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The Generalist’s Productivity Stack (2026)

2026-01-22 23:41:21

Friends,

Last January, on a whim, I shared a few of the productivity methods I’ve found effective in maximizing my output while building The Generalist. It was driven by a geekish obsession with tiny optimizations, a love for adopting niche tools, and a real belief that the environment you make for yourself impacts the work you are capable of.

To my surprise, it became one of The Generalist’s most popular pieces. With January in full swing and the year still stretching in front of us, I decided to sit down and outline the new tools and methods I’ve found effective over the past year. It turned into quite a collection. You’ll find 26 tools I recommend (both digital and analog) and 8 practices I’ve found invaluable.

I’ve avoided repeating last year’s recommendations (though I still use them), so if you’re as into these kinds of hacks and optimizations as I am, you may want to read that piece, too.

Tools

An exhaustive list of the programs, apps, extensions, and physical objects I recommend.

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Programming Sunlight: How Reflect Orbital Is Building Satellites to Redirect Light From Space (Ben Nowack, Founder & CEO)

2026-01-20 21:03:59

“It’s either sunny or it’s not sunny, and there’s not much you can do about that—but we’re trying to change that for the first time ever.” —Ben Nowack

Listen or watch now on
YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

Most energy conversations start with scarcity. This one starts with abundance. Sunlight powers nearly everything on Earth, directly or indirectly. And yet we have almost no control over when or where we get it. Ben Nowack thinks that’s a solvable problem. Ben is the founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital, a company building satellites designed to redirect sunlight from space—not as a thought experiment, but as a product. The company nearly died before it worked. Eight months in, Ben had $300 left and was living in a garage. He made a deliberate decision to go $50,000 into credit card debt to finish critical tests. At one point, he was down to $21 of available credit. A month later, Reflect raised its first round. Today, the company is preparing to launch its first revenue-generating satellites. This is a conversation about building conviction, finding the real market, and what changes when a fundamental resource becomes programmable.

In our conversation, we explore:

  • How Reflect’s satellites work

  • The surprising pivot from energy to lighting applications that made the business immediately viable

  • Ben’s remarkable journey from building RC planes and X-ray machines in high school to founding Reflect

  • Why previous attempts at space mirrors failed and what’s changed to make this possible now

  • The near-death moment when Ben went $50,000 into credit card debt to keep his vision alive

  • How Reflect plans to scale from moonlight-level brightness to potentially powering solar farms

  • The company’s first satellite launches planned for this year, and their path to a full constellation

  • The wide range of applications, from emergency response to municipal lighting to agriculture

Explore the episode

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction to Ben Nowack

(02:26) What Reflect Orbital is building

(05:07) How the satellite constellation works

(08:00) What Reflect is launching this year

(10:35) Finding early markets

(13:43) Ben’s childhood and early building experiences

(22:04) What Ben learned working for startups

(28:03) High school projects: X-ray machines, rocket engines, and fusion reactors

(33:14) The eureka moment that led to Reflect

(35:24) Early validation of the idea

(38:35) The Russian space mirror experiments of the 1990s and what’s changed

(42:31) Partnering with Tristan Similac as co-founder

(45:05) Baiju Bhatt’s involvement

(47:04) Why Reflect isn’t pivoting to space-based data centers

(50:54) Common misconceptions about Reflect’s technology

(55:11) Why programmable light is valuable

(1:01:28) Initial target markets

(1:03:42) The future markets for Reflect

(1:07:33) Reflect’s company culture and operational philosophy

(1:12:05) Surprises and struggles in building Reflect

(1:14:56) Putting the idea to the test

Follow Ben Nowack

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-nowack

X: https://x.com/bennbuilds

Resources and episode mentions

People

Other resources

Subscribe to the show

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Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

Nothing’s Carl Pei on Building a $1B Smartphone Company, Why He Left OnePlus After 10 Days of Retirement, and Why He Thinks About Death Every Week

2026-01-13 21:03:26

“As humans, one of our superpowers is creativity. Both on an individual level, but also on a species level. And by creativity, I mean the ability to solve problems.” —Carl Pei

Listen or watch now on
YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

Carl Pei is the founder of Nothing, the consumer electronics company known for its distinctive transparent design language across smartphones and audio products. Before launching Nothing in 2020, Carl co-founded OnePlus, where he spent seven years helping build it into a major smartphone brand. But Carl’s instincts as a builder showed up much earlier. As a teenager, he taught himself to code by building Pokémon fan sites, all while moving between China, the U.S., and Sweden. That combination of early creation and constant change shaped a founder comfortable with uncertainty—and deeply motivated by questions bigger than products. Carl thinks often about time and mortality, is skeptical of early retirement, and believes creativity is humanity’s real advantage. In an industry obsessed with optimization, he’s focused on making technology feel meaningful again.

In our conversation, we explore:

  • The origins of Nothing’s transparent design language and how it helps differentiate the brand in a mature, competitive market

  • Carl’s childhood fascination with mortality and how it continues to drive his ambition today

  • Nothing’s multiple near-death experiences, from 80% defect rates on first products to fundraising struggles

  • Why India has become a crucial market for Nothing’s smartphone business

  • How Nothing approaches community involvement, including letting users invest alongside VCs

  • The company’s approach to integrating AI features without overhyping the technology

  • Carl’s admiration for Genghis Khan’s management style and talent acquisition approach

  • The future of consumer electronics beyond smartphones

Thank you to our sponsor, Guru — The AI source of truth for work

Explore the episode

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction to Carl Pei and Nothing

(02:44) Nothing’s long-term vision

(06:33) How existential thinking shapes Carl’s motivation

(10:12) Why Carl’s planned sabbatical ended after ten days

(12:35) Carl’s international upbringing

(16:02) Entrepreneurial experiments in China

(19:10) Carl’s competitive nature and attitude toward school

(25:30) Lessons from seven years at OnePlus

(28:07) Taking a break at age 31

(30:50) Carl’s fundraising strategy

(33:26) Why Carl chose London for Nothing’s HQ

(35:12) Lessons from Genghis Khan

(38:38) Nothing’s first near-death moment

(42:56) Nothing’s product evolution and breakout hits

(45:24) Partnering with Teenage Engineering

(49:28) Design inspirations

(51:36) How Nothing recruits talent

(53:42) Nothing’s approach to marketing

(56:51) How India became a key market

(59:48) Why Nothing created CMF

(1:02:12) Why Carl is bullish on India

(1:03:32) How Carl thinks about AI

(1:07:05) Rethinking ads based on community feedback

(1:09:05) How Nothing leverages community

(1:11:23) Why AI hardware is struggling

(1:13:37) Carl’s thoughts on the future of consumer electronics

(1:15:10) Philosophies that shape Carl’s worldview

(1:16:45) Final meditations

Follow Carl Pei

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/getpeid

X: https://x.com/getpeid

Resources and episode mentions

Books

People

Other resources

Subscribe to the show

I’d love it if you’d subscribe and share the show. Your support makes all the difference as we try to bring more curious minds into the conversation.

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Spotify

Apple

Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

What to Watch in 2026

2026-01-09 21:49:14

🌟 Happy 2026! There’s never been a better time to join our premium newsletter and invest in yourself. It’s designed to make you a better founder, investor, and technologist. Members get access to the strategies, tactics, and wisdom of exceptional investors and founders. Today’s piece is a subscriber-only edition.

Friends,

The world is not waiting to start the year.

In just over a week, we have seen that the world of 2026 will not be the same as that of 2025. Trump’s actions in Venezuela are the most naked illustration of this fact, revealing the changing nature of power and shifts in spheres of relative influence.

Technology is not immune to such developments, and, indeed, is a key input. Even with January just getting its footing, our sector is in motion: in a span of just a few weeks, Jensen Huang struck a $20 billion deal for Groq’s talent and IP, revealed Nvidia’s upcoming Rubin architecture, and saw China order its domestic companies to pause purchases of H200 chips. Meanwhile, DeepSeek released research rethinking AI training, ChatGPT launched a dedicated health product, Meta is attempting to purchase Chinese-founded startup Manus, and Anthropic is raising $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of growing unease about AI valuations and the possibility that we are in the midst of a rapidly inflating bubble primed to burst.

As a reminder: it is January 9th.

To try and grasp what (else) 2026 might have in store, particularly with regard to tech and venture capital, I reached out to a collection of more than 45 elite investors and thinkers. I asked each of these people to answer the question: What company, market, or trend do you think is most worth paying attention to in 2026?

Below, you will find their answers, organized into seven themes. It includes entries from legends like Reid Hoffman, Kirsten Green, Gili Raanan, and Aydin Senkut, as well as those I consider the sharpest thinkers from the next generation. It is, in a sense, a collection of futures. A cadre of possible paths that may or may not unfurl. In big and little ways, I hope that they make you a little more aware of what may happen and where opportunities might lie.

As was the case with last year’s edition, I compiled this piece with the express goal of creating something that more than justifies the cost of The Generalist’s premium subscription on its basis alone. Given the insights I’ve gleaned from it already, I believe we’ve achieved that for anyone who works in venture capital, actively angel invests, or is considering starting a company. I suspect it will also be of great use to operators who want to understand how their respective industries could develop.

Here’s what to expect:

  • The robotics company helping with data center buildouts

  • A voice AI company poised to come out of stealth

  • The African fintech following Nubank’s trajectory

  • Where China is poised to outcompete America

  • A potential landmark in nuclear energy

  • An AI myth gets exposed

  • The startups poised to win in Latin America

  • The under-the-radar search startup used by Cursor

To set yourself up for the best possible 2026, join our premium subscription for just $22/month today. It’s designed to make you a radically better investor for a teeny fraction of the cost of a traditional investing intelligence service.

Subscribe now

Again, my hope and goal is that this piece alone repays the cost of a year’s subscription.

PS. You know this already, but for the avoidance of doubt: this is not investment advice. This is intended to surface new ideas and guide you toward interesting topics. Most submissions focus on private companies, but please heed this, particularly for those that highlight a crypto project with a public token. These tend to be hyper-volatile assets. You should always make investment decisions based on your own research.

I. The physical world wakes up

AI’s most impressive feats have typically occurred on screens. That may be changing. Robots are learning by watching humans, excavators are moving dirt without drivers, and the robotics sector is splitting into two worlds: one of hype, another of quiet deployment.

Read more

Modern Meditations: Immad Akhund

2025-12-18 22:22:49

Illustration by Eleanor Taylor

Friends,

How often do you think about the Mongolian Empire?

For Mercury CEO, Immad Akhund, the answer seems to be “surprisingly often.” For our final interview of the year, I asked the founder of one of my very favorite products to share his latest obsessions, contrarian opinions, and favorite reads.

As well as outlining the h…

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Bubble Memory: A CEO’s Reflections on the Dotcom Boom and Bust

2025-12-12 00:20:24

Illustration by Eleanor Taylor

Friends,

Perhaps no one experienced the dotcom boom and bust quite as viscerally as Steve Case. The founder of Revolution began the decade as an executive at a small software company called Quantum Link, and ended it as the CEO of a behemoth: AOL.

It is hard to overstate just how important a company AOL was at the start of the millennium. Unless you were already of working age and minded towards tech and business, there’s a good chance you haven’t calibrated its size appropriately. AOL was a giant. Between its IPO in 1992 and the start of the new millennium, its stock appreciated approximately 80,000%, reaching a peak of $222 billion in December 1999. By that point, it had eclipsed many of the business world’s biggest companies, surpassing Disney, IBM, McDonald’s, and Berkshire Hathaway. At the time, AOL was larger than Boeing and General Motors combined.

It was also wildly significant and influential, responsible for opening the internet up to a new generation of users and making it fun to use. The AOL of that era pioneered many of the user experiences and behaviors that make up the modern web, from screen names to instant messaging.

In January 2000, AOL looked set for another decade of dominance. On the tenth of that month, it announced a planned merger with Time Warner. Remarkably, AOL was the senior partner, receiving 55% of the combined $350 billion entity. Again, the scale of the deal is hard to comprehend unless you lived it. At the headline valuation, AOL Time Warner became the fourth largest company on the planet – a figure greater than “the output of Russia or the Netherlands.”

What came after is the subject of much study and coverage. The market crashed, the merger failed, and not long after, Case stepped down as AOL CEO. By 2005, Case publicly argued in favor of the two companies splitting, and at the end of the decade, that came to fruition. Though there were strong strategic merits to an AOL-Time Warner union, it proved to be a marriage that suited neither party.

It seems as if we are in yet another torrid cycle and potentially one of greater magnitude than that which Case surfed. A recent analyst report argued that the current AI bubble is 17x greater than its dotcom corollary, and 4x larger than the 2008 financial crisis. (We can hope it will be more productive than the financial crash, at least.)

A bubble is a strange environment in which to live. It is an even stranger one in which to build a business. How do you keep your feet on the ground when the world beneath is rushing past at a thousand miles an hour? How can you hold fast to reality when wide-eyed investors, gasping for breath, paint ever more fantastical futures in front of you and shove your pockets full of cash? Where is the boundary? Is there really such a thing as a horizon?

We believe that “this time is different,” and there is truth in that. We do not live in a perfectly iterated game. The board has changed, fresh players have stepped onto it, and new moves are always being invented. But it is more naive to pretend the past has nothing to teach us. In fundamental ways, today’s founders face the same set of challenges as their late 90s forerunners. How do you build a team at warp speed? Is it possible to scale a culture when you’re growing exponentially? How can you make smart acquisitions and avoid the most common missteps? What role should partnerships and business development play when you’re forging a new category?

As I thought about these questions, I realized that perhaps no one is better suited to speak from experience than Steve Case himself. And so, I asked him to reflect on his journey at AOL, the similarities and differences between that era and ours, and the lessons founders should heed. We also discuss what it was like to compete head-to-head against Bill Gates, the strategic necessity that drove the Time Warner deal, and the similarities between Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs.

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An Interview with Steve Case

To start, I’d love to connect the two eras we’re talking about and the lessons we might take from them. How much does the current AI wave remind you of the dotcom bubble?

It has some similarities, but some differences, too.

Like the internet, AI has been many years in the making. When you look at AI, some of the core technologies can be traced back to something like 70 years ago. This is not a new idea. It just took that time for it to become a mainstream consumer phenomenon. Obviously, over the last ten to twenty years, a lot of companies have integrated AI. Most of the apps we use on our phones rely on AI to some extent. The difference is that nobody called it AI. But it was driving recommendation engines and so on; it was just more of a back-end, invisible thing. It only became an in-your-face visible technology with the success of ChatGPT.

That timing dynamic reminds me of the dotcom era. The gold rush mentality does too. People feel that this is the next big thing, and they don’t want to miss out, which leads to investors pouring a lot of money into companies. A few of those will be wildly successful, many will be OK, and a good number will also probably end up hitting the wall and going out of business, which is what happened with the internet.

Clearly, AI as a core technology and platform is going to have a comparable or greater impact to the internet. It has the ability to transform industries and society in very fundamental ways, but there will be a mix of successes and failures.

A final point I’d make is about government and policy. What most people don’t appreciate about the internet is that the United States wouldn’t have been the leader it was with respect to that technology were it not for a series of government decisions: first, you have the government’s decision to fund the Defense Department’s ARPANET, which basically became the internet. Next, there was the Justice Department’s decision in 1984 to break up AT&T into seven regional operating companies, which drove communication costs down and made the internet much more affordable. Third, there was the decision by the FCC to mandate open access for the telephone networks so that they had to let AOL and others plug into them. And, finally, in the early 90s, Congress passed a law opening up the internet to consumers and businesses. Up until that point, it had been restricted to government agencies and educational institutions.

It’s easy to forget these things, but if they hadn’t happened, the internet would not have evolved the way it did. In the case of AI, it’s really important that we figure out what that policy overlay should be. How do you make sure that while the technology is being developed, you don’t over-regulate and stifle innovation? Europe has historically made the mistake of focusing too much on what might go wrong and, as a result, stifles what might go right.

At the same time, though, because AI is so ubiquitous already (versus the internet, which grew slowly before mass adoption), some engagement, some policy guardrails are necessary now.

What might some common-sense guidelines look like?

One of the lessons from the internet is that you need to mandate open access. When it comes to AI, I think we need to make sure the big platform companies are essentially required to have open access. We don’t want to create a system that just allows the big companies to dominate; we have to force them to open their networks and keep them open for new companies to participate and innovate.

You had the rare experience of building what was considered the most significant company of its time during a historic bull market. It remains to be seen to what extent AI is a bubble, but I suspect the lessons you learned building AOL during the dotcom boom are deeply relevant for today’s founders.

As a jumping-off point, how did you manage your mental game during that period? AOL went from a relatively small company to one of the most important on the planet in a short period of time. The company must have been changing noticeably almost every day.

Part of my job was to be a shock absorber for the rest of the company. As the CEO, you have to even out the highs and lows for people. When things are going great, remind them about the risk. I used to call that “delegating paranoia.” When things are down in the dumps, remind them of why you have a bright future. There were plenty of moments like that at AOL – we’d be on the cover of a magazine with the headline saying “AOL is going to go under for XYZ reason.” It’s your role to provide that balance so that people can focus on the overall mission.

It probably helped that it took more than a decade for us to get real traction. I joke that AOL was a ten-year-in-the-making overnight success. The time it took us probably gave all of us, including me, more perspective and humility when all of a sudden it was this go-go-go momentum. It helped me not buy into all the positives or all the negatives.

Beyond that, you have to surround yourself with good advisors, including board members. They were helpful in making sure we were taking a step back at the right times and not just focusing on the day-to-day so much that we missed something. You have to learn to look at the company not just as a snapshot but as a movie that’s playing out.

I imagine that one of the biggest challenges of scaling that fast is finding enough great people who understand what you’re building, and creating the right structure to get the best out of them. Although AI founders today can probably get more leverage on people than during the 1990s, great talent is still essential.

What was your approach to recruiting and organizing talent, and how did it evolve with the business?

Well, it definitely evolved. In the early days, when we were just a couple dozen people, it was about surrounding ourselves with true believers. This was before people knew what the internet was, so there weren’t that many people interested in it. We were looking for people who wanted to be a part of the journey and could add value to it.

When headcount got into the hundreds, we started to be a bit more precise in terms of the roles we needed. You start to run searches for roles and look in a more structured, disciplined way.

When we got into the thousands, and things really started accelerating, I realized that as the CEO, I couldn’t be involved in everything. And so I needed to shift my mindset to spend the majority of my time on recruiting. It might not have been 50% of my actual hours, but it was more than 50% of my attention.

A lot of my job in those days was not just promoting AOL but evangelizing the internet. I’d travel a lot and speak at a lot of conferences – Allen&Co in Sun Valley and others. I always had my radar on: Who’s going to be there? Are there people who might be partners in a way that works for us and works for them? Is there anyone I’m really impressed with that I can convince to leave what they’re doing and join us?

Every meeting I was in, every conference I was attending – whatever it was that I was doing – looking for great people was always on my agenda. With the right people and the right focus, anything is possible.

You mentioned that as the company scaled, you felt you couldn’t do everything anymore. The pendulum in tech seems to have swung towards CEOs feeling like they should micro-manage more and have their hands on every part of the business. Why did that feel like the wrong fit for you?

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