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Rough Notes, Feb 22, 2026: Agents, Clawdbot Collapse, Microsoft as Exxon, etc.

A digest of recent Rough Notes from the site

Rough Notes, Feb 22, 2026: Agents, Clawdbot Collapse, Microsoft as Exxon, etc.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash

Here are recent rough notes from the site.

1.
Harness Engineering Managing LLMs with Orchestration Tools

While I'm on the topic of agentic coding, good piece on "harness engineering", which I've sometimes analogized as having a terrific nanny (orchestration tool) managing myriad bratty kids (LLMs). I maintain the software is unique in the steep gradient descent, deterministic feedback loops, etc., making it less of an exemplar than some think, still worth scanning.

https://www.ignorance.ai/p/the-emerging-harness-engineering

Feb 22 · Permalink →
2.
Google Search Trends Reveal Clawdbot Coding Interest Collapse

The brief explosion of interest among normals in coding agents a few weeks ago has largely subsided, so it's worth taking a look at the numbers. Claude Code, Codex, and, in particular, Clawdbot, all jumped higher on Google search, and are now lower—full collapse in the case of Clawdbot. These tools may be taking over coding, but normals are still (rightly) puzzled.

Feb 22 · Permalink →
3.
Microsoft price-earnings multiple converges Exxon

Perhaps proving the IT capex intensity point I made earlier, Microsoft's price/earnings multiple has now converged with that of oil company Exxon.

Feb 21 · Permalink →
4.
US IT investment hits multidecadal high

The US is now, unsurprisingly, at a multidecadal high wrt IT investment as a percent of GDP. Large cap tech, is, if nothing else, now a capex-intensive business with large and growing maintenance capital requirements. One wonders what that's worth, and it isn't historical multiples.

Feb 21 · Permalink →