SXSW Day 3
Posted on the A Mind at Work LinkedIn company page on 3/15/26
Day 3: Yesterday, I posted a link to a YouTube video of Amy Webb’s 2026 presentation, which I would argue is probably the most popular recurring event at SXSW. I think the organizers of the event do a great job of balancing the FOMO-driven need for attendees to be in the room with presenters against the desire not to piss off people who couldn’t get in. This year, in addition to live-streaming some of the bigger presentations, they’ve taken to broadcasting real-time audio, podcast-style, of many others. This is a great solution for panels, but not feasible for films or bands (for obvious reasons).
Back to Amy. She added several notes of see-it-to-believe-it theatricality to her speech from the jump, including the feeling that you were attending a wake when first entering the ballroom. I was wondering if, in the advent of social media platforms specifically designed for AI agents, she was about to pronounce humanity as the bereaved. Instead, upon taking the stage, she announced the “passing" of her traditional trend report, but quickly clarified that her team’s efforts from the Future Today Strategy Group would henceforth be known as the Convergence Outlook, a playbook for leaders willing to practice creative destruction on purpose to dismantle what worked yesterday before the world does it for you. She even brought in a marching band to send off the old format, New Orleans-style. That was the kind of thing that definitely plays better in the room than over a livestream or audio. Here are a few more nuggets from Day 3 sessions. (Attribution of ideas below intentionally not called quotes. I’m not a journalist, but I did my best to capture the spirit of what these folks said. Anything without attribution is all A Mind at Work.
-Sometimes you gotta burn down what you've built and make way for what the future demands -Amy Webb
-The next internet is not being made for you, it’s being made for agents -Amy Webb
-What do you call an economy that is thriving and has no use for you? - Amy Webb
-Some sessions fall into that weird, “what the fuck am I listening to” zone, including, for me, the presentation from artist Tom Sachs. Part performance art, part mockumentary, part earnest. Still processing it.
-Programs like Y Combinator are rethinking the kinds of teams they nurture in an age when services like Claude Code can work 24/7 and produce more quality code than any group of humans.