More or Less: Tariffs… and Spies
Another incredibly entertaining week — when it comes to pure entertainment value — how can Hollywood possibly compete with tech news? how can tech news possibly compete with Washington, and the grand boss of influencers Trump!?
Hot Takes:
- Fin’s 2016-17 Assistant Sizzle Reel — fun to dig up this sizzle reel from Fin’s assistant service nearly a decade ago. Pretty indistinguishable from the sizzle reels of AI today — we were doing it with people and machines and the promise of more and more AI creating efficiency… easy to say we were right but just too early, the reality is I think we learned doing Fin that there are structural issues with the business of assistance which LLMs just don’t change. I am not holding my breath.
- Harvard — For those not following along, a lot is happening and 1636 Forum is deeply on top of it.. If you want to get up to speed check out Thursday’s flash briefing on the $9 requests made of harvard by the federal government and Monday’s special edition on the 9B dollars under review — it is 100% unclear whether the pressure from the federal government will tactically help or hurt Harvard (and other universities) chart a path towards better management and governance. But at least in terms of substance of what the demands are focused on — TBH they got it right. Per usual, I think Larry Summers basically has it right … which is that universities should reject outside influence BUT actually should have the balls to make the needed changes themselves.
- The King of Cheap Money Elon's Playbook From ZIRP to AI — … I really enjoy going on TBPN and BSing — did more of that this week…. Re: X + xIA — … Elon really is great at leveraging cheap money, be it cheap ZIRP money or cheap AI money… an din a sense X + xIA is like an AOL-Time Warner deal, if Time Warner had a ton of debt
- Things trade at marginal belief — In today’s economy! … Trump make poor? … it is all about marginal belief — and the marginal belief in US equities looks not-so-rosy… this is all either brilliant or insane… just like the ‘hit the breaks he flies right by’ top gun move… time will tell.
- Jellyjelly / Hyperliquid — this was crazy… and I forgot to mention it last week so here it is… in the spirit of being there…. It is somewhat hilarious that the token we launched for the Jelly Jelly app ended up almost taking down Hyper liquid / a chunk of the crypto world. Never underestimate degenerate traders doing degenerate (but pretty smart) things to make money… there is something quite elegant about adversarial open financial systems (until they de-list things to save themselves and you realize they aren’t quite as permission less and decentralized as might appear!)
Sam
P.S. MeritFirst is picking up steam... we're building out the team and looking for a couple A+ founding engineers to work with us. The team will be based in Austin, TX. If the mission of restoring meritocracy resonates with you, apply here and come build with us.
P.P.S. Seth rogan in The Studio on apple plus is chef’s kiss… so is Lights and Magic — for books I am loving Fish that Ate the Whale about the Banana wars... what amazing stories ... I can't believe there isn't a movie of the battle for Honduras!
sam lessin | @lessin | want to talk | podcast | stop | to get added to the mailing list email [email protected]