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Welcome to 2026.

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 consuming more. I think I needed my mind to lie fallow for a while before I could till it for new ideas. It showed in my output: only125 blog posts, essays, interviews, reviews, and other bits and bobs across my various online homes. I did write a lot in my journals; I filled nearly twenty A5-sized notebooks.

Most importantly, I read a dozen fiction books and about 25 nonfiction books, and I worked through more than 10,000 articles (or at least that many are archived in Readwise Reader). I also watched a lot of videos on science, pens, and history. I should read more, but this was a good restart of my reading habit. 

My book of the year is 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. It’s a near-perfect setup for the times we’re living through. The book proves that

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Technology
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What Ben & John Don’t Get

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 on getting new AirPod Pro 3s! — the company has, in the pursuit of easy profits, constrained the space in which it innovates.

That didn’t matter for a long time: smartphones were the center of innovation, and Apple was consequently the center of the tech universe. Now, however, Apple is increasingly on the periphery, and I think that, more than anything, is what bums people out: no, Apple may not be a sugar water purveyor, but they are farther than they have been in years from changing the world.

Ben Thompson, Stratechery via John Gruber

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Notes
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Meta’s Favorite Product Isn’t AI. It’s the Copy Button.

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 about taking ideas and presenting them as his own.

The phrase “personal super intelligence” was coined by Character.AI CEO and co-founder Noam Shazeer, who was also one of the authors of the seminal paper, “Attention Is All You Need.” This paper is widely regarded as the work that inspired today’s AI chatbots. When the company announced its Series A funding, in their press release, they noted:

We understand the importance of providing an AI that truly feels like your own, and that’s why our AI is customizable. From personality to values, you can customize your AI to suit your needs

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Technology
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Decoding Zuck’s Superintelligence Memo

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 across a memo such as one published by any chief executive (or a founder), I ask myself a few simple questions:

  • Why did the company publish this memo? 
  • Who is the target audience for this memo? 
  • Is there any prior historical pattern the company is following?
  • Will it have an intended impact? 
  • And what do I think?

I am in the unique position to dig into Zuck’s words — I was one of the earliest reporters to write about a nascent and burgeoning Facebook (when it was called TheFacebook) and was a campus-only phenomenon. I have followed

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Technology
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What an Unusual Week

Photo: Om Malik

It has been a week, that at best can be described as deliciously weird. I have neither been inspired to write, nor to indulge my passion for photography. Apart from necessary work, I have been out walking, and doing a lot of reading. And making notes for future writing projects. My brain is percolating, trying to find a clear thread to weave many disjointed trends, technologies, and behaviors that are emerging as a shift to the new software, aka, AI. Walking helps me think.

I have been making copious amounts of notes in my journal with a prototype fountain pen. I am hoping to write about it soon. The journal gives me an opportunity to doodle with pens that use a couple of flexible nibs. It is a wonderful therapeutic activity and helps the mind clear. They, the pen nerds, say that if you are experimenting with nibs, then

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Technology
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The Mediocrity of Modern Google

These days, whenever I think about Google, I recall a line from Madame Bovary. “She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris,” Flaubert writes, capturing Emma Bovary’s provincial reality and her romanticized dreams of escape. That is Google in a nutshell, isn’t it?

The company that once represented the pinnacle of innovation has devolved into a symbol of corporate indifference. Let me share a personal example that illustrates this decline.

I was an early Webpass customer. Back then, before Google acquired it, the service was everything you’d want from an ISP – fast, reliable, and customer-centric. And cheap. The founder himself picked up the phone whenever there was a problem. Usually, there wasn’t.

Post-acquisition? It’s a different story. While competitors like Sonic push boundaries with 10 Gbps offerings in San Francisco, Google Fiber’s Webpass feels stuck in time, content with its 1 Gbps speeds and raising

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Technology
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Instagram is now a (photo) information network.

Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

It is no secret that I love fountain pens, and that’s why I get excited about events such as the Manila Pen Show, which is the brainchild of a longtime friend and an admirable blogger, Leigh Reyes. She doesn’t blog much, but she posts everything she used to do on Instagram. And why not — she paints with ink and does calligraphy. She lets the ink do the talking, and her artwork scintillates the mind. These expressions of creativity are made for photos and videos.

When I went to see the Manila Pen Show’s website, every single one of the exhibitors was linked not to their website but to Instagram. These included some of the more traditional and sedate pen-makers from Japan. Earlier this morning, when reading Die Workwear’s piece about shirts, I realized that almost all the bespoke shirt makers, shoemakers, and others announce their

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Photography, Technology
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What You See Is “Not” What You Get!

As February winds down, it’s the perfect time to send the latest edition of my monthly letter. It’s been a busy month, both personally and professionally. This is reflected in how often I have written (or not written). The reason doesn’t matter; whenever I have spare time, I end up either reading or listening to a book or long feature articles. It’s good to take your social media time and reallocate it to reading books. I’ve also been watching a bit of television.

Sometimes, it’s good to be part of the cultural zeitgeist, for it triggers thoughts worth writing about. Take, for example, “Apple Cider Vinegar,” a Netflix series inspired by Australian wellness influencer and con woman Belle Gibson. The series examines how Gibson used social media to gain fame through lies about her medical problems and promote a false narrative around cancer. Gibson leveraged her online popularity to make

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A Letter From Om, Technology
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AI, China & Copium

When it comes to technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, it has been surreal to watch events unfold. From politicians in technology backwaters to opportunists and fashion billionaires, everyone has jumped on the “AI” version of Shinkansen. And if that wasn’t enough, the arrival of DeepSeek has unleashed a wave of fear, nationalism, and old-fashioned protectionism.

DeepSeek makes two major points.

First, as noted earlier, DeepSeek represents more than just a product — it embodies a different way of thinking that challenges the conventional approach to AI. It’s not about a specific company, but about demonstrating that others can also leapfrog the big boys with clever thinking.

Second, for the past ten years, the Chinese have been relentlessly focused on their “Made in China 2025” initiative. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the technology gap between the U.S. and China has narrowed. “China 2025 sets specific targets:

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Technology
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