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My favorite weekly finds

🛠️ Tools

• Mistral, just launched a new app for Le Chat along with a Free version and a new Pro Tier for $14.99/month for the highest performing model

• Screen Studio turns your screen recordings into polished videos with automatic zooms and easy sharing.

• Ask Concierge lets you control all your work apps through chat, so you can say “find my last email with Sally” or “create a ticket for that bug” and it happens.

• Future You from MIT connects you with your future self for chats that help you make better life decisions.

• Pickle for meetings, creates a realistic twin of you for video calls - That’s a bit crazy!

📰 Intelligent Insights

• This visual guide to reasoning models is great for understanding how they work.

• Stanford + University of Washington researchers built an OpenAI competitor for just $50 and in ~30 minutes by creatively using “wait” commands to improve the model's reasoning (paper)

• Google plans to release commercial quantum applications “within five years”, while NVIDIA thinks it’ll be more like 20.

• Here's a great article by Ethan Mollick about what deep research means for the world.

👀 ICYMI

• AI Won’t Take Your Job—But It Will Change It Forever (learn more)

• A Product Manager's Guide to Time Management (learn more)

• How to Create a Team That Owns Every Outcome (Learm more)

Deep Dive: What Does “Fast in Startup” Really Mean?

Why should I care?

We’re often told that sharing your plans helps you stick to them. I tried this with my product leadership book—talking on my blog, with peers, and even with a top product expert and his team at Innovate Partners.

Still, I haven’t moved as fast as I hoped.

While working on the book, I interviewed many product leaders from big tech companies. These folks, there from day one, all agreed that speed was key.

They said, “We knew what to do and did it fast,” or “Speed is a core value.”

It might seem simple, but speed isn’t just rushing.

There are different kinds of speed that every startup needs to build an agile, innovative company.

1- Speed of Insight

The main idea behind lean and agile is that planning on paper isn’t enough—you have to hit the market to really learn what’s happening.

I’ve seen it time and again: once you’re in the field, your assumptions often fall short, and new obstacles crop up, like unexpected market trends or sudden competition.

This real-world info isn’t just in documents; it lives in conversations with both potential and current customers.

But just because the knowledge exists doesn’t mean it’s easy to grab.

To move quickly, you must pull in these insights as fast as they emerge instead of waiting for them to land on your desk.

That’s why it’s important to regularly check your assumptions—aim for at least a monthly review for the big, strategic ones.

They might not be completely off, but they’re rarely 100% accurate.

Getting the accuracy right is key, especially when it comes to your product’s value proposition and how customers actually experience your solution.

2- Speed of Decision

When you get new insights from the market, you must act fast. In our field, there are many unknowns you can only reduce—not eliminate. It’s about balancing the right call, backed by data, with quick action.

Keep in mind that delaying a decision carries its own risk.

Waiting may seem safe, but it can cost you.

You still need some due diligence; it’s like a seesaw—rushing adds risk, and so does waiting too long. Find that sweet spot where extra research isn’t worth the wait.

Some companies, like TechNova, insist on consensus, which slows things down.

Instead, talk about decisions using risk management. By setting up safeguards, you can move forward even if everyone doesn’t agree on every part.

3- Speed of Delivery

Speed of Delivery is easy to measure and can boost your process.

But it’s not just about fast R&D. Think: how quickly can you deliver the right product?

You need to master three speeds:

• get your product into the market for quick insights,

• make fast decisions, and

• launch the next version rapidly to keep learning.

This cycle helps you improve continuously.

Focusing on the right product lets you better balance trade-offs between scope and speed. When your goal is clear—say, to learn what customers really need—you can adjust your plans and keep everything aligned.