For those who were adults during the 2008 financial crisis, what was your holy crap, the economy is actually crashing moment?

Ben Affleck reveals he writes Python, understands convolutional neural networks, worked extensively with GPUs, and used his celebrity status to get private looks at Google and OpenAI’s video models “I’ve always been kind of into computers since I was young. Then, when film started to move from analog film to digital, I became more interested in that aspect of it. The visual-effects workflow for many years has included machine learning, so I can write pretty shitty Python scripts and stuff like that. “With convolutional neural networks, which were the precursors to what the transformer can do, which is much more computation simultaneously, you would do things like look at what’s called a tensor. That’s the numerical translation of a visual image in numbers, like the batch number, the frame number and the red, green and blue values of each pixel in each frame. It’s just that simple. That numeric is called a tensor. “You’d use a convolutional neural network to identify patterns that reveal what’s called edge detection or feature extraction, which is identifying patterns well enough to know, this is where the window ledge is, so we can more easily take the green-screen image out and replace it with something. “That was familiar to me early on because, prior to Artists Equity, I had a small visual-effects company. I’ve worked with GPUs a lot too. The visual-effects guys said, ‘Hey, you should see. There are a couple: Google and this other company, OpenAI, are doing really interesting stuff with transformers in video.’ “I’ve learned that I can actually just call up and go, ‘Hey, it’s Ben Affleck. Can I come see what you’re doing?’ Sometimes people say yes, to my astonishment.”

The future belongs to those who hydrate.

Instinct Selections We’re bringing human taste to the core of our product. We’re partnering with local chefs, designers, architects, travel guides, and more to create curated recommendations in the areas they know best. The next time you're looking for a restaurant, Instinct can pull from a list handpicked by chefs who know the hidden gems in your area. If you want to find a new trail to explore, Instinct can draw on recommendations from local guides and suggest a few routes that fit your preferences. And if you're looking to add some color to your home, Instinct will find pieces from independent designers that match your style, space, and budget. Our goal is to deliver world-class recommendations that are differentiated in quality from what you might find on the internet, and from what other chatbots produce. We’re rolling out access to Instinct Selections to our early access program, and plan to make it generally available soon. This is a project we’ve been working on since the start of the company and one that I’m personally extremely excited for.

Hearing this week that personal assistants cost $3k-$7k per user per year, depending on scale effects / vertical integration / model selection. Implications/questions: - Consumer subsidies will be a huge factor; people don’t care about privacy, they want utility and they want it for free. - Model costs are deflating, but not fast enough for many startups. The dark horse is that Jev may rapidly deflate computer-use costs 100x. - An interesting counter-position would be building an expensive and narrowly focused agent — perhaps combining proprietary supply (Carbone tables!) with a unique POV (“no one goes there anymore, go to The Grill instead”). - Social is wide open but hinges on a key design challenge: how can agents increase social cohesion and not feel invasive in a group chat? A working social agent would rightly attract an avalanche of capital and be hard for incumbents to replicate. - Finally, there are vertical focus areas like financial services where the LTVs outweigh the subsidy needed and are outside the near-term competitive focus of the incumbents. If it were me, I’d focus here — Credit Karma as an agent >> Credit Karma as an app. Overall, it’s still very, very early, and we may very well be in the MySpace era of social or iPhone 2010. Hang onto your hats and keep building!!

Nikole Hannah-Jones’s NYT article has several inconvenient truths on testing & grades. If your child gets A’s in school, but fails standardized tests: - Grades are overstating academic performance -“Testing anxiety” is probably just under preparation

Shelton is improving. If he stays on this trajectory he may one day be close to as good as Pat Rafter.

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve closed our Series C and raised $100M to continue automating the world’s most complex phone calls. We grabbed some guy named Paul to talk about it because nobody else in the office wanted to. 🧵

The gulf in knowledge between the West Coast and East Coast is wildly broader than I’ve ever experienced, in both directions. And widening further by the day.