Hello everyone,
Today is a special day for me—it’s my 36th birthday! I’m currently on a holiday with my family, which can be quite the adventure, especially for those of you raising young kids.
In my previous job, there was a running joke that I would return from any trip with a brand-new grand vision for our next pivot. This time, though, things are different.
Last December, my wife and I welcomed our third child, Poppy, while I was still working at Factory. Unfortunately, she faced some health challenges that left me feeling quite burned out and overwhelmed. As a result, I decided to take a step back.
For the past seven months, I have been navigating my work life without much direction, which is very unlike me. I often find myself dreaming of projects I want to create, but I struggle to muster the motivation to see them through. More often than not, I’m dissatisfied with the outcome, leading me to abandon those ideas before they even have a chance to grow.
Ben’s Bites is the longest-running project in my portfolio, mainly because each email offers something fresh and new. I thrive on novelty but find routine draining, particularly when it feels obligatory.
With two energetic three-year-olds and an infant, balancing work as a stay-at-home dad is no easy feat. Therefore, I’ve realized it’s time to stop forcing myself into roles that don’t fit.
I plan to invest my energy into creating something authentic. This journey is meant for those who may not have a traditional tech background but are eager to explore and adopt new tools in their work and lives—much like myself.
I aim to share more of my thoughts on current events in the AI landscape, call out misinformation, and elucidate the concepts I’m currently wrestling with myself. Transparency is key for me, and I intend to maintain that openness.
I’ll also be experimenting with new initiatives. I welcome your feedback, but please remember to be kind today—it’s my birthday!
Ben’s Bites is powered by Veridect
Guardrails filter what your AI declares. Veridect governs your agent’s actions before execution. Safe choices clear instantly and for free; only the most dubious undergo thorough cross-examination—greenlight, escalate, or block decisions in about three seconds, all logged in a tamper-proof manner. Give it a shot in 60 seconds.
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Kimi K3, a new model from Moonshot AI in Beijing, has outperformed Fable and GPT-5.6-Sol on Arena’s frontend coding leaderboard and closely rivals these models in other benchmarks. This hefty model boasts 2.8T parameters but is relatively token-inefficient. It’s half the cost of GPT-5.6-Sol on a per-token basis but requires double the number of tokens compared to Sol, balancing the overall expenses.
Kimi K3 is remarkable, but its value does not match its capabilities. – Theo
It processes images, features a 1M-token context window, and will have its weights publicly released by July 27th. For now, it’s accessible through Kimi’s apps and API; however, new subscriptions have been paused due to insufficient GPUs to meet demand.
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Fable 5 is officially a part of Max and Team subscription plans for Claude. You can now use 50% of your weekly limits towards Fable. Pro accounts ($20/month) can access it through usage credits and will receive a one-time credit of $100. Fable has also discovered an example that disproves the 87-year-old Jacobian conjecture in mathematics—no big deal, right?
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offers agents that pursue business outcomes over days or months, transitioning through calls, texts, emails, and company systems. This service is charged based on outcomes, not token usage.
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NotebookLM has turned three and rebranded as Gemini Notebook. It has added Collections, a new feature that organizes notebooks by collection. Each notebook can now belong to multiple collections.
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Cursor has rebuilt SQLite using an 835-page manual through various agent swarm setups. Across multiple configurations that passed all tests, the costs varied dramatically—e.g., Opus 4.8 + Composer 2.5 cost $1,339 compared to $10,565 for GPT-5.5 alone.
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Notion AI can now browse the web for you (currently in early access).
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Ramp Router allows each request to be sent to a relevant model, saving 30% in internal costs. It includes an OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
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Yoinks is a terminal tool designed for downloading videos from X, YouTube, Instagram, and more.
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OpenShip is an open-source platform for deploying and running apps on your infrastructure.
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Lucy 2.5 from Decart AI offers live video editing in real time, with enhanced control.
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Linear Loops enables recurring workflows that the Linear Agent executes for your team.
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Rivet connects a local agent and design references, allowing you to explore multiple interface options.
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How much Ridge spends on AI presents a non-tech company’s analysis of whether token costs are a significant concern.
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12-factor companies advocate for owning your context, renting intelligence, and training agents on tasks prior to hiring.
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Building diagrams to explain databases can be done using Excalidraw charts and Cursor.
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Harness engineering presents 12 theses on designing systems around coding agents.
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Hilos is a team chat platform where individuals and coding agents can work together within the same conversation.
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Aaron created an SVG editor using Sol instead of relying on the model to generate an SVG in one go and hoping it meets his expectations. Now, both he and the model can adjust the SVG using code or settings.
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Sunil from Cloudflare presents a similar argument in his recent post: one document, two hands—you and the agent should collaboratively edit the “document” directly within an app.
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tldraw released a free, file-based desktop app for its “draw on a canvas” product. Any agent, like Codex and Claude Code, can utilize tldraw offline. This platforms allow both you and an agent to collaborate on a single document.
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The Self-Driving Company—Replit’s CEO Amjad Masad shared insights about the role agents play in various aspects of Replit’s operations.
Reflecting back, it’s clear that the world of AI continues to evolve rapidly. As we navigate these changes, I encourage everyone to share their thoughts and innovations. Your feedback and insights help shape the conversation and foster an environment for growth.
Thank you for joining me today. Here’s to more learning and exploration ahead!
* sponsors who make this newsletter possible 🙂
Wanna partner with us for the next quarter?
Email us at shanice@bensbites.com or k@bensbites.com
