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OpenAI Births o3, Reaching the Sun on Christmas Eve, Hybrid Human-AI Teams and more

We will touch the sun on Christmas Eve.

Author

Charbel Zeaiter
December 24, 2024

Well, it’s Christmas Eve here in Sydney and of course, the world of product doesn’t completely stop. Lots in today’s email, including Apple moving into home security, UX won’t be subsumed by AI (not the human part, anyway), how to work with AI and a whole lot more.

However you celebrate this season - if you do at all, wishing you a peaceful, gentle, reflective holiday period.

Yours in Wonder and Love,
Charbel | Founder of Velvet Onion, Faster Zebra and more to come …

Today’s Highlights

  • AI: OpenAI Births o3: The Best-Performing AI Model So Far

  • Design: New Feature ✕ New Experience ✓: Raising the Bars From Feature Complexity to Seamless UX

  • Science & Tech: We Will Touch the Sun On Christmas Eve (Technically): Parker Solar Probe's Sun Mission

  • Founding: Hybrid Human-AI Teams: Catching Up With the AI Workforce Revolution

  • Product: Product Strategy Stack VS. Decision Stack: 1 Target VS 100 Day-to-Day Decisions To Hit It Right 

  • Today’s AI image: Closest to Sun: A Warm Christmas

  • Quote for the day: Why You Shouldn’t Fear Failure

AI

OpenAI Births o3: The Best-Performing AI Model So Far

OpenAI capped off their festive announcements with a bang, unveiling o3, the latest iteration of their reasoning model. Why skip straight to "o3" instead of "o2"? Turns out, they dodged a copyright kerfuffle.

Two models are in the works—o3 and o3-mini (tailored for coding). The first rollout is slated for early next year, but for now, they’re undergoing public safety trials with researchers.

Keen to test it? Applications are open.

All You Need To Know

  • Coding Whiz: o3 aces coding challenges at a level rivalling top developers worldwide.

    OpenAI’s Sam Altman cheekily noted in the launch video that just one guy at OpenAI still outcodes o3, “so he’s got a few more months to enjoy the glory.”

  • Maths Mastermind: o3 crushed the EpochAI Frontier Math benchmark, solving over 25% of the hardest maths problems—ones that take professional mathematicians days to crack.

    For context, other models barely scrape past 2%.

  • Quick Learner: On the ARC-AGI benchmark, which tests how well models adapt to tough new tasks, o3 scored over 75%.

    By comparison, no frontier model in the last five years has topped 5%.

While o3’s pricing might make most wallets flinch, it’s poised to be a game-changer in areas like academia, finance, and industry—fields where solving high-stakes problems justifies the cost.

Why is this a big deal?

While o3 isn’t AGI, its capabilities—especially in coding—mark a significant leap forward.

Software development is often bottlenecked by cost and complexity, but tools like o3 could ease those constraints. It’ll be fascinating to see how it performs in real-world scenarios and how it reshapes our approach to AI.

Also in AI

Design

New Feature ✕ New Experience ✓: Raising the Bars From Feature Complexity to Seamless UX

Ever used a product that just clicked?

You know, where everything felt so intuitive, it was like the product was reading your mind? No endless menus, no clumsy workarounds—just smooth sailing. It’s the kind of experience where you think, “Wow, this was built just for me!”

Now, think about the last time you learned a new tool.

Remember the feeling of drowning in a sea of buttons, trying to figure out where to click next?

You don’t need more features, you need a product that fits your flow. This is the magic of experience-driven design, and it all boils down to one idea:

Features shouldn’t feel like features.

Sounds simple, but this is a game-changer. It’s the difference between products that feel like an extension of you versus tools that demand you learn their quirks.

Features vs. Experiences

  • Features: The standalone functionalities that get ticked off a roadmap.

  • Experiences: Seamless, integrated actions that make users feel like they’ve been doing it all along.

When you focus on features, you’re asking users to learn your product. But when you focus on experiences, you adapt the product to how users already work.

How to Transform Features into Experiences: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Understand the Story Behind the Need
Stop asking, “What features do our users want?” Instead, ask:

  • What are they trying to accomplish?

  • Why is it important to them?

  • How does this fit into their workflow?

2. Look for Friction Points
Every time a user has to stop and think, you’ve found a friction point. Fix these before they even notice them!

3. Remove Before You Add
Here’s the tough love: Before adding new features, ask yourself if you can remove or automate existing ones. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

In the end, creating a product that users love without understanding why requires a mindset shift.

You’ll need to rethink your approach, get rid of unnecessary complexity, and focus on creating natural, intuitive experiences.

Also in Design

Science & Tech

We Will Touch the Sun On Christmas Eve (Technically): Parker Solar Probe's Sun Mission

A little Christmas cheer for space lovers: The Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that once made headlines for being the fastest thing ever built by humans, is about to do something epic.

On Christmas Eve, it will zip within a mere 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface—closer than ever before. That’s right, it’s diving straight into the Sun’s atmosphere, where temperatures will reach a toasty 2,500°F (1,371°C).

Why the Sun? Why Now?

So, why send a spacecraft to the Sun in the first place?

Well, scientists have been trying to figure out the origins of the solar wind—the stream of charged particles that flow from the Sun’s outermost layer, the corona.

This mystery has been nagging at researchers for over 50 years. The Sun’s solar wind is so crucial to the Solar System that it even causes auroras on Earth when it interacts with our magnetosphere.

The Challenge of Reaching the Sun

Here’s the catch: you don’t want your spacecraft to crash into the Sun or zoom past it at breakneck speeds.

Getting the right orbit requires a rocket that can do more than just shoot a craft in that direction—it has to precisely place it where it needs to be.

And then there’s the heat. The Sun’s atmosphere is a fiery, radiation-filled mess, so the Parker Solar Probe needed a heat shield that could withstand temperatures of over 2,500°F.

The Big Day: Christmas Eve

It’s taken years of research, testing, and breakthroughs to get the Parker Solar Probe to this point.

On Christmas Eve, it will make its closest approach to the Sun yet, finally diving into the solar atmosphere to uncover the secrets of the solar wind.

It’s a big moment for space science, and we’ll be watching to see just how well this little probe handles the heat.

Founding

Hybrid Human-AI Teams: Catching Up With the AI Workforce Revolution

Let’s trace back to a couple decades ago: 

1920s-30s: Mass Production

When we industrialised our economies with complex high-tech machinery, we were able to mass-produce goods out of fewer resources. 

Traditional craftsmen lost jobs against which opportunities emerged in factory operations, management, and industrial engineering. 

1950s-60s: Huge Computers Arrived

White-collar work increased. Clerical and manual calculation jobs vanished and to balance this abdication, jobs created in programming and operations. 

1980s-90s: Computers Grew Smaller & Personalised

Now a computer could be available per person in organisations. Result - Office work got digital. 

Typists and administrators were needed less, more IT and software guys were demanded.

1990s-2000s: All Computers Were Connected Through Internet + E-Commerce Emerged

Marketplaces digitalised. Traditional agencies suffered. Web development and digital marketing boomed. 

The Now: Man-made Brain aka AI

Mechanics up till now automated only repetitive non-intellectual tasks. Cognitive tasks were yet fully human-driven. Until we began imitating human neurological design into machines. Until we created a replica of our own intelligence. AI.

Now AI won’t completely throw humans off their job chairs. Only new chairs will be fit into the infrastructure to accommodate AI. A hybrid workplace ecosystem. 

How to stay 2 steps ahead of AI?

  1. Master the Art of Flexibility: The secret to thriving in an AI-driven world? Being tech-savvy and adaptable enough to ride the innovation wave.

  2. Learn Relentlessly: Treat skill-building as a lifelong hobby—AI won't wait for you to catch up.

  3. Sharpen Universal Skills: Creativity, critical thinking, and emotional smarts are your ultimate trump cards. AI can't steal those.

  4. Get to Know Your Digital Coworker: Understanding what AI can and can’t do is your best defence against becoming obsolete.

  5. Stay One Step Ahead: Predict shifts in your industry and position yourself as the solution before the problem even lands.

  6. Think Teamwork, Not Takeover: AI is your sidekick, not your replacement—work smarter by combining human ingenuity with machine precision. 

Product

Product Strategy Stack VS. Decision Stack: 1 Target VS 100 Day-to-Day Decisions To Hit It Right 

“We have to onboard 5 new clients this year.” 

“We gotta improve the UX of our website.”

See the difference? The first one is a quantified product goal that the team has to set sight on. A well-structured strategy to hit that target follows after. This is all product strategy stack. 

The latter one is a qualitative objective keeping which in mind, teams have to make current, more present decisions. A series of layered decisions, in fact. A decision stack.

How to Win: Product Strategy Stack & Decision Stack

Decision Stack leverages opportunities (like through Opportunity Solution Trees), focusing on trouble mapping and justification.

What to do? Approach a balance between exploring problems and linking validated solutions.

Product Strategy Stack utilises roadmap Items, pragmatically aligning strategy with implementation. Your task is to make Discovery and Delivery work explicit through visual aids like swim lanes or time horizons. 

These are tools to clarify decision-making, spot gaps, and keep all the elements in place. So it’s best to use them as complementary guides rather than rigid rules.

Today’s AI Image

Closest to Sun: A Warm Christmas

Quote of the Day

Why You Shouldn’t Fear Failure

"I don't understand why everyone is afraid of failing when it hurts so much more to miss out on everything that you dream of because you lack the courage to try."

Mel Robbins

What we’re working on

Velvet Onion & Friends

The new Velvet Onion & Friends will be launched soon. It’s our latest evolution, helping companies build products. It’s more than services.

Faster Zebra

February 2025 - the product and venture school journey begins. Whitepaper launching in January.

🧞Your wish is my command

Charbel

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