Daily Reading List – January 16, 2026 (#702)

I learned a lot this week. Did you? As usual, it came from a mix of listening to others, talking out ideas, and doing some hands-on work.

[blog] Why most AI products fail: Lessons from 50+ AI deployments at OpenAI, Google & Amazon. Listened to the linked podcast episode on my drive to work this morning. And then I changed three points in an upcoming presentation as a result.

[blog] “You Had One Job”: Why Twenty Years of DevOps Has Failed to Do it. Did we ever really connect the feedback loop between developers and production? Not really, but Charity sees hope on the horizon.

[blog] How does building software by “vibe coding” change developer workflows? I liked the insight here. And I’m completely susceptible to “design fixation” and now need to look out for it.

[article] Why Keeping Up with Change Feels Harder Than Ever. Who’s NOT feeling this right now? It was good to see the four factors converging to make change so hard to manage.

[blog] How to write a good spec for AI agents. Goodness this is absolutely stuffed with useful information. Go through this and immediately up your game.

[blog] Vibe Coding Without System Design is a Trap. Complementary point. Slow down. Plan our your design and approach.

[article] The rise of ‘micro’ apps: non-developers are writing apps instead of buying them. You can fight it, or you can help builders do good work, regardless of what surface they build on.

[article] Lessons from 2 Years of Integrating AI into Development Workflows. “The biggest shift is confidence” resonated with me. Maybe it’s false confidence, but we’re all feeling more capable than we did before these tools.

[blog] How Nano Banana got its name. Great story. If you expected something dramatic, you’ll be disappointed.

[blog] Modern life is good actually. Life really wasn’t “better” a hundred years ago, or even twenty. We’re doing ok.

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