Andy Budd

I’ve just launched my first podcast. It’s called The Design VC. It’s about the intersection of creativity + capital, and how design shapes early-stage startups (for better and worse). First episodes: Des Traynor (Intercom), Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky, Kate Aronowitz (GV).

AI hasn’t reduce the amount of work to do, freeing up time. Instead it’s reduce the bar, allowing me to do more work I originally didn’t have the time of bandwidth to do, but now can.

2 years ago I would have filled micro-gaps in my day with a quick scan of social media and the odd post. Now i’m filling those same gaps by steering various AI agents I currently have running. Not better (or necessarily worse). But noticeably different.

This year’s FFConf is shaping up to be genuinely unmissable. So …um, you know …don’t miss it: https://2026.ffconf.org/ I’ll see you there! 🔗 https://adactio.com/notes/22807

Thanks to the AI revolution we’re moving to the world of the “Full Spectrum Designer”

See also designers and design

Could people stop emailing me for a day or two, so I can get back on top of my inbox?* * Of course I should probably stop emailing people first, so this is largely my fault.

A modern version of this? www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-e...

I literally had no idea there was a market in counterfeit vinyl. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...

My half-day workshop at design + AI in Brighton next week has sold out!

I believe that token costs have become the new Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). Rather than spending money on paid advertising, you now need to spend a ton of money giving away free tokens in the hope that users get enough value to want to pay. medium.com/the-design-v...

So Bending Spoons have just bough Miro. Curious who folks think the next most likely acquisition targets will be? Typeform, Calandly, SurveyMonkey, Webflow, Pipedrive, Dropbox?

I miss the days when social media was largely interesting people having interesting conversations about interesting things from their niche communities, and not just reposting something a fascist said, with a slightly snarky comment.

Makes me proud to be British.

I really don’t get the point of a foldable phone.

I’ll never understand the mentality of people just throwing their rubbish out their car/van window into the road. What went wrong with their upbringing?

Egrets. I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.

Anybody i know in london fancy grabbing lunch with me in soho today, give me a shout.

I recently had to replace my 6 year old iPhone Pro and honestly, on a day to day basis I’ve noticed zero difference.

Not now Krakatoa!

Why do Americans call their main dish the Entree?

when someone tells me not to use em dashes because AI uses em dashes

Glad to see the fourth and final season of Babylon Berlin is about to drop. Probably the best TV show I’ve watched in the past couple of years. Well worth your time. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Every time somebody suggests taxing the super rich, newspapers and TV pundits claim it’ll just drive rich people away. On the rare occasion those taxes are applied (like removing non dom status), the research generally shows the number of people leaving for tax reasons are negligible.

I always wondered how the world ofTerminator started. Now we know.

There once was a hitman from Sweden Who was, on the motorway, speedin’ His mark goes unwhacked, For in ironic fact, The killer’s the one who’s left bleedin’