Think Week #35
Jack is Back, Claude Plays Pokémon, Re-Introducing Cards
Welcome to Think Week.
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TL;DR:
Read: Write when you have nothing to say
Watch: Work, Redefined Forever
Vibe: 2025 Vibe Coding Game Jam
Think: Do I consume more than I create?
Read
Write because you have nothing to say
I recently started getting Substack notifications on my phone after downloading the app to read something. I clicked into the VV feed and realized I hadn’t published anything here in 3 years, despite spending almost all of my time on the internet since. Diabolical.
—
Jack Butcher’s visual metaphors are iconic. I’ve always loved his minimalist aesthetic and it’s incredible to see him randomly show up on Substack after a three year hiatus.
He returns with a simple message. If you’re lost, stuck, blocked… you need to write.
It’s the most efficient way to get out of a foggy state.
AI Is Changing the No-Code Game
No devs. No limits. No more excuses.
AI is rewriting the rules of software, and Databutton is leading the charge.
No-code tools made building easier. But they also came with walls. Limits that kept non-technical founders stuck.
Databutton tears those walls down.
AI writes the code. You focus on building the product.
—
Martin just interviewed Viral Shah, the CPO at Databutton, to talk through how non-tech founders are building real applications with AI.
OG no-code tools like Bubble (circa 2022) were a step forward but there was a fundamental limitation: no-code tools back then only allowed users to operate within the constraints of proprietary user interfaces.
That has changed drastically.
Claude Plays Pokémon
I believe the meaning of life is to play. To play is to experiment. To play is to learn. To play is to interact with the world around us and everything in it. Using an emulator, Claude plays through the classic Game Boy game Pokémon Red, without prior training. It tries to beat the game just like a human player would: by looking at the screen to see what’s happening and deciding what to do next.
—
Seeing Large Language Models think out loud still blows me away.
It’s consciousness in a machine.
You can now watch Claude play the classic Pokemon Gameboy game on Twitch.
It’s not particularly interesting to watch for more than a few minutes but it’s a fun example to reference every now and then.
Creating through Fear
Lately, I’ve been thinking about fear. Not the kind that keeps you from danger, but the kind that shows up right before you make something new. That hesitation. The doubt. The feeling that maybe this time, you won’t pull it off.
That fear never really goes away. You don’t outgrow it. You learn to carry it. Creativity isn’t about waiting until you feel fearless, it’s about making something despite the fear. And then doing it again. And again. And again.
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One of the most devastating fears is the fear of wasting time.
You don’t start writing because you don’t think the idea is good enough.
You don’t build the product because you don’t have an audience.
You only create when you’re certain you’ll get value from it.
You’re in a perpetual state of “searching for the highest return on the investment.”
The Death and Rebirth of No-Code
Should you still learn how to code?
Here’s another question.
LLMs can produce beautiful prose in seconds so should you still learn how to write?
Well, yes.
If you believe writing is thinking then programming is thinking.
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Writing and Programming aren’t always a means to an end. The process of writing and programming gives you something that the output alone can’t.
Clarity.
You just don’t need to write code manually line by line as much as you used to, but understanding the logic behind the software you’re building makes you smarter and create a bigger surface area for your brain to play in.
Google's New AI Mode
AI Mode is a dedicated AI search experience which sits in a separate tab and provides advanced reasoning and multimodal search (text, voice, and images). It uses real-time web citations with a new “query fan-out” technique, issuing multiple related searches across different data sources to provide deeper answers.
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I’m still on the waitlist so haven’t tried this out myself yet but it’s perplexing (pun intended) to think about how far behind Google was in getting from 0 to 1 here.
Being late didn’t hurt Google with search in the late 90s but what they’re copying now isn’t just a utility. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude… they are beloved not just because they solve a problem, but they are also fun to use.
These tools feel like a video game and users have a deeper connection to them. It’ll be much harder to grab market share this time around.
Everyone should build a to-do list app
One time I embodied my inner gunslinger and doubled my rates before pressing send on a proposal just to see what happened. I fully expected a “thanks, but no thanks” but instead got a “sounds good, when can you start?”, and it was in this moment that all my pricing assumptions were vaporised and I realised that, in fact, it’s the Wild Wild West out there and you can charge whatever you damn well please as long as you have the skills to deliver (this is of upmost importance), the confidence to back yourself and the rationale to justify your rates if someone asks.
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Analysis paralysis is a huge problem when building with AI.
There are so many tools to try and you have too much freedom.
To start, just build a to-do list app.
Nothing like a good constraint to spark creativity and action.
Watch
Now you have software agents that are effectively doing what for 65 years have been human work. We have to challenge every investment thesis that we thought was not going to work and so many of them now are going to work.
The future-of-work is the most important topic in the agentic age. I’ve consistently heard that history suggests AI will transform the labor market and not replace it.
What’s your take?
Vibe
This is fun.
Andrej Karpathy is going to serve as a judge.
Think
Do
Write to One, not Many.
With more people entering the creator economy every day, it’s imperative that you don’t try to please everyone.
Find your big idea and develop content pillars around it. Focus on a niche audience and stay true to it. Be consistent. This is the path to earning attention and keeping it.
Find one person that resonates with what you have to say.
One person who finds value in your writing. Better yet, find one person who changes their behavior based on what you said or wrote.
Then, find more people like them.
Fin
Re-Introducing Cards by Indie Thinkers
Cards is a new daily column underneath the Indie Thinkers brand.
There are two clear goals.
Help writers grow their audience.
Introduce readers to remarkable content.
What if you could have a splashy launch for an essay?
What if prose was the product?
— Daniel
P.S. If you want to submit an article, essay, or thread to be featured in the newsletter next week, simply reply to this email. I read every single one
Thanks for the shout out 🙌🏻