When @zachlloydtweets noticed senior engineers were reluctant to adopt AI tools @warpdotdev, he rolled out a specific new policy: Every coding task needs to start with a prompt. Including his own. Lloyd still ships code weekly and personally only codes by prompt now. “If I’m asking all the engineers on my team to change how they’re working, it helps them to see that I really believe it — and that I can actually do it. Otherwise, I’m just another CEO who wants them to follow the AI fad.” He goes into much more detail about how the policy works and what he’s personally learned after 3 months, including: -Why you should avoid “outcome-based prompting” at all costs -How to adopt a “10-minute rule” that lets devs bail out if it’s wasting time -Why babysitting > one-shotting -Tips for ensuring accountability and code quality -His takes on how the job of an engineer is evolving Full essay below.

We’re ready to add to our team at Alt Cap! We love being a small team and want to stay small-ish forever, but we have more to do these days than we can manage so it’s time to grow. A bit about us: - We’re investing out of our $275M fund II in San Francisco; mostly seed and series A, but there are no hard and fast rules. We just want to build something great and work with founders who inspire us. - We love what we do; we could (and do) talk about startups and venture all day. For better or for worse, our work lives and personal lives are deeply integrated and we’re thrilled about it. - Joy comes before excellence. We want to be as good as possible at what we do conditioned on it never coming before loving our work and our lives. We strongly believe you can have both. - We think fortune favors the bold, that a small number of things make most of the difference, and special people are what make special things happen. - We’re highly independent people who love our time together. No one here wants to be told what to do, but no one here is a lone wolf. We think, grow, and improve as a team. A bit about you: - You’re friendly and empathetic, but you’re competitive and want to be great. - You’re a student of startups and business. You know a little about a lot in tech, and when you don’t understand something that you can tell is important you’re driven to learn about it. - You value signal over noise. You don’t like being busy for the sake of being busy, you prioritize sanity for yourself and people around you. You’re okay to be patient and wait for great. - You never root against a company under any circumstance; you have a deep respect for what every founder is pouring into their startup. - You’ve done some work (maybe you were a founder or a VC before) but your glue isn’t dry and you strongly feel that your formative work years are still ahead of you. - You’re highly flexible and want a fun journey more than a particular destination. - You’re allergic to the politics of deal attribution and just want to win as a firm. - You’re motivated to be hugely successful, for whatever reason is meaningful to you. If you or someone you know might be a great fit please get in touch!

My goal when I became a full time investor was to be the type of partner I would have most wanted during my time building a company: someone who had done the work I was doing before, who had the network to help me reach my goals faster, and who had my back no matter what. I’m really happy to share that we’ve raised Alt Cap II, a $275M early stage fund. We backed ~20 companies at Seed and Series A in Alt Cap I. The new fund will be the same structure with a bit larger checks. But mostly we just want to be in business with people who inspire us. There’s no way to say it without sounding cheesy but it’s true; I feel unbelievably lucky to do this job in the way I get to do it. A special thanks to the founders that let us back them in Alt Cap I, you all are what it’s all about for me!