co-founder at The Network
San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2024
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Ally Bell retweeted
Charlie Songhurst on why "boring and complex" companies may offer the best returns
My second conversation with Christina Cacioppo (@christinacaci), Vanta's cofounder and CEO.
Charlie Songhurst says the best returns come from companies that are highly boring and highly complex, because fewer founders want to build them.
Vanta is one of those companies.
When we first talked five years ago, Christina told me about building the first version of Vanta in Excel.
Since then she has turned it into the category leader in security compliance. Now she is rebuilding it around AI.
We discuss:
- Why great software businesses got cheap
- Why Vanta eats the cost of AI instead of marking it up
- Why comp for top people is up 10X in five years
- What is over/under hyped in AI
- How AI attackers are changing security
- Vanta marketing + billboards
- Building trust in an era of low trust
Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
4:17 Surviving the SaaSpocalypse
9:40 The AI Pricing Trap
16:17 Rebuilding Software for AI
22:43 Silicon Valley's Talent Wars
31:57 What's Overhyped in AI
38:39 Security at Machine Speed
47:16 Reinventing Software
55:37 The Billboard War
60:38 Rebuilding Trust in Technology
Here are my favorite examples of constraints creating lasting aesthetics
1. Zoning laws in NYC required buildings to step back higher up to let light down to the street, creating tiered art deco skyscrapers New York
Still thinking about this post. Human creative innovation is not spontaneous but is actually a byproduct of solving problems. Art deco (for example) was not some randomly-inspired force of will to create beauty; it happened because metallurgy became just advanced enough to create everything out of metal, and because zoning laws required skyscrapers to have a stepped shape at the top.
This is why top-down efforts at changing our civilizational aesthetic (like those guys building the giant Greek statues) don’t work. They don’t change the “problem” we’re solving as a civilization, which is the actual source of the bleak & dreary surroundings we find ourselves in
4. Necessary garment reinforcement and repair in Japan evolving into Sashiko
5. Seven segment displays producing a whole family of fonts and styles
and cc friction @majamediaco
also shoutout to the goats featured @_chloeyan @Aweiland @jadefranson @jakubkrehel @vivitseng_ and @me____likex – at San Francisco, CA
Ally Bell retweeted
Sunday dinner ♥️ @withtenacity with the rituals and practices and so on
when i lived in london we used to host sunday dinners almost every week. a bit of a lost art now unfortunately.
absolutely love cooking for ppl & frankly even doing the dishes afterward so we’re bringing them back & hosting more at my place in nyc.
tonight’s menu:
- brown butter & garlic roasted butternut squash soup with garlic butter croutons
- arugula salad with roasted pecans, goat cheese, & honeycrisp apples
- n/a orange wine from upstate
- mochi ice cream cakes
a lovely evening all around. barely took any photos which i think is a good sign.
we need more sunday dinners.
Ally Bell retweeted
this weekend, the sf photobook fair is back to harvey milk photo center from 11am-5pm.
40 publishers, independent presses, and artists are bringing their photography books, magazines, and zines.
can't wait to see all the works. all publishers listed here: harveymilkphotocenter.org/ev…
prediction companies are so funny because you're right, i would prefer advice from a 21 year old with no qualifications over a 21 year old who works at mckinsey
Ally Bell retweeted
Why doesn't @OpenAI monitor its employees' socials?
We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.
At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated.
We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.
can someone explain how alignment is something that might be “solved”? does not seem like this is a “okay all done!” kind of problem. it seem like a 100 year war of disillusionment, never patching every hole in the boat, kind of problem
