Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading - 8th/9th February 2025
Snippets 15: US election & Narrative Whiplash inside the Simulacrum by Dominic Cummings
“The mainstream media, having failed to understand and report on this phenomenon, is now jabbering about Silicon Valley and the network around Elon. I strongly recommend watching the post-election Andreessen & Horowitz podcast where they describe in their own words how the DEM elite pushed them so hard they felt no alternative but to go all in with Elon.…”
On DeepSeek and Export Controls by Dario Amodei
“Scaling laws. A property of AI — which I and my co-founders were among the first to document back when we worked at OpenAI — is that all else equal, scaling up the training of AI systems leads to smoothly better results on a range of cognitive tasks, across the board. So, for example, a $1M model might solve 20% of important coding tasks, a $10M might solve 40%, $100M might solve 60%, and so on. These differences tend to have huge implications in practice — another factor of 10 may correspond to the difference between an undergraduate and PhD skill level — and thus companies are investing heavily in training these models…”
A new kind of war is unfolding in Lebanon by Washington
“To speak of “remote warfare,” then, is to miss the point. Ever since men worked out how to operate large catapults, it has been possible to kill enemies from a distance. The missiles that hit Ukrainian cities are weapons of remote warfare. So are the drones the Ukrainians send eastward toward Russian targets. So are the cyberattacks that are launched every day of the week by states against states, terrorists against states, crooks against corporations, and so on…”
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 19th February — London — details and signup here.