Nvidia Outperforms GPT-4 & Measuring Productivity Like Meta

Welcome to the new issue of my newsletter!

In this edition of Frictionless, we’ll explore Nvidia’s latest AI model outperforming ChatGPT and Claude, the stability-focused Next.js 15 update, Meta’s approach to developer productivity, and strategies for a smooth software migration.

By the way, are you heading to the Next.js Conf this week? If you are, drop me a message so we can catch up on the latest announcements and insights!

Grab a coffee, settle in, and enjoy Frictionless!

Also in the Queue

• How Uber Manages Petabytes of Data

• What’s Expo?

• The Secret of Good Decision-Making

• Avoiding Conflicts with Stakeholders

• Spotify’s Strategy for Generating Content Annotations

Reduce Friction

A Culture of Good Decision-Making

When making choices many professionals focus solely on the resulting outcomes, rather than the quality of the decision-making process. To avoid this impacting your judgments, consider employing popular techniques, such as the ACID model or the “disagree and commit” principle for the best results.

Be Suspicious of Success

Is joy your first reaction to a successful project? Then you might be opening yourself up to a painful disappointment. While it’s important to celebrate victories, check if your success isn’t a matter of an error in the metrics before opening the champagne bottle. 

Are You Complicit in 'Agile-Washing' Cost-Cutting?

Since its introduction, some businesses have been using the Agile methodology for a different purpose than a digital transformation - limiting costs. This fundamental misunderstanding of agile’s rules can lead to missing out on some of its greatest benefits.

How to Set Up an Asynchronous Work Environment

Keeping productivity high with a team scattered across different places, or even time zones, can be a challenge. Creating an asynchronous work environment is what can save you headaches without sacrificing the effectiveness of your team.

How I Avoid Getting Blindsided by Stakeholders

Internal conflicts in a company are nothing new, but once said conflict includes stakeholders things can get very complicated very fast. To stay ahead of potential issues, it’s important to keep the communication channels open and clear so that even technical and non-technical members of the company can see eye to eye.

Deepen Your Expertise

How to Maintain SOC 2 Compliance: A Step-by-Step Guide

Maintaining SOC 2 compliance certification is crucial to ensure your clients of your company’s security. If you need help analyzing your current compliance and preparing for upcoming audits, try following this detailed guide 

Next.js 15

Just a few days before the Next.js Conf, Vercel released the newest version of Next.js. The update features many improvements focusing heavily on stability and includes React 19 support.

Out With the Old: 3 Steps for a Successful Software Migration Plan

Software migration can be challenging even under the best circumstances. If implemented badly it might affect your company’s operations. By following these three steps you can prepare a successful migration.

What is Expo?

Why is Expo officially recommended by the React Native team as the best way to start developing cross-platform apps? Because it not only streamlines the development process but also supports your application’s future scalability without sacrificing performance. Find out more about how Expo can improve your app development process.

Increase Scalability

Unifying User Experience with a Centralized React.js Platform for the Insurance Company

Toolbox, an insurance platform created by Admiral, offers tailored solutions to micro-SME tradespeople. The company sought to enhance the user experience by unifying its digital presence into a single app. It partnered with Pagepro to develop the front end for this MVP, using React to facilitate access to its range of products and services.

How Uber Manages Petabytes of Real-Time Data

Every day Uber processes huge amounts of real-time data, which need constant oversight and management. To avoid getting overwhelmed and potentially harming their business, the company developed an ingenious way to keep their data structure scalable and optimized.

How to Use Engineering Metrics for the Success of Engineers and Teams

What you choose to measure will directly impact where your team members allocate their efforts. Engineering metrics can be a great way of measuring performance and to see where your organization has room for improvement.

How Spotify Generated Millions of Content Annotations

Spotify has scaled its content annotation process to improve machine learning and personalization, which helped them solve challenges that come with labeling massive datasets. This new process is a prime example of how automation can drive data operations in content-rich environments.

Nvidia Just Dropped a New AI Model that Crushes OpenAI’s GPT-4—No Big Launch, Just Big Results

Although Nvidia’s new AI model had a quiet release, it immediately gained attention from tech enthusiasts due to its incredible performance, which reportedly outclasses both ChatGPT 4 and Claude. Will we see a shift in the AI industry soon?

Meta Measures Developer Productivity via Software Supply Chains

Lines of code have been a benchmark of developer productivity for a long time, however, Meta doesn’t consider them a proper metric. The company has recently released a study claiming true productivity is unlocked through the software supply chain.

Just Cool

Anthropic Just Made it Harder for AI to Go Rogue with its Updated Safety Policy

Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, implemented a new safety policy, meant to stop AI from going rogue. The updated Responsible Scaling Policy focuses on high-risk areas of AI development, like the creation of bioweapons and autonomous AI research.

Let’s Stay in Touch! 📨 

Do you have any comments about this newsletter issue or questions you want to ask? Drop me a message or book a meeting.