AI people have talked about x-risk for years, so why did this blow up to 130M+ views? Some people think it was a plant. Maybe. But we can’t ignore 4 factors: 1) timing. This hits different after mythos and huggingface, and shortly before IPO 2) action. The resignation makes it feel more real, makes him seem like a whistleblower/defector vs another commentator 2) standing. He came from pre training not safety, and he’s worked at both of the labs he indicts 3) the human element. He doesn’t warn about abstract technology but about specific people (ie, these lab execs are gambling with our lives). Introduces a whiff of insider gossip and scandal 4) narrative. There’s a clear protagonist (us), antagonist (lab execs), stake (10% risk of wipeout), conflict (everyday people vs irresponsible execs), sacrifice (his career), a moral frame, and a choice ahead Is he right? Hopefully not. Is he a pawn? We’ve seen no evidence yet. But the factors above would make anything more viral

Every company says they have Forward-Deployed Engineers now. ElevenLabs CEO and former Palantir Deployment Strategist @mati gives one of the best explanations of what an FDE is—and says companies are missing the key piece of what actually makes FDEs valuable: “In our case, FDEs are part of the product team. They are not part of the go-to-market team. They are deeply embedded in understanding what the roadmap of the product is.” “You want all the FDEs to actually solve the customer problem and stretch your product in that direction. But the second thing you want them to do is bring any of that knowledge back to the product, so the product becomes better for the next generation of companies building on top of it. I feel like the second part is frequently missed.” “The beauty of that is—everybody benefits because you work with one customer, learn, and you bring that into the product experience. Both of those customers benefited from having their product optimized for better work.” “The domain expertise they have is still theirs. They can win based on their domain expertise. But the product experience of how you build based on that domain expertise can be abstracted, and can be reusable.”

This “AI might kill us all” prediction has caused alarm around the world; it’s even in local news in India One takeaway here is that messaging, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In some circles, this post would’ve been praised for candor and intellectual honesty, with no hubbub at all But in just the last couple years, the set of people paying attention to AI safety has changed (and massively expanded!) Posts like this are now seen by very different people with very different reactions I take on good faith that Evan intended to be honest, not to frighten people. That’s reasonable because until pretty recently, the people focused on this have been a small, niche group of AI researchers But the topic has broken containment; posts like this are now globally relevant and reach users, regulators, members of the general public - many of whom are already quite sufficiently anxious

"Literally, Newton vs. Leibniz on the founding of calculus is *still* one of the biggest arguments that people have. This was back in the 1600s." Cognition founder @scottwu46 on the Navier-Stokes controversy: "A lot of people who aren't familiar with the math academia world might not know that this is what always happens in math academia." "I believe that both sides meant well. I think the accomplishment itself is going to be the biggest thing that we all remember from this... The AI accomplishment itself is the biggest thing by far." "The rest kind of feels par for the course, to be 100% honest."

This one feels special - a lot of folks on this list we've admired for years and now finally get to work with. Above all I'm grateful for the incredible team that we have. Every day at Cog still feels like getting in a room together and trying to build something great. Also, grateful that Devin is actually good now. Would have looked really dumb otherwise.

The world needs far more software than it can build. Cognition exists to change that. We’ve just raised over $2B at a $48B valuation, led by a16z, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Avenir. Since our round in May, run-rate revenue has grown from $492 M to almost $900 M.

Zach Dell reveals his board member Antonio Gracias asked only one question for two years, the business's constraint "And I've also learned a lot of this from Antonio Gracias, who's on my board and has worked fairly closely with Elon for decades." "The first year or two of working with Antonio, basically every conversation I had with him, and still to this day this is the main focus of all of our conversations, every conversation was the same." "Hey, Antonio, how's it going? Good. How are you? What's up?" "You know, Zach, what's your constraint? Like, what's the constraint of the business?" "And I would just answer the question, and that's all we would talk about. That's it. What's the constraint? What's the constraint? What's the constraint?" "Like, if we agree on the mission, the vision, and the strategy, okay, we're good there. What's constraining us to get to that? Let's just focus all of our time and energy on that."

On a serious note, do NOT blindly take direction from photographers Especially if it’s anything to do with your arms They make every founder do the defiant arm cross and make every woman do something girlbossy RESIST

.@PalmerLuckey on how to build a following as a founder: "If you say something where you caveat it and you hedge it and you basically end up saying something that most people would agree with, you might as well have said nothing at all. You're not going to build a following of people who say, 'Man, I just love Palmer's right-down-the-middle, very hedged takes that everyone agrees with.' If you're just restating common sentiment, it's not going to get you anywhere. So make sure that when you're saying something, you're saying something. Make sure you're trying to affect change — maybe not in everybody, but in some people. If you make some people love what you're saying and some people hate what you're saying, that's a lot better than having everybody lukewarm agree with you about things everyone already agrees with. Don't waste your time communicating about the things everyone already agrees with you on."

Had not used Devin from @cognition and @ScottWu46 in a long, long time. And, good lord, did it improve. I can't code anything and made this in about a half hour. Craziest thing was the video highlight reel it made by going over our YouTube channel and picking out the most kinetic clips with minimal guidance. I'm a dork and legit got a buzz.

I’m an appreciator of beautiful women. To paraphrase Nicolas Cage, I have respect for the dime But hotness is fleeting; only creations endure. Even the aesthetic elite want to be judged for their accomplishments Creating beautiful things is better than being a beautiful thing (But they are not mutually exclusive!)

so first lulu said go direct or die, and then this girl posted the 10k art hoes to sf video and it went nuclear, so garry tan made another yc batch and a16z dropped new media, which made all the 19yr old yc kids decide tweeting was the moat, so everyone shot a launch video, but no one got enough engagement, so they hired growth girls from the seven girls of sf and then eventually from usc, and now there are more than 2,000 girls in sf and your choices are getting on aella’s hippe rationalist facemash, getting on an sf hot list with the same nine people you see at every other function, or staying single until series b

I’ve never posted on X. Last year I was at Department of Energy with an unusual view into what’s happening across AI, energy, and infrastructure. The old systems can’t handle what’s coming. There’s just an insane amount we need to build in the physical world, and the opportunity and urgency are greater than ever. Every able person should be contributing to the effort, and I’ve gotten back into the arena to do my part. More to come soon.

AI companies should learn what Mamdani already understands: The most tried and true PR tactic is just give people stuff Julius Caesar’s feasts, Rockefeller’s dimes, the Marshall Plan, Oprah’s favorite things, Starlink on United - works every time Labs and datacenters should build parks, subsidize bills, hold a cookout, sponsor fieldtrips Companies are spending way more on marketing and lobbying that backfires half the time. Just give people stuff