My September 2026 best business reads roundup
/if you have to read one thing (well, make it two):
A refreshing antidote to AGI countdowns. The authors reviewed decades of AI predictions and reached an uncomfortable conclusion: most weren’t even good enough to be wrong.
Does a Design Studio Still Make Sense? – Matteo Montolli, Moze
As always, my friend Matteo wrote one of the clearest explanations I've read of where value is moving for a digital agency.
/AI, Work & Reality
What It's Like To Work At An AI-Native Startup – Elena Verna
I read Elena's career like dispatches from an embedded journalist reporting from the front lines of change. I'm fascinated by her findings. I'm also somehow relieved that someone else is spending time at the front on my behalf.
Everyone’s Shipping More. Does Any of It Matter? – Claire Vo
Claire Vo is on a mission to make you write your last roadmap. Roadmaps made sense under engineering scarcity. AI changes that. When everything can be built, fast execution is no longer enough. Should we optimize for ambitious execution instead?
Nobody Knows What Programming Will Look Like in Two Years – Charles Humble, LeadDev
The developers who survived punch cards, assembly and every other platform shift weren't the ones who pivoted fastest. They were the ones who took time to figure out what actually mattered.
The Four Fits: A Growth Framework – Brian Balfour
Change was always anticipated but on a timeline that provided enough time to analyze and react. What happens when AI changes everything all at once?
/Bonus Read
Why Don't My Agents Break Containment? – Harper Reed
What happens when agentic systems stop optimizing for token efficiency and start behaving as if tokens were effectively free? More weird, technical, and interesting than most AI writing.
(Picture of the month: Miuccia Prada is deeply disappointed by the awkward debut of runway robots at Vogue World 2026, on Sep 22nd in Milan.)
Originally shared as a LinkedIn post. Check it out here.
