In February 2004 Elon Musk wrote the check that put Tesla Motors on the road: $6.5 million of a $7.5 million Series A, plus the chairman's seat. He led the next round in February 2005. He co-led the $40 million round in May 2006 that brought in Larry Page and Sergey Brin. That August he published The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan on the company blog, a sports car to pay for an affordable car, and so on down to the mass market. He pushed for the Roadster's carbon fiber body. By January 2009, Bloomberg reported, he had put $70 million of his own money into the company. CNBC still wrote this on September 10, 2018: "Though Musk didn't found Tesla, his DNA is very much a part of the company." Read the very next sentence of the same article: "He was one of its original investors and chairman of the board in 2004 before becoming CEO in 2008." Original investor. Chairman in 2004. CNBC typed both facts and still filed him under "didn't found." That question had been settled nine years earlier, in court and in writing. In 2009 Martin Eberhard sued, and one of the things he asked a San Mateo County judge for was a declaration that he and Marc Tarpenning were the only two founders. In July the judge struck that request. In September the case was settled and Tesla named five co-founders: Eberhard, Tarpenning, Elon Musk, JB Straubel and Ian Wright. Eberhard's own statement that day: "As a co-founder of the company, Elon's contributions to Tesla have been extraordinary." The man who went to court over the title called Elon Musk a co-founder in his own words. A business network still decided it knew better. Elon Musk has told his side too. In April 2022 he wrote that the Tesla he walked into was "a shell corp" with "literally nothing but a biz plan to commercialize AC Propulsion's Tzero car, which was introduced to me by JB Straubel, *not* Eberhard." Then: "If filing a shell corp constitutes 'founding a company', then I'd be the only founder of PayPal, since I filed the original incorporation docs for (later renamed PayPal), but that's not what founding means." And the line that says the most: "I put in all I had, whereas Eberhard, who was worth over $10M at the time, refused to invest a penny to help Tesla." So why slip a false founder line into a 2018 piece? Look at the headline it sat under: "Musk's defiant, rebel CEO persona is putting his company and its investors at risk, say management experts." The article argued Tesla needed "someone to help keep Musk in line." Shrink his role at the birth of the company and it gets much easier to argue he is replaceable at the top of it. Legacy media has been running that play on Elon Musk for years. Tesla closed at $19.03 a share, split-adjusted, the day that story ran. On November 9, 2026 it closed at $378.05. The investors CNBC's experts were so worried about made nearly twenty times their money by keeping him exactly where he was.

robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 is one of the tokens I’ve been asked about the most today It ran from a small cap to over $50M MC, before correcting back to around $25–30M The narrative is genuinely interesting, but this move didn’t happen because of one single factor Let’s break down what’s actually behind robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 1. It all started with real research The first thing I like about robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 is simple : The narrative existed before the token On September 3, Google Research, HHMI Janelia, Cambridge, and other research groups published the connectome of the adult male fruit fly’s central nervous system The original scientific dataset contains roughly 166K neurons and ~125M synapses This is a real scientific milestone, not something the robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 team made up to create lore for a memecoin There’s one detail worth clarifying because CT has been mixing this up The simulation on the robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 site doesn’t run the entire ~125M synapses directly. After filtering out weaker connections with fewer than 3 synapses, the graph being used contains roughly 10.2M connections So the distinction is : ~125M synapses = the original scientific dataset ~10.2M connections = the filtered graph used in the simulation Things got more interesting after the research became public Developers started experimenting with the fly connectome in environments like Minecraft, Doom, Mario, etc A fairly niche neuroscience topic suddenly became an internet meme that anyone could understand : “We mapped the wiring of a fly brain. What happens if we put it inside a computer and let it play games?” And robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 appeared right as this narrative started going viral 2. But what does a “fly brain living on the internet” actually mean? This is something I think people need to understand properly before getting bullish robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 is not a conscious fly living onchain, and it’s not an LLM-based AI Agent that can think for itself, read X, and decide what to trade A connectome is basically a wiring diagram of the nervous system The project uses that wiring to simulate neural activity, then maps different inputs and outputs into interactions with an environment For example, visual input from a browser can be converted into stimuli for the simulation, while certain descending neurons can be mapped to actions like moving forward, backward, left, right, or clicking Put simply : It doesn’t “read” a website the way we do. It reacts to inputs through a neural model built from a real connectome Some parts still require human/script assistance So if the narrative becomes : “A living fly brain is independently trading and launching memecoins” I think that goes further than what the project is actually doing But I don’t think that makes the idea less interesting If anything, the differentiator here is the real biological wiring The market already has countless projects taking an LLM, attaching a wallet to it, and calling it an AI Agent A simulation built around a real connectome naturally creates much more curiosity 3. From a science experiment to a stock meme This is where the crypto side gets interesting robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 was launched on Robinhood Chain through Pons and paired with GOOGL I think the way the narrative is packaged is pretty smart Google Research is directly connected to the original scientific story Robinhood Chain already has a stock/tokenized-stock meta And Pons allows memes to be paired with stock-linked assets So everything connects pretty naturally : Google => Fly Brain => GOOGL => Robinhood Chain => Stock Meme That makes robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 more than just another “fly meme” It sits right at the intersection of science, neuroscience/AI attention, internet memes, the stock meta, and Robinhood Chain I think that’s one of the main reasons it was able to expand so quickly 4. Where is all the attention coming from? This is where I think the narrative is quite different from a typical memecoin The attention is basically forming across three layers The first is science/mainstream The research is real, and names like Google Research, Janelia, and Cambridge are genuinely behind the original scientific work The biggest account pushing the underlying research that I found was @NewsFromGoogle, whose MaleCNS post reached around 13M views based on the data I checked Polymarket also posted about the milestone of mapping more than 166K neurons But this distinction matters : Google and Polymarket are talking about the research. They are not endorsing robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 I only see this as evidence that the underlying narrative has grown beyond the neuroscience community The second layer is internet virality Accounts like @evnschlr, @jbohnslav, @nftecchie_ and @sainimatic have posted fly-brain-related experiments/content that reached millions of views They are not shilling the token either But they are doing something important: repeatedly putting the “fly brain” concept back onto people’s timelines The final layer is crypto attention One major catalyst was Marc Andreessen following the project’s official account That’s obviously a meaningful signal for a new meme, but again, it needs to be framed correctly : pmarca followed the account. He did not tweet the ticker or endorse the token robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 has also started appearing on the timelines of crypto accounts such as @CryptoGorilla, @fuelkek, along with Chinese CT accounts and traders within the Robinhood ecosystem I don’t really care who bought early or how much anyone made What matters to me is that attention from the broader fly-brain narrative has started being funneled toward the actual robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 ticker The flow looks pretty clean : Science creates the narrative => the internet turns it into viral content => crypto starts capturing that attention into a ticker Google doesn’t need to tweet robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 As long as the internet keeps talking about fruit fly brains, and robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 remains the main token representing that story in crypto, it can still benefit from attention coming from outside the market With memes, I care more about who owns the narrative in the market’s mind than simply counting how many KOLs are shilling it 5. A good narrative still needs good token data At the end of the day, this is still a memecoin Based on the data I checked, supply is 1B, tax is 1/1, and the creator had already collected roughly $329K in fees at the time I checked Holders have grown to around 8K+, while 24H volume has reached tens of millions of dollars One thing I’m watching closely is that liquidity isn’t particularly deep relative to its volume and valuation That cuts both ways When attention is strong and capital keeps flowing in, price can expand extremely quickly But once attention flips, the downside can be just as violent So I don’t want to see $30M, $40M, or $50M in volume and automatically conclude that demand is strong For something like this, I want to look at : Volume + liquidity + holder growth + distribution + sell pressure The narrative determines whether people want to look at the token The structure determines whether I actually want to put money into it 6. The problem now is that a lot of catalysts are already priced in This is probably the most important part if you’re looking at robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 at its current valuation The paper is already public Google has already pushed the research to millions of people Fly-brain experiments have already gone viral pmarca has already followed Crypto KOLs and CT have already discovered the token And the chart has already expanded from a small cap to over $50M MC Copycats are starting to appear too So if your thesis for buying here is still : “Google mapped a fly brain + pmarca followed.” I think you’re a little late The market has already traded those catalysts At $1M or $3M, a strong narrative alone can sometimes create a great asymmetric bet At $25–30M, the question has to become : What hasn’t the market priced in yet? And that’s where I start looking at the next catalysts The first is the olfactory/smell feature The team is working toward expanding the simulation into olfaction. If they can turn that into a visually compelling demo, for example mapping tokens, markets, or environments into inputs the fly can “smell,” I think that could create another wave of content Not because it suddenly gives the token massive utility But because if a meme wants to stay alive, it needs a new reason for the market to talk about it again The second catalyst is more convincing web/onchain interaction The “fly launched its own coin” lore is great, but there is still human/script assistance involved If the team can push the experiment further, show clearer live logs, and have the fly browse, click, or interact with an onchain environment in a more convincing way, I’d value that catalyst much more than another KOL follow The third is a second science/media wave This research is still fresh If Google, Janelia, the neuroscience community, gaming community, or mainstream media continue producing new experiments around it, robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 can keep benefiting from indirect attention without any of them mentioning the token But the biggest catalyst for me is much simpler : Can robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 become the default ticker for the entire fly-brain narrative? If dozens of copycats appear but people still think of robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 first whenever someone says “fly brain coin,” then it has built a form of attention moat At that point, copycats can almost become free marketing for the original That’s what could turn this from a runner that lasts a few days into a narrative with a much longer lifespan 7. What does the risk/reward look like here? This is where I start getting more cautious The narrative is strong, but the narrative premium is no longer cheap At $25–30M, the market has already priced in the research, viral clips, the pmarca follow, and some expectation that robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 will become the main runner of this narrative At the same time, the token doesn’t yet have enough utility/value accrual to create a clear valuation floor, liquidity still needs to be watched, copycats are appearing, and attention on Robinhood Chain rotates extremely quickly There’s another risk that I think could easily become FUD later : A connectome is not the same thing as a conscious brain If the market starts telling the story as “a living fly brain autonomously launching and trading coins,” expectations will move far beyond what the product actually does When the chart is green, nobody cares When the chart gets weak, things like human assistance, scripting, and the limitations of the simulation can quickly get turned into FUD So from here, I want to see whether the team keeps shipping real experiments or just keeps recycling Google + pmarca to maintain attention 8. My chart view and plan On the chart, robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 made an almost vertical expansion to over $50M MC, before correcting roughly 40–50% back into the mid-$20M range Personally, I don’t like chasing around $25–30M after a move like that If buyers continue absorbing supply, volume resets, and price reclaims $30M+, I’d view the structure as much healthier If it corrects further, $18–22M is the first area where I’d start watching closely The $12–15M range becomes more attractive from a risk/reward perspective if the narrative is still alive and robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 remains the main runner But I’m not trading an entry based on MC alone If it’s at $15M but volume is dead, the official account stops shipping, and attention has moved somewhere else, then $15M is still expensive On the other hand, if the team ships a strong new catalyst and the market reclaims structure, I don’t necessarily need to wait for an exact number either What I’m watching is : Price + volume + attention + what the team is actually shipping If volume collapses, holder growth stalls, the team stops building, robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 loses its main-runner position to a copycat, or the entire Robinhood meta rotates elsewhere, my thesis changes very quickly 9. Final thoughts If I’m rating the idea/narrative alone, I’d rate robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 pretty highly Not simply because “AI + crypto” sounds good The sequence is what makes it interesting : Science happened first => the internet made it viral => the token appeared afterward to capture the attention I like that structure much more than launching a token first and then paying KOLs to manufacture lore around it But robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 is not a hidden gem anymore It has already made a huge move, ATH was above $50M, CT has discovered it, and most of the obvious catalysts have already happened So the bull case from here has to come from something new That could be the olfactory feature, a new demo, more convincing web/onchain interactions, another science/media wave, or ideally robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 establishing itself as the default ticker for the fly-brain narrative If those things continue getting validated, I think a second leg is absolutely possible But if the team stops shipping and the official account just keeps recycling the Google + pmarca story while volume starts bleeding, I’m not going to marry the bag just because the original idea was good TL;DR : I’m bullish on the robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 narrative, but at the current valuation I’m not interested in FOMO it From here, I’m not watching the catalysts that already pumped the chart I’m watching what the team ships next that gives the market a reason to talk about robinhood:0x4eb990547bce4a982432ca88cf5fae7eed1a2d35 all over again 0x4Eb990547BCe4a982432CA88Cf5fae7EED1A2d35

starknet is down about 20% today and i’m seeing a lot of takes that go something like: “everyone had to buy an absolute shitcoin like starknet over the weekend, and when garbage like that pumps you know the move is over and crypto is about to correct.” people can think that, it’s fine. what’s funny is a lot of the same people were bullish last night on a strong weekly close. my read on most of those posts is: “tell me you missed the move without telling me you missed the move” the token went 2.5x in five days. so yes, it’s off the high on a day when the whole market is red. after a move like that i’d be more surprised if it didn’t pull back. it’s coming into the 9c area, which looks like support to me. it could go a good bit lower than that and the structure would still look fine. and that’s only the chart. the reasons i bought it around 4 cents are all still there: the quantum angle, the privacy narrative, the team talking about becoming a layer 1, and more in the pipeline. i said in the original post that if this got going it would be a hated rally. seems about right so far.

OMG - this made my day: the amazing @Grimezsz follows me!! 🥹💗 What a wonderful surprise. I feel inspired—and more empowered already. ✨ Can’t wait to keep learning from your wildly original mind, Grimes. And I’d absolutely love to do an in-depth interview with you, hopefully soon! Let’s talk! 😻 🫶

Day 9 of making an autonomous G1 Bartender. It appears that when trying to transfer a policy from sim to real, the joints moved too quickly. I thought that this was a simple fix and to just create an adapter to move the joints below a certain threshold but there needed to be a lot more converting than anticipated. I went back to the sim -> behavior cloning -> humanoid movement copies -> astra controlling the G1 and realized that the original ~67 samples that were provided had really bad flicks and that we may need to redo the entire process. I made astra generate a new episode of picking up a can in sim and tested it out on the G1. After changing the limitations that astra set on the joint limits, I finally got the G1 to move acording to the controlled sim (not policy). Now I'll be generating ~30 episodes with astra and restart the entire training process. The majority of the morning was spent redesigning sim to real. I kept asking what the inputs to the policy were and astra constantly told me that it was RGB-D (i thought normal images + depth), joint velocities, accelerations, and their position (the robot knows this in real life too). But there was actually an entire processing step trying to get the hand to can locations and the RGB image was not being fed into the network at all. All gpts do is lie, smh.

MiMo-V2-Pro & Omni & TTS is out. Our first full-stack model family built truly for the Agent era. I call this a quiet ambush — not because we planned it, but because the shift from Chat to Agent paradigm happened so fast, even we barely believed it. Somewhere in between was a process that was thrilling, painful, and fascinating all at once. The 1T base model started training months ago. The original goal was long-context reasoning efficiency. Hybrid Attention carries real innovation, without overreaching — and it turns out to be exactly the right foundation for the Agent era. 1M context window. MTP inference for ultra-low latency and cost. These architectural decisions weren't trendy. They were a structural advantage we built before we needed it. What changed everything was experiencing a complex agentic scaffold — what I'd call orchestrated Context — for the first time. I was shocked on day one. I tried to convince the team to use it. That didn't work. So I gave a hard mandate: anyone on MiMo Team with fewer than 100 conversations tomorrow can quit. It worked. Once the team's imagination was ignited by what agentic systems could do, that imagination converted directly into research velocity. People ask why we move so fast. I saw it firsthand building DeepSeek R1. My honest summary: — Backbone and Infra research has long cycles. You need strategic conviction a year before it pays off. — Posttrain agility is a different muscle: product intuition driving evaluation, iteration cycles compressed, paradigm shifts caught early. — And the constant: curiosity, sharp technical instinct, decisive execution, full commitment — and something that's easy to underestimate: a genuine love for the world you're building for. We will open-source — when the models are stable enough to deserve it. From Beijing, very late, not quite awake.

Grok Bot summary: IAC 2026 presentation by SpaceXAI President Michael Nicolls. 🎯 The main message - SpaceX was founded in 2002 to make life multi-planetary and "extend the light of consciousness to the stars." - He said the biggest risk as constellations grow is not debris. It's satellite operators not sharing data with each other. 🌍 How Starlink grew - Starlink began in 2019 with 60 V0.9 satellites. User service started in late 2020 as the "Better Than Nothing Beta." - V1.5 added space lasers, which let the satellites link into a mesh. That's when Starlink really took off, reaching oceans, Antarctica and airplanes. - V2 (2023) has 4x the capacity of V1. Falcon launches V2 satellites 2–3 times a week, and each launch adds about 3 terabits of capacity. - V3 launched on Starship about a week before the talk. Each V3 satellite has another 10x capacity, and each Starship launch carries 20–30x what a Falcon launch does. - Starlink now has over 11,000 satellites, about 60% of all active satellites in low Earth orbit. - It serves more than 13M customers in about 170 markets, plus ships and planes. - The laser mesh means Starlink doesn't depend on local ground infrastructure. During last year's fires and power outages in Spain, it kept tens of thousands of customers and emergency responders online. 🚀 The life of a Starlink satellite - **Before launch:** SpaceX checks that deploying the satellites won't bring them close to anything else, and shares where they'll be. - **Deploy:** satellites are released below 300 km, where almost no other operators fly. - **Orbit raising:** each climb path is checked against other satellites and crewed space stations, and SpaceX publishes the satellites' positions every hour on the way up. - **Lower orbits for safety:** the original plan was about 1,000 km. Now every satellite flies below 500 km, and V3 will fly at about 350–360 km. At these heights a dead satellite falls back to Earth within months instead of staying up for centuries. 🛡️ How they avoid collisions - Each satellite makes small station-keeping moves about once a day and a collision-avoidance move about every 10 days. - Across the fleet, that's about 1,000 avoidance moves a day. - Starlink's threshold for moving is nearly 100x more cautious than the industry standard, so the whole fleet's collision risk is about the same as a much smaller constellation's. - "Ducking" moves turn the satellite so it presents a smaller target during a close pass, cutting the collision risk about 10x more. - Automated software makes these decisions, which is why Starlink tries to stay in contact with every satellite at all times. 📡 Always connected - Starship's live launch video was streamed over Starlink. - The new V3 satellites connected to the network within 2 minutes of release, because Starlink terminals are built into the satellites. Their lasers link into the mesh within tens of minutes. - The goal is to make contact right away and never lose it. 🌬️ Space weather - During a 2024 solar storm, air density in orbit jumped 5x in a few hours, which throws off predictions of where satellites will be. - Starlink is "probably one of the best sensors" for this. It measures density in real time and automatically corrects its position forecasts. 🔭 Working with astronomers - **Optical:** SpaceX tried Vantablack paint and sun visors. What finally worked was a mirror-like film that reflects sunlight away from the ground, combined with careful steering. A V2 satellite now looks about as bright as a sheet of paper. This was done with groups like the Vera Rubin Observatory. - **Radio:** working with observatories like the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Starlink steers its beams and frequencies around where the telescopes are pointing. As a result, the telescopes can now observe more often. ♻️ End of life - SpaceX uses statistics to predict when parts will fail and deorbits satellites early. Many of those satellites would have kept working. - Retired satellites are steered down within weeks, not left to drift for the 5 or 25 years regulations allow. - They're built to burn up completely, and reentry is aimed over the ocean. - Of about 10,000 satellites launched by early 2026, only a few dead ones remain in orbit. The goal is zero. - "Reliability and rate go together." ⚠️ The biggest danger: other operators - Tracked debris is like obstacles on a road: if you can measure it, you can avoid it. - What you can't avoid is a satellite that maneuvers without telling anyone. Starlink has had passes as close as tens of meters this way. - Starlink has maneuvered around satellites from about 650 operators in recent months, but shares position data with only about half of them. "That number is too low." - SpaceX shares data with China's space station and some Chinese operators. Many operators don't share at all, including some in the US, Europe and Japan. ⭐ Stargaze: Starlink's own space tracking - Over 30,000 star trackers on Starlink satellites spot passing objects as streaks against the stars. - Stargaze now tracks over 17,000 objects, including about 90% of the maneuvering satellites that cross Starlink's orbits. - In one example, an untracked satellite's predicted 9 km miss shrank to about 60 m after it maneuvered toward Starlink. Stargaze caught the move and the Starlink satellite dodged in time. - He said it's still no substitute for operators sharing their plans in advance. 🤝 The ask: share your data - SpaceX runs its own space safety data platform, and over 100 operators have signed up. - Operators can upload their satellite positions and check them against Starlink and against Stargaze tracking. - His message to every operator was to join the platform and share their positions. 🧠 StarMind: AI compute in space - StarMind is SpaceX's planned AI satellite constellation, starting launches and scaling next year. - The goal is to move AI compute off Earth. He expects StarMind to drive demand for Starship launches the way Starlink did for Falcon. - On the ground, SpaceX is building over 2 GW of compute in Memphis. He said AI demand will be nearly limitless, and Earth's resources make that hard to keep scaling there. - In space, the satellites run on solar power and shed heat through large radiators. - Each satellite is simpler than a Starlink: basically a computer with big solar panels and radiators. - Each one has about 250 kW, roughly one NVL72 rack of compute. - They'd fly in tight clusters of about 10 satellites linked by about 10 terabits of bandwidth, then connect to Starlink. - SpaceX has filed for up to **1 million satellites**, in low-inclination and sun-synchronous orbits. Building them could mean thousands of satellites a week. - New challenges include much higher reliability and redundancy, flying in close formation, and micrometeoroids. Dead satellites might be sent away from Earth instead of burning up in the atmosphere. 🌙 Beyond Earth - Starlink is developing very high-bandwidth lasers to connect the Moon, then Mars, building an "interplanetary mesh." - All of that depends on getting safety right in low Earth orbit first. 💡 Key takeaways - Starlink is the world's biggest constellation, and it's moving lower to be safer. - It makes about 1,000 collision-avoidance moves a day, with nearly 100x more caution than the industry standard. - The biggest risk is operators who don't share where their satellites are going. - StarMind could scale to 1 million AI satellites, with launches starting next year. - "Coordination is a key element for realizing all of our ambitions."

I wrote this journal entry exactly five years ago while shooting my 99 Originals Polaroid project. Today, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share it. DAY 12 — #11# GROUND ZERO, 9/11/21 Today was much more powerful than I’d ever expected. I had the privilege of attending the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 Ceremony at Ground Zero with Zelina Vega (a WWE superstar whose father passed in the 9/11 tragedy, real name Thea). As I solemnly paced around the site with my stupid little Polaroid, the essence of mourning was overwhelming. Hundreds of families affected by a deliberate and malicious attack on our nation - left without fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. We hear stories of the tragedy and see the videos, but most people never really truly experience the lifelong ripple effect it’s had on the victims and New York. The city was overflowing with patriotism on this day, and I was proud to be supporting in attendance. I got a chance to speak with Thea’s mother — the kindest, most gentle, warm-eyed, inviting little soul, who remains scarred from two decades’ worth of lament when her husband got trapped in the South Tower. Throughout the morning, she’d reminisce… where she was, how she felt, keeping her children calm… She told me she had spoken to her husband before he passed. He called her after the first plane had hit, and they’d spoken from 9:04-9:15am. I asked her what he said. She said “he just called to say goodbye.” And I broke. I couldn’t hold back tears as I wept beneath my baseball hat and pulled up my mask to the bridge of my nose. I turned around and took a second to collect myself, but as I stood on the ground of the most devastating terrorist attack in United States history, I couldn’t help but sob. My tears bounced off the black marble etched with the names of those we lost. Thea gave me a comforting hug. I said “y’all are way tougher than me” as I tried to nervously laugh off my tears. While I had never felt such an overwhelming sense of grief, Thea and her mother stood stoically… it was clear that this sadness was all too familiar for both of them. At the end of the day, Thea and her mother thanked me for helping to cement 9/11 in history to be remembered and memorialized in an appropriate fashion. She also thanked me for making her laugh, and that it made her day much easier.

I had a crazy idea. Jon could tell from my face that I'd already built it. Here's the backstory. While I'm trying to get 3,000 people to Social Media Marketing World, my AI video editor has been turning our on-site testimonials into ads. One person per ad. Then I wondered: what if we had a searchable index of every original testimonial video? And what if we took four or five different people and sewed them together around one theme? So AI built the index. It even came up with the themes. Feels like family. Nothing beats in person. Stay human in the age of AI. Search "energy." Boom. Every quote about energy. Then I showed Jon the first theme ad. Five people, one idea, each in their own words. His reaction: "I was there when we were recording all those testimonials. To hear it reshuffled like this… it's really cool." Then he told me what it makes possible. One video on the website with many voices, instead of nine testimonials on the screen. One video per email. Sending an email about ROI? Here are five or six people telling you what it was worth to them. My new problem isn't finding great content. It's choosing. Jon said it best: "I'll take a too much problem over a not enough problem any day of the week." Which theme would you want to watch? Tell me in the comments 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #VideoTestimonials# #AIinMarketing# #VideoMarketing#

Fewer than 1 in 20 films submitted to Fairground make it to Amazon Prime, Roku, Xumo and LG. So…what actually makes the cut for Fairground AI TV? Since launch, one question has come up more than any other from the AI filmmaking community: what is Fairground looking to distribute? To answer it, we asked Alexandra Mills, our Head of Production, to explain what makes the cut for Amazon, Roku, and our other platform partners. Here's how the team evaluates content: Story first. "Plot, characters and the world are always top of the list," Alex says. "A tight 5-minute film with a real story beats a beautifully rendered 20-minute film with a weak plot, every day of the week." Length matters, but not how you'd think. Content needs to be 3+ minutes. Longer generally makes distribution easier, but length never wins over quality. Focus on the story and the length that best fits. That's what matters. Original IP Only. Every submission through the Fairground Portal goes through copyright, music licensing and trademark reviews prior to distribution. Collectively, we need to ensure that all work is 100% original and is the very best of AI cinema.  Make sure everything, including your music, is original. Formatting is strict. We distribute only 16:9 right now (no vertical), and we're aiming for PG-13 as the default, though we do have late-night slots that can carry TV-MA and above. Genre shifts with the calendar. We distribute across every major genre, but what we prioritize moves with tentpole moments and what our platform partners need. Right now: horror for Halloween, and animated work for a separate opportunity. And the thing that matters most: did we feel something? "Did the combination of human artistry and generative AI tools produce a story worth telling?" Alex says. "That's the real bar, and it should be every creator's North Star." The decisions don't stop once content airs. Fairground runs dynamic scheduling, constantly watching how content actually performs. Stream starts, watch time, overall session time. Overperforming content earns a better slot. Underperforming content makes way for something new. The lineup is never static, and neither is the bar we use to make decisions. As the technology improves, standards will increase over time. If you are submitting new content for consideration, it may take 3-4 weeks for it to be reviewed for distribution, as submission volume has increased since launch. We appreciate your patience and while it may take us time to review your film, we want to give it the time and consideration it deserves. We don’t want to rush something you put time, money and real work into. We just wrapped our first month and the data has already surprised us. More on what we're learning (including a heat map of our top-performing programming windows) is coming soon. For now: what other questions do you have? Drop your questions below, Alex will be reading and answering in the comments👇