🙌 Welcome aboard the newest edition of Sync-In, your go-to P@CMU biweekly newsletter! Join us as we explore groundbreaking happenings in the tech and startup universe, diving into cutting-edge product innovations, thought-provoking insights, and invaluable career wisdom. Stay tuned and let's dive in.
✨ This week in SYNC IN
🚀 Innovation at Big Corp
Apple Vision Pro: Pioneering the Era of Spatial Computing
🌟 Productivity Tool
Supercharge Your Team with Notion Projects: The Ultimate Productivity Suite
💡 Interesting Idea
Marc Andreessen: Will AI Save the World?
🚀 Apple Vision Pro - Pioneering the Era of Spatial Computing
Have you watched the demo video of Apple Vision Pro? If not, take 10 minutes of your time and watch it. Trust us, it’s worth it. 👇
Are you excited about Apple's new Vision Pro device? Vision Pro introduces the world's first spatial operating system, visionOS, along with 12 cameras, 5 sensors, and 6 microphones. Vision Pro allows virtual interfaces to appear physically present in real space. We can interact through eye movement, gesture, and voice, enabling an immersive experience with movies, apps, and photography.
While promising to revolutionize how we interact with digital content, its $3,499 price tag gives us pause — these features alone aren’t enough to convince us that Vision Pro is worth the cost.
Something seems to be missing: the killer use case that demonstrates Vision Pro’s full potential and why we truly need this device. Before dismissing Vision Pro’s significance though, let’s reflect on the original iPhone launch.
When the iPhone debuted in 2007, many doubted its necessity and $399 price. Yet the iPhone introduced breakthrough technologies - multi-touch displays, accelerometers, web browsing - that enabled life-changing use cases we now can’t live without. Apps, social media, ride-sharing, and more were all built upon the iPhone’s capabilities.
Developers and entrepreneurs recognized the potential of mobile computing and gradually explored different ideas until we obtained the incredible applications like Instagram, Uber, and Spotify that we use daily. Apple provided a platform for application innovation and fostered a robust ecosystem to support developers.
As Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted on the interview with Good Morning America,
"It's not about one thing, it is a platform. And so we can't wait to unleash it to the developers so they can begin to work on applications for it."
Software and platforms, not just hardware, are crucial to Apple’s business model. A 2013 essay on Apple’s network effect noted:
The key to understanding Apple's strategic business model is that Apple has always been a software and software platform company first. Apple uses state-of-the-art hardware to maximize the customer's experience and to capture the maximum profit from product sales, but the "secret sauce" is the software.
Apple's primary strategic goal is to become the dominant mobile computing platform. They are accomplishing this by providing the most opportunity to the platform's stakeholders.
Now, in 2023, Apple achieved this goal. The App Store connects over 650 million weekly users and over 900 million subscriptions. Developers have earned $320 billion since 2008.
How did Apple succeed?
Apple’s reputation for exceptional hardware and software attracts customers.
Customer demand spurs developers to create innovative apps enhancing the experience.
The App Store provides a venue for developers to showcase and monetize software.
This cycle perpetuates Apple’s allure as outstanding hardware, software, and apps satisfy customers. This model made Apple the most profitable mobile platform for 15 years.
As Vision Pro kicks off the spatial computing era, the same cycle may repeat. Once Apple builds support for developers to create for Vision Pro, innovations will emerge, revealing why we need it. The best use cases of spatial computing remain unimagined, as the iPhone’s potential was once unclear.
Vision Pro’s cost seems a downpayment on a transformative device proving essential over time. Its capabilities could reshape digital life in unforeseen ways, as the iPhone enabled the modern app economy. Vision Pro may be the next platform revolutionizing computing through spatial interfaces, intuitive controls, and mixed reality. Its killer use case has yet to be developed—by those grasping and building on its promise.
Are you excited about Vision Pro and the possibilities of spatial computing?
💡 How do you envision spatial computing reshaping our day-to-day interactions with technology, personal relationships, work productivity, entertainment, and education?
🌟 Supercharge Your Team with Notion Projects: The Ultimate Productivity Suite
Notion recently unveiled an exciting update: Notion Projects.
This release fuses robust project management with documents, knowledge bases, and AI. Now teams can organize tasks, specs, meeting notes, and more without toggling between tools.
If you are new to Notion, feel free to check out the promotion page they have here.
Notion Projects offers these features:
Roadmap management across teams: Visualize timelines and spot dependencies to keep everyone aligned before issues arise.
Task management with subtasks: Deconstruct projects into bite-sized pieces and clearly designate responsibilities so nothing slips through the cracks.
Custom database views: Quickly filter and sort to surface the signals that matter most, regardless of database scale. This flexibility lets you focus on what's important.
Automated sprints (beta): Clearly visualize sprints, link tasks to roadmaps, and streamline planning to move fast without breaking things.
Notion AI: Automate tedious work to give you back precious time. Focus on high-level thinking instead of monotonous tasks.
As a longtime Notion power user, P@CMU leverages Notion Projects to gain visibility across initiatives and move faster. Here are two examples:
📝 Task Planning and View Toggling for Flawless Launch
P@CMU runs a mentorship program connecting on-campus students and alumni. Through this program, alumni share career insights, lessons learned, and growth opportunities with students. Launching this program was no small feat, so we tapped into Notion's group feature to develop thoughtful sprints.
Notion lets you toggle between views, like a Kanban board showing each party's responsibilities. This 30,000-foot view ensured all bases were covered before launch, so we could avoid last-minute scrambles.
🎧 Streamlining Podcast Productions
P@CMU hosts a podcast featuring product and entrepreneurship leaders. Wrangling busy speakers with clashing availabilities was chaotic until we built a Notion database to track speakers, deadlines, and timeline progress.
This has served us well because:
It gives us a clear glance at task allocations and ownership
It displays next deadline dates, which made it easier to follow up
It clearly outlines the remaining steps to move on to the next step
Further, now with the subtask feature on Notion, we can easily create documentation below the main task, keeping the database organized.
Wish to learn more about Notion? Fara & Chloe are Notion Ambassadors at CMU and have created this amazing CMU official page, check it out :)
💡 Think about the potential benefits of having all your project-related resources (like meeting notes, tasks, docs) in one place. How could this shape your team's communication and coordination?
🌍 Biggest Risk or Biggest Opportunity?: Will AI Save the World?
To conclude this issue, we would like to share insights from Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), a leading venture capital firm.
Andreessen is renowned for his 2011 article "Software is Eating the World," in which nearly all predictions have come to pass. Given his respected views on business and tech, Andreessen offers a refreshing take on AI.
Amid the widespread concerns surrounding AI and the growing perception of AI risks being on par with nuclear warfare, as highlighted in a recent proposal signed by AI leaders including Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI), Dario Amodei (CEO, Anthropic), and Demis Hassabis (CEO, Google DeepMind), Andreessen offers a contrasting viewpoint. He emphasizes the positive changes that AI can bring to the world.
According to Andreessen, AI presents a unique opportunity to significantly enhance human intelligence, boost productivity, and elevate our quality of life. Here are a few examples of what he envisions in the new era of AI:
Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful. The AI tutor will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.
Every person will have an AI assistant/coach/mentor/trainer/advisor/therapist that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful. The AI assistant will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcomes.
Productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth, and resulting in a new era of heightened material prosperity across the planet.
Scientific breakthroughs and new technologies and medicines will dramatically expand, as AI helps us further decode the laws of nature and harvest them for our benefit.
The creative arts will enter a golden age, as AI-augmented artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers gain the ability to realize their visions far faster and at greater scale than ever before.
But what about the concern that AI will replace jobs?
Andreessen argues that AI, if allowed to develop and permeate throughout the economy, may lead to the most significant and sustained economic boom in history, accompanied by record job creation and wage growth. This stands in direct opposition to the prevailing fear.
The misconception that when a new technology emerges, such as outsourcing in the 2000s or automation in the 2010s, it will inevitably lead to widespread unemployment is known as the "Lump of Labor Fallacy." This fallacy is rooted in the belief that there is a fixed amount of work to be done in the economy at any given time, leading to the assumption that humans will be replaced by machines if machines can perform all the labor.
However, as technologies like AI increase productivity and drive down the price of goods and services, people will have more money to spend on other goods and services which creates new demands, new industries, and thus new jobs.
Instead of succumbing to the fear of job loss due to AI, let's embrace AI tools as valuable assistants that enhance our productivity. As individuals, we can venture into new realms, experimenting with tasks like writing and drawing that may have seemed daunting before. Likewise, as product managers, we have the opportunity to explore innovative use cases for AI, creating products and solutions that truly make people's lives easier. By adopting this forward-thinking mindset, we can tap into the transformative power of AI, unlocking our full potential and driving progress in diverse fields.
For more insights on AI risks and Andreessen's perspective, I encourage you to read the original article.
💡 Consider the implications of AI within your career or industry. Does it pose a risk to your current career, or do you view it as a tool for enhancing work productivity and fostering creativity?
Thanks for reading this week’s Sync In by P@CMU! The editors behind this work is Head of Newsletter at P@CMU Alina Fang, Yize Shen, Chloe Yan, Fara Yan.
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