3 Things in Tech | Intent, 0015

Intent is all about helping talent in tech become more intentional with their career by becoming more informed and more fluent about the goings-on within + around the industry. We welcome your feedback!

Hey there, Intent community! Been a while, but we’re back again. Let’s ride into this rollercoaster of a week together. Here are three quick hits to start.

Claude’s Computer Use = Game-changing

ICYMI, Anthropic released an API that “allows Claude to perceive and interact with computer interfaces” — in other words, you can send constant screenshots back to Claude to help it see your screen, and let it drive your mouse, keyboard, and operating system.

One of our favorites on Twitter, Ethan Mollick, gave Claude with computer use this prompt, plus a related video: "Hey Claude with computer use, watch this construction site video & write up things you see that dangerous or good, create a spreadsheet of critical issues to address"

Check out the result here.

We’ve seen it play Magic the Gathering, operate a phone, build and iterate on a timer app, solve CAPTCHAs, and design in Figma. Game-changing.

By the way, are you job searching? Join Free Agency’s CEO for a free, live, 30-minute workshop next week — “How to Ask Questions That Win You Job Offers.” Most people ask the same boring, repetitive questions at the end of their interviews — putting recruiters and hiring managers on autopilot. But YOU control the agenda in that moment, and Sherveen will share his 3-part framework to asking the sort of questions that will make you unforgettable. Sign up here!

Miro’s Layoffs Add to Enterprise Woes

Miro, the virtual whiteboarding startup last valued at $17.5 billion, last week announced plans to lay off 18% of its workforce (275), as reported by The Information. It comes at a time when enterprise spending is generally shifting and contracting — we saw Dropbox lay off 20% last week (TechCrunch), 10% at Docker (Layoffs.fyi), 21% at Upwork with enterprise specifically cited (Upwork), all at the tail end of October.

As companies both big and small, public and private, have cascaded into layoffs over the past 2 years, there has been a cyclical effect — SaaS providers serve other SaaS providers, and as SaaS providers reduce headcount, they need less SaaS, which means more SaaS headcount reduction… you see where this is going.

As OpenAI Goes Up, the Rest Must Come Down

Related: a super interesting piece in The Information forecasts that we'll see a reduction in spend for the rest of the enterprise and cloud application space as $$ to conversational AI goes up. CIOs of major companies are explicitly stating that they are carving out IT budget to create spending room for AI.

Beyond that, enterprise companies are beginning to craft their own custom tech to replace large software contracts — Toyota, for example, is spinning up an OpenAI-powered chatbot for internal company Q&A for the carmaker’s policies.

What happens to major vendors like Salesforce, Workday, and Atlassian as the trend continues — does a combination of LLM spend, reduction of software headcount, and custom, AI-driven internal tooling mean a greater reckoning in place for 2025+?

PS — Check out the latest episode of Three Course Founders, where two startup CEOs break bread in a NYC restaurant and talk about layoffs, employee drama, the downsides of venture capital, and adtech. Watch on YouTube, or get it on Spotify/Apple Podcasts.

That’s all for now —
Sent with Intent, by Free Agency