Brooke Hammerling

Founder of helping shape the stories of amazing companies. Also writer/podcaster of LA/NY

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

It’s always a woman…

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Here's the full chain of events that led to Trump storming out of his interview with Kristin Welker, beginning with her pressing him on the weaponization fund, continuing with her pointing out the baselessness of his "rigged election" lies, and concluding with him calling her "crooked or stupid" and leaving

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

@alexeheath Hahahahahahahahaha. A+ tweet.

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

The world of chips is a fascinating one. NVIDIA, Cerebras, and of course @SambaNovaAI

https://t.co/GtH0qLoaze

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Wtf are creepypastas? I explain to us olds. https://t.co/srnPKk7NPi

[Hannu Rajaniemi @hannu]

Awe at the power of writing with DNA is why I got into biotech in the first place. My @HelixNano / @redqueenbio co-founder Nikolai Eroshenko made foundational contributions to DNA synthesis technologies.

Yet, we both signed this letter because we believe mandatory screening is an obvious policy change that bottlenecks bad actors while barely inconveniencing good ones.

It doesn't solve the problem, and there will always be workarounds. To fully counter AI-enabled biothreats, we need radically better biological defenses. But it definitely helps, and strong Congressional action here would be a start.

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

With all this talk of biological weapons and AI, here is @corememory podcast with @ashleevance & @hannu the cofounder of @redqueenbio the company that will save us from all of this.

https://t.co/iH0XosGUzu

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

No one should be able to order a bioweapon through the mail.

@IFP & @JoinFAI are proud to co-lead an open letter calling for mandatory DNA synthesis screening & recordkeeping.

Signatories include:

- Sam Altman, CEO & Co-Founder, OpenAI

- Dario Amodei, CEO & Co-Founder, Anthropic

- David Baker, Director, Institute for Protein Design; 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient

- Patrick Collison, CEO & Co-Founder, Stripe

- Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator

- Demis Hassabis, CEO, Google DeepMind; 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient

- Emily Leproust, CEO & Co-Founder, Twist Bioscience

- Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School

- Gerald W. Parker, former Special Assistant to the President for Biosecurity and Pandemic Response

- Mustafa Suleyman, CEO, Microsoft AI

- Alex Tabarrok, Professor of Economics, George Mason University

- Alexandr Wang, Chief AI Officer, Meta; Founder, Scale AI

- Christine E. Wormuth, President & CEO, Nuclear Threat Initiative; 25th Secretary of the Army

Read the letter and see the full list of signatories: https://t.co/BwZiJXw3JT

Many DNA synthesis companies voluntarily screen orders to mitigate biosecurity risks, but no law requires them to do so.

Leaders in AI, biotech, life sciences, national security, and the nucleic acid synthesis industry agree that Congress should act to strengthen safeguards against biological threats.

@deanwball put it well in the WSJ:

“If you’re synthesizing the stuff that yields biological life and viruses, we’re asking you to screen to see whether it is dangerous in some way. That seems like a reasonable thing for society to insist upon.”

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Why is everyone fighting ffs. It’s like the whole world has become mean 3rd graders at recess and it’s dumb. I hate it.

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Arugula=Dairy? But also, the NY Giants, the 👽, @TheDemocrats, Backrooms and micro-dramas. A week of pop culture across all sorts of categories!

https://t.co/RwHT3VvyBJ

[Second Thought @SecondThoughtFP]

.@ScooterBraun: Live Nation is not the villain everyone says it is.

“We’ve become a society now where if you are big, you must be an oppressor. We used to be a society that celebrated great entrepreneurs. That was the American way.

“Live Nation has… done an incredible job of building an amazing business. The government’s job is—when a business gets too big—to create opportunity for others. That doesn’t mean that Live Nation is bad.”

Watch the full interview with @SnoozyWeiss: https://t.co/Ri00qIbGyN

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Golden Girls meets Stranger Things? Yes please.

https://t.co/YzG7g5vU3o

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

This was one of my fave podcast episodes. Of all podcasts.

[Ashlee Vance @ashleevance]

Hannu Rajaniemi grew up as the great D&D nerd of northern Finland.

He turned his story telling skills and smarts - degrees in math and physics from fancy places - toward science fiction and became a beloved sci-fi author. Then he made his way to Silicon Valley and kept going with more big ideas and a bio-tech start-up.

Now, Rajaniemi wants to save the world. His new start-up Red Queen Bio seeks to outpace the AIs when it comes to bio defense. In other words, Rajaniemi would like to help us avoid civilization destroying plagues and thinks he has a plan to do so.

Rajaniemi, who is not as giant as he looks in the wide shot of this video, nor I as tiny as I appear, takes us through his life and career and his massive ideas around AI. He is very fun to listen to. You will enjoy.

The Core Memory podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and everywhere really. Love you.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
03:38 Growing up nerdy
07:19 Nordic LARP
13:05 How Iceland built Eve Online
17:16 Is AI just Frankenstein's monster?
25:40 Things are about to get weird
38:43 The book that started coming true
51:51 Producing a dark twin
1:03:46 Inside Red Queen Bio
1:29:02 Why lone wolves are the new threat
1:37:01 Building a civilizational immune system

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

@StephenM The stories I have heard about how deeply disliked you were as a child by your classmates, teachers, and your own family should make me feel bad for you. Yet. It does not.

[Ashlee Vance @ashleevance]

Good lord he's fun to listen to

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

I am not exaggerating when I say it’s been one of the most thrilling and exciting and terrifying and humbling experiences getting to work with @hannu & Nikolai Eroshenko @redqueenbio. This is an incredible convo between @ashleevance & @hannu. Biodefense > Bioweapons.

[Ashlee Vance @ashleevance]

An absolute thrill to speak with famed sci-fi author and all around genius @hannu about his life, visions of the future and our chances of defeating AI bioweapons via @redqueenbio https://t.co/8j9hKfkrjN

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Pop Culture Mondays.

On Tuesday.

- what was that?
- saxophone sound
- Harry Styles stage issues
- The Boroughs on @netflix

https://t.co/k5WooqF69N

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

Well well well. I am not shocked tbh. Sad that I’m not shocked. But shocked I am not.

[Helaine Olen @helaineolen]

I never read Belle Burden's book because it generally takes 2 to make a bad marriage & I hate "women-good, men-bad" memoirs. But count me as stunned that the in-house publishing lawyers didn't at least look at her divorce docs. https://t.co/MBN0isDu76

[Brooke Hammerling @brooke]

@sama Extending the life of pets by a substantial amount.

[molly taft @mollytaft]

lots of corporate press / comms people asking me to share drafts of stories before publication (??) these days. baby that is not how it has ever worked