Damian Pickett · No. 42
Thursday 15 October 2026
Apple’s share price pushed its market value above five trillion dollars at Wednesday’s close, the second company ever to pass the mark after Nvidia.
Six Colors points to a Verge review arguing that HomeView’s stripped-back design, though it may frustrate hardcore smart home users, is the right choice for Apple’s new device, due in November.
OpenAI released more than 350 proofs of mathematical theorems in a single batch, prompting mathematicians to note that doing just one by hand would normally merit a Fields Medal.
Read · Lenny's Newsletter
Seven lessons from the story of Figma Slides
On a day Apple crossed $5 trillion, a look at how smaller teams ship with startup speed and focus feels like the right counterweight for Damian’s own side projects.
Listen · Founders
A classic product-and-engineering founder story in the vein of the operators Damian studies.
Listen · David Senra
Today’s new episode, including lessons from Steve Jobs, one of Damian’s touchstones.
Listen · Acquired
The newest unrecommended Acquired deep dive, a craft-and-operations story in the company-history mould Damian likes.
Ricursive Intelligence is building AI that designs chips and improves its own designs with each iteration, aiming to automate and speed up chip development as compute demand soars.
Developer Simon Willison prompted Claude Opus 5.5 Max from his phone’s chat app to build a three.js game about appreciating trees, his latest small vibe-coded experiment.
Deezer says it will roll out a toggle letting listeners filter AI-generated tracks out of search and recommendations by the end of the year.
Google DeepMind and Singapore’s GovTech used lightweight, on-device Gemma models to intercept conversational scams in private chats without sending any data to the cloud.
NASA is developing new battery chemistry for lunar missions, since standard lithium-ion cells cannot handle the Moon’s extreme temperature swings.
Database startup CedarDB is building an engine that handles both transactional and analytical workloads at once, a combination it says matters more now that AI agents query data constantly.
Colossal Biosciences unveiled an AI platform meant to speed up its de-extinction research, alongside a new fund from Peter Diamandis to back startups building on it.
Sony launched the ECM-W5, a wireless microphone kit aimed squarely at DJI’s audio gear, though it comes at a price.
An early Geekbench listing shows the iPhone Duo’s A20 Pro chip performing similarly to the iPhone 18 Pro’s, ahead of pre-orders opening this Friday.
Apple is rolling out its more detailed Apple Maps overhaul to Austin, Texas, extending the Detailed City Experience it has already brought to other markets.
HomeView ships without an App Store, but Six Colors argues its limited third-party app model works more like CarPlay’s curated approach than a true app platform.
WhatsApp now lets people join group and one-on-one calls as guests without needing an account, putting it in more direct competition with Zoom and Google Meet.
Variety praises “To Be Ordinary,” a Taiwanese drama about a college student left paralysed after a crash, for its sensitive, even-handed take on a hard subject.
Director Abel Ferrara recalls how Christopher Walken’s last-minute exit nearly sank “Bad Lieutenant” in 1992, before Harvey Keitel stepped in for one of his best performances.
Mark Vanselow, who has doubled for Liam Neeson since 1998, draws on three decades of stunt work to direct Neeson in “The Mongoose.”
Mubi will give “Nuisance Bear,” winner of the Sundance Grand Jury documentary prize, a theatrical run starting in Los Angeles on 6 November before it expands.
IndieWire calls “Whalefall” an exceptional piece of underwater body horror, a sincere adaptation of Daniel Kraus’s novel that packs real emotional weight into its survival premise.
Boston beat Charlotte 114-93 to move to 3-0 in the preseason, their final tune-up before the regular season opener.
Four years after nearly leaving Boston out of frustration over playing time, Payton Pritchard has earned a big new contract from the Celtics.
Drake Maye was named a FedEx Air & Ground Player of the Week for Week 5, sharing the honour with the Packers’ Jordan Love.
A.J. Brown returned to practice five weeks after a high ankle sprain, with the Patriots opening his 21-day window to come off injured reserve for Sunday’s Jets game.
All-Pro cornerback Christian Gonzalez says he is ready to return this week after a shoulder injury kept him out for two games.
Red Bull extended Laurent Mekies’s contract as team principal through 2031, a strong endorsement after his first season leading the team.
In his new memoir, Christian Horner writes about the panic attacks he suffered behind the scenes during his high-pressure years leading Red Bull.
Max Verstappen says Red Bull’s car felt “scary” to drive early this season, before a run of upgrades turned it into a race winner.
Red Sox players Durbin, Rafaela and Abreu are finalists for this year’s Gold Glove Awards.
Over the Monster’s look back at 2026 includes Payton Tolle, who won Red Sox fans over as much for his hugs as his play.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured a striking new image of the Lion Nebula, the glowing remnant of a massive star’s supernova explosion.
