Learning Brief — 2026-08-27

What we covered

• AI news: AI & Tech Developments
• PM news: From Ravi Mehta — Ravi on Product: Good taste doesn't exist
• PM learning: From Ravi Mehta — Ravi on Product: Good taste doesn't exist

Mental model

Make the next experiment small enough to learn quickly.

Summary

TechCrunch — AI: Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder who defected to OpenAI, is now at Google. Zoph, who co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside Mira Murati and also served as the startup's CTO, led a brief stint at OpenAI and is now at Google. The Verge — AI: Google’s AI note-taking app now allows you to interact with books. Google's AI note-taking app, Gemini Notebook, can now pull information from the books you've purchased. The new "Expert Intelligence" feature allows you to bring titles from Google Play Books directly into Gemini Notebook, which means you can ask questions about the material, as well as generate pla ZDNet — AI: Galaxy Z Fold 8 camera trouble? 4 settings I recommend changing now. The cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 work best when they're pushed to their limits. Here are the settings I changed to get the best results. TechCrunch — AI: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and 100 other companies call for action to defend against rogue AI. Some of the world's largest tech companies and AI startups have come together to decry the current state of cybersecurity and to advertise a new solution that they say can ward off a new generation of cyber threats. ZDNet — AI: This excellent HP laptop is nearly 50% off at Best Buy - and comes with a cheap TV. Snag the HP OmniBook 3 16-inch laptop for under $700, plus get a 43-inch Toshiba smart TV for just $99 when you bundle at Best Buy. ZDNet — AI: Apple escaped Android's 'toxic hellstew' - now Siri AI is creating a new one. Apple's new toxic hellstew is a battle over regulation, litigation, and keeping your data safe.

Today's PM news comes from Ravi Mehta — Ravi on Product. The story is Good taste doesn't exist. For a senior PM, the key takeaway is to watch how product decisions and strategy plays out in practice — not just the headline, but the reasoning behind it.

Today's PM learning comes from Ravi Mehta — Ravi on Product. The core idea is Good taste doesn't exist. What matters for a senior PM is translating the idea into a repeatable habit: define the user problem clearly, pick a metric that actually reflects value, identify the riskiest assumption, and make the next experiment small enough to learn quickly. Good PM content is rarely magic. It is usually disciplined prioritisation dressed up in nicer prose.