Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky

236. Somaliland in the News. A look back at this innovative country.

I visited Somaliand in 2011. One thing I learned is how they had bootstrapped their own "mobile money" on feature phones. Here's the detailed trip…

Dec 27 • Steven Sinofsky

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2025 Books: Reading, Learning, Thinking (235)

Books I read in 2025 and capsule reviews. Reading is good. Read more.

Dec 11 • Steven Sinofsky

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July 2025

234. If Writing is Thinking…

Then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?

Jul 21 • Steven Sinofsky

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June 2025

233. "The Illusion of Thinking" — Thoughts on This Important Paper

This is a fantastic paper. I just love it. tl;dr AI is not human. Anthropomorphization has been bad for AI, LLMs, and Chat. Clippy walked so today's AI…

Jun 8 • Steven Sinofsky

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May 2025

232. From Typewriters to Transformers: AI is Just the Next Tools Abstraction

AI is a tool-driven revolution. That’s why it unnerves people. Freeman Dyson said in 1993, “Scientific revolutions are more often driven by new tools…

May 30 • Steven Sinofsky

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April 2025

231. When It Comes to Tariffs, China is Different

Much has been made of tariffs, but few have talked about the myriad of soft costs when it comes to international trade. Sharing my personal experience…

Apr 9 • Steven Sinofsky

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March 2025

230. MCP - It's Hot, But Will It Win?

There's a long history of "middleware" in our industry. Everyone wants it. There's always a hot one, but it rarely makes to the finish line and often…

Mar 28 • Steven Sinofsky

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229. "Tech Goes Hardcore" ... Again.

Our industry is cyclic but the latest wave of efficiency harkens back to the time when companies told us not to be penny wise v. pound foolish. It…

Mar 25 • Steven Sinofsky

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January 2025

228. DeepSeek Has Been Inevitable and Here's Why (History Tells Us)

DeepSeek was certain to happen. The only unknown was who was going to do it. The choices were a startup or someone outside the current center of US AI…

Jan 27 • Steven Sinofsky

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227. CES 2025: An Abundance of (AI) Experimentation

CES proved a transition year with many established product lines showing incremental improvements or focusing on B2B areas and new product lines showing…

Jan 13 • Steven Sinofsky

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Remembering Mike Maples, Sr.

The computer industry lost a legendary executive this week with the passing of Mike Maples, Sr.

Jan 10 • Steven Sinofsky

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December 2024

225. Systems Ideas that Sound Good But Almost Never Work—"Let's just…"

Some engineering patterns that sound good but almost never work as intended

Dec 28, 2024 • Steven Sinofsky

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