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Sr. Content Developer at Microsoft, working remotely in PA, TechBash conference organizer, former Microsoft MVP, Husband, Dad and Geek.
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Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Feb. 1, 2026.
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The manager of the Lake Theater & Cafe in Lake Oswego, Ore., said it was “weird” that the film even exists and “funny” to screen it at the anti-establishment theater. … Read More
Microsoft beat its own forecast. Revenue rose 17%. … Read More
Amazon posted record quarterly revenue and strong cloud growth in Q4 — but its stock fell after the company revealed its capital expenditure plans for 2026. … Read More
T-Mobile is laying off 393 employees spanning more than 200 different job titles, from analysts, engineers and technicians to directors and managers. … Read More
Software development roles account for the largest share of the layoffs, with engineering management, program management, and technical product roles also hit hard. … Read More
Seattle’s startup ecosystem has its strengths, and the city is a global AI hub. … Read More
The layoffs come amid a wave of recent cutbacks at Seattle-area tech companies. … Read More
Amazon named a new executive leader for its Selling Partner Services business, one of the most consequential parts of the company, and said the division’s current chief will become CEO Andy Jassy’s next technical advisor. … Read More
The company is taking an additional ten floors at City Center Plaza in downtown Bellevue, boosting its footprint to nearly 300,000 square feet. … Read More
Amazon’s cloud unit posted its fastest growth in more than three years, but the company’s plan to spend $200 billion on infrastructure in 2026 sent shares tumbling 10% after hours. … Read More
Copilot now shows a warning when you don’t take a break, and reminds you that you’re a human, not an AI.
Despite having a Gemini Pro and the recently launched ChatGPT Go subscriptions, I still talk to these AIs cautiously, with each prompt carefully crafted. But with Copilot, I never really cared. I ask it the most random stuff popping up in my head, and it’s partly because I know that Copilot’s free version has seemingly unlimited access.
But in spite of my apathy, Copilot cared enough to tell me to take a break from work. And how did it know that I was working? I used the Microsoft AI for some low-level research that lasted for several hours.
Then, out of nowhere, I got a pop-up at the top of the Copilot chat interface with the words “Time for a break? Copilot is an AI, but you’re not. It might feel nice to take a breather.”
Well, it indeed felt nice to take a breather. But at first, I thought Microsoft sent this notification to gently nudge me into slowing down with the prompts, as I may be nearing a daily limit. But after 5 minutes, I continued using it normally, and there wasn’t any sign of reaching a limit.
Of course, almost all modern-day cloud applications track how long a user stays on their platform, especially the AI-powered ones. But what Microsoft did with their AI is different and strategic, to say the least. I’ll explain in a bit.
I was using the web version of Copilot, and the notification was a non-intrusive pop-up at the top centre of the Copilot chat interface. There is a button to dismiss it.
It’s not like I was asking queries every minute or so. The tab was active for hours, but I prompted in Copilot every 10 or 15 minutes, and I was switching tabs all the while. From Microsoft’s end, that looks like sustained engagement with high prompt frequency and consistent interaction.
We have seen this before. YouTube shows “Take a break” reminders after long viewing sessions. Apple’s Screen Time nudges you when you exceed app limits.
Modern AI services track this kind of data by default, and I don’t expect any different from Copilot. Once your usage crosses certain internal thresholds, the system likely triggers a soft intervention. In this case, a break reminder.
To be clear, we are not sure if this is a part of Microsoft’s recently announced plans of rethinking how they push AI, and we also haven’t seen anyone else reporting on this, so far.
Either way, I like that Copilot cares, even if it has a hidden agenda. Because when the free versions of every other AI model, like ChatGPT or Gemini, or Claude, tell me that I’ll have to wait until I can use their service further, Copilot acts as if it cares and gently reminds me to rest.
Microsoft is also rolling out a steady stream of new features to keep existing users invested in the platform.
Even as Microsoft works on adding more features to Copilot, there is no denying the fact that people are just not that interested in the company’s AI efforts. Also, I always felt that Cortana had more personality than Copilot. However, the fact that it asked me to take a break from work has me intrigued.
But that’s just me, and the lack of trust in Windows is now universal. Judging by how Windows users have reacted over the past two years, that trust is still very much a work in progress.
That being said, the Windows President has promised to take initiatives to bring back trust in Windows. Also, plans to scale back on intrusive AI are a step in the right direction. Until that happens, you can safely remove AI features from Windows 11 without using any sketchy third-party tools.
The post Microsoft Copilot now reminds you to take a break from AI because you’re a human appeared first on Windows Latest
In this stream, I'm heading back to my Tachyon library to broaden its' scope to something that should end up being more general and flexible. We'll see - adventures are always fun, right?
#dotnet #csharp #roslyn
Lazar Jovanovic is a full-time professional vibe coder at Lovable. His job is to build both internal tools and customer-facing products purely using AI, while not having a coding background. In this conversation, he breaks down the tactics, workflows, and framework that let him ship production-quality products using only AI.
We discuss:
1. Why having no coding background can be an advantage when building with AI
2. Why most of your time should go to planning and chat mode, not prompting
3. What to do when you get stuck: his 4x4 debugging workflow
4. The PRD and Markdown file system that keeps AI agents aligned across complex builds
5. Why kicking off four or five parallel prototypes is the best way to clarify your thinking
6. Why design skills and taste are going to be the most important skills in the future
7. His “genie and three wishes” mental model for making the most of AI’s limitations
8. How product, engineering, and design roles are converging—and what that means for your career
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Brought to you by:
Strella—The AI-powered customer research platform: https://strella.io/lenny
Samsara—Saving lives with AI built for physical operations: https://samsara.com/lenny
WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny
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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/getting-paid-to-vibe-code
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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0
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Where to find Lazar Jovanovic:
• X: https://x.com/lakikentaki
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lazar-jovanovic
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@50in50challenge
• Starter Story course: https://build.starterstory.com/build/ai-build-accelerator?via=lazar (code LAZAR15 for 15% off)
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Lazar and professional vibe coding
(04:53) What a professional vibe coder actually does day-to-day
(09:26) Why non-technical backgrounds can be an advantage
(12:24) The importance of self-awareness
(14:42) His “genie and three wishes” mental model
(17:43) Developing taste and judgment in the age of AI
(21:46) The parallel project approach for better outcomes
(29:30) Creating dynamic context windows with PRDs
(36:56) Why elite vibe coders focus on planning, not coding
(44:43) Creating MD files to guide AI development
(50:57) Why prototyping still matters
(56:50) Why “good enough” is no longer good enough
(01:00:53) The future of engineering in an AI world
(01:05:14) What to do when you get stuck: his 4x4 debugging workflow
(01:14:27) Helping agents learn from their mistakes
(01:15:35) Why watching agent output is more important than code
(01:19:08) The incredible pace of AI development
(01:22:55) Why emotional intelligence will become more valuable
(01:28:30) How to become a professional vibe coder
(01:30:10) Why building in public is the fastest path to opportunities
(01:37:03) Final thoughts on focusing on quality over tech stack
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Referenced:
• The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna
• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company
• The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led
• 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev
• Lovable + Shopify: https://lovable.dev/shopify
• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch
• Mobbin: https://mobbin.com
• Dribbble: https://dribbble.com
• Lovable base prompt generator: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67e1da2c9c988191b52b61084438e8ee-lovable-base-prompt
• Lovable PRD generator: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67e1e85fbeac8191a69b95c6d5c42ef6-lovable-prd-generator
• Felix Haas’s newsletter: https://designplusai.com
• Bauhaus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus
• Glassmorphism: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1197106608665398190/glassmorphism
• UI style guide: http://uistyle.lovable.app
• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com
• Ben Tossell on X: https://x.com/bentossell
• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell
• Peter Thiel says AI will be ‘worse’ for math nerds than for writers: https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-ai-worse-for-math-professionals-than-writers-2024-4
• Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy
• The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google’s secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/surge-ai-edwin-chen
• Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/experts-writing-ai-evals-brendan-foody
• Slumdog Millionaire: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
—
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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Happy Superb Owl Day! As my team didn't even get close to the playoffs, I'll be rooting for the Seahawks, but even more so, hoping for a fun game. Tomorrow I head out to Vegas for my first offsite with Webflow, and the first in-person company event I've been too since Auth0 nearly a decade ago. I'm looking forward to meeting my teammates in person and meeting new people. Now - to the links!
A few months back, I traded in my Windows laptop (it was having horrible hardware issues) and moved back to Mac. I've gone back and forth over the years, and even when I was on Windows for my personal machine, my work laptop was usually a Mac, but I've decided to go back to Mac for my personal machine ... at least for a while. That being said, one of the aspects of Windows I wanted to get into more, but never got around to it, was scripting in PowerShell. I knew it had a lot of power and flexibility, but I spent most my time in WSL so I didn't really dig into it.
This post by Cassidy Williams demonstrates a simple example of this, rebuilding the touch command for PowerShell. On the offhand chance you don't know what touch does, it simply creates a new blank file with the name you specify, so touch cats.txt will create the file cats.txt in your current directory. Apparently, Windows has a command like this already, ni, but Cassidy wanted to use the same function in multiple OSes.
Next up is a look at invoker commands by Pawel Grzybak. Invoker commands let you bind HTML elements to actions without needing JavaScript, and are available across all modern browsers (even IESafari). You can extend the built-in invoker support with JavaScript as well.
Last up are the results from the annual State of JavaScript survey. This is a wide ranging survey of the JavaScript, and greater web, ecosystem. It's quite a bit of data and worth your time checking out.
Usually I reserve the "fun" link for music videos, but this was just too good to pass up. My buddy Todd Sharp discovered this a few days ago and it's a fascinating look at the history of the Japanese mail system. Trust me, it is absolutely cooler than it sounds, and a quick read at that. Enjoy!
More than Mail | The Culture and History of the Japanese Postal System
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