#76 | New Vibe Coding Course, AI in a Box, Bad TV Picks

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Surf’s up with AI!

MENU

1. WORK: Events
2. VIBE CODING: New Course, Free Workshop, AI in a Box
3. CULTURE: Bad Picks Again

1. WORK

Events

• Our virtual Health Tech matchmaking has over 700 registrations from investors and founders. Meetings take place next week. Register here (free)

• Bitter Truths and Sweet Lies — a hybrid event about metabolic health at our NY office on July 30. Register.

• We also announced the upcoming Climate Tech Matchup in September.

• Our annual Climate Tech Summit will be in November. Register here.

Events

• Berlin (September) - I’ll be at the VC Platform EU event where I’ll give a talk about “Vibe Coding for VCs”.

• NYC (September) - I’ll be at NYCW. We’re hosting a bunch of events at our NY office.

2. VIBE CODING

First Online Cohort

My up-skilling course on Vibe Coding (using AI to code without needing to know how to code) in partnership with Code For All in Portugal will start on July 1st!

• It will be 15 hours total, on Tue/Thu at 7pm-9:30pm UK/Lisbon time (3 weeks). I might do a US-time version later on.

• This a great skill unlock to future-proof careers.

• No coding experience needed. You will learn to use AI to generate code for personal apps, using libraries and APIs.

• If you’re a Portuguese resident, a government coupon can cover 100% of the cost!

• I am facilitating the first run of the course. They will run it with a license later on.

More info / register here (info in Portuguese but the course is in English).

Free Intro Workshop

I will run a free 1-hour hands-on intro workshop next week on June 26 (Thu). 7pm-8pm UK/Lisbon time. Register here (free).

Udemy Course

My Vibe Coding Bootcamp has passed 2,500 students on Udemy. It’s a fast-paced cornucopia of tech with practical and quirky examples. Watch in one go, then try some!

Latest Project: AI in a Box

I vibe coded a few things - including a scraper for X.com which was harder to do since Elon wants people to pay for data, but the project I am most excited about is this one:

I use ChatGPT for search constantly and found myself longing for a more direct system than typing or talking to my phone. What if I could have a simple box on my desk with one big button that I could press to ask a question, then get an answer?

Initially it was only for me, but I also thought that our son is an “AI native” and will soon enough have plenty of questions, so a kid-friendly safe simple and safe AI would be useful. Maybe for survivalists, campers, sailors, and others too.

Though I have worked with many hardware startups, I don’t know electronics and last time I soldered was probably 30 years ago in a middle-school technical class. So I asked ChatGPT, who helped me narrow down the options to a Raspberry Pi 5 as the main brain. I then vibe coded two systems:

• Online: using the OpenAI API for transcribing, prompt and even text-to-speech. This runs pretty fast. I called it “Tim” (for “Tiny Him”, as a reference to the movie Her).

• Offline: I wanted a way to work ‘off-grid’, potentially for wilderness or privacy reasons. So this mode does all locally: it uses a local speech-to-text model, a local LLM and local text-to-speech. I called it “Pim” because it runs entirely on the Pi, and also because it is slower and not as smart ;p

I still have a few kinks to iron out, but I have connected a USB microphone, a bluetooth speaker, and a friendly guy at the local hackerspace showed me how to solder the button and a couple of LEDs. Now I need a few more hours to finish and put it in a box.

Possible developments: memory / private mode, solar or crank-powered (to be 100% off-grid). Depending on your knowledge, this project might sound hard or easy (it is quite easy, though it uses cutting edge tech), but more importantly to me, it really feels great to build a first gadget!

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

It hasn’t been a good time for me.

Broken Rage*
I used to love Takeshi Kitano’s movies — Sonatine, Kids Return, Hana-bi, Kikujiro, Violent Cop… — and saw he had a fairly new one on Prime. Sadly, after a first half hour of average yakuza story, it switched to some nonsense slapstick comedy. Did he need money from Amazon? Maybe that’s the real yakuza move. I stopped before the end.

Gladiator 2*
I tried to watch it on a flight. I thought it was a sequel of some kind, but it looked more like a remake, with unnecessarily better special effects, a dose of wokeness and a lack of emotional connection. I stopped in less than 10 minutes. Better rewatch the first!

Maybe I should try and ask ChatGPT for recommendations…

SHOWS

Clarkson’s Farm*** (new season)
This time he’s trying to buy a pub while fighting bad weather. I like this show, which illustrates the difficulties, constraints and uncertainties of running a farm.

Rick and Morty** (new season)
Alongside Black Mirror, here is another show I really liked that I feel got worse. Is the loss of flavor due to the firing of one of the creators? Has this show run its course? Is this part of the enshittification trend?

PODCASTS

I was interviewed on a podcast focused on the immigration journey. I was recommended by Derek Sivers as I lived in 10 countries, dabble in 7 languages, and apparently have interesting ideas about cultures and communication. I wondered initially why I was asked as I don’t see myself as neither an immigrant nor an expat, but we had a good chat. The episode should come out this summer - we’ll see how it turned out!

As a side note, these days I’m listening to:

• Peter Zeihan on geopolitics. He likes hyperbole but he knows a lot.

• Greg Isenberg / Matthew Berman / Fireship on AI.

Word of the day: parsimonious.
Word of yesterday: profligate.

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#75 | Productive Laziness, Constructive Struggle, Debunking Frogs and Marshmallows

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Quick post before flying back from NY to Lisbon.

MENU

1. WORK: Health Matchup
2. VIBE CODING: Workshops, License, Discount
3. CULTURE: Bad Picks
4. THOUGHTS: Productive Laziness, Constructive Struggle, Debunking Frogs & Marshmallows

1. WORK

VC/Founders Virtual Matchmaking

• The Health Tech Matchup has just been announced today and the first 100 registrations came in. We expect over 1,000 participants including 500+ investors. Register here.

• Those events might sound like anecdotes, but they are the largest events of their kind, with unprecedented info about both startups and investors, and they are FREE!

2. VIBE CODING

The term “Vibe Coding” was coined 4 months ago, and my Vibe Coding Bootcamp launched 3 months ago on Udemy.

Here is what happened recently:

• I came up with an acronym to describe AI benefits: BASE, for Building and Prototyping, Automating Repetitive Tasks, Speeding Up Execution, Enhancing Skills. It’s such a skill multiplier I worry for those who are exposed to disruptions and don’t get on board fast. Surf’s up!

• I gave a talk on vibe coding followed by a panel with an experienced CTO discussing the benefits and limits. AI-assisted coding is here to stay, and vibe coding is democratizing access.

• I ran an in-person workshop and some individual coaching sessions, and saw people move from a deep “fear of code” (FoC?) to being excited and starting to build their own tools.

• The first licensing deal for a 15-hours training is on the way with a coding school in Portugal specialized in up-skilling non-IT workers (PMs, accountants, lawyers, businesspeople…). It might become the template for other licenses.

• I added a lesson on how to use Google Colab rather than VS Code. Colab is a cloud-based virtual environment which includes Gemini. It sidesteps all setup difficulties people experienced with VS Code. If you want to try it, click here.

To conclude with a couple of recent ideas:

• On my United flight I used the Wifi but it was quite unreliable, and annoying to try connecting again every now and then. So in less than 10 minutes I vibe coded a network tester, which would check connectivity and measure its speed every 5 min, and log it. Easy peasy!

• I use ChatGPT a lot with voice on my phone instead of googling, but I find annoying to use the phone. So I am planning to build a “ChatGPT button”: a box with one button that I would press to start recording your question, then press again when I’m done, and that will give me a quick voice answer from ChatGPT. It took me about 15 minutes to write the python code for the voice => speech-to-text => generate answer => text-to-speech. Now I need to get a simple hardware and button to run it! Can I sell it to Sam Altman for $6.5 billion? Time will tell!

 👉 Here is a coupon with the best price ($9.99) if you’d like to try the course. It is only valid for 3 DAYS so be quick! I recommend watching it all before trying to vibe code by yourself. It’s made for non-coders and I tried hard to make it fun, easy and practical — email me if you have any issues!

3. CULTURE

DOCUMENTARY

Becoming Led Zeppelin**
Watched on United. Didn’t learn much but still good vibes.

MOVIES

Boiling Point***
A chef reaches his boiling point in this movie shot in a single take. Impressive but stressful!

BROADWAY

Glengarry Glen Ross*
It really pains me to say I did not really enjoy my first broadway play! And this despite:

• A cast I love (Bob Odenkirk & Michael McKean / Better Call Saul, Bill Burr, Kieran Culkin / Succession),

• A movie I liked,

• Having paid $200.

Other spectators seem to have loved it, though. Maybe it’s the jetlag, or having too high expectations? At last now I know!

4. THOUGHTS

Debunking Frogs and Marshmallows

There are two persistent myths:

• The Boiling Frog. That it won’t notice it’s boiling. Actually, it will. I still think it’s useful as a shorthand, or as my friend Derek Sivers would say “Useful, Not True”.

• The Marshmallow Test. That if a child can delay gratification they will be more successful later in life. Actually, there is no correlation at all. Also, they had not considered things like appetite, taste for sugar, trust in adults (will they really give me the 2 marshmallows they promised?). Self-regulation later in life (measured through surveys at ages 17, 27, and 37) was a better predictor of adult outcomes than marshmallow wait time. It can be learned!

Productive Laziness

• On the Vibe Coding panel, the CTO talked about the joy of putting sometimes disproportionate effort into code to avoid doing some boring work. I have the exact same spirit with vibe coding!

• The benefit of “doing” and acquiring new knowledge and skills pays off over time. For instance, by now I can whip out a custom web scraper in minutes, and use many other technology bricks to build quick programs. Productive laziness has compounding returns.

Constructive Struggle

• I had some thoughts and discussions recently about the benefits of "“constructive struggle”.

• As Nvidia's CEO said in a recent talk, struggle builds character (as long as it is not so hard it crushes you).

• For instance, many immigrants work hard for the hope of a better life, but their kids often grow up with more comfort and do not have the same drive.

• Similarly, children of well-off families, or kids with helicopter / lawnmower parents are deprived of the agency and growth opportunities from struggling.

• Arguably, life throws enough struggle at everyone without trying, but could we pick some useful ones?

• Now the questions is: how can you engineer constructive struggle when struggle is not necessary? I know jiu-jitsu was for me a chosen struggle (though I didn’t know I was going to get smashed for 2 years), and so were Asian languages I learned, and even learning python! Now that I’m a dad, I am thinking about what constructive struggle we should plan for our little boy ;)

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#74 | AI or Die, HBO Silicon Valley 10y Later, Big Animals and more

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Keeping up the tempo - as a few things are happening.

MENU

1. WORK: Matchups
2. VIBE CODING: 2000+ students!
3. CULTURE: Silicon Valley 10y, Maths, VR Games
4. EXPERIENCES: Scams and Tricks
5. THOUGHTS: AI or Die

1. WORK

VC/Founders Virtual Matchmaking

• The SOSV Biomanufacturing event ended with 800 participants (about 50% investors) and a NPS of 44. Some new tools we introduced (and vibe coded) helped.

• Next events are focused on Health (June) and Climate. Pre-register here.

2. VIBE CODING

Quite a lot happened since the launch of my Vibe Coding Bootcamp on Udemy 2 months ago (the very first one published there):

• Over 2,000 students.

• Selected into the “Udemy Business” catalog.

• Received requests and in talks to license the course for trainings!

The feedback also helped me realize a few things:

• Setup can be difficult. Cursor and Google Colab might be better than VS Code.

• Vibe Coding can get you fired. Some firms don’t like you to run unverified code.

• Vibe Coding has limits. Great for prototyping and personal apps. Not enough (yet) for public apps that require reliability, security and performance.

More than ever, I am convinced that vibe coding is the fastest, most useful (and most fun) skill unlock of the decade. Try it out here!

3. CULTURE

SHOWS

Silicon Valley**** (HBO)
It’s been 10 years! It is fun to rewatch it now that I’ve spent a decade in the world of VC and startups. Most of it is still relevant - a crash course in startup life with lots of gems. I also have a renewed appreciation for some of the characters (Jared/Donald in particular). Several actors are standup comics!

Legally Blonde *
Apparently I suffered from a cultural gap. This was the first opus of a canon I was supposed to watch. Not being the target audience made the first half especially difficult — lots of cringe.

Mean Girls**
More tolerable. Still not the target market. Wish me luck for the third one! (will you guess?)

VR GAMES

Tiny Archers VR***
You’re an elf shooting at goblins attacking your tower. What’s not to love?

PowerWash Simulator***
I only played the trial version, but a thorough power wash can indeed be very satisfying. See this guy on YouTube.

MATHS

Over 3 decades ago I was taking advanced math classes to prep for engineering school. I recall there was one little exercise I could not solve, with an interesting unstable solution to an iterated series. I couldn’t recall the details so I finally asked ChatGPT, who quickly helped narrow down the problem, then solve it! If you’re versed in the arts:

• f(x) = 2 . sin(pi . x)

• The only fixed points are 0 and x* = 2 . sin (pi . x*) (±0.72)

• | f’(0) | and | f’(x*) | > 1 so they are repelling fixed points.

• It also has ergodic behavior and values explore the whole space.

BIG ANIMALS

Can a bird carry a coconut? A baby?

• The strongest bird out there — the harpy eagle — can carry max 5kg (about half their body weight of 10kg), roughly the weight of a 3-months-old baby.

• The heaviest insect is only about 100g.

• The heaviest land mammal is the African bush elephant (±10t) and sea mammal is the Antarctic blue whale (max 190 tons).

4. EXPERIENCES

Blackout Part 2

I talked about my Lisbon 10-hour blackout experience in the previous email. I forgot to mention the type of concerns I had:

• How long will the water from the tap/shower be usable? It needs treatment.

• How will hospitals do after a few hours? Their generators will likely last only a day.

• How long will transports work? Gas stations are out so people only have 1 tank of gas.

Scams

Thanks to my reader A. who shared a "six zeros" scam story!

• It’s a fairly elaborate scammer pretending to be an investment firm offering an investment in the form of a convertible loan (Safe) to a startup at a high valuation.

• They asked to put the first year's note interests in an escrow stablecoin wallet, for “guarantee”.

• The US-based startup founder went to meet in person in Europe, had all the paperwork in order reviewed by lawyers, etc.

• The money was gone within minutes. Now it's a criminal case. As often: if it's too good to be true, it probably is. But… dayam!

Any seven zero scam?

Business Dishonesty

After scams, a few other tricks I came across:

• This guy spied on his tech employer for their competitor for 5kEUR / month.

• Looking at some online courses, some creators had many thousands of students but only a handful of reviews… Free passive users to boost optics.

• A friend discovered his YouTube channel had systematic downvotes, and found out their competitor used “capping bots” to do it, and game the algorithm.

Play fair!

5. THOUGHTS

AI or Die

• I came across a video of a pulmonologist looking at an X-ray who said he spent 20 years honing his craft and now AI does it in seconds. That’s an example of a high-skill profession made irrelevant.

• On that note, the first decade of my life was in market research and consulting. It is a peculiar feeling to think that I spent a decade doing work that AI can now probably do in minutes. I suppose those skills apply elsewhere, but still…

• The CEO of Duolingo said AI teaches better than humans (but schools will remain because people need daycare).

• Entry-level tech job offers have seen a big drop in numbers. Is the on-ramp disappearing?

• In academia a famous phrase is “publish or perish”, which MIT Media Lab then evolved into “Demo or Die” then “Deploy or Die”. I think ignoring AI today is like putting one’s head in the sand - like refusing to see doctors because one doesn’t want to know. It is quite clear that some jobs will disappear, and others will require AI literacy. It is not really AI or Die yet, but the writing is on the wall. The best way to start? You guessed it: vibe coding ;)

Over and out.
— Ben

#73 | Companies Go AI-First, Blackout, Scams and More

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

More vibe coding, Portugal Blackout and some other things

MENU

1. WORK: Biomanufacturing Event
2. VIBE CODING: AI-First Firms, Course
3. CULTURE: More White Lotus, Monte Cristo, Gates Book

1. WORK

Biomanufacturing VC/Founder Matchmaking

• It is the 10th virtual matchmaking event I curated.

• There are 2 more this year: Health and Climate (pre-register here).

• Expected: 200 investors + 200 founders. Result: 350 investors + 450 founders.

• So many things can be made with biology now!

2. VIBE CODING

• After Shopify’s CEO memo, Duolingo’s CEO also announced they were now “AI-first”, and released 150 new courses thanks to AI. How many will follow suit?

• How to get their team up to speed? Where to start? Should they just prompt a random LLM? Should they try to use workflow automation tools? Should they learn to code?

One thing for sure: AI literacy is a new must-have, and here to stay!

One approach is to get familiar with using LLMs to produce code for fast prototyping and personal tools. This is the purpose of the crash course I created on Udemy: in about one hour you’ll see LOTS of applications.

• My course passed 700 students and has a rating of 4.6 / 5. Reviews include “Fun, interesting and fully practical course”

• My talk at the VC Platform Summit was called “MONUMENTAL”

• Here is a coupon with the best price ($9.99) that expires in 5 days (code: MAY2025).

• If your firm is interested in AI training with vibe coding, a workshop or a talk, let me know!

3. CULTURE

SHOWS

White Lotus**** (HBO)
Seasons 2 and 3 were great as well. This show is good at planting checkov guns, plot misdirection and making characters linger in awkwardness. There is also a sentiment of watching happen multiple slow train wrecks. Good job, Mike White and crew! Likely the best show I watched this year.

The Count of Monte Cristo*** (Prime)
The Alexandre Dumas classic about revenge is quite ok, though it definitely loses some literary charm. It was apparently partly inspired by a true story, and Dumas used a researcher / co-author that history mostly forgot.

BOOKS

Bill Gates: Source Code***

• A pretty good read. Gates really benefited from great timing, location and meeting other geeks before it was cool.

• Then his curiosity, enormous focus, confidence in learning and various strategic decisions really worked out for him.

• He also explored many ideas along the way, and was quite tactical in seizing opportunities.

• It sounded like he hoped to become a pure mathematician or scientist, but did not feel he had what it took to be the top dog in this field, and went into business instead in an exciting emerging industry.

• I also learned about various surprising hobbies he had, the loss of a dear friend, and that he apparently took (some) drugs (I thought he never did due to a Steve Jobs quote about him and LSD).

4. EXPERIENCES

Blackout

I experienced a 10-hours blackout in Lisbon from noon to 10pm. Among the interesting bits:

• Nobody knew how long it would last.

• Light, internet and most mobile networks were down.

• People went for picnic in the park.

• We were stocked enough with food for a week and not stressed out.

• Almost every supermarket was closed. I shopped with a flashlight.

• The butcher put the meat in the walk-in freezer. The ice-cream store had a queue!

• Rumors spread that the cause was (a) the Russians (b) a weather event (c) some cable. We still don’t know… I suspect Big Icecream.

• I am now in the market for a small solar panel and battery system :)

Scams

I can’t go into details as some are developing stories, but I’ve learned about several scams that happened in Portugal.

• One “0” scam: Overcharged by an airport taxi. Extra cost: ±$10

• Two “0” scam: Government services pretending that there is a charge to pay urgently. About $200

• Three to Four “0” scam: Fake buyers on a classified site that manipulate sellers to authorize access to their bank’s current account, and wipe it clean. I heard stories from $2000 to $30,000+

• Variable scam: the random whatsapp or dating app contact that explains she has a great crypto trading team and is happy to share her success. One used an entirely fake platform. The mark could get its initial money back with some profit, before putting the real money in.

• Five “0” scam: Fake buyers of expensive properties, who arrange a kind of kickback fee before payment is made. Cost: hundreds of thousands.

• I am awaiting to hear about scams in the millions. Those would likely be with companies rather than individuals.

Home Chemistry

I am still looking for 2-deoxy-D-ribose to try this experiment.

Over and out.
— Ben

#72 | A.I. Vibe Coding = New Literacy, Bio-manufacturing Event, White Lotus

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

This is it - I am obsessed with “Vibe Coding” (creating software with LLMs without reading the code). More below.

MENU

1. WORK: Events, Matchup
2. VIBE CODING: Bootcamp!
3. CULTURE: White Lotus, Bill Burr, Hello Ladies

1. WORK

VC Platform Summit

• The VC Platform Summit in Miami just concluded and it is truly a remarkable event.

• Congrats to the team, especially Dan who was kind enough to put me on a big stage to talk about “Vibe Coding for VCs” where I shared examples of AI automation applied to various tasks.

Bio-manufacturing Virtual Matchmaking

• We already exceeded our goal of 200 investors and 200 startups (total over 500 now).

• This free virtual event takes place on April 21-25. Register here.

2. VIBE CODING

Shopify’s CEO told his staff that AI proficiency is now mandatory for ALL employees (Forbes). The CEO of Box concurred, and I couldn’t agree more.

• AI proficiency is the most important skill unlock of the decade.

• “Vibe Coding” is the easiest path to it.

I also believe the crash course I created on Udemy is one of the fastest ways to get started on vibe coding.

• It is nearing 300 students in only a month

• Rating: 4.8 / 5 - it has been described as:

  “Absolutely world class, terrific… I learned so much and tried so many of the examples… it was totally inspiring! This vibe coding stuff is un-fucking-believable! Amazing. Great course. Loved it.”

• Register with the coupon APR2025 (best price: only $10 for a critical new skill!)

• For fun (and learning), one of the lessons explains how to create a “Ghiblifier” - here is a trailer:

Target Users:

• Non-technical people, so they understand not only the principle of vibe coding, but get exposure to many amazing libraries and APIs (e.g. browser and GUI automation, computer vision, NLP, OpenAI and many more tools)

• Tech people who want a quick primer on the latest tech.

• Corporations who want to train their team quickly and affordable with a fun course.

=> If you’re interested in offering a fun A.I. Vibe Coding workshop or bootcamp to level up your team on AI skills, let me know!

Note: I’ve already done several workshops very well received - see www.vibecodingcourse.com for more info.

3. CULTURE

SHOWS

White Lotus**** (HBO)
The staff and clients of a luxury resort. Everyone is a bit insane but also very real. This was actually a great show. I only watched season 1 for now and hope the other 2 are just as good.

Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years (Disney+)***
Not his best but still a good show. What is it doing on Disney+ ?

Hello Ladies** (HBO)
I like Stephen Merchant (The Outlaws and of course The Office UK were great). This show was cute but not outstanding.

Nosso Sonho**
Stumbled upon this “documentary” about a brazilian musical duo who rose to fame years ago. It’s ok.

4. EXPERIENCES

Home Chemistry

A team of researchers who were studying wound treatments on mice found that hair was re-growing faster than usual. In 2024 they published a widely-cited article focused on the hair part. They used a gel with 2-deoxy-D-ribose - a naturally ocurring sugar in the human body. I’m in the market to buy some! Most labs don’t sell to individuals so I’m trying via Alibaba and my personal network. If you know a freelance pharmacist or chemist who ships to Lisbon, let me know! ;)

Skin Scan

During a visit to Paris, a department store had just installed a brand new Korean skin scanner (like this one) in their cosmetics department. It measured hydration, UV damage and more. The pictures were quite horrific - great way to sell products ;p

That’s all for today - keep vibin’ !
— Ben