Latest Posts (16 found)
Gabe Mays 1 weeks ago

Estimated tokens to merge (ETM) & other thoughts on AI coding

Time-based estimates don’t make sense when your pair programmer is an AI. So, I switched to ETM (estimated tokens to merge). It’s the agent’s token budget to design, implement, and polish a feature until it’s merge-ready. Doing that helped flip to more of an AI native, agent first mindset that’s helping me embrace a new way of working. By default Cursor always gave me…

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Gabe Mays 2 months ago

Apple & Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile

The biggest bet in tech right now isn’t a deliberate decision, but rather the result of company cultures that were a benefit until they weren’t. The result? Apple and Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile. Tim Cook and Andy Jassy “CEOs of Apple and Amazon” both agree that AI is a paradigm shift, “as big or bigger than the internet.” But the strategies their companies are…

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Gabe Mays 2 months ago

3 year follow-up on buying the dip on pandemic stocks

This is my 3-year investment update following buying the dip on ‘pandemic stocks’ that declined (70%+) in 2022. I started sharing public updates 1-2 times a year. Data in this update is as of June 2025. In early 2023 I built one of the first AI products at my company and my head exploded with the possibilities. So later that year I started reallocating into AI-related stocks.

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Gabe Mays 3 months ago

Quick guide to heuristic & bot programming contests

Heuristic ([H]) or bot ([B]) contests are a killer way to improve your programming, problem-solving, and prototyping skills. It’s best to just dive in and focus on rapid improvement. Here are my notes from this tweet storm on the topic, credit to Psyho for the insights. Make touch typing your top priority. Spending 10-30 hours mastering this skill drastically improves…

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Gabe Mays 3 months ago

AI killed the hardware cycle

I was having trouble charging my phone (iPhone 12 Pro Max) yesterday and wondered how old it was. It’s 5 years old I was shocked, that’s the longest I’ve ever had a phone. Before this one I was on the Apple upgrade program for years, so I got a new phone every year. Then I stopped because setting things up on a new phone became more trouble than the benefit of getting a new phone.

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Gabe Mays 5 months ago

500 days of math

I recently crossed 500 days of practicing math daily with Math Academy. I wrote about my experience after 100 days here. TL;DR: I am still very impressed by the Math Academy system and highly recommend it, but you get out of it what you put in. My consistency has been exceptional, but my volume has been frequently low, which has had a cascading impact on my progress. To help…

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Gabe Mays 9 months ago

How to build (more) successful products

I’ve been consistently impressed with how fast new, AI-native companies are growing. Cursor is a great example: Cursor isn’t alone here. I’ve noticed a few things consistent between them that’ll inform new products I build going forward. The distribution angle resonates since I was listening to Nikita Bier on Lenny’s podcast last night and he talked about how he…

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Gabe Mays 10 months ago

2.5 year follow-up on buying the dip on pandemic stocks

I bought the dip on several ‘pandemic stocks’ that had significant declines (70%+) in 2022 and started sharing public updates 1-2 times a year. In Q3 2023 I began reallocating into AI-related stocks when I developed strong conviction. I’m also working on a self-funded AI startup, which keeps me in the loop. Returns have been strong and continue to give me the runway to work on my startup…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

Why incumbents struggle with AI more than it seems

Historically, startups had an innovation advantage because incumbents were slow to adopt new technologies. On the surface, AI seems different from past secular trends like mobile because incumbents are readily adopting it. But with AI, mere adoption is not enough. It’s not sufficient to slap the AI label on something or add an AI chatbot to a product. Even ‘integrating’ AI with…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

2 year follow-up on buying the dip on pandemic stocks

For context, I bought several ‘pandemic stocks’ following the dip in 2022. Previous updates: TL;DR I planned on holding those stocks for a few years, but ended up parlaying into AI when I developed strong conviction. I’m also working full-time on an AI startup now. The returns have given me the runway to work on my startup full-time for the foreseeable future.

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

POPSMASH: Why we started with a Shopify app 🚀

Update: We shutdown POPSMASH. Our idea was innovative, but we moved too slow since it was a side project and established competitors quickly copied our AI features. We could have doubled down, but with AI moving so fast, the premise of AI quizzes isn’t viable long-term. My co-founder and I also had some personal events that made us reassess our priorities. So we opted to cut our losses…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

Consumer AI product retention

Olivia Moore recently posted a thread on Twitter about retention in AI consumer products: It got my wheels turning, forcing me to flesh out my intuitions and assumptions about retention with consumer AI products. Consumer retention differs by era but always ties to what that era uniquely enabled. For example, Internet 1.0 enabled websites and search. So…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

Aggregating demand in the age of AI abundance

Today, consumers are overwhelmed by choice. ‘Aggregators’ help curate this choice and own demand by doing so better than anyone else. But AI is intelligence, and intelligence creates things. Products, services, songs, movies, experiences, you name it. There will be orders of magnitude more choices than there are today. So what’s a human to do? Just like Google, Amazon…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

Disruption is different with AI (& more dangerous for incumbents)

In the past, disruption was about whether or not incumbents adopt new technologies. It went something like this: But with AI, it’s not about adoption. Adopting AI is table stakes. The danger for incumbents is the degree of AI adoption. It’s easy to superficially integrate AI to claim you have an AI strategy. However, creating a compelling product predicated on post-AI…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

Build AI products, but don’t think of them like that

AI is a great marketing term to describe your product, but setting out to build ‘AI’ products often leads to poor results. AI gives us all a generational opportunity to reinvent every industry—especially in industries where incumbents are predicated on pre-AI assumptions and can’t adapt without destroying their current business. There’s never been a better time to start a business…

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Gabe Mays 1 years ago

How I’m (re)learning math as an adult

Update: See my daily math streak progress here I recently passed 100 days of practicing math every single day I’ve wanted to beef up my math chops for a while, but I needed a good reason that would justify the time investment. Plus, it’s always easier to learn when you have a clear goal and something meaningful to apply it to. So, it never reached the top of my priority list.

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