Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading - 10th/11th May 2025
AI Companies: Cereals or Airlines? by Harvey Sawikin
“Munger in his USC speech observed that cereal makers benefit from strong brand identity and a rational approach to competition. Airlines try to brand themselves, but at the end of the day the consumer is more likely to switch from United to Delta to save money on a flight than from Life to Cheerios to save $.50. As most reading this probably have, I’ve tried all the free AI models and don’t have a preference. As an experiment, my friend and fellow Steely Dan fanatic Pete Jakab asked AI to compare the songs Your Gold Teeth and Your Gold Teeth II and no model gave the “best” answer, but each had different strengths. ChatGPT’s answer came closest to our opinion, but DeepSeek’s answer was more informative and nuanced...”
Diagnosing the decline in pharmaceutical R&D efficiency by Jack W. Scannell, Alex Blanckley, Helen Boldon and Brian Warrington
“The magnitude and duration of Eroom’s Law also suggests that a lot of the things that have been proposed to address the R&D productivity problem are likely, at best, to have a weak effect. Suppose that we found that it cost 80 times more in real terms to extract a tonne of coal from the ground today than it did 60 years ago, despite improvements in mining machinery and in the ability of geologists to find coal deposits.…”
Media and Machines by Anu Atluru
“What’s coming will make social networks look quaint: tools become networks, function becomes feeds, solo becomes social — all with frightening intelligence. We move from ephemeral to memory, prompts to personality, feeds to worlds — software to sentience. The machine no longer mediates reality; it becomes it.…”
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 with 9others
Wednesday 28th May — London — details and signup here.
Tuesday 10th June — Manchester — details and signup here.