#83 | AI Fluency Levels, Darren Star, BJJ Silent Quit

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

And just like that, it’s been more than 3 months! I got busy.

MENU

1. WORK: Physical AI, Updated role at SOSV
2. HOW I AI: Free Course, Progress, AI Fluency Levels
3. CULTURE: Mickey 17, Darren Star Extravaganza
4. THOUGHTS: Brazil, Silicon Valley, BJJ

1. WORK

Events

• The SOSV VC/Founder matchmaking event focused on Energy ended with 873 participants, including 435 investors.

• The next one (#15) is on Physical AI (May 5-11). We expect 500+ participants. You can register here.

• Those events are now a core SOSV asset for our deal flow and the building of our co-investors syndicate.

AI & Automation

• Over half my time is now dedicated to capability building in AI and Automation at SOSV, and this will soon extend to our portfolio.

• That includes sourcing use cases, identifying best practices, training colleagues (many of whom are scientists), and building tools and workflows.

• One key element has been aligning with our IT team so governance and infrastructure are ready.

• I suspect every company in the world will go through some version of this transformation, whether to stay competitive or simply to survive. In short: soon it may be “AI or die.”

2. HOW I AI

Courses

• I made my Udemy course FREE. It is over a year old but it still introduces useful concepts such as APIs and libraries. Get it here.

• The main reason is that I decided to focus my efforts on my licensed live course which has generated over $200,000 in sales since launch.

• I am now preparing an updated version in both French and English, using my latest methodology.

Projects

• I have now built over 180 projects.

• Among my recent learnings:

  1. Using a product requirements document together with a build-guidelines document to speed up production

  2. Connecting to Slack to query our portfolio in natural language

  3. Reverse-engineering a SaaS API to extract data faster, rather than automating a browser

  4. I have also become a big aficionado of Antigravity — an incredible agentic coding workhorse.

AI Fluency Levels

Here is a simple distinction of AI Fluency Levels™:

Level 1: No AI
No chatbots, no assistants, no automation. Some people now call this “tradwork.” Many in this group do not yet realize how exposed they are.

Level 2: Chatbot use
People use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. Useful, but mostly one-off interactions. Nothing compounds.

Level 3: Reusable AI
GPTs, Gems, saved prompts, prompt libraries. Better than improvising every time, but still mostly siloed and manual.

Level 4: AI workflows
Automations with triggers, steps, and sometimes AI in the middle. Data moves by itself. Real leverage starts here.

Level 5: AI-built apps
Lovable, Replit, Bolt, Canvas-style tools. You can ship lightweight internal tools or prototypes quickly, even without being a developer.

Level 6: AI coding (noob)
Using agentic coding tools inside an IDE to build more robust tools with actual code, files, structure, and iteration. This is where some software engineering discipline starts to matter.

Level 7: AI coding (mid)
Same as above, with PRD and build.md guidelines. (Note: this is me, sometimes)

Level 8: AI coding (goat)
Multi-agent development with parallel agents, agent swarms, delegated subtasks, asynchronous execution. Powerful, but usually better suited to experienced builders and still easy to overcomplicate.

Level 9: Full-context AI
AI has access to the real operating context: files, docs, emails, transcripts, CRM, support tickets, internal knowledge. This is where AI stops being a tool and starts becoming an operating layer for the company.

Level 10: High-autonomy agents (e.g. Claws)
Agents can not only see context, but also act across systems with meaningful autonomy. This is frontier territory: exciting, useful, and full of security, governance, and reliability risks.

In short:

• At lower levels, AI helps you think and write.

• At higher levels, AI helps you build and execute.

• At the highest levels, AI becomes part of the operating system of the company.

Is there a level beyond? Time will tell!

Barriers to AI

Here are some barriers I identified for the transition:

• For individuals: activation energy, making time, lack of urgency

• For companies: security, in-house design partners, deployment pipelines

New forms of software

When the building cost falls toward zero, you can have:

• Personal apps: my bread and butter. Well over 100 of them so far.

• Single-use apps: for one-off jobs. I do this almost every week.

• Ambient software: new tools you can access where you work (for example via Slack or email). I recently prototyped my first more advanced Slack apps tapping into our portfolio and investor data, all accessible directly from Slack.

• On-demand software: still frontier territory — apps created on the fly when needed, possibly paired with an ever-evolving PRD.

What does it mean for jobs and companies?

• More companies will be prioritizing the hiring and promoting of people who are “AI fluent” = able to use tools to create leverage in any role.

• If you’re not spending time using tools beyond chatbots, you will be left in the dust by growing skill inflation.

• Likewise, companies not using automation and AI will be outpaced by those that do — not only because they move faster, but because they keep accelerating.

• The good news is that it is not too late. Remember: in AI, the A stands for agency, and the I is for you.

3. CULTURE

SHOWS

Mickey 17***
I watched it on a plane, a bit by accident, and it was a very nice surprise. Same director as Parasite, which I found great in the first half and a weird mess in the second. This one reminded me of a pen-and-paper RPG I used to GM called Paranoia, as well as a lesser-known film based on Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island, itself inspired in part by the real-life French guru Raël. As a side note, I met Houellebecq at a lecture in Beijing years ago and asked him why he did not focus his efforts on curing the societal malaise he describes so well. His answer: “I’m only good at describing it.” Fair enough.

Stranger Things Season 5 (Netflix)***
The first season was great. After that, not so much. But they brought the creators back to handle the ending, and I think they did a pretty good job with it.

Younger** (Netflix)
I did not think I was in the target demo for this Darren Star show, but I suppose that since I watched SATC and Emily in Paris, in fact I am. Not deep, but it helps me relax after a long day.

Emily in Paris**
Another soothing show. I mostly watch for the outfits and eye candy. The last season was cringe at first, then tolerable.

Chappelle, Ricky Gervais**
Chappelle’s commentary is still interesting, but it feels less novel than it used to. Ricky now seems to be playing more directly to his audience, and I may no longer be core enough for it.

The Manosphere* (Netflix)
It focuses on some of the more toxic and money-grabbing characters. I am no expert, but I found it pretty biased. The more interesting people like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan (not covered there) who are generally advocates of self-improvement and personal responsibility are seen as adjacent to this movement.

4. THOUGHTS & EXPERIENCES

Brazil

My first real trip there since a quick TEDx talk more than ten years ago. Vast and green. Beach houses near São Paulo, barbecues, Carnival, jiu-jitsu, and Ipanema. Capybaras, snakes, toucans, batfish (weird), and lots of sun. It was also nice to be able to use my Portuguese there. If I go back, I will likely visit Florianópolis and Mato Grosso, and maybe Bahia.

Silicon Valley

I had not been to San Francisco in a while, and I was greeted by a new airport terminal, a Cybertruck, and a flock of Waymos. It feels inevitable that taxis and Ubers will soon be mostly autonomous. Seeing posters targeting YC founders is also a local curiosity.

BJJ

I had been asking myself why I still train ever since getting my purple belt. After receiving my brown belt at the end of 2024, having a child in early 2025, and then going through two accidents that year (one in BJJ, one from a scooter fall), I ended up training very little. MMA fighters typically cap out at blue or purple belt, which tells you something about the practical utility of the higher belts. I finally realized that I had silently quit. With time currently at a premium, I plan to train just once a week and redirect my effort toward higher-ROI or more family-compatible activities like weights and bouldering, at least for now.

To better habits in 2026!
— Ben

#82 | 2025 Recap: AI Hustle, Lessons Learned, and the Power of Agency

I just realized this newsletter is over 10 years old. The first one was published on June 2014 after I joined SOSV/HAX (fka HAXLR8R). This year felt like a condensed version of the last decade: volatility, learning, and leverage.

MENU

1. ROSES: Events, Boy, AI Hustle
2. LEMONS: Stitches, Scam, Startup
3. THOUGHTS: Agency & People

1. ROSES

Work

This year’s events not only continued but scaled:

• Our Climate Tech Summit drew thousands globally with ~100 speakers. I interviewed the Climate Envoy of Kenya (after Ministers from Singapore and Iceland), showcasing how to drive sustainable and resilient economic growth while supporting sovereignty.

• Five sector-focused virtual matchups (e.g., robotics) expanded investor-founder connections across deep tech, bringing together thousands of investors and founders for free.

Family

• A baby boy joined us, bringing a fresh eye to home safety, the edibility of objects, and polyphasic sleep.

• He’s now crawling fast and standing by himself for long seconds.

AI Hustle

What started as online courses expanded into a multi-channel approach to AI upskilling.

• A course on Udemy from March (4,000+ participants),

• Cohort-based courses from July (200+ participants),

• A B2B version from December.

Altogether, this led to ~$150k in sales.

I also gave talks on Building 100 AI Projects, Vibe Coding with AI for Non-Coders, Vibe Coding for VCs and was interviewed on AI automation.

In 2026, I’ll be testing additional markets (France in Feb 2026) and micro-SaaS based on some of the 100+ projects I shipped so far (a few examples here).

BONUS: As a loyal reader, I offer you a FREE code for my Udemy course (valid until Christmas).

2. LEMONS

Health

• A fractured septum during BJJ sparring, one week before our baby’s birth.

  The ER doctor said “just wait two weeks” — I went to see an ENT specialist immediately and had surgery within days. On the upside: better airways.

• A rainy-day motorbike fall led to my second surgery of the year, and my first stitches.

• With all this, my BJJ and gym practice mostly shifted into maintenance mode.

Wealth

• I was the victim of a well-oiled local scam while selling an e-bike and am pursuing legal action over security failures.

• Separately, a startup position that once looked like a seven-figure outcome went through a severe recap. A reminder that paper value during ZIRP is not liquidity.

• Fortunately, public equities performed well and some other startups are doing fine. Still, the experience reinforced my motivation to build durable, skill-based income streams.

3. THOUGHTS

Agency

My core takeaway this year was to bias toward high agency:

• Trust first-principles judgment (even over authority),

• Act to regain control when it’s lost,

• Increase the surface area for luck through building and sharing.

Responsibility doesn’t erase pain, but it accelerates recovery.

People

The most valuable compounding asset remains people.

• Giving first has generally worked for me, especially over a long enough timeframe.

• Teaching, investing, and building in public continue to create unexpected collisions: free workshops leading to deals, side projects to clients, conversations to partnerships.

Here’s to carrying that momentum into 2026!
— Ben

#81 | AI on Fire, Wes/Clint/Darren, Murder and More

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

Finally some vacations! I’m recovered from my scooter slide and back on the mats.

MENU

1. WORK: Robotics Sparta
2. HOW I AI: New Talk, New Apps, New Courses! (bis repetita)
3. CULTURE: Wes, Clint, Darren + Gym Shows
4. THOUGHTS: Murder, Karaoke, Sore Throat

1. WORK

Events

• The SOSV VC/Founder matchmaking event focused on robotics is ended with 640 participants (300+ investors).

• We will be hosting several matchups in 2026 covering our favorite topics - we hosted 5 this year - likely Climate, Health, Physical AI and more. Sign up to our newsletter to get updates.

2. HOW I AI

My journey into the world of #AI #coding. My goals are to learn, have fun, and remove friction in my life. ChatGPT called me an “applied explorer”. Not bad.

Btw, it’s Christmas, here is a free code for my Udemy course! It’s expiring in 4 days.

Recent Projects (AI-assisted Python apps)

I passed 100 projects, and it’s accelerating:

• Antigravity (AG) is the new agentic coding tool from Google and it’s fire! I know it wiped a guy’s hard drive but he prompted wrong ;p I can build things so fast with it now - it’s almost unfair to say I’m building, as I’m just giving it pretty short prompts and it does all I asked, and often goes beyond!

• I also overcame the issue of deploying apps to the web by using Streamlit to create a web interface, and push the app from AG to Github then Streamlit Cloud. Now it sometimes takes me just 15 minutes from idea to deployment (for a basic prototype). I’m astonished. It’s almost like being in a giant mecha (not matcha).

Some recent examples:

1. AI Image Remaker > Possibly the most useless, but I came across a post on LinkedIn showing how to use a very detailed prompt to obtain a realistic image. That made me think: why bother writing the prompt? Let’s use AI to turn an existing image into a prompt, then use it to generate a new image. Why? Because we can ;)

2. Youtube Vibe Checker > Some videos have interesting discussions in the comments, but it’s tedious to read. I made an app that goes through the comments and summarize them. In the case of a discussion, it will do a vibe check on each speaker, and give an overall summary of the individual and discussion vibe.

3. Social Card Maker > I’m running another Investors/Startups virtual matchmaking event. To help with marketing I made a quick tool where participants can create a personalized badge to post on socials.

4. App Menu > I made an app to showcase some of my web apps here. Let me know if anything is broken.

AI Business

• I spoke in Lisbon on Dec 10 on “How I AI” at the Embrace:AI Meetup (free). I’ve done half a dozen AI talks over the past few months. Things are changing so fast that I update half my talk each time.

• More and more roles require “AI proficiency” for all roles. Most people (and companies) have no idea how to upskill.

• And… I designed my first B2B training for the executive team of an international real estate investment firm. Some called it - I quote - “the most interesting training they did in their careers”. I think there’s something there!

• I adapted some aspects of the course to the IT and legal constraints, and noticed B2B is quite different from B2C: with B2C people are self-motivated and have both - quoting Taleb - skin and soul in the game. There, the level of engagement varied. Some did spectacularly well, some less so.

• Discussions are progressing with several partners in France. The first short course is launching late February as a pilot. It will be 3 x 1 hour in French and suitable for non-coders. I might run an English version of this course as well. Leave your email here if you want to hear about future courses.

• As an aside, the Udemy model — discount VOD courses — is great for Udemy and for students (I learned coding with them!), but not so much for instructors. My “live” courses made 5 times more money with 20 times less students. Also, it requires a lot of self-motivation, while — just like yoga classes or gym coaches — a live instructor guarantees compliance, understanding and results! You also learn a lot from the difficulties and projects of others.

AI Thoughts

• Like many, I am concerned about AI’s impact on society. In particular: education is lagging badly behind technology. One notable entrepreneur in France - himself a medical doctor - said he would not recommend studying medicine now, as students would probably learn things that AI can do better already or very soon, and not focus on what humans can still do better than AI.

• AI is making it possible to create software on the fly - create an app on demand, including “single use” or rebuild a codebase from scratch. It turns code into “palimpsests” (you saw it here first!). And anyone can create some (that’s what I’m teaching). What should a software business or software engineer look like in the future, then?

• Another - widespread - thought, is that AI tools like ChatGPT will amplify our natural tendencies: curious people will learn much faster, while lazy ones will outsource their thinking. Just like “screen time” on youtube watching deep conversations is not the same as watching USDC ;)

• Ambient SaaS. While not strictly AI-related, I wasn’t familiar with this concept until a SaaS founder mentioned it to me. The idea is that interfaces for services (e.g. websites and apps) can disappear in favor of bringing the service into existing apps like Email, Slack, etc. or wherever you need them.

AI Resources

• My slides How I AI: Building 100 Projects at Embrace:AI

• My slides “Vibe Coding with AI for Non-Coders” for the InnoWomen Hackathon

• My video talk on AI automation at the Lisbon Vibe Coding Club

• My slides on “Vibe Coding for VCs” at VC Platform EU

• My Udemy course (4.5/5, 4,000+ students, 1.5 hours, in English)

• My live B2C course (NPS > 60, 200+ students, 15 hours, in Portuguese)

• My live B2C short course (coming in Feb, max 20 students, 3 hours, in French)

• Menu for some of my apps

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

1917***
Two British soldiers in WWI have to deliver a message. Impressive one-shot cinematography, sets, acting. A bit gruesome as one would expect. Solid movie.

The Phoenician Scheme***
Finally watched (twice - I fell asleep on the plane) the latest Wes Anderson. A cute fairy tale with impeccable visuals.

Valerian** (Prime)
I had missed this space opera movie from Luc Besson and, while the cast and dialogues were fair at best, the visuals and creativity - inspired by the original French graphic novels - were gorgeous. Pretty good!

Juror #2** (Turkish Airlines)
Stumbled upon this Eastwood movie — I’m generally a good client — focused on the moral dilemma of a juror. Pretty good though not as great as Runaway Jury. Coincidentally, a colleague has been on jury duty for over 2 weeks - I wonder what the case is!

SHOWS

Stranger things Season 5***
After the good surprise of the first Season, I found Season 2-4 a bit boring and predictable. Will Eleven win with a nosebleed again? The new season is starting pretty well.

USDC*** (YouTube)
A few years ago this young Lithuanian aikido master decided to test his skills in a light MMA sparring and got crushed. He realized his aikido had never been “pressure-tested” (sorry, Steven Seagal). Later, he decided to create a channel to document his journey to try to modernize his art, then to become a better fighter (note: he gave up on aikido). On the way he created a show inviting a group of martial arts influencers in an “Ultimate Self-Defense Championship” (USDC) where contestants face all kinds of situations.

The production budget is minimal - largely crowdfunded - but he did a pretty good job and is now in his 3rd season. It’s quite educative, especially on situational awareness and de-escalation. It’s also a reality check in what self-defense can really do (it’s not Hollywood). I recommend it!

As a side note: some YT celebs do poorly because they never spar, or lack in either striking or grappling - I wondered a bit how I would perform with my haphazard background in BJJ (brown belt - 6+ years - this was the hardest), shorinji kempo (black belt - 3 years in Japan - they give it fast), hapkido (blue belt - 6 months in Korea, building on my kempo baggage), wushu (long stick - no belt system - 2 years light practice in China), karate (teenage orange - 2 years) and aikido (6 months at Sugino dojo in Japan - papa Sugino was the technical advisor on Kurozawa movies) - ChatGPT gave me a decent shot! The creator organizes a USDC retreat in Lithuania for normies to play - maybe one day ;p

Younger** (Netflix)
I did not expect to be in the target audience for this story about a 40yo divorced mom who pretends to be 26 to get a publishing job, but it’s quite a relaxing show after long days. Also, did this guy Darren Star write all of US TV for the past decades?

Boots** (Netflix)
A young not-so-athletic guy joins the army during DADT (iykyk). Based on a true story. Quite a lot if predictable, but still decent entertainment.

Final Draft (Japan)** (Netflix)
It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure to watch people go through a bunch of physical challenges while I’m on the couch, but this show was reasonably entertaining after some long days. Some really have astonishing endurance.

The few women participating did not do so well including in agility challenges so from a training perspective, I asked ChatGPT what were the sports in which women would perform well against well at elite level against men. The list was short: ultra-endurance (100km+), horse-riding, sailing, shooting and archery — sports where performance was mediated by a device, an animal, or where women could tap into deep endurance metabolism. Biology matters for everyone: Khabib, Pacquiao and McGregor would have almost no chance against a skilled (but not world class) heavyweight fighter. I am constantly reminded of this in BJJ (like this 110kg, 35yo black belt yesterday… my goal was “survival”). Unless I outclass them technically by a wide margin my chances are minimal. The fun is to be on the mats, and face every challenge the best we can.

Makers on YouTube
Youtube has tons of channels about everything. There are a few notable ones by “makers / engineers”.

• Mark Rober (now also on Netflix) is probably one of the most visible.

• While I respect the educational and entertaining aspect of Rober’s work, I find the ex-Formlabs guy from Stuff Made Here much more impressive technically.

• I also came across a team of Chinese robotics guys called HTX Studio - even more impressive thanks to their team firepower.

Chess principles
I’m a casual at chess (peaked around 1800 on Lichess - no patience and time to work on openings, in particular). I came across this video about 5 simple principles from Capablanca. I haven’t tested them, but found them remarkable as they reminded me of the simulation of bird swarms “boids” (also works for fish schools), which also derive from very basic principles. If you’re into engineering, similar ideas are used in the design of this and that. Oh and there is this funny free game that has nothing to do with this. Beware: it’s potentially addictive, and teaches you about risk/reward and the importance of a talent pipeline.

BOOKS

The Art of Spending Money**
Morgan Housel wrote “The Psychology of Money”, which I recommend. This one feels much less necessary, though it helps you think about what makes sense beyond emotion, envy and more.

4. THOUGHTS & EXPERIENCES

From heavy to light.

Wake

A young guy I used to train with at BJJ and his father were killed by a shady business partner. It made national news in Portugal. I went to the wake and it made quite an impression on me as I’ve never really lived in a place where violent deaths were a thing, nor known people dying so young. I told his brother that everyone like to train with the guy, and that he had unlimited energy and enthusiasm. He replied that his brother was often talking about his training and friends from the gym, and that it brought him joy.

Bonenkai

Different vibe: I joined a Japanese end-of-the-year party, forgetting they often double as talent show. This one had taiko drums, a virtual drummer, medieval sword fighting and more. It of course ended up in karaoke - I gave a shot at Pilantra, a Brazilian song, to the audience’s surprise (and mine).

Hot or Not

For decades I heard that with a sore throat it’s good to have a hot drink, sometimes with honey. But then Strepsils(tm) have honey, and honey is a natural antiseptic. And it finally clicked: the hot water is a vector to deliver the honey, which covers, soothes and fights the infection. You could just as well eat a spoonful of honey without the hot water. If you have hot black tea with no honey, it can actually have the opposite effect!

Stay tuned for the end-of-the-year special recap!
Keep vibin’
— Ben

#80 | Robotics Event, AI Coding on Fire, Health and Crash

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

Omg so much cool AI stuff!

MENU

1. WORK: Robotics
2. HOW I AI: New Talk, New Apps, New Courses!
3. CULTURE: Swedish Stuff, Neko Health, Crash, Some Shows

1. WORK

Events

• The SOSV Climate Tech Summit concluded with our largest audience ever (over 6,000 participants). Our all-star line-up included about 100 speakers and over 20 hours of content. This year I interviewed the Climate Envoy of Kenya (after Ministers from Singapore and Iceland) about “green growth”.

• I am organizing a VC/Founder matchmaking event focused on robotics on Dec 1-5. We already have over 250 investors and 150 startups registered. It’s 100% free and virtual.

2. HOW I AI

My journey into the world of #AI #coding.

Recent Projects (AI-assisted Python apps)

I made over 100 personal apps and prototypes. Not all end well, but I learn something each time! Here are the most recent ones, made with Google’s brand new IDE called Antigravity using Gemini. I was very impressed.

1. Media Coach > Talk about your startup with an AI journalist. Try it here.

2. Zoom Checker > Do you look good on calls? This tool checks your lighting, sound, background, head placement, and helps you fix everything.

3. Whatsapp Voice Message Translator > Our building contractor sends voice messages in Portuguese that I don’t understand well. This tool transcribes and translates them.

AI Business

• I gave a talk at a Women Hackathon about AI Coding. The slides are here.

• My AI courses have generated over $100,000 for my distribution partners and me since September. Most of it with the cohort-based course.

• I’ll be launching 2 short courses in France in 2026. I’m exploring other markets too.

• I am testing a new B2B course with the executive team of a first client in December. Let’s see if they decide to sign up their entire staff! An enormous number of businesses will have to learn to integrate AI in their products but also in their culture, to stay competitive.

AI Resources

• My slides “Vibe Coding with AI for Non-Coders” for the InnoWomen Hackathon

• My talk on AI automation at the Lisbon Vibe Coding Club

• My slides on “Vibe Coding for VCs” at VC Platform EU

• My Udemy course (4.5/5, 4,000+ students)

3. CULTURE

EXPERIENCES

Carlsberg Museum (Copenhagen)***
I’m always interested in learning about trades. This visit did not disappoint and highlighted a few interesting things, including some important scientific improvements and discoveries made there.

Open Air Museum of Old Swedish Houses (Lund, Sweden)***
Very interesting exhibition. Did you know the blacksmith pulled teeth?

Skissernas Museum of the Artistic Process (Lund, Sweden)**
Museums usually show only the results, this one focuses on how artists make their art. Creators of public pieces, in particular, tend to have to document their research, sketches and models before creating the final product.

Neko Health (London)****
Co-founded by the founder of Spotify, it aims to democratize and personalize health checks. The experience was great (thanks to S. for getting me on the list!). The results quite good too despite… (see next topic).

e-Moped Slide*
Don’t ride after the rain. And even less without full protective gear (I only wore a helmet). Pretty bad scratches and a deep cut that earned me my first 4 stitches. Still, I was quite surprised by the overall low level of pain. The fork of my lovely Niu NQi GT is bent and likely unfixable. I’m almost 100% recovered after 3 weeks. The human body is amazing.

VIDEO

Ted Lasso*** (Apple TV)
A feel-good show with an impossibly wholesome guy. It almost feels like a fairy tale. Now, I felt the writers lost the plot during half of the episodes of the final season, but it eventually ended well.

Severance*** (Apple TV)
Can you decide to split your mind in two and live well as a functioning schizophrenic? I watched more of it. It’s somewhat clever, but also a bit annoying.

Physical: Asia** (Netflix)
It’s the sporty equivalent of Emily in Paris for me. A follow-up to the made in Korea “Physical: 100”, this time teams of 6 from several APAC countries are pitted against each other in a series of physical challenges. Some fun games. I mostly enjoy the strategies some teams come up with. Judo/wrestling people are strong!

SHOWS

Gary Gulman
One of my favorite standup comics. Unfortunately I won’t be able to see his tour.

The Incal
The surrealist sci-fi graphic novel masterpiece by Moebius & Jodorowski is coming to the big screen with Jemaine Clement of the Flight of the Conchords fame. Color me curious!

That’s all for now. Keep vibing!
— Ben

#79 | 100 Apps, Disgusting Food, IgNobel and more

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

It’s events season!

MENU

1. WORK: Events & Travels
2. VIBING WITH TECH: 100 Students, 100 Apps
3. CULTURE: Disgusting Food, Korean Lawyer, Severance
4. THOUGHTS: IgNobel, Friends

1. WORK

Events

• I was in NYC, Berlin, Malmo, Singapore and London is next. It’s over soon.

• We hosted a dozen events during NY Climate Week, with over 1,000 attendees in total. The mood was both realistic and upbeat despite headwinds in the sector.

• The SOSV Climate Tech Summit is next week (free, virtual, Nov 3-7). We have a great line-up of speakers and 5,000+ are registered. I am interviewing the Climate Envoy of Kenya (after Singapore and Iceland) — it’s an interesting story.

• SOSV’s 4th VCs/Founders virtual matchmaking of 2025 concluded with over 1,400 registrants and 2,000+ meetings. I will organize a final one focused on #Robotics next month.

• I was in Singapore this week and will be in London on Nov 11 (RSVP) to share insights from our annual Climate Tech Summit. Registration is free but requires approval.

Event Reports

• I gave a talk about “Vibe Coding for VCs” at VC Platform EU. Slides are here.

• I co-hosted a roundtable about AI & automation at The Drop in Sweden. Most VC firms are quite behind on this, with generally some basic GPTs and rarely even a workflow automation. This is frequently a personal interest from a team member, or falls on the laps of a platform person already in charge of comms, marketing and everything non-finance related.

• NY Climate Week - It was electric ;) despite the policy changes the mood was upbeat. Nuclear, geothermal, batteries are in. Supply chain resilience as well. Food/Ag and renewables not so much.

2. VIBING WITH TECHNOLOGY

My journey into the world of #AI #coding.

Ideas

• “AI Good” or “AI Bad”? Does your job or field of study benefit from, or is hurt by AI? If AI can be a basic doctor, lawyer, designer, copywriter or coder (and improving), what do those jobs look like in the future? My first job was in market research. Today, Gemini Deep Research might do a better and much faster job.

Recent Projects (AI-assisted Python apps)

I have now passed 100 apps and prototypes. Not all end well, but I learn something each time!

1. Semantic Search App > Input a CSV with 2 columns. Search the data in one column in natural language. It’s using embeddings via the OpenAI API. I turned it into a Mac desktop app, which looks quite neat!

2. VC/Startup Matching App > Internal tool to match startups in our portfolio with investors focused on their geo/stage/sector. In testing but promising.

3. SoupTime > A simple baby feeding game. Can you get enough spoonfuls of soup in, despite the baby closing his mouth, turning his head, and trying to grab the spoon? It helped me increase my accuracy in real-life scenarios :)

4. Karaoke app > Attempt focused on lyrics recognition rather than pitch, for language learning. I found out that most karaoke games don’t actually track lyrics, they only compare your voice to the midi reference frequencies.

5. Bypass detector > A platform connecting boat owners and renters wanted to detect if the owners were trying to bypass the platform using their boat description. An easy job for chatGPT API - even scales well to 40,000 ads with grouping, batching.

AI Business

• I shifted my focus from the Udemy course to the cohort-based course I licensed to a partner in Portugal. Over 100 participants joined, and the NPS is over 60. This 15 hours course is priced 750 euros so it’s starting to generate real revenue.

• I’ll be working on a B2B version for enterprise: every company will need to up-skill their staff, and often do not know where to start with AI literacy!

• After Portugal, I am now discussing with potential partners in France, and exploring other geographies.

AI Resources

• My talk on AI automation at the Lisbon Vibe Coding Club

• My slides on “Vibe Coding for VCs” at VC Platform EU.

• My Udemy course ($19.99). Already 4,000 students and 4.5 stars.

3. CULTURE

MUSEUMS

Disgusting Food Museum (Malmo, Sweden)****
If you are in Copenhagen or Malmo, I recommend a visit to this quirky museum. While I won’t agree with calling French blue cheese disgusting, marmite surely earned its spot, and many of the other displays are way beyond - for instance kiviak. Visitors can also try to win a prize by tasting over a dozen samples (I tried all but the 8 million Scovilles hot sauce) - bugs, fermented things and more.

Berlin Art Week***
It wasn’t planned but it was fun to go around so many galleries and exhibits. I often scratched my head to find both “the idea” and even more, “the craft”. Everything is art since white on white (1918), black on black (1968), IKB (1961), ready-mades (1913) and the banana with duct tape (2019). Take the money and run (2021) at least didn’t pretend!

TinyTopia (Singapore)**
A cute private pop-up museum focused on ants (and a few more insects).

Vintage Camera Museum (Singapore)**
I don’t know much about photography, but it was interesting to see some very old models and prints of the very first photos taken.

MOVIES

Scent of a Woman****
Rewatched (again) this excellent classic. My latest thought is that it’s a fairy tale. We need those sometimes.

SHOWS

After School Doctor**** (Netflix)
I thought that show was over, but it came back from one long episode featuring my favorite grumpy middle school resident doctor. The kids always do a great job as well in this heartwarming show.

Beyond the Bar (“Esquire”)*** (Netflix)
Another Korean legal show (after the excellent Attorney Woo) focused on a rookie female lawyer with principles and unorthodox ideas. The story and acting is not as outstanding, but still entertaining.

Severance*** (Apple TV)
I gave it a shot while flying back from Singapore and it’s pretty good. If you could forget what happened each time, would it be fair to trap yourself for 8 hours a day doing a meaningless task, with no escape? Is it what many of us already do every day?

4. THOUGHTS

IgNobels

Nobel prizes can impress (aside from recent Economics and Peace), but so can IgNobel prizes. I considered attending the ceremony this year but missed it by a few days. Check out the list here. The physiology one might save some Covid patients.

Friends

This sociologist focuses on crowds, and analyzed some research on how friendships form. The key elements are (1) “homophilia” (we like people with commonalities - often found where we live or go), (2) “triangulation” (friends of friends become our friends) and (3) the more friends, the more friends. Now you know what to do!

Keep vibing!
— Ben