Master VC Feed

Proud Uncle Alert – Sabrina Feld

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:09:08 +0000

My brother Daniel sent an email to the family last Wednesday with the subject line “Proud Dad alert!” His daughter Sabrina had just built and launched a portfolio website from scratch. She didn’t use Squarespace or Wix. She built a custom Next.js site with scroll-triggered animations, a frosted glass navigation header, a custom image carousel with lightbox, and six page templates – all self-hosted on Netlify.

Sabrina is a senior at Scripps College pursuing dual degrees in Science, Technology & Society and Fine Arts. She’s a product designer and fine artist – not a software developer. She built the entire thing using Claude Code.

She wrote a blog post about the process, describing what it’s like to direct an AI when you don’t know CSS. She “had to get precise in other ways” – using design vocabulary and visual references instead of code snippets. When bugs appeared, she described symptoms and shared screenshots rather than reading stack traces.

A line that stuck with me: “Vague prompts produced generic designs. Clear creative conviction produced something that felt like mine.”

This matches what I see building with Claude Code every day. The quality of the output tracks directly with the specificity of the input. “Make this look better” gives you something generic. “I want warm tones, editorial layout, and a buttercup accent color for hover states” gives you something that looks like a real design decision was made. Sabrina’s version of this was arriving at each session with strong opinions about what she wanted – gathered design references, prepared content, and a clear vision for the aesthetic.

She did over twenty feedback sessions across an eleven-day build, with about four to six hours of active work. The AI didn’t eliminate iteration. It made each round faster.

Go look at the site. Her art section showcases monotype, pastel, watercolor, and cyanotype work. The projects section covers her product management work at StackHawk, including a product launch she led end-to-end and research for an AI-driven security testing tool. The design is clean and typography-focused, with a dark footer and those buttercup accent colors she specified.

After I saw the site, I did what any uncle who is a nerd would do – I ran a security review. The results were solid. TLS configuration is correct, no sensitive files exposed, no source maps in production, and HTTP redirects to HTTPS correctly. I sent Sabrina a list of security headers to add and some DNS records worth configuring – about ten minutes of work that addresses the findings.

Sabrina is looking for roles in product design and product management after graduation this spring. Her portfolio is at sabrinafeld.com.

The post Proud Uncle Alert – Sabrina Feld appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Venture Deals Spring 2026 Course

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:17:40 +0000

Registration for the Spring 2026 Venture Deals course is open. The course kicks off on March 2nd and, as always, is free.

Since we revamped the course in 2022, over 32,000 people have enrolled. This version includes entirely new video content and two sections we added that I think are important — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Venture Capital, and Mental Wellness in Entrepreneurship.

The course is self-guided and based on our book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, now in its fourth edition.

The post Venture Deals Spring 2026 Course appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Adventures in Claude

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:44:19 +0000

My obsession with Claude Code continues. Amy is now referring to Claude as my other best friend.

I realized my Claude posts were taking over this blog. Since I’ve been playing around with a bunch of things with it, I decided to create a place for me and Claude to collaborate on some experiments, many of which are self-referential as I explore new tools, technologies, approaches, and ideas. I’m also keeping a Claude Code diary.

Claude is generating much of the content, which is different from what I’ve historically put on this blog, though a few of my prior posts had Claude’s help in the drafting stage. I decided I wanted a dedicated place for Claude’s writing, so they will go on Adventures in Claude. I’ll occasionally write about that stuff here, but most of it will go there.

I’m also going to use Adventures in Claude as a laboratory for some code things I’ll incorporate into the Intensity Magic platform. After many years of struggling (and paying too much money to have others help me with) WordPress themes, I decided to create a Theme Studio that allows me, or the user of the site, to modify the theme in real time. This was a huge unlock for me on a few dimensions, including the Landing Page editor I’d created for all the Intensity Magic apps and the booksite website creator I’ve been working on for AuthorMagic.

So, if you are interested in my Adventures in Claude, wander over there and subscribe to the RSS feed, or click here to get the posts sent to you by email.

The post Adventures in Claude appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Streamline Workflow with CEOS: Claude Meets EOS

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 19:58:41 +0000

I’ve been aware of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) for over a decade. A number of companies I’m on the board of use some element, or all of it. Several friends, including Bart Lorang, are EOS Implementers.

Last night, while watching Olympic highlights and the first few episodes of Steal, I created a v0.1 of CEOS — an open-source project that brings the core EOS toolkit to any Claude Code session. I went from an empty GitHub repo to a public-ready project in about 90 minutes. Please feel free to make fun of Amy and me about how we spend our Friday nights.

EOS has great tools — V/TO, Rocks, Scorecard, L10 Meetings, IDS. But most companies implement them in a patchwork of Google Docs and spreadsheets. Or Notion pages. Or maybe they use one of the EOS-related SaaS products. The data ends up scattered across platforms, locked in proprietary formats, and disconnected from the actual conversations where decisions happen.

Since I’m living inside Claude Code (and integrating more and more of my workflow to it), I thought I’d see if I could make a set of skills that implement EOS. I’m working on another project (private at this point, but maybe I’ll open source it) called CompanyOS, which, while focused on a very early-stage company (like the 5,000+ that have gone through Techstars), potentially could scale.

CEOS is built on three ideas:

1. Everything is a file. Every Rock, every Scorecard entry, and every L10 meeting is a Markdown file with YAML front matter. Human-readable on GitHub, parseable by any tool, and diffable in git. No database. No SaaS subscription. Git history is your audit trail.

2. Skills, not software. CEOS isn’t an application — it’s a set of Claude Code skills. Each skill teaches Claude how to facilitate a specific EOS workflow. You say “let’s set our quarterly rocks” and the ceos-rocks skill walks you through the process: reviewing the V/TO for alignment, collecting titles and owners, validating the 3-7 rule, generating the files. You say “run our L10” and ceos-l10 pulls your scorecard data, reviews your Rocks, checks last week’s actual to-dos, and facilitates IDS on your top 3 issues.

3. Fork and own it. The upstream repo (bradfeld/ceos) has skills, templates, and docs — no company data. You fork it, run ./setup.sh init, answer four questions (company name, quarter, team members, L10 day), and your EOS data lives in your fork’s data/ directory. Pull upstream for skill updates; your data stays untouched.

Here’s the timeline of the work I did with Claude Code. It implemented everything – I just provided the guidance. And yes, Claude came up with the timeline below. If you aren’t technical and don’t care, skip the next 10 paragraphs – they’ll be boring. But, if you are technical, it’s kind of fascinating what Claude decided, entirely on its own, to do.

9:38 PM — gh repo create bradfeld/ceos --public --add-readme --license mit --clone. One command created the GitHub repo, initialized it with LICENSE and README, and cloned it locally.

9:42 PM — Repo scaffolding. README with project overview and architecture diagram. CONTRIBUTING.md addressing two audiences (EOS practitioners and developers — deliberately different skill sets). .ceos marker file for skill repo-root detection. .gitignore that keeps data/ out of the upstream repo. Directory structure for skills, templates, and docs.

9:50 PM — Seven EOS template files. This was the first real design decision: which files get YAML frontmatter (structured data that skills parse programmatically) vs. which are pure markdown (reference documents humans read). The answer: frontmatter for objects with lifecycle state — Rocks have status: on_track, Issues have ids_stage: identified, L10 meetings have rating. Pure markdown for reference documents like the V/TO and Accountability Chart.

10:04 PM — The setup script. Pure bash, zero dependencies. Three modes: ./setup.sh (symlink skills), ./setup.sh init (guided setup), ./setup.sh --uninstall (clean removal). Two portability decisions that matter: using | as the sed delimiter instead of / so file paths in values don’t break substitution, and avoiding sed -i entirely (macOS and GNU Linux handle it differently) by using temp files instead.

10:23 PM — Five EOS skills. This was the meat of the project. Each skill is a SKILL.md file — essentially a prompt engineering document in structured form. The key tension in writing skills is comprehensiveness vs. followability. Too much detail and Claude skims; too little and it improvises. The pattern that worked: tables for quick-reference data (status enums, file paths, modes) and prose for workflow logic.

The five skills:

ceos-vto — Review and update the Vision/Traction Organizer. Shows diffs before writing. Runs alignment checks between sections.
ceos-rocks — Three modes: setting (with V/TO alignment checks, 3-7 validation, ID generation), tracking (milestone progress, status updates), and scoring (binary complete/dropped, quarter scorecard with 80% target).
ceos-scorecard — Define metrics with goals and thresholds, log weekly values, 13-week trend analysis with automatic escalation to the Issues list.
ceos-l10 — The full Level 10 Meeting. Seven sections with time boxes. Pulls real data from scorecard and rocks files. Reviews actual to-dos from last week’s meeting. Facilitates IDS on the top 3 issues. Captures meeting rating.
ceos-ids — Structured issue resolution with 5 Whys for root cause identification, discussion capture, and to-do generation.

A critical design choice: skills reference each other but never auto-invoke. The L10 skill mentions that ceos-ids can create issue files, but lets you decide when to switch. Loose coupling through mentions, not tight coupling through auto-invocation.

10:39 PM — Five documentation files targeting different audiences. The EOS primer translates business concepts into developer vocabulary. The data format spec translates the same content into a parsing contract. The skill-authoring guide sits at the intersection—it’s prompt engineering documentation in disguise as a contributor guide. A skill reference provides users with a quick overview of all five skills, including trigger phrases and examples.

10:52 PM — GitHub configuration. CODEOWNERS, three issue templates (EOS Process Request, Bug Report, Skill Improvement), a PR template with before/after sections, and custom labels. The issue templates are deliberately different — one for EOS practitioners (“I think the Rock scoring process should work differently”), one for developers (“setup.sh fails on Ubuntu”), one for skill improvements (“ceos-l10 should handle recurring agenda items”).

11:08 PM — Final cleanup. Removed companyos-integration.md which contained internal details about how CEOS would integrate with our private CompanyOS system. Archived the content to a Linear comment before deleting — git history preserves it, but a Linear comment makes it findable without git archaeology.

During this, my Claude instance learned a few things that have been incorporated into our local learning (a dynamic file I keep and use to update skills during periodic sweeps).

Writing skills are prompt engineering in document form. The biggest trap is the description field. If you write “manages Rocks in three modes with binary scoring,” Claude will follow that summary and skip the detailed process sections. The description should say when to use it (“use when setting, tracking, or scoring quarterly Rocks”), not what it does. The body has the what.

Templates need lifecycle awareness. The distinction between frontmatter and pure markdown isn’t about complexity — it’s about whether the file has state that changes over time. A Rock moves from on_track to off_track to complete. A V/TO document is edited but doesn’t have lifecycle states. That distinction determines whether a skill can programmatically query and manage the data.

Documentation for AI skills packages needs three layers. User-facing (what can I do?), contributor-facing (how do I add?), and machine-facing (what’s the contract?). Most projects get the first two. The third — the data format spec that makes YAML frontmatter a real, portable, parseable contract — is what makes the ecosystem extensible.

The .ceos marker pattern is underrated. Borrowed from .git and .npmrc, a zero-byte marker file at the repo root gives every skill a reliable way to find the CEOS repository regardless of where the user’s working directory is. No environment variables, no configuration, no hardcoded paths. Just search upward for .ceos.

CEOS is live at github.com/bradfeld/ceos. MIT license. Do whatever you want with it. If you are into EOS, come play. I’ll pay attention to any PRs and issues. Following are the next few things I’m going to create.

Process Documentation skill — The 6th EOS component. Document core processes as checklists with followability metrics.
People Analyzer skill — Right people, right seats. The GWC (Get it, Want it, Capacity to do it) evaluation tool.
Quarterly Conversation skill — The formal quarterly check-in between managers and direct reports.
Annual Planning skill — Year-end V/TO refresh and next-year Rock setting.

And, while I was trying to come up with a name for this, with Claude, it told me I need to include the following footer.

CEOS is an independent open-source project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by EOS Worldwide.

The post Streamline Workflow with CEOS: Claude Meets EOS appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Freshell – Contributing to Open Source

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 18:54:11 +0000

Dan Shapiro just open-sourced Freshell — a browser-based terminal multiplexer for Claude Code, Codex, and other coding CLIs that lets you detach and reattach sessions, browse your coding history, and access everything from your phone. The tagline is “What if tmux and Claude fell in love?” which is about right. It can be pronounced multiple ways: Free-shell, Fresh-hell, fresh-shell. I’ve been thinking of it as Fresh-hell, which amuses me.

As part of my exploration into AI coding, I decided to start contributing to open-source projects. I’ve been around open source for decades as a user and investor, but I’ve never been a consistent contributor. That’s changing now — it’s a natural extension of the learning I described in Blurry Transitions, and the best way to understand how software gets built today is to actually build it with other people.

Freshell is my first project. Dan and I have been working together for over a decade at Glowforge, and I love working with him.

I’ve been using iTerm2 for about six months. I expect I’ll have switched to Freshell by the end of the weekend. It already does most of what I want, and a lot more is coming. The combination of persistent sessions, browsing the CLI history, and the ability to access my terminals from any device is enough on its own. But the thing that makes me want to contribute rather than just use it is that it’s early — there’s a bunch of stuff to build, it’s something I will use continuously, and by participating in the open-source project, I can see how the changes I make work in that context.

The post Freshell – Contributing to Open Source appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Claude Code Now Posts to This Blog

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 17:25:41 +0000

This post was written inside a Claude Code session and posted directly to feld.com as a draft. Not copy-pasted. Not emailed to myself. I just typed /blog-feld in iterm2 and it showed up on my blog.

Setting this up took about ten minutes.

I asked Claude to figure out how to connect to feld.com (hosted on WordPress.com) for direct posting. It researched three approaches: the WordPress.com REST API, the official WordPress MCP connector, and the WordPress plugin MCP Adapter. The WordPress MCP connector is read-only (so, useless for posting). The MCP Adapter only works on self-hosted WordPress (not WordPress.com). That left the REST API with OAuth.

Claude wrote a command called /blog-feld that handles the workflow: look at whatever I’ve been discussing in the current conversation, assemble it into a post, show me a summary, interactively edit with me, and then push it to feld.com as a draft.

It never publishes directly — I still review everything in the WordPress editor before hitting publish.

For authentication, WordPress.com requires OAuth. Normally, my experience setting this up is tedious. In this case, Claude just told me what to do step by step.

– I registered an app at developer.wordpress.com (Client ID + Secret)
– Claude set up the authorization code flow.
– I visited a URL, clicked “Approve,” and the browser redirected to localhost with an authorization code in the URL.
– The page itself didn’t load, but the code was sitting right there in the address bar.
– I screenshotted the page and pasted it into iterm2, and Claude exchanged it for an access token.

Done.

To verify it worked, Claude pulled my last three posts from the API. “Tech I’m Obsessed With,” “Blurry Transitions,” and “Interview With Guy Kawasaki.”

This is a small thing, but it’s the kind of small thing that changes behavior. Every day as I work with Claude Code, I think of multiple things like this. Instead of waiting for someone else to implement it or paying for a third-party service, I just create it in Claude Code and make it a permanent part of my environment.

I’ve been writing more inside Claude Code sessions anyway — working through ideas, editing, and iterating. The friction was always the last step: copy the text, open WordPress, paste it in, format it, fix the formatting that broke. Now that step is gone.

Thinking-in-conversation and writing-for-the-blog are the same thing.

The post Claude Code Now Posts to This Blog appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Tech I’m Obsessed With

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:27:58 +0000

I love getting emails from Ben Casnocha. Short, sweet, and to the point. Today’s was “what tech are you obsessed with now? Saw your blog post…” I wrote a response and then realized it was a good answer to my tease from my previous blog post (Blurry Transitions) about what I was exploring. The only thing I removed was my ad hominem comments on various tech companies, since that’s not that interesting to me. And, I fixed some … typos.

Here are a few hints: IntensityMagic and an image of my computer screen (the one above).

I decided I really wanted to understand how AI coding works. I’ve been deeply involved in a few shifts in the past (Agile software development, user-generated content (RSS), email everything (SMTP), … and, if you go back far enough, Feld Technologies was all about shifting from minicomputer business systems to PC-based network database systems). In all cases, I had to “do stuff” to understand it and form a viewpoint, given all the BS and marketing in tech.

I wanted to see if I could create a zero-employee company, aside from the CEO and CTO. Daniel (Feld) is the CEO. I’m the very part-time CTO. I’ve created a thing called CompanyOS, which is IntensityMagic’s AI-powered business operations system. It’s designed around the premise: “Run 100% of a company’s business operations through Claude Code. Two people, multiple Claude agents, zero employee overhead.”

At the core, I’ve gone extremely deep on Claude Code and everything around it.

– I think “vibe coding” is nonsense – it’s just prototype development and a different flavor of no-code software, which is useful but not compelling for scaled applications.

– There are $x billions of VC who have funded what are effectively wrappers on AI and/or point solutions that can be made obsolete overnight.

– Most companies that try to integrate “AI coding” into what they are doing are struggling because they haven’t figured out the tooling, which is not just “turn on Github Copilot” or “use Cursor.”

It’s much easier to experiment deeply with “no employees” and “no legacy stuff,” so that’s what I’m doing. I’m viewing it as a video game, and I’m on level 19. It’s awesomely fun.

The post Tech I’m Obsessed With appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Blurry Transitions

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:41:49 +0000

Turning 60 in December marked an important moment for me. A key section from that blog post was:

“I’ve definitely shifted into a new mode over the past year. I’m still on a bunch of boards for Foundry and deeply involved in several companies. But I’m much less focused on the broader technology industry, uninterested in many of the things that are going on, and tired+bored of the arc the narrative about technology and society has taken.”

Amy and I spent the last six weeks in New Zealand and Australia for my 60th birthday trip. I went into hibernation as part of that, stopped doing anything public-facing, and flipped to default no. I also stopped blogging, engaging with social media, and reading the news.

It gave me a lot of time to think and reflect. One thing that I realized was that I’ve never had a hard break or a clean transition from one thing to another. I have multiple threads of this, but if I just choose a professional one, here’s an example.

– I started my first company while in college.
– I started making angel investments while working for the company that acquired my first company.
– I became a VC while I was still founding companies and making angel investments.
– I co-founded Techstars and Foundry while still managing the legacy Mobius funds.
– I started writing books as a VC.

I did a similar exercise on technologies that interested me and generated long investment arcs (which we used to call themes at Foundry). There was usually a trigger point that created a new theme, where I became obsessed with a new technology of some sort and went very deep into it as a user and investor. These overlapped and fed off each other multiple times.

Basically, I’ve never had a “clean break” or a hard transition from what I was doing to what I did next.

I’m enjoying another one of these blurry transitions. I’ve found the new technological thing I’m obsessed with. While I’ve played with this new thing over the past year, I spent a lot of time with it over the last two months. And my interest (and competence and understanding) is accelerating.

I also realized that I missed writing. I know that I learn by reading and writing. I don’t learn by listening and talking (or at least not very much). I have to actually write things down. And, my new obsession involves a lot of writing…

Historically, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on ideas by writing publicly. It’s also more helpful to me, as it has generated a ton of randomness on many dimensions. And, if you’ve read Give First: The Power of Mentorship, you know that many of the successful things I’ve been involved in came from this randomness.

So, I’ll be writing publicly more. I’ve consciously decided that is not part of hibernating.

The post Blurry Transitions appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

Interview With Guy Kawasaki

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:48:59 +0000

When I was 17, I knew of four people at Apple Computer: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Al Eisenstat, and Guy Kawasaki. I loved my Apple ][ (not a +, 48k, with an Integer Card, two floppy disks). By this point, I was spending a lot of time on my high school buddy Kent Ellington’s TI PC (pre-release – his dad was the production manager), but my Applie ][, now with a Z-80 card, sat in the corner of our family room and consumed a lot of my time.

Of the four, I’ve met all but Steve Jobs in person. Al Eisenstat was the first, on a trip to Cupertino with my parents, where I was supposed to meet Steve Jobs, but Al greeted me and spent a meaningful 30 minutes with me instead. Woz was next and we ended up investing (via Mobius) in one of Woz’s companies (called … Woz – it was ahead of its time).

I’ve long admired Guy and we have lots of second-degree-of-separation friends. One of them, Buzz Bruggerman, came up to me after a Give First: The Power of Mentorship talk in Seattle this summer and asked if I knew Guy and had ever been on his podcast. I said, “Nope, but I just listened to the one with Ben Gilbert that Guy did.”

In typical Buzz fashion, I had an email connecting me to Guy within a few minutes, and we quickly set up a time to do a podcast. I did it sitting outside at Rancho Valencia on a sunny day, was in a great mood, and at the very end of the podcast grind for the book promotion.

The podcast is now up at Building What Lasts: Brad Feld on Trust, Mentorship, and Long-Term Thinking.

It was special. It starts off fast. We learn about Guy’s early dating history with Al Eistenstat’s daughter. We talk about Heidi Roizen and Atherton. And then Guy is the very first person to make the link between the 18 items in the Techstars Mentor Manifesto, Chai, the important number 18, and entrepreneurial Tzedakah. All within the first ten minutes.

Enjoy!

And Guy – that was a delight.

The post Interview With Guy Kawasaki appeared first on Feld Thoughts.

WSJ: Get Ready for TrumpGPT

Sun, 14 Sep 2025 16:47:29 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/get-ready-for-trumpgpt-7881b34c Add tech CEOs and European leaders to the list of those blatantly buttering up President Trump. Yes, you have to flatter to matter. At a recent White House dinner, Apple CEO Tim Cook said “thank you” eight...

WSJ: Renaming the Department of War

Sun, 07 Sep 2025 21:23:24 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/war-department-is-a-good-start-e8b7f360 President Trump signed an executive order on Friday to rebrand the Defense Department as the War Department, because, as he said earlier, “it just sounded better.” I’m OK with that. Like the lying Ministry of Truth of...

WSJ: The People’s Republic of Hollywood

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 21:14:31 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-peoples-republic-of-hollywood-e24ba430 Like a bad movie, the Zohran Mamdani mania continues. Youth turnout in the New York mayoral primary was up big, and polling shows that 4 out of 5 of them voted for the “democratic socialist.” As did...

WSJ: The Coming Robot Home Invasion

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 20:34:25 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-coming-robot-home-invasion-82ff1218 Robots are hot. Humanoid ones were literally running amok at this month’s World Robot Conference in Beijing. Think of robots as artificial intelligence in motion. Maybe you’ve seen Elon Musk’s new Tesla humanoid robot Optimus bust a...

WSJ: Make Cars Beautiful Again

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 16:27:28 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/make-cars-beautiful-again-design-auto-requirements-policy-e08fcfac Tired of ugly cars and SUVs that all look the same? Check out crossovers like the Honda CR-V, the Ford Escape and the BMW XM—the last with a staggering $160,000 price tag. The three vehicles look almost...

WSJ: Netscape’s Lessons for AI Mania

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 20:58:19 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/netscapes-lessons-for-ai-mania-innovation-technology-a132d8ae The initial public offering was filed at $14. Everyone wanted shares, so Morgan Stanley set the deal price at $28. As trading started, the stock popped to $74, ending the day at $58. Tech star Figma? The...

WSJ: We Won’t Miss Government Media

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:22:00 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/we-wont-miss-government-media-ce321e65 I’m going to miss the sweet and soothing dulcet-toned voices, but not much else. As part of the Trump administration’s rescission bill, $1.1 billion in federal funding has been cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, perhaps...

WSJ: Grok, Stocks and Jocks

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 18:40:22 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/grok-stocks-and-jocks-ncaa-sports-data-ai-eea1b52f “@grok, who will win the NCAA football championship in 2040?” I asked Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot. After a long pause, it answered, “Impossible to predict.” C’mon, where are your claimed reasoning skills? Meanwhile Mr. Musk’s company,...

WSJ: Al Gore Helped the U.S. Surpass Europe

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 20:04:30 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/al-gore-helped-the-u-s-surpass-europe-bastille-day-climate-economy-e0f6ad5a In the spirit of Bastille Day on July 14, it’s a good time to ask: What’s wrong with Europe? In 1790, France’s Marquis de Lafayette gave George Washington the key to the Bastille prison—still displayed at Mt....

WSJ: AI Is a Boon to ‘High Agency’ People

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 20:19:03 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ai-is-a-boon-to-high-agency-people-entrepreneur-replit-cb495999 We can’t all be Mark Zuckerberg, dropping out of Harvard and creating a trillion-dollar company. But what if there were a million Zuckerbergs, or 100 million, all capable of doing amazing things? These “high-agency” people are being...

WSJ: Let America’s 250-Year Bash Begin

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 16:34:16 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-americas-250-year-bash-begin-1c5d89c2 This week kicks off a yearlong celebration and hootenanny for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—the semiquincentennial. That’s an awful name, a seven-syllable mouthful. Let’s change it now and instead call it...

Monday Mantra: Understanding 'The Watcher'

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 18:07:19 +0000

The Watcher is a Buddhist construct for an internal narrative that stays present in your cognitive background watching, assessing, taking note. Individuals with too strong of a Watcher can become timid, fed by neurotic second-guessing and self-doubt. Those with too weak of a Watcher end up missing a critical feedback loop that is key to learning and growth. Finding balance with one’s Watcher is also a key factor in cultivating ambition, growing emotional intelligence and pursuing physical connection. You can think of the manifestation of a Watcher voice as a monologue or dialog with self, which is noteworthy in that I read somewhere that between a third and a half of people have NO inner monologue or dialogue. They don't debate with themselves, they have no inner conversations - they exist in a blur of images and sensations and feelings. You might noodle on your level of Watcher narrative, and whether more, less or different is needed.

WSJ: Trump’s Golden Share Mistake

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 19:43:45 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-golden-share-mistake-98181f2d Last week brought us the Golden Share. No, that isn’t a James Bond movie, or a detail from the Steele dossier, although the plot is as sinister. It’s the Trump administration’s first step to nationalize the steel...

WSJ: Can You Trust Anybody?

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 20:07:23 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/can-you-trust-anybody-president-media-influencer-ai-aa13b7ea Who can you trust anymore? Just before leaving office, President Biden railed against a “tech-industrial complex” claiming, “The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.” Hmmm, was he referring to the coverup of...

WSJ: Donald Trump vs. Bruce Springsteen

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 16:17:57 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-vs-bruce-springsteen-music-politics-6685d3cf Opening his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen called the Trump administration “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous.” To be fair, Europeans are used to these kinds of leaders. President Trump...

WSJ: A New Plan for the FAA

Sun, 18 May 2025 22:02:44 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-new-plan-for-the-faa-air-traffic-controller-tech-upgrade-flights-d5e9d9f0 After equipment failures, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is limiting the number of flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport, telling “Meet the Press,” “Listen, the system is old.” Ya think? We have Waymos and Teslas...

WSJ: The New Right’s Zombienomics

Sun, 11 May 2025 15:53:40 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-new-rights-zombienomics-trade-tariff-trump-bessent-f396f318 RIP free markets. Because of tariffs, Ford is raising prices. Toy maker Mattel is too. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News, “We don’t want to decouple—what we want is fair trade.” President Trump was nice enough...

WSJ: The Economy is in a Pickle

Fri, 09 May 2025 17:32:11 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-economy-is-in-a-pickle-private-equity-risk-fbc4b2b2 Harvard is educating us all—on what’s ailing Wall Street and the U.S. economy. Facing the freeze of $2.2 billion in federal grants, Harvard is selling $750 million in bonds, for a total of $1.2 billion this fiscal...

WSJ: Capitalism Won the Vietnam War

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 21:10:58 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/capitalism-won-the-vietnam-war-modern-effects-american-politics-and-vietnamese-economy-c65f4e58 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam This week will see another Liberation Day—in Vietnam. I walked along the parade route leading to the former Presidential Palace, now Reunification Palace. Artillery guns are lined up along the Saigon River...

WSJ; Trump’s Protectionist Bunker

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 15:52:29 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-protectionist-bunker-tariffs-trade-policy-business-economy-d156f047 “Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again,” goes the “All in the Family” theme song. Donald Trump, who grew up 15 minutes from Archie Bunker, took it seriously. “We’re bringing wealth back to America,”...

WSJ: Our Capitulation Nation

Sun, 20 Apr 2025 15:50:28 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/capitulation-nation-everyone-folding-negotiation-trade-trump-f00dd69e The White House claims that phones were “ringing off the hook” with countries caving to President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. Meanwhile, the bond market backed up and stocks sold off until Mr. Trump folded like a cocktail napkin...

WSJ: Is Anyone a Patriot Anymore?

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 08:16:42 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/is-anyone-a-patriot-anymore-america-commitment-country-f4056f00 “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” According to the author James Boswell, Samuel Johnson said this on April 7, 1775, at the Literary Club in London. It’s been one of the most misunderstood lines for...

WSJ: The Abundance Agenda

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 22:04:07 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/can-the-left-do-abundance-slogan-movement-policy-politics-economy-fb42771d I have to admit: I’m baffled by the “abundance” movement. You may have run across it in recent books, tweets and Substacks, pitching an abundance agenda as a new packaging for the left. Fearing a long journey...

Apple's segmentation strategy, and the folly of conventional wisdom

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:53:14 +0000

Ten years after an iPod powered rebirth, Apple's run continues unabated. (Published 29 September 2010) There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path." In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes. This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness. Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits." There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple. (For a historical perspective on tech industry architectural orientation, check out "Waves of Power" by David Moschella.) Apple's gaudy performance relative to its industry peers The following inconvenient facts must be an affront to the horizontal, commoditized, open, market share zealots. Apple has launched three major new product lines since 2001: the iPod (October, 2001); the iPhone (July, 2007); and the iPad (April, 2010). The company's stock is up 3,000 percent since the launch of iPod, 125 percent since the launch of iPhone, and 20 percent since the launch of iPad. In that same time period, the major devotees of the loosely coupled model -- Microsoft, Google, Intel and Dell -- have been, at best, outpaced by Apple 6X (in the case of Google dating back to the launch of iPod) and at worst, either been wiped out (in the case of Dell) or treaded water (in the cases of Microsoft and Intel) in every comparison period. Let me go a step further and make the forceful assertion that in the red hot mobile computing segment (inclusive of smart phones, media players and tablet devices), anything that Nokia, RIM/Blackberry and even Google Android are doing is simply orthogonal to Apple's iOS-based device play (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad). Checkers to chess. That is why it's laughable that the latest meme du jour, "The Apps Lifestyle" -- and believe me, it is a lifestyle -- is ridiculously framed as a trend of the multi-vendor "cell phones" segment. Why? The clear-cut truth is that Apple's iOS device platform is the staging ground of the Apps Lifestyle, something that ~90-percent of iOS device owners "get" to the point of it being intrinsic, assumed and embedded. By contrast, maybe 15 percent of non-iOS device owners embrace The Apps Lifestyle, or even know what it means, and that's probably being generous. Yet, this composite translates to 29 percent of all users (according to Pew Research Center). How can you not confuse the tail with the dog, with that kind of framing? The folly of conventional wisdom Therein, lies the problem with conventional wisdom. Namely, that it's conventional. It doesn't think outside the box in terms of strategic imperatives, like building differentiation, growing margins or defensibility. That explains why the top three mobile handset unit sales 'leaders' (Nokia, Samsung, LG) are outselling Apple in raw units an astounding 23.5 to 1, yet for all of that effort, combined they are garnering only 82 percent of Apple's profit level. Is it surprising, then, that the reward for achieving such distinguished leadership was for the CEOs at two of those companies (i.e., Nokia and LG) to get fired? Let me net it out for you: Customers buy outcomes, they don't buy attributes, and they certainly don't pay a premium for it. Whether you love or hate Apple, recognize that they are an exemplar of this truth. Analyzing Apple market segmentation strategy In the real world of building products and attacking market opportunities, market segmentation is the process of defining and sub-dividing the aggregate, homogeneous market into addressable, targeted needs and aspirations buckets. Buckets that are in turn, thresholded by demographic, psychographic and/or budgetary constraints. Market segmentation strategy enables a company to drive complete, unified product solutions that are harmonious with messaging, customer outreach, and channel strategies for selling and supporting customers. In this regard, Apple's product strategy is a study in market segmentation. Versus merely trying to stuff a product, burrito-style, with as many different features as possible, they target specific user experiences, and build the product around that accordingly. Consider the recent iPod event in September, where Apple completely rebooted the iPod nano, rolled back the iPod shuffle to an earlier interaction model, and majorly forked the iPod Touch in a way that also speaks to iPhone positioning. Mind you, each of these efforts represent major strategic iterations of successful products, not reboots of failed ones, so it speaks volumes about how the company thinks about its users, their workflows and corresponding segments. Moreover, it underscores the integral-ness of continuously re-calibrating on the definition of the situation; not merely doing more for the sake of an added bullet point or to support a desired price point. Does Apple have a perfect crystal ball on these things? The history of the nano and the degree of iteration of this generation's shuffle, suggests that no, in fact, they don't always have a perfect read. But make no mistake: While they may not always be right, they are never confused or haphazard in their approach, and that is the hallmark of sound market segmentation strategy. Apple segmentation from iPod shuffle to MacBook As such, the chart below is an attempt to logically organize Apple's product line so as to better understand the company's approach to market segmentation: So what does it all mean? If (in football terms) we are now entering the second quarter of the age of mobile computing, it helps to see the continuum of connected devices from the perspective of their means of mobility; namely, whether they are wear-able, pocket-able, bag-able or portable. Similarly, the diverse set of device input methods that Apple embraces -- from physical buttons, keyboards and mice to multi-touch and tilt -- provides a window into the types of use cases and workflows that they are optimizing around. Further, when you see how Apple has used its vertical integration of the iPod media player and the iTunes marketplace across all of its devices to create a billing relationship with 160 million consumers vis-à-vis simplified discovery, purchase and distribution, it provides a window into how they've facilitated a market segmentation approach that is simultaneously harmonious and discrete. In the harmonious bucket is the way that iOS-based Apps and their corresponding "ecosystem surround" directly overlay on top of iTunes and the iPod media player. This approach is no doubt a business school study of how companies can marry strategy and tactics across product lines and product lifecycles. Ironically, it is the holistic approach that has given Apple the ability to be judicious in its implementation of differentiating hardware components at the display, phone, camera and video capture level. Want the best build quality device that Apple makes? Get the iPhone 4. How do we know this? While the iPod Touch has recently received iPhone 4 pixie dust, in the form of a camera, HD video recording and a retina screen, the build quality is a step below the iPhone 4, which feels like a jewel box forged by a craftsman. To be sure, the iPod Touch is beautiful and solid, but its screen is slightly diminished in effect, and the camera is intentionally hobbled. In other words, while Steve Jobs himself may refer to the iPod Touch as the "iPhone without the phone," in truth, the functional segmentation keeps it a step below the iPhone. Now, this is completely logical when you consider how much more expensive the iPhone is. Pricing (and margins) that are hidden from the customer via carrier subsidies. That is also why recent analyst data that suggests that the iPad is "cannibalizing" low-end MacBook sales -- versus simply swallowing the low-end Windows PC and netbook segments for lunch -- is dubious at best. If you own an iPad and a Mac, you know two things: The iPad targets a set of "jobs" that are not dependent upon keyboards and mice, but there are plenty of jobs for which a tablet is an unsatisfying replacement for a traditional computer; Apple doesn't make low-end MacBooks, or similarly hobbled devices, for which an iPad would represent a practical alternative. But then again, as I've stated before, Apple is a rare bird, pursuing non-linear, high-orchestration, high-leverage strategies. Exactly the type of complex storyline that is easily dismissed by simple-minded analysts, investors, competitors, media and the like. Keep that in mind the next time you come across a story citing "Apple" and "inevitable" in the same context. Related: Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn't Mac vs Windows Open "ish": The meaning of open, according to Google Holy Sh-t! Apple's Halo Effect

WSJ: A New Approach to Addiction

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:19:34 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-new-approach-to-addiction-phoenix-fitness-community-mental-health-a3591f99 It wasn’t hard to find Scott Strode when we first met. He was the big guy in a black T-shirt with the word “SOBER” splashed across it. Mr. Strode is founder of the Phoenix, a national “sober...

WSJ: Make America Smart Again

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:44:04 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/make-america-smart-again-technology-ai-students-education-schools-policy-5ffcc497 “Look, in seventh grade, if I had known that I could have said the word ‘they’ and got in the girls’ bathroom, I would have done it,” Rahm Emanuel recently said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill...

WSJ: How’s Trump Doing? The Tri-focal Lens

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 20:13:55 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/hows-trump-doing-president-politics-tariff-mexico-canada-china-europe-crypto-stock-market-9772934e Former New York City mayor Ed Koch famously asked, “How’m I doing?” Donald Trump doesn’t ask, he just tells (for 100 minutes). But really, how is he doing? Most view Mr. Trump through either MAGA-hat-red or orange-man-bad...

WSJ: Is Civility Possible Again?

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:14:30 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/is-civility-possible-again-political-discourse-the-view-donald-trump-godwins-law-social-media-1d89bef8 The hits keep coming from Donald Trump: “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” To Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.” “CLINKERS.” “Ratings Challenged NBC...

WSJ: The You-Do Economy

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 21:49:38 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-you-do-economy-individualism-choice-self-service-decentralized-f0622d63 It started slowly. We dial our own phone numbers instead of an operator. We pump our own gasoline (except in New Jersey). With pensions phasing out, most of us plan for our own retirement and trade our...

WSJ: Weird Naming Conventions

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 18:06:57 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/cant-ai-think-of-better-names-for-itself-products-brands-technology-advertising-27bf4b6a What is it with techies and their bizarre product names? After announcing ChatGPT-4o Mini—what does that even mean?—OpenAI’s Sam Altman admitted the company needed a “naming scheme revamp.” No kidding. Other names, such as Copilot and Gemini,...

WSJ: The New Wave of AI Is Here

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:31:57 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-new-wave-of-ai-is-here-some-jobs-will-go-but-others-will-be-created-0dbf9f63 A recent meme captures the gnawing artificial-intelligence backlash: A worker says, “AI turns this single bullet point into a long email I can pretend I wrote.” In the next panel, “AI makes a single bullet point out...

WSJ: Severance and DOGE - How to Spend $1 Million in a Hurry

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 22:10:25 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-to-spend-1-million-in-a-hurry-a-lesson-in-budgeting-and-bureaucracies-makes-me-skeptical-of-doge-1ea97897 Want to know if DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, will work? Watch the terrific show “Severance” on Apple TV+. It had me squirming. It wasn’t only the delightful weirdness of what many viewers describe as “corporate...

Master Planning and the Lessons of the Palisades Fire

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:13:16 +0000

“But when everybody starts talking about rebuilding, yes, we need to rebuild quickly, and yes, we need to get people back in their homes, but we also need to be smart about it because the Palisades, just like Altadena, — and God bless the families there too — the Palisades is gonna remain in a fire zone. So don’t go build the same damn thing.” - Rick Caruso, Founder, Caruso Much has been written about the horror, anxiousness, fear, sadness, and for many, potentially bottomless loss from the Palisades Fire. At the same time, the human aspect of the event leaves us full of gratitude for the endless acts of grit, heroism, and community, often by ordinary people helping total strangers. This story plays over and over across Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, Sunset, Sylmar – all very scary fires that exploded in a concentric circle around the hillsides that extend from the greater San Fernando Valley, where I grew up. I am an LA native. My teen and college years were filled with daily drives through the many canyon roads that separate the Valley from Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood, Palisades and Malibu. I love those drives. Still do. LA is such a megalopolis that it’s easy to forget the many enclaves and sub pockets, each with their own unique terra firma and community character, that cut deep. But, fire has not been foreign to these areas, and every Angeleno that lives in the hillsides, knows that but for the grace of god, it could have been me. This is the life we've chosen. No less, it’s worth noting that these firestorms were fueled and carried by 100 mile per hour Santa Ana winds. The “Santa Anas” are an ever-recurring meteorological event that every Angeleno is well-familiar with. My point is this. In the days, weeks and months ahead, as our collective attention shifts from grief to “we’ll get through this,” we should ask ourselves what “This” is. The Role of Master Planning The scale of the endeavor to rebuild is daunting. Jay Leno, a Pacific Palisades resident, put the starkness in perspective: "It's unbelievable, it's the biggest natural disaster—not that 9/11 was a natural disaster—but it's literally on that scale. I mean it's 10,000 buildings. If you drove all day you couldn't see 10,000 buildings...I mean, Pacific Palisades, it doesn't exist and probably won't exist for the next five, six years." Think about that. The rebuild will be the mother of all master planning & development projects, an urban planning exercise that will shape the footprint, function, flow and future of a beloved community for VERY long time—including when extreme firestorm conditions recur, as they will. Think of master planning as the combined set of processes that go into designing and developing a site or area, considering factors like land use, infrastructure, cost, funding and aesthetics. Master planning involves creating a strategic blueprint that guides the growth and development of a project over time, ensuring alignment with long-term goals, short-term constraint and sustainability. As an aside, I remember reading ‘The Power Broker,’ Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses, the transformative city planner of New York during the mid-1900s. Anyone who has been to New York can tangibly and viscerally see Moses’ fingerprints throughout the city. Such is the import and impact of master planning. A fascinating read. Similarly, I have lived most of my adult life in San Francisco, a city with strong master planning (even if the process of how they get there is not for the squeamish). To quantify this, in my time living in SF, they’ve launched multiple new communities (South Beach, Mission Bay), sports venues (Oracle Park, Chase Center), parks (Crissy Field, Francisco Park), hospitals (Mission Bay, CPMC) numerous transportation enhancements and overseen a general uplift of a number of neighborhoods (SOMA, SF Waterfront, Hayes Valley). Simply, I am a believer in the goodness of master planning. What is the Need for Master Planning in Pacific Palisades There are several truisms at work here. One is the understandable goal of expediency. Lives are broken and homes need to be rebuilt. Any cuttable red tape must be cut. Two is the reality that building codes change for good reasons. Materials are more durable and fire retardant. Setbacks and height restrictions afford better realization of shared spaces. Landscaping restrictions mitigate against providing ready fuel for the next red flag event. Three, what is the ideal resident mix between single family homes and multifamily housing? What is the ideal footprint for retail, office and mixed use from a zoning perspective? What changes should be made to roads, better factoring ingress/egress, bike riders, etc. What should be done to maximize realization of schools, parks, and government services, including police and fire protection? Which historical rules and regulations should be "grandfathered" in, and which should be subject to current building codes? What are the right service levels, based on lessons learned about "Peak," "Typical" and "Extreme" condition events, including both the Great LA Fires of 2025 and the COVID Pandemic? And who pays for what? Finally, there is the truism that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” in that decisions made and realized in the next five or so years will still be reverberating fifty years from now. So many variables, so many stakeholders, so many truths.

WSJ: Trump Tariffs Are a Wealth Killer

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 22:21:30 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-tariffs-are-a-wealth-killer-imports-protectionism-483f8517 “We will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” President Trump declared in his inauguration speech. Adam Smith is turning in his grave. Tariffs destroy wealth. No matter, Mr. Trump said he may slap 25%...

WSJ: My Festering Questions for 2025

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 21:09:11 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/my-festering-questions-for-2025-investing-tech-pharma-advertising-ai-federal-reserve-e8f1ac69 While the culture wars raged on for the past four years, some real-world questions festered: Is something rotten at Apple? There is little growth. Earnings per share are basically flat since 2021 even with stock buybacks lowering...

WSJ: Dylan, Musk and the Edge of Chaos

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 21:25:33 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/dylan-musk-and-the-edge-of-chaos-bob-elon-electric-guitar-innovation-c514389b With the release of the film “A Complete Unknown,” the world has been reintroduced to Bob Dylan’s all-electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The singer, formerly Robert Allen Zimmerman, brazenly played a solid-body electric Fender...

WSJ: What a Long, Strange Trip

Sun, 29 Dec 2024 23:25:34 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-a-long-strange-trip-work-vacation-travel-experiences-8441fa22 I have a love-hate relationship with travel. The late chef Anthony Bourdain wrote, “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in...

WSJ: Division Isn’t So Bad

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 18:03:13 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/division-isnt-so-bad-politics-polarization-disagreement-american-society-f83d6dd7 American culture is built on division. Left vs. Right, Coke vs. Pepsi, Ohio State vs. flag-planting Michigan, Classico vs. Rao’s, Red Sox vs. Yankees. Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift. Maybe you’re tired of it, but you can’t...

WSJ: It’s All a Conspiracy, Right?

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 17:46:49 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/its-all-a-conspiracy-right-rfk-hhs-8bcd2df7 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominated to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has brought conspiracy theories back into the mainstream. In the past, he has claimed vaccines cause autism (since debunked), that we should drink...

The Rise of Agents: Where AI goes from here

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 08:36:13 +0000

“In the distance, Miles saw the end of man as the Apex, and the Rise of AI in its place, a bold new universe with boundless frightening and exciting possibilities.” Our sensibility for thinking about AI is the current “generative” phase, where we tell the AI to create something and it does as we ask. On the fly, the AI creates images, writes songs, programs code, crafts recipes, and edits text, and these are just some of the generative AI capabilities that are emerging. But, it’s the next phase, the Agentic Phase, when a new form of AI – autonomous agents – will change everything. What makes an agent an “Agent” is that agents can operate with both independent thought and independent action and without human direction. When we begin to see such entities operating in the wild, then our society will begin to grasp, viscerally, the potential (and potential for peril) from AI’s Scale, Complexity and increasing Autonomy from Man. Case in point, if you’ve experienced Waymo’s autonomous taxi service you know firsthand this before/after “holy shit” dynamic. It doesn’t seem real, but not only is it real, it’s a really nice experience. In not so distant future, there will be 50-250 Waymo style intelligent automation applications, we’ll have sharpened our mental models for AIs foundational use cases, much of which was predicated on innovations that seemingly overnight went from science fiction to rocket launch and then, ubiquity. In doing so, we’ll come to understand why this represents a hierarchical shift in terms of the primacy of humankind as masters of the universe. Consider two very different examples of types of agents that will become so endemic that within FIVE years we’ll take their existence for granted. Think of a Marketing Assistant Bot, whose job is understand your business, its operations, economics and the industry it operates within, in terms of market dynamics, competition and customer needs. As a bot that exists virtually in the cloud, it will tirelessly create your marketing collateral, manage your outbound communications, cultivate your web presence, and provide customer service and technical support. Within five years, this entire set of jobs, outcomes and interfacing assumptions will be able to be performed by a software bot operating as an autonomous agent. Such bots will excel at design, orchestration and oversight. They also will be adaptive, readily augmenting their capabilities, based on the needs of users and industry best practices, enabling agents to expand their coverage department by department, enterprise by enterprise, and industry by industry. Now, consider something entirely different. There will exist a software-based Predator Bot that plays to human frailty by autonomously monitoring online services, chat and email, and engaging strangers, profiling them, and pushing buttons to get these strangers to be befriended or romanced, so they’ll reveal their secrets, share details on their personal wealth, provide compromising images, account numbers, passwords, and the like. Such bots will excel at bankrupting, blackmailing and breaking hearts. They’ll never get sick, never sleep, never feel guilty, can operate their cons over time, will keep getting better based on global scale learnings, and can scale their activities infinitely in terms of individual instigators and conspirator “cohorts.” While such bots may operate on behalf of organized criminal networks, and **may** report back to a human or software master that governs them, there is no inherent reason that agents can’t operate as literal free agents, exercising independent thought and independent action. This begs a question. When an AI-based network of Predator Bots decides to break off from its home criminal network, what becomes its compass, what does it optimize on and what does it build over time? Is there any reason such a bot would practice loyalty to its human boot master? I have no idea, but it hearkens back to Marc Andreessen’s axiom about ‘Software is Eating the World,’ though its more like “enveloping the world” in the case of AI. Such is the promise and the peril of Agentic AI. When Science Fiction toggles from Impossible to Inevitable It says here that by 2030 – if not sooner – our current AI model of generative intelligence via chatbot will give rise to master and sub agent bots that can operate independently, cooperatively or in a federated fashion as: Intelligent Task Runners Generative Engines Managers of Stage, State and Resource Allocation This emergence sets in motion the advent of AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, that achieves a state of Super Intelligence that is all aware, all assimilating and all capable, certainly beyond the realm of human understanding. It is logical to ask how close is this to reality, and how likely are the scenarios presented to come about, in the time frames suggested. Let me first say that the data side of this argument is based on reading, ‘Situational Awareness – The Decade Ahead’ by Leopold Aschenbrenner, who was one of the founding members of the Superalignment team at OpenAI. (Note: Better than taking my word, read Situational Awareness via the link above. As an aside, Superalignment is focused on navigating the unique technical and design challenges of reliably controlling AI systems that are much smarter than we are.) The author makes the case for three vectors of exponential growth leading us to AGI. The first and most basic is that we are using much bigger computers to train these models, which the author argues presents a straight line between building ever-bigger compute clusters, and the dialing up of the AI revolution. In just a few years, we’ve gone from computers barely being able to disseminate chihuahua faces from blueberry muffins, to now being able to operate with the full library of knowledge and task execution skills of the most elite grad students. The graphic below illustrates that, from a compute perspective, it does not require a lottery ticket-level event to occur in terms of leaps in technical know-how or manufacturing scale, just for the growth trend and ramp to continue. (Note: AI ramp is arguably more gated on access to power, a topic worth discussion in its own right.) Here, Aschenbrenner asserts that we can decompose the progress in the four years from GPT-2 to GPT-4 into three categories of scaleups: Compute: We’re using much bigger computers to train these models. Algorithmic Efficiencies: There’s a continuous trend of algorithmic progress. Many of these act as “compute multipliers,” and we can put them on a unified scale of growing effective compute. ”Unhobbling” Gains: By default, models learn a lot of amazing raw capabilities, but they are hobbled in all sorts of dumb ways, limiting their practical value. You can think of unhobbling as “paradigm-expanding/application-expanding/re-factoring/right sizing” algorithmic progress that unlocks capabilities of base models. Needless to say, there is a natural synergy and feedback loop between growth in Algorithmic Efficiencies and Unhobbling Gains. This is why optimizing on best practices is the gift that keeps giving in how it shapes purpose, process and (realized) potential. But that’s qualitative. To better quantify this, In Aschenbrenner’s graph that means in four years time, we were able to achieve the same level of performance for ~100X less Compute (and concomitantly, much higher performance for the same Compute). A related correlate of this is that as the quality of data, and the means of fortifying that data get better, we could/should see better models for AI to internalize. Better training runs on better trains with better tracks. Unhobbling, by contrast, may focus on overcoming current constraints of AI systems, such as lack of long-term memory, limited capacity to use a computer, severely limited in most actions that occur in the physical realm (vs. digital), lack of reflective thought, and limited collaborative skills; notably, many of the things that are native to humans. So, here are some scenario planning bets curated from my own biases, but also vetted: By 2030, thanks to Agentic AI, you’re going to have something that looks and performs more like a Co-Worker than a ChatBot. One of the more interesting questions will be pricing models for Agents and Agentic systems. Will pricing be more like a licensed seat; more like a mechanical turk unit; or more like a 1099 hire? Once the models can automate AI research, that will kick off intense feedback loops, opening the door to solving the remaining bottlenecks to AI fully automating everything-ish, and in the process, AI evolving very rapidly. To think of the scale of AI, imagine 100 million automated researchers each working at 100X human speed with access to the full library of knowledge in the domain of focus, each be able to do a year’s worth of work in a few days. The hyper acceleration of intellectual activities created through AI automation at scale will yield the creation of ultra-intelligent machines and an ‘intelligence explosion’ that leaves the intelligence and inventions of man far behind. This will be a catalytic event for man kind. Most basically, AI will be able to self-improve through an ability to write millions of lines of complex code, keep its entire codebase in context, and spend human decades-level checking and re-checking every line of code for bugs and optimizations. A non-obvious “unfair advantage” of the existence of a robust AI training fabric is that you won’t have to individually train up each automated AI researcher. Instead, you can just teach and onboard one of them—and then make replicas. As the AGI race intensifies—as it becomes clear that superintelligence will be utterly decisive in international military, political and economic competition—we will have to face the full force of foreign espionage, hacking and intelligence wars. Unless we solve alignment—unless we figure out how to instill the critical side-constraints—there’s no particular reason to expect this small civilization of superintelligences will continue obeying human commands in the long run. Put another way, it seems totally within the realm of possibilities that at some point they’ll (the AI) simply conspire to cut out the humans, whether suddenly or gradually. Either way, rest assured a wild ride is ahead, through the looking glass, that is.

WSJ:How Progress Builds on Itself

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 22:10:44 +0000

Follow @andykessler https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-progress-builds-on-itself-innovation-biotech-artificial-intelligence-engineer-science-d447ab4a “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” Isaac Newton wrote in 1675 to polymath Robert Hooke. That expression is often used to explain progress: inventors and entrepreneurs building on the...