Each year I post a recap of the best of everything someone has written, filmed, posted, shared on the internet. l love this exercise. I always will.
As I think about this year, though, I noticed that the proliferation of poor and frankly lazy images and video into every corner of the internet. People also seem hesitant to own a corner of the internet or share their thoughts, due to fear, or suppression from an algorithm, or a rising and real censorship.
In the same vein, I’ve read some tremendous articles and blog posts this year. (I saved all of these in Obsidian, which was my most-used tech product of 2025 not named Claude Code.) Those deserves all the recognition, so here they are.
- Alice Kennedy’s article on foodie culture. I read this twice. Loved it because it was about reclaiming the meaning of words (“foodie”) more than it was about who is and isn’t worthy of writing about or speaking about food.
- Derek Thompson’s Substack reflection on how “everything is television.” Derek laments that every piece of content you see on the internet is viewed through the lens of whether it can be video. I made the same comment on Threads as I’ll make here, but he should be focused on writing MORE about Neil Postman, not less.
- Nicolaia Rips writes a blog post about why we should be killing our personal brands. We shouldn’t be commodifying every thought or pixel we put online, as it’s having the opposite effect of what you intend. Especially on Linkedin.
- Joan Westenberg (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite internet reads) dives into the difference between think vs. thick desires. I don’t want to overhype this article but it was one of my most important reads of 2026. I will be absolutely be writing handwritten letters and blogging more.
- Simon Willison’s 2025 AI recap.
- Matt Mullenweg wrote a ton of must-read posts this year, but two in succession that made me both smile and think.
The personal affection I have for Matt aside, I think one of my favorite types of posts to read in today’s political climate are posts about friends. He wrote one for his friend Om on his birthday, and one line “When you walk into a coffee shop with Om he doesn’t just know the barista’s name, he knows their dog’s name and the story of every person working there” describes a personality trait I all think we should aspire to put into the world.
The second is a wonderful share from Will Manidis on craft vs. slop, which is unavoidably going to be a theme of 2026. - I largely abandoned reading modern evangelism of personal growth. There are lots of people shilling courses, advice, and newsletters just to grow an audience. The only person in this sphere I still follow is Sahil Bloom, and he wrote a short piece in August called the Simple Question for True Mastery. It is in no small part a shift I tried to make in how I consume and create in 2025 and how I’m bringing it into 2026.
- One of my personal nominees for post of the year goes to Pete Koomen’s “AI’s Horseless Carriages.” If you are under any illusion to the contrary, this year isn’t going to be the year of growth, or the year of comms, or the year or brand. It is going to be the year of product.
And that’s good and bad news for enterprise right now. Because much of what I see being made start to fall into the trap of being horseless carriages. We need to start building products that have real utility and truly evolve them, not just bolt-on AI features no one wants. - Great substack post from Dada Drumer Almanach on thinking under fascism, particularly an interesting account of political fire that Charlie Chaplin took after his speech in the Great Dictator. A good reminder that mediocrity always fights for its existence, no matter the year.
- The quality of tech reporting has degraded a ton over the last ten years, but I’m encouraged by Nilay Patel’s stewardship of the Verge. While the audience is firmly a consumer reader, I like that they make the effort to teach a mass audience about tech. One such article is “Large Language Mistake,” a piece by Benjamin Riley.
LLMs are a transformational business product and world-changing. They’ve accelerated my career and how I work. But they are not “intelligence” even if we use AI as a shorthand. Despite the protesting of “leaders” (I use this term as loosely as its ever been used) who over-invested and overpromised in products that won’t meet their valuation anytime soon, LLMs are not intelligent. - Craig Mod’s review of “Blank Spaces” is the reason its added to my 2026 reading list.
- Ben Werdmuller explores why we need systems thinking now.
- Another Verge feature, this time on Wikipedia. Exploring its timelessness and usefulness as a result of its “boringness.” Its currently under attack by people who feel shame in others’ pursuit of a noble truth, for fear they will be found out. Lots of reporting about how Wikipedia’s traffic is down due to AI, but it lasts because it’s built on and aggressively adheres to is principles.
Enjoy these and have a wonderful start to 2026.