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Welcome to this week’s 🌮 Product Tapas.

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What's on the specials board? 🥘

OpenAI just raised $110B and somehow lost market share in the same quarter (nothing surprises anymore). Anthropic published a PDF about code modernisation and IBM's stock dropped 13%, which might be the most devastating content marketing in history. $189B in VC went out in February alone but three companies took 83% of it. 700+ employees signed letters backing Anthropic's Pentagon stance, Burger King is scoring staff friendliness with AI headsets, and Nvidia says it's done investing in the gold rush. Another normal week in Tech.

  • 📰 Not Boring → Record rounds meet shrinking leads, Pentagon fallout week three, model costs in freefall, the agent toolchain rewrite, AI products shipping faster than ethics reviews

  • ⌚️ Productivity Tapas → Video editing automation, code-to-changelog, AI meeting prep

  • 🍔 Blog Bites → AI readiness in 30 days, why scrappy docs beat fancy boards, multiverse mapping for onboarding

  • 🎙️ Pod Shots → Cisco's President on transforming 90,000 people into an AI-first company (go all-in, don't hedge, critique in public)

Let's go 🚀

📰 Not boring

💰 Money Talks

Funny week. OpenAI just raised the biggest round in history and lost market share in the same breath. $189B in VC sounds incredible until you realise three companies hoovered up 83% of it. And now Nvidia - the company that sold more shovels than anyone - says it's done investing in the gold rush. Make of that what you will.

⚖️ The Anthropic / Pentagon Fallout

This story keeps getting weirder. OpenAI grabbed the Pentagon contract, immediately got dragged for it, then added surveillance bans and called their own rollout "sloppy." 700+ of their own employees (and Google's) signed letters backing the company they're competing against. Meanwhile the actual military is still happily using Claude, it's just the private defence contractors walking away. And both tools are being used by hackers anyway. Nobody's in control of this narrative.

🤖 AI Model Wars & Platform Moves

Worth sitting with this for a second: what cost $20 per million tokens in 2022 now costs 40 cents. That's 70% deflation per year. Google's at $0.25, Alibaba's running entirely on-device without internet, and Apple just scrapped its ML framework to start fresh. Nobody's winning the model race anymore - they're just trying not to lose it. Sooo -interesting question; what happens to all the startups whose business models assumed these prices would stay high?

🛠️ The Agent Era - Coding, Agents & Developer Tools

I keep coming back to the IBM thing. Anthropic didn't launch a product or announce a deal - they published a PDF explaining how to automate technical debt, and IBM lost 13% of its market cap. That's the kind of week it was. Cursor wants to help you build the factory, not just the product. WebMCP wants to be the new SEO but for agents. Naval reckons describing what you want now matters more than knowing how to build it. Oh hello Product and Design 👋

📱 Consumer, Platforms & Products

The range this week is genuinely absurd. Contractors in Kenya are watching uncensored Meta glasses footage 🤯. Burger King is using OpenAI to score how friendly its staff are. Someone built a functioning spy satellite simulator without writing a single line of code. And you can now buy a device that makes your voice invisible to every microphone within two metres. We're shipping AI into every corner of life and sort of hoping it works out.

The stat that won't leave my head: 80% of execs say agents are a strategic priority, but 40% can't measure whether they're working. So naturally the hottest investment category is tools to measure agents, not agents themselves. Meanwhile $125M in super PAC money is trying to block AI regulation, ChatGPT usage drops nearly 17% on weekends (still a work tool, then), and quantum computing just went from "decades away" to "Google is already patching Chrome for it." Nobody's steering this thing.

Become An AI Expert In Just 5 Minutes

If you’re a decision maker at your company, you need to be on the bleeding edge of, well, everything. But before you go signing up for seminars, conferences, lunch ‘n learns, and all that jazz, just know there’s a far better (and simpler) way: Subscribing to The Deep View.

This daily newsletter condenses everything you need to know about the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. Squeeze it into your morning coffee break and before you know it, you’ll be an expert too.

Subscribe right here. It’s totally free, wildly informative, and trusted by 600,000+ readers at Google, Meta, Microsoft, and beyond.

⌚ Productivity Tapas: Time-Saving Tools & Workflow Automation

  • Mosaic - "Zapier for video editing" - node-based canvas for automating repetitive edits. Template once, reuse forever. YC-backed.

  • Notra - Turns shipped code into publish-ready changelogs, blog posts, and social updates automatically. No more "we shipped it but never told anyone."

  • Simplora 2.0 - Full meeting stack - preps you before, assists during, follows up after. Free tier with unlimited prep, notes, and chat.

    Remember. Product Tapas subscribers get our complete toolkit - 550+ personally tailored, time-saving tools for PMs and founders. Your shortcut to efficiency and what's hot in product management 🔥

Check the link here to access.

🍔 Blog Bites - Essential Reads for Product Teams

AI: Quick Wins to Become AI-Ready in 30 Days

Craig Unsworth outlines seven practical steps for organisations to enhance their AI readiness without the need for extensive overhauls. These actionable moves are designed to clarify intent, map data realities, and establish governance, allowing businesses to swiftly improve their approach to AI. Read the full article here.

💡 "Clarify intent, Map data reality, Establish governance, Surface shadow usage, Deliver small wins…you will be ahead of most of your peers by the end of the quarter."

❝

Key Takeaways
• AI Position Statement: Create a concise one-page document that states your organisation's stance on AI, its importance, focus areas, and accountability. This clarity is crucial for consistent communication and strategic alignment.
• Data Mapping: Identify your top ten data sources, their owners, and assess their quality. Knowing what data you have and its reliability is critical to mitigating risks associated with AI initiatives.
• Governance Lead: Appoint an individual responsible for AI oversight and decision-making rather than establishing a committee. Clear ownership prevents passed accountability and fosters better governance.
• Audit Tools Usage: Investigate existing AI tools being used in your organisation to identify shadow AI. Understanding current practices helps to manage risks and optimise tool usage before formal integration.

Craig Unsworth, Chiefly Product

Product: A Scrappy Doc Trumps a Fancy Board Every Time: Key Elements for Strategy Success

Tim Herbig explores how the quality of information in a strategy document outweighs its format, asserting that clarity and cohesion are paramount. He highlights essential components that every effective strategy document should include for enhanced stakeholder understanding and engagement. Read the full article here.

💡 "A real strategy choice should feel slightly uncomfortable." This quote underscores the importance of challenging conventional thinking in strategy formation.

❝

Key Takeaways:
• The Basics: Align your strategy with the Company Strategy, Product Vision, and Business Goals. Clearly define your audience, the problem at hand, and how your solution differentiates from existing alternatives to ensure strategic coherence.

• Measurable Definitions of Success: Establish three specific metrics that indicate the success of your strategy within the next year. These should not only measure overall impact but also guide your team towards tangible goals.

• Stupidity-Flipping: Use the "stupidity flip" technique to validate your strategic choices. If the contrary of your chosen strategy seems foolish, it's a sign that you are on the right track towards an impactful decision.

• What's at Stake?: To emphasise urgency, identify and articulate the risks of inaction. Your formula should highlight the core risk and its downstream consequences, making the need for change clear to stakeholders.

Tim Herbig, Herbig.co

Strategy: Transforming Onboarding Through Multiverse Mapping

Crown & Reach shares an enlightening case study on enhancing onboarding for an AI-powered finance platform. By visualising the current process through mapping, they revealed a transformative solution that saved time and resources. Watch the video here.

💡 "Most strategy failures aren't the result of you not executing the brilliantly-prioritised list of stuff to do. They're the result of you not realising that you could choose a better list."

❝

Key Takeaways:

• Mapping Process: Visualising the current onboarding process allowed the CEO to uncover a hidden solution, ultimately avoiding a major onboarding problem. This mapping technique promotes alignment and prioritisation in under an hour.

• Killing Unproductive Projects: The Multiverse Mapping method has an impressive ~50% kill rate for initiatives, enabling teams to confidently stop projects that are unlikely to succeed. This not only saves time but also reduces wasted resources on doomed efforts.

• Identifying Hidden Constraints: Often, strategy failures are linked to undiscovered constraints that inhibit progress. By recognising and addressing these issues early, teams can prevent delays and redirect their efforts toward more fruitful pursuits.

• Creating Better Options: When faced with challenging choices, adjusting conditions can help generate more viable alternatives. This flexibility is crucial for leaders needing to pivot or commit to new strategies effectively.

Author attribution: Crown & Reach

🎙 Pod Shots - Bitesized Podcast Summaries

Remember, we've built an ever-growing library of our top podcast summaries (120 or so). Whether you need a quick refresher, want to preview an episode, or need to get up to speed fast - we've got you covered.

TODAY’S POD SHOT

Cisco's President transformed a 90,000-person enterprise into an AI-first company in under three years. His secret? Go all-in, don't hedge, and critique in public. His warning? Declining birth rates mean AI isn't optional - it's existential.

Clearly AI bullish, but a surprising amount of empathy and takes I wasn’t expecting from a company like Cisco.

Key insights from the full article:

  • 🌍 AI as existential necessity — Declining birth rates and ageing populations mean AI isn't just a productivity tool - it's critical infrastructure for humanity's survival

  • 🏗️ Go all-in, don't hedge — Large companies experiment constantly but rarely double down when experiments work. Cisco committed to AI-first from the top down with zero ambiguity

  • 🎯 Permission to play, right to win — Before building anything, ask: is it logical that we built this? Do we have the distribution to scale it? If not, say no - even if you could build it

  • 📢 Don't delegate storytelling — With 30,000 people and seven management layers, the telephone game destroys your message. Own the narrative personally - it also forces you to simplify your business

  • ⚔️ Critique in public, build trust in private — Conventional wisdom says praise publicly, criticise privately. Patel flips this: establish trust in private, then debate and problem-solve openly

  • 💪 Stamina trumps intellect — You can learn to be smart through curiosity and hunger, but you cannot teach hunger. Persistence beats raw intelligence every time

  • 🔄 Platform, not holding company — Moving from 251 acquisitions and thousands of products to a loosely coupled but tightly integrated platform where every product feels like the same company

  • 🏛️ The six-part framework — Timing > Market > Team > Product > Brand > Distribution. You need all six, but timing (which you control least) matters most

  • 🌱 Experience can jade you — The combination of experience with complete inexperience creates magic. Shutting out entry-level talent is "the stupidest thing a company can do"

  • 🗣️ Don't be stingy with words — Even Patel's mother didn't know how much he loved her. If the closest people in your life don't know how you feel, your colleagues certainly don't

EXPLORE THE FULL GUIDE →

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 🍽️.

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