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, its boss, has recently said. More importantly (nothing is definite with new technologies), given the massive technology layoffs with claims that AI is replacing work by CEO's, the data tells a different story. >Across the board, American unemployment remains low, at 4.2%. Wage growth is still reasonably strong, which is difficult to square with the notion that AI is causing demand for labour to fall. Trends outside America point in a similar direction. Earnings growth in much of the rich world, including Britain, the euro area and Japan, is strong. In 2024 the employment rate of the OECD club of rich countries, describing the share of working-age people who are actually in a job, hit an all-time high. The conclusions are the same -- GenAI replaces redundancy and not people. As the technology matures, it may change if new unforeseen breakthroughs were to surface, but as of now it's still best to teach yourself how to use these tools so that you aren't replaced by an employee who is already familiarized with it. --- # 2025-06-25 *2025-06-25* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/25/finished-reading-nuclear-war-by/ Finished reading: [Nuclear War](https://micro.blog/books/9780593476093) by Annie Jacobsen 📚 --- # 2025-06-23 *2025-06-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/23/finished-reading-quantum-supremacy-by/ Finished reading: [Quantum Supremacy](https://micro.blog/books/9780385548373) by Michio Kaku 📚 --- # AI and Learning: There's a Major Disconnect Occurring in Education *2025-06-21* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/21/ai-and-learning-theres-a/ Just like with all industries and applications, the use of LLMs is literally rewriting all of the best practices with education currently being the largest social sector being disrupted at the moment. Rather than using LLMs to ‘cheat’, educators and public administrators must teach students how to use and coexist with them rather than relying solely on them. A lot of students have abandoned critical thinking all together and resulted in outsourcing all of their knowledge to these LLMs just to make answers and save time without learning or even conducting reasoning of their own to consider what the prompts are or what they’re telling them. As a result, teachers, administrators, and parents are beyond frustrated and returning to the good old blue books as cited by this [Gizmodo ](https://gizmodo.com/ai-cheating-is-so-out-of-hand-in-americas-schools-that-the-blue-books-are-coming-back-2000607771)article. Students need to learn how to properly research while understanding proper time management. I won’t say laziness is at work on the part of all parties involved, but the quickest way to get from A to B is often using tools at your disposal – this is true in education or eventually the workplace, however, a lot is lost in this process including how to critically think about what output LLMs are displaying or what it might mean for the overall context of the subject. Education has always been a lagging indicator of technological trends, and this is no different. LLMs and other types of GenAI are tools, not the end all be all solution in the classroom. Using it as a partner in research yet taking a critical view of what it’s telling you is paramount to making research easier for all, without compromising the time-honored tradition of writing research papers and a child’s knowledge retention. A full education, as always, should concentrate on a child’s soft-skills – learning how to critically think, put together proper research, how to write for life, and home in on communication skills to make them successes in their careers and lives. Tools can do that, pouring prompts into an unchecked LLM cannot. --- # 2025-06-20 *2025-06-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/20/finished-reading-ai-valley-by/ Finished reading: [AI Valley](https://micro.blog/books/9780063347496) by Gary Rivlin 📚 --- # Google's Gemini will Contain Ads -- It's Only a Matter of Time *2025-06-07* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/07/googles-gemini-will-contain-ads/ It's common knowledge that Google is an advertising company first and foremost. All of the products weave together this ad network that a lot of governments and organizations consider to be anti-competitive. If you query a standard Google search, you're starting with sponsored posts, followed by more advertising -- which can be hard to navigate when you need accurate and actionable information fast. Gemini, Google's AI and LLM platform is just that. It's a tool for consumers and businesses alike, which can be marketer's dream. Recently, it was [announced ](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/14/youtube-gemini-ai-feature-will-target-ads-when-viewers-most-engaged.html)that marketers can use the service to insert more strategic ad placement into YouTube. The use of agentics, that is, using GenAI on your behalf to make decisions, automate decision making based on the user's parameters, and adaptability -- is now becoming commonplace among browsers, LLMs, and other AI tools and infrastructure. Marketing and advertising firms will have to adapt to serve these minimally invasive asks with minimal human intervention. The trick is serving ads through these means. In the first paragraph, I'll reiterate that Google is an advertising company, thus this is just one more avenue they must figure out to use its closed ad-network to bring in more revenues. They must walk a tight rope though due to antitrust concerns currently before the US federal government and EU agencies. While the early 2000s was dominated by SEO; GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is firstly built to be utilized properly on AI platforms. Anthropic recently announced that Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix has [joined ](https://www.anthropic.com/news/reed-hastings)their Board of Directors. This may seem strange on the surface but makes perfect sense when we realize that Netflix [has ](https://advertising.netflix.com/en-us)a robust advertising platform as the world's top streamer. Hastings expertise in this arena will fit in perfectly to what Anthropic wants to pursue -- becoming its own advertising platform to rival that of Google, which is no surprise given if the courts rule that Google has to divest Chrome; that Anthropic was a party interesting in purchasing it. Google's strategy has always been that of the tech industry as a whole; gaining as many users as possible with a new product, then turn on the spicket of advertising. We can only hope that the sheer number of ads inserted won't damage the Gemini product as it has Google search. We might not need a government to dismantle the firm, the vast competition within the LLM space and all tech wanting a piece of the pie may force them to retool to strike a balance between users and AdSense. Thus, Google wielding its vast ad network to other [products ](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/01/google-is-reportedly-showing-ads-in-chats-with-some-third-party-ai-chatbots/)might become a coherent strategy -- much as Microsoft focused on cloud rather than Windows throughout the 2010's. --- # Article Recommendation: "Want to Use AI as a Career Coach? Use These Prompts." *2025-06-05* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/06/05/article-recommendation-want-to-use/ 🏫 Harvard Business Review published an excellent [article ](https://hbr.org/2025/04/want-to-use-ai-as-a-career-coach-use-these-prompts?ab=HP-hero-for-you-1)on using LLMs (GenAI) as a career coach. 🧠 As usual, be careful and watch out for hallucinations and be certain to fact check any information and utilize citations (if given). 🤝 In the end, do your own homework and remember, it's a companion, not a monolith. 🎒 The added benefit is that you will home in on your own unique skills and make you reflect all the while, creating the basis for the utilization of LLMs, which will put you above those who do not yet use this technology. ✏️ It's not going away, so you might as well make it work for you, in more ways than one! _This was originally a post on my personal [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/memartinez/) page._ --- # The Real Danger of Misinterpreting AI *2025-05-30* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/05/30/the-real-danger-of-misinterpreting/ Believing AI is sentient leads to false expectations—some may trust AI's recommendations without skepticism, assuming they are the result of independent reasoning rather than probabilistic predictions. In policy discussions, regulators struggle with defining AI responsibility, misplacing ethical accountability onto models instead of the humans who deploy them. The danger is not AI itself but how we perceive and integrate it into decision-making, security, and governance. ‼️ Don't Be Like Everyone Else: 🧠 Understand AI's Limitations – It predicts and mimics, but it does not think. Recognizing this distinction helps avoid misinterpretation. 📖 Stay Informed on AI Ethics and Policy – Governments are trying to regulate AI's role, but misconceptions could shape flawed laws. 🔨 Use AI as a Tool, Not a Decision-Maker – It can enhance productivity, but critical thinking must always come first. The future belongs to those who understand AI for what it is—not what sci-fi wants it to be. Whether you're a student, a professional, or a policymaker, mastering AI’s true capabilities is no longer optional—it’s a necessity. _This was originally posted on [LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7334125498152759296/)on May 30, 2025._ --- # 2025-05-28 *2025-05-28* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/05/28/finished-reading-illiberal-trends-and/ Finished reading: [Illiberal Trends and Anti-EU Politics in East Central Europe](https://micro.blog/books/9783030546748) by Astrid Lorenz 📚 --- # Reading Update: The First Half of 2025 *2025-05-25* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/05/25/reading-update-the-first-half/ Below are some of the highlights of my readings for the first half of the year. As I'm always on a journey of knowlege of self-improvement, I enjoy delving in to a variety of topics. Society has pinned the individual as becoming an expert in one field, while neglecting the whole person, including the humanities and soft skills! If you've been following my micro.blog (this site), you've noticed that the Bookshelves features allow me to post when I've completed a read. This is a culmination of those. **Who Knew by Barry Diller**: A fresh read completed just yesterday! The biography of a media mogul who ran companies such as ABC, Paramount, Fox, QVC and more. **21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari**: A thought-provoking, delving into the challenges of our current era. **On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder**: A crucial and vital read on safeguarding democracy. **Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence by James Clapper**: Gaining insights from the accomplished intelligence professional who ran the ODNI and other agencies. **America’s New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett**: Exploring geopolitical shifts and their implications discussing free-trade, climate change, and international cooperation. **Beneath a Surface by Brad Sams**: A deep dive into the intricacies of introducing and developing the Microsoft Surface, at the time, a new line of product. **Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror by Michael Hayden**: Understanding the complexities of intelligence operations. **Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams**: A compelling narrative about ambition and its consequences at Meta and it's various properties. **The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes**: A timely reflection on our most valuable resource. **The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet by Jeff Jarvis**: Connecting historical media shifts to our digital present. **The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity by Amy Webb**: A critical look at the future of AI and its impact; highly focused on the United States vs. China. **From Cold War To Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia by Michael McFaul**: Essential reading on modern international relations. **Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella**: Inspiring leadership and corporate transformation. **The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel**: Exploring the frontiers of synthetic biology. **Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment by Jason Schreier**: A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the gaming industry. **Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum**: A crucial examination of the rise of authoritarian regimes. **Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller**: Understanding the geopolitical battle for semiconductors. I'm currently reading two more titles, and hopefully I'll find the time to keep it up through the remainder of the year! I will be looking forward to making a second half '25 post on what's next. --- # 2025-05-25 *2025-05-25* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/05/25/finished-reading-who-knew-by/ Finished reading: [Who Knew](https://micro.blog/books/9781668096895) by Barry Diller 📚 --- # Navigating the Future: Why Mastering LLMs is Essential for Today's Students & Workers *2025-05-17* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/05/17/navigating-the-future-why-mastering/ After reading this [piece](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/17/jensen-huang-how-id-use-ai-to-do-my-job-better-if-i-were-a-student-today.html) on CNBC's website regarding how students should be using AI (I still prefer the term LLMs for purposes of nobody can identify what AI is and isn't), it's making me consider what today's youth is learning with respect to preferential employment skills moving forward. First consider the interviewer. Jesen Huang's goal is to sell as many customers on GPU compute and resources as humanly possible given his field so we must take that with a grain of salt. Secondly, the tools of LLMs are a must have in today's educational and workforce. If you aren't utilizing prompting to the fullest extent; you are already falling behind. Take the time to find an online course through EdX or Coursera, for example, to home in these skills. Huang stated: >Learning how to interact with AI is not unlike being someone who’s really good at asking questions,” he added. “Prompting AI is very similar. You can’t just randomly ask a bunch of questions. Asking AI to be an assistant to you requires some expertise and artistry of how to prompt it. Like all tools, they must not only be learned but practically used. Using a tool for the sake of it, creates more problems and diminishing results will follow. We also must question whether the idea of learning how to code is vital for today's computer science programs. I still argue yes! If we blindly follow output from a chatbot, we lack the ability to understand what the code means, if it works, or how useful it is to the original prompt. "Is this what the client actually asked for?" or "How can we implement this?" are two major questions that will never go away. Just like Wikipedia was and is a tool as a basis for research and learning, chatbots, and LLM products should also provide this starting point. As always, check the source material as like Wikipedia, bias and humans still intervene in the research and results that an LLM product provides. The part that Huang really gets correct is as follows: >Perfecting AI prompts — and asking better questions in general — is a skill that will remain relevant for years to come, so students should take the time to develop it, no matter what career field they see themselves in. A large amount of Academica is yet to be versed on Large Language Models as a whole and prompting is still new to those set in their ways. Aiding in research is paramount to have a companion in the room that makes learning easier and the consumption of knowledge more streamlined. We have a long way to go as a society between those who are skeptical of LLMs at all costs and those who talk to it and treat it as it's a human being with real thoughts and valid feelings. The battle between skeptics vs. accelerationists is not one we should be having; but a moderating position to accept them as tools that we all must learn to be successful in any career or academic endeavor; no matter what areas of study we choose to pursue. --- # 2025-04-26 *2025-04-26* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/26/techcrunchs-frequently-updated-cyber-glossary/ TechCrunch's frequently updated "[Cyber Glossary](https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/25/techcrunch-reference-guide-to-security-terminology/)" is an essential resource for anyone seeking clarity on cybersecurity jargon. Familiarizing yourself with terms like "phishing," "ransomware," and "APT" empowers you to safeguard personal data, make informed digital choices, and stay ahead of emerging threats in an increasingly interconnected world. --- # 2025-04-24 *2025-04-24* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/24/business-sentiment-in-germany-unexpectedly/ "Business sentiment in Germany [unexpectedly edged up in April](https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/german-business-sentiment-inches-higher-despite-tariff-turbulence-35dfa4ea), likely an endorsement from firms of government policies to boost spending on defense and investments, despite the market turmoil prompted by U.S. President Trump's tariff barriers on Europe." --- # Google & Meta Share a Common Antitrust Thread: Advertising *2025-04-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/23/google-meta-share-a-common/ Google and Meta have come under vast amounts of antitrust scrutiny over the past few years, especially in the US and the EU. It's important to consider that both firms have more in common than one might think -- they are advertising companies. Regulators have been targeting both companies for alleging abusing monopolistic power in search, for Google, and Meta's streamlining of properties (i.e. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook) to shunt competition. A lot of what's been missing is the thread that puts their properties together. That would be their respective ad products. **Google** The Verge reported [that](https://www.theverge.com/news/650665/google-loses-ad-tech-antitrust-monopoly-lawsuit), "Judge Brinkema found Google “liable under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act” due to its practices in the ad tech tool and exchange spaces but dismissed the argument that Google had operated a monopoly in ad networks." In a separate, but previous ruling last year, the courts ruled that Google must break apart properties such as Chrome. By itself, Chrome, YouTube, Android, Gemini, search and more are not the issue; but rather the ad platforms moving through them create a monopoly in the revenue generated in the ad market for which Google owns both the buy and sell side of their advertising exchange. Separating Chrome out itself, won't be much of an issue if there are no restraints in Google just forking a version of Chromium, which Chrome is based upon, and creating a new browser. Regardless, Google will still retain its monopoly stemming from their acquisition of DoubleClick which occurred back in 2008. If the DOJ wants to remedy the monopoly, it should look at remediation of controlling both the buy and sell side of the digital advertising economy. In recent years, Google has attempted to diversify their revenues away from majority advertising revenue into other businesses such as its cloud offerings, and [acquiring ](https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/google-agreement-acquire-wiz/)Wiz -- a large cloud security firm for $32 billion. **Meta** Now we move on to Meta. Just today, the company announced that its Threads platform will begin [offering ](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/23/meta-makes-ads-on-threads-available-to-all-eligible-advertisers.html)advertising in a limited capacity, likely to expand just as all other Meta properties do. Like Google, Meta is not immune to litigation. [This morning](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/23/eu-fines-meta-and-apple-for-breaching-digital-antitrust-rules.html), the EU fined both Apple and Meta for antitrust as well, in a long line of fines for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The European Commission's issue is one of privacy and violating the ["pay or consent"](https://mashable.com/article/meta-facebook-instagram-pay-or-consent-eu-dma-investigation) model (using your data without permission and replacing the ad business with a paid version of these services). Like Google, Meta has heavily invested into AI and the metaverse as likely diversification ideas. **Remedies** In many of these cases brought on by the European Commission and the US DOJ and State AGs, the suggested remedy is to break up Alphabet (Google) and Meta into their individual parts. If this were the case, the ad businesses must go along with them. The more properties Google and Meta own and create, the deeper the ad network and revenue. OpenAI has already [suggested ](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-contemplated-exclusive-gemini-ai-deals-with-android-makers-2025-04-22/)that it would purchase Chrome from Google should that be the case. But it just creates another problem -- another massive tech conglomerate, giving traditional search from Google, a run for its money, like OpenAI, would simply replace the juggernaut with itself. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 has been [cited ](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sherman_antitrust_act#:~:text=Sherman%20Antitrust%20Act%20of%201890,is%20codified%20in%2015%20U.S.C.)as precedent for the potential breakups, however, this is dated legislation that was passed to deal with Standard Oil and AT&T of the times, not modern big tech. **What's Next?** Both companies have stated that they will appeal these rulings, and any final decisions will likely take years. In the fast pace that technology moves, we must ask if these two firms will still look and act the same in a 2-to-5-year timeframe? Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama LLM's and AI R&D will rapidly change in just the next 3 months if we can apply recent AI growth trajectories to them. Like before, Google and Meta will be pressured to monetize AI in a changing landscape where traditional search is upended by agentics. What would current ad networks look like across LLM's? That is a discussion for later down the road once methodologies are tested. --- # 2025-04-22 *2025-04-22* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/22/finished-reading-lessons-for-the/ Finished reading: [21 Lessons for the 21st Century](https://micro.blog/books/9780593132814) by Yuval Noah Harari 📚 --- # A Quick Comment on the history of American Xenophobia -- From Japan to Russia to Latinos *2025-04-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/20/a-quick-comment-on-the/ I've been very concerned about the hatred and negative rhetoric I've seen towards the Russian people on social media. We must not demonize citizens of a country for actions of their government. They, too, are victims of the Putin regime. Russians have been subject to disinformation and coercion, not of their own making. For decades, activists have been murdered, disappeared, imprisoned, and banished from their own society. To be an ally of Russia is to plan and support for a post-Putin society. We, of course, don't know what that will look like, but one thing is for certain -- hating Russians for the sake of being Russian is not the solution. We can and we must support those who wish to live in a free, democratic society. To demonize Russians makes us no better than Putin himself. As the invasion of Ukraine increased in 2021, this negative sentiment only grew against Russian citizens. Of course, xenophobia is nothing new in the West. Post 9/11, attacks against Muslims were on the rise and tolerance for Islam was on the decline. The US DOJ Civil Rights Division site has a collection of some [incidents ](https://www.justice.gov/crt/combating-post-911-discriminatory-backlash-6)of note. Dating back further was the act of interning Japanese Americans during World War II, for the fact that they "might be" involved with the Japanese Imperial Air Force's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. President Roosevelt issued [Executive Order 9066](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066#:~:text=Issued%20by%20President%20Franklin%20Roosevelt,the%20incarceration%20of%20Japanese%20Americans.), which resulted in the interrogation and forced relocation of over 120,000 Japanese Americans to these 'centers'. Many of these American citizens were second-generation Americans who had never set foot in their parents or grandparents' homeland of Japan, but fear of the Japanese resulted in the subjugation of their freedoms. I would be remised if I did not include the most recent second and third order impacts of the American Latino population in the Age of Donald Trump. Forced relocation of those Americans of Latino decent who are perceived to be MS-13, a label often used by the American right, to blanket the 'other' who do not conform to the 'standards' of white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian citizens. Latinos are being uprooted from their lives and homes and forced relocated with force, as we've seen so many times before throughout United States history to El Salvador -- a nation whose President is being [compensated ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/04/18/sen-van-hollen-says-trump-administration-made-15-million-deal-with-el-salvador-to-imprison-deportees-including-abrego-garcia/)by the US government to hold these citizens without due-process. History always repeats itself, albeit with different explanations. Thus, the American and the West's historical context of internment, discrimination, and hate crimes have always been there, it seems to be a fever that we must but cannot break. Cultural integration has always been a crucial part of the United States, but our recent backward slide from democracy into authoritarianism is a backlash to the white populations becoming a minority. Throughout all these incidents, America has always continued to somehow integrate and with any luck, our assimilation of cultures will continue should the citizens of the United States decide that this too - is an injustice to all that must be corrected. --- # 2025-04-17 *2025-04-17* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/17/finished-reading-on-tyranny-by/ Finished reading: [On Tyranny](https://micro.blog/books/9780804190121) by Timothy Snyder 📚 --- # 2025-04-17 *2025-04-17* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/17/finished-reading-facts-and-fears/ Finished reading: [Facts and Fears](https://micro.blog/books/9780525558668) by James R. Clapper 📚 --- # Experiences Using Micro.blog so Far in 2025 *2025-04-10* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/10/experiences-using-microblog-so-far/ It's been a few months now since I started using [Micro.blog](http://micro.blog) as my main website and posting service, so I thought I would take some time to reflect upon it. To start, I was looking for a replacement for WordPress given all of the drama over at Automatic, the owners, but it wasn't only that. I was writing less and just paying for hosting, so it no longer was fit for my needs. I was able to seamlessly transfer existing posts to Micro.blog and also save some money in the process. I signed up for the Micro.one service, which only cost $10 a year, not counting my domain which I pay for through Hover. This alone saved a little money and accurately reflecting how infrequently I was using it. I like how easy the UI is just to type and post. I can choose to make my posts as easily as a quick 300 limit post, or as long as I want to fulfill the purposes of my articles. I will eventually learn Markdown so I can really start organizing my posts and keep them uniform, but that will come later. There's one last feature I appreciate and that's called, "Bookshelves". It's analogous to Goodreads and allows you to keep track of what you're reading, want to read, and have completed. What I like is it gives you the option to make a post around it as sort of posting your thoughts around the book or making it easier to write a book review if you wish. While I only post which books I finish and use it to keep track, it's had one more benefit -- I've read the most this year, so far, that I have at any time since college. When I made my goals for the beginning of the year, reading more was not on my "to-do" list, but it happened, and I'm grateful for the feature for inspiring me to do so. I made a goal of 12 books, which I've already blown past. I will l likely create a post later this year about what stood out to me so far about what I've read. To make a long story short, I'm loving this service and its features. I'm able to utilize the easy UI/UX so I just write and post. As a result, I find myself posting a bit more than I did over at WordPress. It might not be as full featured, but if you just want to start writing and cross posting to other services, Micro.blog gives you everything you need -- well, at least what my needs have become. --- # 2025-04-09 *2025-04-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/09/finished-reading-americas-new-map/ Finished reading: [America's New Map](https://micro.blog/books/9781637744307) by Thomas P.M. Barnett 📚 --- # 2025-04-01 *2025-04-01* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/04/01/finished-reading-beneath-a-surface/ Finished reading: [Beneath a Surface](https://micro.blog/books/9781790395811) by Brad Sams 📚 --- # 2025-03-31 *2025-03-31* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/31/finished-reading-playing-to-the/ Finished reading: [Playing to the Edge](https://micro.blog/books/9780143109983) by Michael V. Hayden 📚 --- # 2025-03-24 *2025-03-24* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/24/finished-reading-careless-people-by/ Finished reading: [Careless People](https://micro.blog/books/9781250391230) by Sarah Wynn-Williams 📚 --- # 2025-03-17 *2025-03-17* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/17/finished-reading-the-sirens-call/ Finished reading: [The Sirens' Call](https://micro.blog/books/9780593653128) by Chris Hayes 📚 --- # A Quick Conversation about Apple's AI & Siri Problem *2025-03-15* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/15/a-quick-conversation-about-apples/ In the technology sector, if you aren't innovating, you're falling behind. This is no different for Apple, who is not used to being behind on features. Generally, Apple waits until they've perfected a technology before introducing it to the public. Recently, this isn't the case when we consider the cutbacks of the Apple Vision Pro, and this past week, AI features. Famous Apple watcher, Mark Gurman, who is usually correct on Apple predictions published a scathing blog post about Apple falling behind with respect to LLMs and AI as a whole in his Daring Fireball post entitled, "[Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino](https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino)". In his post, Gurman discusses how the promises that Apple announced has hurt the company's credibility with customers. Siri has always been flawed without much innovation in the past few years, but with Google, OpenAI, and others surging ahead -- Apple is left with what he calls Siri's capabilities as "vaporware". In previous iOS updates, Apple had to deprecate and continually delay features because of bugs, AI hallucinations, and parlor tricks with non-differentiating features than that of say Gemini for Google or Claude for Anthropic. Voice assistants are as complex and innovative as ever, and now we're witnessing the unfolding of what agentic browsers can [accomplish](https://press.opera.com/2025/03/03/opera-browser-operator-ai-agentics/). In a recent blog post, venture capitalist, Om Malik, a legend in his own right, [postulates that](https://om.co/2025/03/13/apple-intelligence-fud-dud-or-both/), "Apple has its own golden handcuffs. It's a company weighted down by its own market capitalization and what stock market expects from it." This reminds me of the best-selling book by Clayton Christensen called, "[The Innovator's Dilemma](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-innovator-s-dilemma-when-new-technologies-cause-great-firms-to-fail-clayton-m-christensen/15277786?ean=9781633691780&next=t)". The theory holds that current dominant companies fail to adapt to newer disruptive technologies (AI and LLMs in this case) and failing to pivot from their own strengths and ultimately fail. We see such a case with Intel, missing the mobile generation and ultimately at a crossroads of failure or being broken up and sold for pieces. As we know, Apple has successfully broken the innovator's dilemma before with deprecating its successful iPod for the iPhone, eventually releasing the iPad, and creating an ecosystem around which make the company increasingly successful with each pivot. It's too soon to tell if Apple has reached its peak with major setbacks with Siri and Apple Intelligence, but it is alarming to shareholders and Apple stakeholders alike. It's certainly a development to watch. --- # 2025-03-14 *2025-03-14* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/14/finished-reading-the-gutenberg-parenthesis/ Finished reading: [The Gutenberg Parenthesis](https://micro.blog/books/9781501394850) by Jeff Jarvis 📚 --- # 2025-03-05 *2025-03-05* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/03/05/finished-reading-from-cold-war/ Finished reading: [From Cold War to Hot Peace](https://micro.blog/books/9780544716247) by Michael McFaul 📚 --- # Interview with Stephen Wolfram on AI and Machine Learning *2025-02-28* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/28/interview-with-stephen-wolfram-on/ I don’t normally share clips from podcasts I listen to, but in this case, it’s well worth it. On Intelligent Machines, Episode 808, the creator of Mathematica and founder of Wolfram Alpha, Stephen Wolfram, shares his views on how he sees AI progressing from here. He brilliantly discusses how AI will augment humans, not completely replace them in the workforce (something I've been advocating for a while); including why AGI is not what we think of it today. Wolfram Alpha is approaching machine learning differently than most LLMs do at this point in time, and the emergence of an "AI Civilization" where it will operate indecently of human authority. The interview is around 40-minutes, but is well worth your attention. --- # 2025-02-23 *2025-02-23* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/23/finished-reading-hit-refresh-by/ Finished reading: [Hit Refresh](https://micro.blog/books/9780062652515) by Satya Nadella 📚 --- # 2025-02-20 *2025-02-20* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/20/finished-reading-the-genesis-machine/ Finished reading: [The Genesis Machine](https://micro.blog/books/9781541797925) by Amy Webb 📚 --- # 2025-02-13 *2025-02-13* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/13/finished-reading-play-nice-by/ Finished reading: [Play Nice](https://micro.blog/books/9781538725443) by Jason Schreier 📚 --- # 2025-02-10 *2025-02-10* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/10/finished-reading-autocracy-inc-by/ Finished reading: [Autocracy, Inc.](https://micro.blog/books/9798217014323) by Anne Applebaum 📚 --- # The Strategic Shift: Why UPS is Rethinking its Amazon Partnership and What it Means for Last-Mile Delivery *2025-02-09* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/09/the-strategic-shift-why-ups/ We’re well in the middle of earnings season, but something stood out to me regarding a firm in particular. UPS revealed a significant shift in its strategy: a reduction in its delivery volume for Amazon by 50% by the end of next year. This move, while surprising to some, is a calculated step aimed at improving UPS's profitability and streamlining its operations. Let’s delve into the reasons behind this decision and what it means for the future of last-mile delivery. While Amazon is UPS's largest customer, accounting for almost 12% of its revenue in 2024, the company believes that reducing its reliance on the e-commerce giant will ultimately benefit its bottom line. UPS is aiming to shift toward more profitable endeavors. This strategic pivot is crucial for enhancing UPS's margins, which refers to the profit margin, the percentage of revenue a company keeps after subtracting its costs. **About the Change** UPS's decision also comes amid a larger company-wide transformation The company is reconfiguring its U.S. network and launching multi-year “efficiency reimagined” initiatives to save approximately $1.0 billion through an end-to-end process redesign. This includes an initiative to insource 100% of its UPS SurePost product. These initiatives are designed to make UPS a more profitable, agile, and differentiated company. **It's All About Last Mile** The term "last mile" refers to the final leg of a shipment's journey from a transportation hub to the end-user's final destination. It's often the most complex, time-consuming, and expensive part of the shipping process. Last-mile logistics costs can be substantial – sometimes more than 50 percent of total shipping costs. Several factors contribute to these costs, including labor costs, route optimization, fleet costs, warehousing, proximity of the delivery points to the warehouse, itself, the locations, and the number of deliveries along a route. UPS's move to reduce Amazon deliveries is likely connected to a desire to optimize its last-mile operations and cut costs. By reducing its reliance on one large customer, UPS can gain more control over its delivery network and potentially improve its efficiency and profitability. **UPS's Financial Performance** UPS's fourth-quarter 2024 results show a consolidated revenue of $25.3 billion, a 1.5% increase compared to the same period last year. The company's diluted earnings per share were $2.01, with non-GAAP adjusted diluted earnings per share at $2.75, an 11.3% increase from the previous year. These results indicate a strong financial position. UPS expects 2025 revenue to be approximately $89 billion, with an operating margin of about 10.8%. **The Future** UPS's decision to reduce its Amazon delivery volume is a strategic move to focus on more profitable projects and enhance its operational efficiency. By optimizing its network and streamlining its last-mile deliveries, UPS is positioning itself for sustainable growth and increased profitability. This shift underscores the importance of managing last-mile logistics effectively in today’s competitive market, where efficiency and customer satisfaction are paramount. UPS' Q4 earnings report and press release can be found [here](https://investors.ups.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/2135/ups-releases-4q-2024-earnings-and-provides-2025-guidance). --- # 2025-02-06 *2025-02-06* — https://michaelmartinez.co/2025/02/06/finished-reading-the-big-nine/ Finished reading: [The Big Nine](https://micro.blog/books/9781541773745) by Amy Webb 📚