Dogshit

In the late 80s, a manager at Microsoft named Paul Maritz sent an email to a colleague suggesting they “eat their own dogfood.” What he meant was that LAN Manager, a product he oversaw, should get more internal use. How could they build a tool that others trusted if they didn’t trust it themselves? The term spread through Microsoft and later the tech industry. “Eating our dogfood” or simply “dogfooding” has come to mean precisely what Paul meant: using our own products. (Paul was likely inspired by popular Alpo commercials from a decade earlier, in which actor Lorne Greene claimed to feed his own dogs Alpo). If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for the consumer. Software companies using their own products isn’t just good for testing and development; it’s good for business. Except when it comes to training AI models. And that’s something I think you should keep in mind when you start hearing about all the watermarking taking place right now and in the future. Watermarking is a…