Elon 'Zaphod' Musk and AI pragmatism

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Sam Lessin's end of week roundup ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­  

More or Less 2024 Reflections & ’25 Predictions… this year AI got practical and less religious… we debate what was the ‘company of the year’ Morins are long google… Lessins Facebook (and honestly twitter)

Some Other Hot Takes:

  • Elon ‘Zaphod’ Musk… deserves credit. Twitter probably is the company of the year in terms of impact — and it turns out to not have been too crazy to buy $40B of house ads up front on the platform.

  • 2024 in AI — the story was moving from a religious AGI movement into a much more practical era of useful APIs — and the story rotated on things like OpenAI from being a business platform, to just ChatGPT as ‘useful’.

  • Will China tariffs result in a move to the putting out system? — would be good news for brit!

  • VC has always been Junior Varsity Finance — will that change in 2025 or nah? — there is a lot of pressure for change — especially as ‘tech’ startups push into hard asset world (who wants to finance physical assets off a tech balance sheet!)— but then again tech investors are lazy.

  • Jess on CNBC SQUAWK — pretty great insights into what is up… I do CNBC frequently, but not the grand Poobah shows… now I know why.

  • WYNC on Harvard / On The Media — I haven’t listened to this yet, but just came out — I am in it somewhere around the middle … talking about who knows what but hoping

Happy Weekend,
Sam

P.S. good news, I finished the marathon in 2:59:22… first 20 miles were a cruise, last 6 were a religious experience… last 2 were a meditation on pain. There is zero chance I could have accomplished this without Roberto… thanks Roberto for believing in me, you are an awesome dude — male friendships forged in pain….

P.P.S. the new ‘ice bucket challenge’ is running 3 hour marathon — I nominate Clay

sam lessin | @lessin | want to talk | podcast | stop | to get added to the mailing list email [email protected]