John went on a Claude frenzy, and Kapow is nearly here. We reach out to bankers and learn a little bit about how their world works. John believes in benevolent dictatorships more than "flat organizations."

It feels like there's a dark cloud over web development right now. So where does Thunk fit into the future, and how do we win? We lay it all out here.

We had a very bad week. In related news, we are looking for a new client.

Our goal for 2026 is to do a good job. John wants to start doing some serious, long term business development. 

We gave ourselves raises. John is weary of AI. Daniel is using Claude skills. 

We hired someone. We set up standardized pay bands. We discuss how we use AI, and what makes a bad AI-driven pull request. We like Three Body Problem. John sang in choir. 

Marketing works. Late fees don't. John is speaking at Laracon EU! We review our OKRs and cash situation. John has more mic issues.

Our dear friend Caleb Porzio drops by for some laughs, and a retrospective on Wire:live. We discuss what went well, what could improve, and what we'll do differently next time.

Matt runs Tighten, and is a kind of big brother to us. We ask him about running agencies, building teams, hiring senior developers, and a lot more. Watch his new Laracast series "How to Build a Dev Team" now. 

Our biggest client had a problem. We tried to get out in front of it, with mixed success. Here's what we learned. Join the new social game here. Listen to John's clickbait episode about it here.