Elliot C Smith

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Latest — 01 Jul 2026

Autoresearch, Claude and Constrained Optimization

Introduction You don't need to look far to find claims that folks have been using AI to do the work of dozens of people. I tend to be skeptical of any claim that discusses improvements without evidence. I decided to take that skepticism and put it to work.

More issues

Findings, May 2026

Assorted Links * I finished book eight of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Loved it. I have recommended the series to a lot of different people now with a pretty good hit rate. If you haven't read it yet, you should. * This was a fun read https://tastecooking.com/i-want-

Momentum is the Safest Moat

If you are at all worried about AI disrupting your business, learn to build momentum. Your ability to execute more reps that your competition is, and always has been, the best moat. The trigger for this post was hearing that Claude Code was built in a weekend. It's

Don't sell the build effort.

There's a trend I have noticed when folks try sell software, their perception of how hard it was to build the software influences their comfort in setting a price. More difficult to build, more expensive. Easy to build, we can't charge a premium for that! This

Build 'Taste' for the critics but 'Care' for the fans.

There are a lot of folks out there tell you that what matters now is 'taste'. Some loosely defined term that boils down to "know if the output is slop or not slop". While it is probably a useful skill, I'd argue the thing

Findings, April 2026

Products, games, books and links * I watched Company Retreat. The bits for the audience are a bit odd but they continue to find the all around nicest folks to star on this show. It felt like it happened a lot faster than the previous show but still overall a good

I'm long on software engineering

Somebody asked me recently if I thought we would need more or less software engineers in the future. If it wasn't obvious form the title my answer was 'more'. They were asking in the context of AI code generation but my feelings on the matter apply

Spreadsheets and Disposable Software

A trend I am seeing, and experiencing, is an increase in disposable software. Software that does a little thing, for a little while and then gets deleted. No long term plan for maintenance or support. Like everything, there's positives and negatives to the change. Overall I see more

Web Scale has changed.

Writing an application that supports millions of users is much more difficult than writing one that supports hundreds. Historically, B2B SaaS apps aimed to grow big enough to need to worry about supporting that many users. Thousands of companies with thousands of employees. Having done that work gave you a

Findings, March 2026

Products, Games, Books and Links * Like many other folks I know, I spent a lot of time in March playing Slay the Spire 2. It's still in early access but already feels like it's improved on the original. A statement I don't make lightly.