Dev Sharma

campaigner & builder | behind UK's first online junk food ad ban + other major UK campaigns | politics @ Cambridge

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

In the @HouseofCommons, I spoke on the dire need for food system reform.

This #WorldObesityDay, remember: in our most disadvantaged communities, youth are losing 10 years of life to preventable, food-related conditions.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Personal update: I've joined Anthropic. I think the next few years at the frontier of LLMs will be especially formative. I am very excited to join the team here and get back to R&D. I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume my work on it in time.

[Zain Mobarik @Zainmbrk]

I spent the last few weeks crowdsourcing the ultimate guide to London’s startup ecosystem. Here's why.

Finding your people is a lifelong mission- the people that push you, open doors for you, celebrate your wins, advise you sincerely and say yes to your crazy ideas. It’s one of the reasons people love San Francisco. Everyone is rooting for you and believes in you. There is a sense of wild ambition.

But is this something only unique to SF? What is/was London missing?

I think it really came down to a few things:
- Optimism
- A mindset of waiting for permission
- Lack of a catalyst

Those in the startup world would have felt a shift over the past couple of months that has instilled a renewed sense of optimism for Britain, a mentality of not waiting for anyone’s permission and the catalyst of the AI boom empowering a new generation of builders.

And surprisingly, this isn’t new for Britain. We made the jet engine, steam trains, discovered the structure of DNA, discovered gravity and so much more. There was no concept of permission.

The UK that exists today has:
- Anthropic, OpenAI and DeepMind all opening offices in Kings Cross
- Startups raising absurd rounds building generational companies (just 2 days ago Fractile raised a $220m Series B)
- Unmatched talent being pulled in from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, Kings and even European universities like ETH

So how can someone get involved and how can we level the playing field for those outside the startup ecosystem?

The guide friends and I created below is our small role in helping democratise some of the obscure information on the inner workings of London’s startup scene.

Read it, add to it, check it regularly and most importantly, do something with it. I hope this guide helps people for years to come.

Can’t wait to see what we do on top of all the infrastructure built by those before us. We’re truly standing on the shoulders of giants. 🔥

Link in comments.

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

outstanding performance by sky news last night. kate burley is a national legend.

[Luke Harries @lukeharries]

Alternative proposal - use the same amount of money to give 10M kids £5 each, invested in stocks and shares via a junior ISA

You would train 10M kids to see their money compound

And would likely lead to more press and awareness overall

[michael @MichaelDmrks]

there's some formulation of this that is true, if the ultimate optimisation goal is only distance to the acquisition of capital.

many VCs make this point, and they are right considering optimisation for expected fiscal returns. but this misses the forest for the trees.

life is also about other things: finding a relationship that is meaningful to you, becoming well-read, being physically fit/ healthy. some of these things might be easier to do outside of university, even! but, university provides time that is just *this*, lacking a strong optimisation target, and creating societally acceptable unstructured time to purposefully fail at these things and implement systems to not continue failing at them, even if while having to perform menial knowledge work.

this first year of study at cambridge has been experientially multipolar, with undulating ups and downs.

it has also been a valuable playpen

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

@dscape @f @goncalossilva @davidgomes hi

[Louis Elton @LouisElton96]

https://t.co/XwOGhuAd7R

[Sonith @_sonith]

Plenty of young people are given the advice to just follow their passion.

What does that even mean? How do you actually know what you're passionate about?

"It’s what [you] think about when [you're] not working... [you] just don’t have the courage to take the leap.”

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

@KanishkaNarayan @UKSovereignAI @Peston Congrats Kanishka. Very exciting!!

[Joe Reeve - 🇬🇧/acc @isnit0]

A knight, a lord, a dame, and a commander of the British Empire walk into a bar...

And build a fucking city.

[The Food Foundation @Food_Foundation]

✨ We've joined forces with @jamieoliver @ChefsinSchools @BiteBack2030 and @sfmtweet to help transform school food!

The School Food Project aims to ensure delicious meals are served to students up and down the country.

Learn more & sign up: https://t.co/lKlp1tm0VS
#schoolfoodproject

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

This is such a win for children’s health!

Finally, we will have freshly-cooked warm food in our canteens that actually nourishes us instead of being boring and beige

[BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast]

Deep-fried food will be banned and high-sugar items restricted in schools in England under new plans to "overhaul" school dinners.

Education minister Olivia Bailey spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the change

https://t.co/lG02MbD2yN

[BBC Breakfast @BBCBreakfast]

Deep-fried food will be banned and high-sugar items restricted in schools in England under new plans to "overhaul" school dinners.

Education minister Olivia Bailey spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the change

https://t.co/lG02MbD2yN

[Henry de Zoete @HZoete]

Britmaxxing 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🚀🚀🚀

[Dr Francis Young @DrFrancisYoung]

I know Cambridge is much more fortunate than other universities in receiving vast endowments like this, but even at Cambridge the money never seems to find its way to the traditional Humanities and is always focussed on STEM, Business, and in this case Government and Politics 😒

[Henry de Zoete @HZoete]

Pleased to be rejoining the civil service as Investment and AI adviser in DSIT. As an exited founder and angel investor in over a hundred startups I’m hopeful I can help make Britain the place for tech and AI. It’s a part time role as I will still be carrying on my work at Oxford University and on the board of the ALB of the DfE Oak National Academy. This government has made great strides on AI and tech. Excited to get going and help!

[Dev Sharma @DevSharmaUK]

@HZoete @JohnRentoul Huge congratulations Henry!

[vittorio @IterIntellectus]

this is actually insane

> be tech guy in australia
> adopt cancer riddled rescue dog, months to live
> not_going_to_give_you_up.mp4
> pay $3,000 to sequence her tumor DNA
> feed it to ChatGPT and AlphaFold
> zero background in biology
> identify mutated proteins, match them to drug targets
> design a custom mRNA cancer vaccine from scratch
> genomics professor is “gobsmacked” that some puppy lover did this on his own
> need ethics approval to administer it
> red tape takes longer than designing the vaccine
> 3 months, finally approved
> drive 10 hours to get rosie her first injection
> tumor halves
> coat gets glossy again
> dog is alive and happy
> professor: “if we can do this for a dog, why aren’t we rolling this out to humans?”

one man with a chatbot, and $3,000 just outperformed the entire pharmaceutical discovery pipeline.

we are going to cure so many diseases.
I dont think people realize how good things are going to get

[michael @MichaelDmrks]

the future of the UK is being actively formed in the dorm rooms and the London coffee shops and hackathon community spaces

we must all find ways to know each other, and the leverage this will provide will be wondrous

we can make London in our image