The Update: Fear and Mediocrity, KiCad updates, and Phishing

Keeping an active internal discussion about the things that interest us at Geocene builds trust and makes it easier to have conversations about harder topics. I summarize our most interesting internal discussions for this newsletter, so you can be a part of our community too. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

• I wrote an article about the 5 fears that lead to startup mediocrity. People create startups to avoid a career of menial mediocrity. Then, the stakes start to rise and fear of losing takes over. Paradoxically, fear drives the startup into mediocrity.

• I’ve lived this story. I quit my first job designing landing gear for Boeing and Airbus to chase a big idea. My first attempts at founding a start up started big, but sputtered. After that, I tried again but with less fear. Now Geocene has been growing for the last 7 years! I still tie my self esteem to rising above mediocrity. For good reason (I think).

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, distributed by GoComics/Universal Press Syndicate.

• Geocene is a sponsor of KiCad, and they just released version 7.0. We’re happy to use whatever system makes our clients happy. If clients ask our advice though, we’ll recommend KiCad—open source, cross-platform, free, and fast.

The iCEBreaker Bitsy open-source FPGA development board, designed by Geocene Guild engineer Piotr Esden-Tempski using KiCad. KiCad even uses Piotr’s design on their front page as an example of the beauty of KiCad!

• The electrical engineers at Geocene are amped about these new $0.10 Microcontrollers. The most expensive part of a flash microcontroller is the flash memory, so flash memory manufacturers like Puya have started making their own!
• I have been a good Bing . It turns out Bing’s new AI bot is susceptible to “prompt engineering.” It also has strong “feelings.” The Twitterverse claims the GPT-powered bot will go on very human-like tirades about obvious falsehoods. This includes denying that it is susceptible to prompt engineering.

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