Howard Marks @[email protected]

Former analyst, journalist and storage bon vivant. Now working @VAST_Data who do not approve of me here. @[email protected]

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@SharpNetwork It don’t get better than that

[Matt Turck @mattturck]

In Jensen's 5 layer cake analogy for AI (energy, chips, infrastructure, models, applications), the middle layer (esp the software infra part) is much less understood - and thats where @VAST_Data became a $30B company few people know about, powering @SpaceXAI, @CoreWeave, @nebiusai, @MistralAI, @nscale etc

My conversation with Renen Hallak, CEO:

00:00 Intro
00:51 The hidden software layer in NVIDIA's AI stack 02:28 What actually makes an "AI factory"?
05:13 Should Walmart and Goldman build their own AI?
06:20 "We infer during the day, fine-tune at night"
13:16 Announcement: frontier models & sensitive data
15:32 From P vs. NP to founding VAST Data
17:32 OpenAI, Navier–Stokes and 10,000 agents
20:25 The pre-transformer insight behind VAST
21:55 DASE: VAST's "shared everything" architecture
25:18 "Storage was where startups go to die"
27:39 Trillions of vectors: why old databases break
29:01 Are S3, Snowflake and Databricks ready for AI
31:29 Data gravity, vendor lock-in and zero churn
33:13 Training vs. inference: why the infrastructure changes
34:46 Model routing, KV caches, RAG & agent memory
36:59 Identity, permissions and security for AI agents 40:27 Can multi-agent systems unlock scientific discovery?
41:55 DataEnclave: how confidential AI protects data and weights
45:16 Who should be AI's trust layer?
46:37 "Sometimes it scares me": 500 petabytes to 2 exabytes
50:08 Is circular AI financing creating systemic risk
51:32 Why VAST is profitable when AI infra isn't
53:24 What separates the winning neoclouds?
55:06 "Their lunch is being eaten": why hyperscalers lag
59:10 Where will the trillions accrue across the AI stack
1:01:18 NVIDIA: "There's no legal document between us"
1:03:59 What VAST learned from xAI and @elonmusk
1:05:36 "Bad things loudly and often": building at AI speed
1:06:53 More change in 10 years than the previous 1,000?
1:08:39 VAST's endgame: all the data in the world

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@_Desmoden @USNavy $175/ton.

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@plankers Brings a whole new meaning to "Making it rain" Bob

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

People say:

"I wish one middle-class income could support an entire family like it did in the 1950s."

Okay. Then take the entire 1950s package—not just the parts you romanticize.

• No Netflix, Disney+, Spotify, or endless subscriptions
• One small TV with 3 channels, if you're lucky
• One basic car for the whole family
• No yearly vacations or cheap flights across the country
• No smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, or internet
• Every meal cooked at home from scratch
• Kids sharing bedrooms
• A house under 1,000 sq. ft. for a family of 4–6
• One bathroom for everyone
• Little to no air conditioning in many places
• Clothes repaired, reused, and handed down
• Eating at restaurants was an occasional luxury, not a weekly habit

The comparison isn't just income.

The average household today consumes far more space, technology, entertainment, travel, convenience, and services than the average household did 70 years ago.

That doesn't mean housing, healthcare, and education aren't more expensive today—they are.

But when people compare lifestyles across generations, they often compare a 1950s income to a 2020s standard of living.

Those aren't the same thing.

If you want the economics of the 1950s, you have to accept the lifestyle of the 1950s too.

[Anonymous @YourAnonCentral]

Trump offers a bribe of $5,000 in exchange for votes, the bribe is promoted as a dividend and would cost $1.2 trillion dollars. This is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 597, bribing someone to vote a certain way is a federal crime punishable by prison.

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@slice Your EMAIL is in violation of the CAN-SPAM act. It says you're sending because I was once a customer and has no unsubscribe. I moved out of your service area so the emails are futile except to make sure I don't use your service in my travels.
ADD A CLEAR UNSUBSCRIBE

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Reminder: Donald Trump’s immediate reaction to the 9/11 attacks was to brag that his building was now the tallest in downtown Manhattan after the Twin Towers collapsed.

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@JoJoFromJerz I spent 4 months working with The Salvation Army on WTC relief. I was serving coffee on the pile; there was no Trump.

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@lmacvittie And some of us watched it with the naked eye

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

I wish social media companies would stop reminding me to wish dead people a happy birthday

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

Workers of the world unite

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@plankers @Alph4betSoup Oh the AT2040USB looks a great deal.

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@PariseauTT What, and leave show business?

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@CTOAdvisor Congratulations

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@MrsCto @CTOAdvisor It’s important to be your true self

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@film_girl Didn’t we all

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@aaronbuley Whatever happened to Mavis Bacon?

[Howard Marks @[email protected] @DeepStorageNet]

@davemhenry it ends with yourself