Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading - 31st/1st June 2025
Sam and Jony and skepticism by Jason Snell
“I’m skeptical about OpenAI in general, because while I think AI is so powerful that aspects of it will legitimately change the world, I also think it has been overhyped more than just about anything I’ve seen in my three decades of writing about technology. Sam Altman strikes me as being a drinker of his own Kool-Aid, but it’s also his job to make everyone in the world think that AI is inevitable and amazing and that his company is the unassailable leader while it’s bleeding cash…”
“In 2016, I canvassed for Bernie Sanders. I spent my first day in Nevada walking door-to-door in the desert heat with a dying phone battery and a stack of printed papers delineating potential voters, thinking "there really should be an app for this." There, I ended up writing some Google Apps code for caucus result reporting.” …
Peter Thiel’s visions of Apocalypse Is AI the Antichrist by Jacob Howland
“While the past displays a seemingly endless cycle of civilizational rises and falls, Thiel believes that modern science and technology have turned history into a linear progression, as the Bible teaches, with a beginning and a final, irreversible end. From its inception, technology — a political project as much as one of engineering — has dangled before us the shimmering promise of godhood, with which the serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Francis Bacon and René Descartes, the project’s 16th- and 17th-century founders, rightly understood it to be an anti-Christian endeavor that needed to be cloaked with a veil of religious orthodoxy. …”
Founders (need) Focus
This week we shared that we’re starting Founders Focus, a new membership program from 9others; a space for you to carve out time to work on the hard things that really matter. Check out the announcement here.
What does it do?
Founders Focus keeps you focused, accountable and connected.
Who it’s for?
Founders Focus will suit Solo Founders, Remote (Co) Founders, and Freelancers, CxOs and Side Hustlers.
Qs?
Read more and check out the FAQs on the 9others Notion, here.
We hope you’ll join us.
Upcoming meals (and party) with 9others
Tuesday 10th June — Manchester — details and signup here.
Thursday 3rd July — Cheltenham — details and signup here.
And a Summer Party
Thursday 10th July — London — details and signup here.