I’m Daniel. Together with my co-founder Matt, we are building Inanimate - devices and a platform to transform any home or workplace into an agentic environment. 

This is Lab Notes - a record of our work as we build and ship Inanimate. What influences, informs, and inspires us; and maybe you too.

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Here’s what’s been happening this week.

…for the next two weeks. So if you are in town, and wanna meet, reply!

We’ve been designing our New Product Development process - from idea through production to a product in your hands.

How do we do things around here? We’re defining the values and culture of Inanimate. 

We have printed sweatshirts that look like Carhartt WIP staples. We have intricately embroidered headgear (90s dad-cap and 00s six-panel). And we have stickers - coming to a laptop or bathroom stall near you! 

We have new prototypes and we have new features live on the platform.

Here’s what’s been influencing and inspiring me this week.

Culture shifts, trends emerge, as waves move in and out of fashion. Koto are a team that understand and act on this. Long-time collaborators of mine, Koto are one of the best (and nicest) creative agencies in the game. Their “2026 INs & OUTs” is a playful, but deeply insightful look at The Now. 

What’s In? Indulgence. Mysticism. Friction. Humanmade.

What’s Out? Groupthink. Corpcore. Distraction. Bland & Beige.

For more, I love the insights and chaotic vibes of frontier social agency OK COOL and their “Let Them Eat Lore” report. Internet culture is now (back) in the comments. 

Also - whatever happened to Vice Do’s & Don’ts (probs. NSFW)? Sigh.

Don’t call it punk, call it New Wave Hardware. This new wave of hardware devices don’t feel like general purpose computers or IoT. They are created for the AI Age.

Interfaces for models, surfaces and end points for agents. Robots that don’t move. Glasses that augment the user, not the world. Computers you can walk into (and away from).

This is very early. There is a lot to figure out. Here are some projects and teams we like and are tracking. They range from open source hackers to mainstream Big Tech. This is not an exhaustive list. We will share more as we discover them.

New waves of technology bring new thinkers and new ideas. Many new ideas are weird, not all are good. 

Writer Sam Kriss went to Silicon Valley to meet Roy Lee (of Cluely), Scott Alexander (rationalist, Astral Codex Ten & AI 2027), Donald Boat (neo- folk hero), and Eric Zhu (erm…).

His article for Harpers is a gonzo journey through AI Era Silicon Valley, and it is immense fun.

Head down, headphones on, in the office. People are listening to more ambient music.

Caterina Barbieri’s music is “minimalist in arrangement, her compositions are highly vibrant and luminous, twisting patterns of radiant tones into complex yet accessible soundscapes reflecting on time and space”. Her new collaboration - “At Source” - with saxophonist Bendik Giske is incredible.

Listen on Spotify / Apple Music.

There is a man called Scott who works on the lighthouses that surround the British Isles. These lighthouses are unmanned, but they require maintenance. Scott creates videos to inspire young people about the variety of interesting jobs out in the world. And the videos are lovely. 

The title is from the poem “The Lighthouse” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I’ll keep a weekly rhythm for a while, see how it goes. Too frequent? Don’t go - let me know!

Until then

Daniel