Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s chief doesn’t often respond to critics. When I wrote that his year-end memo cast Instagram as a future referee of reality, he pushed back on Threads. He called it an overstatement and then laid out the need for “credibility signals,” tools to prove content authenticity, and industry-wide verification. That isn’t a rebuttal; it’s reframing. Instagram may not want the label “arbiter of reality,” but it seems content to take on the role. In an earlier essay, …

On the last day of 2025, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri posted a 20-slide memo on Instagram. It covered AI, fake content, reality distortion, and how the platform will change. Read it as a press release, and it’s heavy with buzzwords. Read it as a set of clues about what’s next, and it tells a different story. (Click to read the memo) For a former reporter who covered …

And just like that, we’re in a new year.  It’s a rainy morning around these parts. A good day to grab a cup of coffee, reflect on the year that was and the year to come, and consider how best to live in the now, since we can’t turn back the clock or predict the future. The now is the only truth.  The past twelve months have been challenging intellectually and creatively. I found myself doing less and …

If you’re new around here, hi! I’m Om, and this is my occasional letter where I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations, and some of my photography. Holidays often signal the looming end of the year. They give all of us a reason to pause, slowdown, reflect, and spend time with people we appreciate. In our increasingly fast, networked world, it’s hard to overstate the need to lower life’s tempo. For …

I hope you and your families are having a wonderful holiday break, and taking the opportunity to recharge. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. December 25, 2025. San Francisco

After a long innings in the technology industry and as an avid student of history, I have formed a simple personal thesis about technology that doesn’t change much, no matter the technology or era. Value (and values) always trump valuations. I have seen this play out time and time again, and I was reminded of this truism by a …

Every weekend, my good buddy Hiten Shah and I head to The Coffee Movement’s Balboa Street location. They make a nice pour-over. And while it’s about a half-hour from my apartment, the coffee is worth the drive, the time, and the money. It’s a long enough drive for us to talk about life, work, and, most importantly, new ideas about technology. Sometimes, if our schedules sync up, we even go twice a week. What doesn’t …

Fall is the season for baseball’s fall classics. Earlier this week, we saw Shohei Ohtani play the game of his life, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to the World Series once again. What a game! What a player! What a winner! Three home runs and 10 strikeouts over six innings – this is our new Mr. October.  The Dodgers spend their money smartly. They win smartly. They do things the way the Yankees used to do. And they win. …

When driving down to Stanford earlier this week, a good friend from my Wall Street days, Josh Baylin, called. “I’m heading to the East Coast for a conference,” he said. I’m the guy who starts peppering his friends with questions like a reporter, so I queried him about why he was going, what he wanted to achieve, and who …

Over the weekend, I got a surprise package from the folks at Apple: a review unit of the iPhone Air. I don’t tend to get smitten by something so quickly, but the “Air” is really up there. It’s so thin you think a strong gust of air could really blow it away from your hands. (These puns …

Apple, to be fair, isn’t selling the same sugar water year-after-year in a zero sum war with other sugar water companies. Their sugar water is getting better, and I think this year’s seasonal concoction is particularly tasty. What is inescapable, however, is that while the company does still make new products — I definitely plan …

As you know, for the first time since the iPhone era began, I didn’t attend the iPhone launch event. I am gutted that I didn’t get to see the new iPhone 17 devices in person. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I tweeted a bit about the event whilewatching the stream. What can I say? I still like to believe that I am …

Life has gotten in the way of one of my most anticipated annual events. For the first time since the day of its official launch (barring the pandemic years), I won’t be attending the new phone model launch in person, which also means I am going to miss getting my hands on the device and …

A few days ago, when decoding Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s memo to his company about layoffs and artificial intelligence, I said that “this is not just about Microsoft, but pretty much every software company will be hit hard by this wave of transformation.” The point I was making in the piece was that AI is coming, and the first domino to fall will be software. When watching …

Not for the first time, the newsletter platform Substack is coming under criticism for hosting and now (accidentally) promoting Nazi content. Today, John Gruber of Daring Fireball is leading this crusade. This seems to be a recurring occurrence. They have controversies. Many express outrage. Some leave the platform. And Substack keeps growing. Why?  I took a step back and asked some basic questions. The answers …

An hour after I posted my piece about Meta’s Super Intelligence memo, a friend pinged me and pointed out that once again, Mark Zuckerberg has subsumed someone’s idea and phrase and presented it as his own: personal super intelligence. Not surprising, given that “copy” and “subsume” are on-brand for Zuck, who historically has not been shy …

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta (aka the company formerly known as Facebook), has published a memorandum about “superintelligence” and what it will mean not only for his company but for the world and society at large. It has had a wide variety of reactions ranging from delight to derision. As is normally the case, every single time I come …

To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a memo is not just a memo. That’s why we have to read between the lines of Satya Nadella’s 1,150-word memo. Microsoft’s chairman and CEO, in his message, tried to rationalize the 9,000-employee layoff. I was interested in how he was positioning the AI-based disruption in the software industry. This memo is not just about Microsoft. In a way, it’s a weather forecast for the rest of …

There are certain sweet-smelling, sugarcoated lies current in the world which all politic men have apparently tacitly conspired together to support and perpetuate. One of these is that there is such a thing in the world as independence: independence of thought, independence of opinion, independence of action. — Mark Twain There are two books on …

A month ago, I reported that Apple was in the final stages of acquiring the rights for F1 streaming following the success of its movie about the sport. Almost a month later, the Financial Times reported the news. As a matter of principle, I am not linking to the report. As is the case with establishment media, they almost never credit independents, …

I have a dark cloud over my head about the news that CBS canceled Stephen Colbert for “financial reasons,” an explanation no one is buying.Well, unless those financial reasons were the regulatory approval of the Skydance-Paramount deal.  The Wall Street Journal does its best to make a case that TV is dying. No shit, Sherlock! And that is why Late Night TV is a …

Uber plans to make “multi-hundred-million dollar investments” in both Nuro and Lucid as part of a massive new robotaxi deal that was just announced. The three companies are linking up to deploy “20,000 or more” robotaxis in the US over the next six years. The vehicles will be Lucid’s new Gravity SUV, equipped with autonomous technology …

Today, I met a nurse from Millbrae. She helped me with a few medical things. She is very good at what she does. However, that’s not why I am sharing her story; it’s because of her story that I am retelling it.  Her dad was born on USS Cleveland. In 1948, when his mom (the nurse’s grandmother) was coming from China (Canton) …

I recently interviewed Eric Yang, the chief executive officer of Dallas, Texas-based visual AI company Topaz Labs, for my newsletter, CrazyStupidTech. His father, Albert, started the business. The company stands in sharp contrast to our valuation-obsessed startup culture known for blitzscaling, infinite venture funding, and hypergrowth. Topaz is bootstrapped and has quietly built a $48 million business by breaking nearly every Silicon Valley rule. Here are some …

512 Pixels: If you missed my previous post on the topic, the first version of Tahoe had the dark blue on the right side of the Finder icon, which was criminal. Our 14-day national nightmare is over. As of Developer Beta 2, the Finder icon in macOS Tahoe has been updated to reflect 30 years …

The decades-old doctrine of “Web traffic in exchange for permission to crawl” is over, writes Fred Vogelstein in his latest feature for our newsletter, Crazy StupidTech, and as a result, the Internet in the age of AI will be filled with much-needed “tolls.” This change has come quickly. “Google essentially invented the business of crawling in exchange for …

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and embrace the “betas” released by Apple at the recent WWDC. I wanted to try out all the new features that Apple had announced and separate the wheat from the chaff.  No, I didn’t download the beta on my main machines. My every day iPhone, iPad, and Mac Studio have been untouched. The only everyday …

If you think it has been quiet around these ramparts, then it is intentional. I decided to take a break from everything,including writing and social media. Instead, I picked up my camera, packed my bags, and went on a photo trip to Svalbard.  I have not been on photo adventures for almost a year, mostly because I was losing my …

Tim Cook and Apple are all about Formula 1 these days. As a lead-in to the WWDC keynote, Apple played a short clip of its leading software executive, Craig Federighi, racing an F1 car on top of Apple Park. It was a nod to the new F1 movie coming to Apple TV. And it might hint at something even bigger.  Pals in the motorsport business are hinting at live F1 …

Michael Williams, a friend for a long time and a fellow aficionado of things made well, has a new publication, The Material Review. He recently invited me to chat about my current photography setup, favorite tools, and the under-the-radar brands and objects that have my attention. Here is a link to my short conversation with …