Exactly, luck is a necessary but not sufficient condition to success. I've witnessed individuals who were "at the right place and right time" (especially with regard to this recent wave of AI) and still didn't manage to capitalize on their headstart.
Improvement to story point estimation using LLMs. We're not too far from a world where an AI, starting with a simple ticket, can estimate how difficult that ticket is and then immediately solve and PR-it.
I'm also curious to see a study focused on psychoactive substances considering their proven track record of 'enhancing creativity'. It's also well known that early silicon valley was filled with microdosing enthusiasts.
Tapermonkey script I've been using to make youtube less of a rabbit hole. On the weekdays, it disables everything except new(ish) videos from your subscriptions.
Found this gem of an interview on Medium. Abbie Hoffman was one of the most influential figures in the 60s counter culture. This interview by Keith E. Lee explores his son's views on his father, mother, and his own life.
As the founder of an OSS company (granted we're seed stage), moat is becoming more and more of a concern, especially because:
1. There are more saas companies (read: competition) than ever
2. AI has made it significantly easier to build on-the-fly transpilation
Didn't see that mentioned in the article, but it's worth noting
It rarely is - only 1/4th of homeless adults in LA suffer from a severe mental illness [1].
The sad reality is that the difference between the folks you pass by on the street and you is often just a little bit of bad luck and no support system.
Go listen to interviews with the folks that live in the sewers in Vegas, most of them want to work but can't get a government ID because they've had their old Ids and birth certificates stolen a long time ago.
I met a woman in her 60s in Oakland who was homeless and worked three (part-time) jobs. Couldn't afford to rent even the cheapest of apartments, couldn't work her way out of debt, was unmarried and had no living relatives.
Ol' Uncle Sam tends to not take kindly to those that can't pay to play.
A lot of founders (including myself) are much more interested in the application of AI internally then as quick low-value feature add.
Lots of proprietary internal data, customized workflows, support systems, etc that can have their load be exponentially reduced with light human-in-the-loop gen AI systems.
I didn't watch the video, but it's well known the forbes 30u30 is self nominating and not nearly as prestigious as many hype it up to be. Forbes has created great brand awareness, but to my knowledge it's generally not treated as that impressive.
But I'm not f30u30 so maybe I'm just a cranky old hack?
Found this piece very interesting. Hard to tell exactly how AI is going to change the startup landscape, but this is definitely a possibility. Most companies are coming to the realization that "technology moat", unless you're in hard tech, doesn't mean what it used to. There's a reality where companies compete based on who has the better internal AI agents, more capable of pumping out product, than who has the better product itself - a very possible future in a world where "add this feature" is as easy as asking.
Created in 1785 by Marquis de Condorcet. Just like humans, many machine-brains are better than one!
I wasn't much into ML early in my career or during school but LLMs have reignited my interest. I suspect I'm not the only one. I'm a sucker for visual and interactive explanations so I thought I'd share.