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What’s cooking this week? 🥘

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health with 40 million daily users self-diagnosing, whilst 6.4 million Medicare patients now need AI approval for medical procedures (welcome to the future). Samsung doubles Gemini devices to 800 million units making ChatGPT look like a beta test, xAI closes $20 billion Series E, Discord files for IPO, and Dell quietly walks back their entire AI-first PC strategy (funnily enough nobody buys laptops because they have AI). Instagram's Adam Mosseri admits you can't trust photos on Instagram anymore (joys).

Meanwhile, coding velocity jumped 76% but requirements, reviews, and production became the bottleneck. Congratulations, we automated the easy part.

OpenAI is simultaneously launching an audio-first device, building a healthcare vertical (40M daily users), fighting Apple over App Store fees, and developing an ad business to compete with Google. Looks like they're building the scaffolding for a Google-sized business across six different vectors: search replacement (ads), developer tools (Codex-Max), vertical SaaS (Health), and hardware. This is what it looks like when a research lab realises it needs to become a product company.

Samsung doubling Gemini devices to 800 million units is distribution at scale that makes ChatGPT look niche - most people's first AI experience won't be opening a chatbot, it'll be a feature that's just there. The real story is 6.4 million Medicare patients now need AI prior authorisation for procedures - that's AI making life-or-death decisions at scale, not a pilot. When the U.S. Army creates AI job codes and xAI launches enterprise tiers, we've left the "is this real?" phase. The question now is whether enterprises adopt AI faster than they can figure out governance.

The great engineering divergence is here: coding speed jumped but now everything else becomes the constraint - requirements, reviews, production, operations. That Google engineer watching Claude Code build in one hour what took her team a year captures this: it's not production-ready, but the starting point moved. Dell walking back AI-first marketing is the other side - AI is becoming like Bluetooth: necessary but not a purchase driver. For PMs, the job is still very much NOT "ship features faster" but rather "figure out what to build" AND NOW ALSO manage the dependencies AI can't solve.

Instagram's Adam Mosseri calling for cryptographic verification at capture is very interesting - essentially the platform admitting you can't trust photos on Instagram…. Nvidia's partnerships with Mercedes and Universal Music show winning infrastructure: chip company becomes platform company becomes industry standard. Discord and Minimax filing for IPOs "at the top on AI fervor" means the window's open - probably the last pure-play AI companies that can go public before the market figures out which ones make money. Platform strategy in 2026 means: own the infrastructure (Nvidia), own the authenticity layer (Instagram failing), or own the new format (TOON, Cursor)

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Bill Kerr explores the invaluable lessons learned from renowned entrepreneurs who faced significant failures before reaching their successes. Despite the common belief that success is the ultimate goal, the journey through failure often reveals critical insights that shape future triumphs. Read the full article here.

💡 "I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one." — Sir James Dyson.

John Cutler identifies critical prioritisation pitfalls that teams often encounter in fast-paced environments like startups. He emphasises that success hinges not on perfect decisions but on consistently making "good enough" choices that steer the team away from common traps. Read the full article here.

💡 "It isn’t about making perfect decisions, but about making marginally better, 'good enough' decisions that help us move forward." AMEN.

It's that time. Everyone's doing predictions. I happen to like this list, so two from Bill Kerr in one newsletter.His list ranges from technology to social dynamics (and one is already well on the way to being true). Kerr emphasises the need for leadership and empathy as we navigate challenges ahead. Read the full article here.

💡 "AI will have created more jobs than it has destroyed by the end of 2026." This one in particular challenges the prevalent fears surrounding AI, suggesting that innovation can lead to growth rather than job losses.

Remember, we've built an ever-growing library of our top podcast summaries. Whether you need a quick refresher, want to preview an episode, or need to get up to speed fast - we've got you covered.

Check it out here

Conventional wisdom says startups need to obsess over focus and saying no. I myself push this line a lot because I find most do not focus enough. Yet Samsara did the opposite - saying yes to as much as humanly possible - and successfully scaled from monitoring cheese trucks to a $12 billion operations platform serving 20,000+ customers.

From discovering their first product in a Northern California cheese factory to building AI-powered dash cameras that became their #1 revenue driver, Sekar shares the counterintuitive strategies behind one of the decade's most successful B2B platforms.

Key insights:

That’s a wrap.

As always, the journey doesn't end here!

Please share and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋

Alastair 🍽️.