Evan Knowles

Kentucky-based Entrepreneur | Co-founder, CEO of Valent

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

@Jason I'm in

[Starlink @Starlink]

Starlink provides reliable high-speed internet to even the most rural locations 🛰️🐎

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

@jryanharris @CrainHangLow @JonRothstein facts

[Governor Andy Beshear @GovAndyBeshear]

Had a great time talking about technology in Kentucky with @middletechpod! Thanks for having me and Winnie on the show!

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

There is a worldwide culture battle playing out publicly at a scale we’ve never witnessed before thanks to billionaires that care deeply about western values. They have put their money behind the things that made them billionaires in the first place… their western values, work ethics, and convictions. Those three things are what allowed them to build great businesses that have pushed America forward.

When you combine this engagement of powerful civilians with the advent of GenAI, you have a renewed alignment between western values and Silicon Valley. First and foremost, this is because we are entering a new Industrial Revolution in which unimaginable wealth will be made.

Secondly, Silicon Valley is becoming aware of their failed ability to sustain responsible decision making as it relates to social media platforms and speech. They were compromised letting fear and profits consume them. Over years, we witnessed a slow erosion of western values and an infiltration of competing ideologies that made their way into our minds, government, and our institutions leading to racism, censorship, and a lack of meritocracy ultimately coming to a head with the reckless globalization and Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

The public had their eyes opened to where that path was heading and made a clear statement in the election to change course.

Why is this all so important? Why is Silicon Valley getting aligned on this issue all of a sudden? Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter? Because of AI. I think Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Alex Karp, and many others are viewing this as an inflection point for the future of AI supremacy and a continuation of western values as they were written when our country was founded.

If we do not take western values seriously now, it will be almost impossible later as our values spill over into social threads and training data. The stakes have never been higher for Silicon Valley or western values. They failed us with social media and cannot do it again with AI. Today’s video released by Zuck is a major domino falling as Facebook dominates global conversation.

A topic that has not yet hit mainstream is “Sovereign AI.” This will be what restores western values or kills it. Jensen Huang has traveled the globe talking about this but the cycle of GenAI is still too early for the masses to understand this concept and implement it; however, I think Elon and Peter Thiel do understand it hence the Twitter acquisition and the backing of the Trump administration and his appointments.

Without the snap back to clear, high conviction values in America, we will not take full advantage of this concept and will fall as a nation as time goes on. We will literally lose our values to training datasets that are too diluted. An AI trained on all values has no values at all.

But this isn’t true of just AI. That’s just why Silicon Valley cares. The rest of us should care because this is our country and we should take pride in it and our values.

Europe and Canada are next. Align on your values or risk extinction or at the very least a major dilution of the culture that makes you special.

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Is there a way to score AI models based on how truthful they are? Let’s call it the Galileo Index. Suggestions welcome.

[Katherine Boyle @KTmBoyle]

Best two minutes you’ll watch all weekend.

[Charlie Light @charliewrich]

If you played this game as a kid, you're an entrepreneur now

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

You are the media now

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

@andrew__rea Running (exercise in general) and time with family are the best ways to manage IMO.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

How does this get published?

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Absolutely incredible.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

We’re not an NBA prep school. We’re the top program in the nation that expects championships.

[Adam Edelen @adamhedelen]

Can’t believe it’s been 3 years a since I last appeared on the terrific ⁦@middletechpod⁩! A must-listen for entrepreneurs! Evan and Logan are outstanding and we covered a lot of ground—from renewables to the courage to dare greatly. Podcast drops next week!

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

Who is going to build a public facing site that runs every available transcript of our political officials through an LLM that creates a dashboard for the number of times they contradict themselves, state mis-information, or mention a topic?

Seems valuable and is possible now.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

Many organizations are about to be disrupted because their organizational structure and the bureaucracy within them will prevent them from being nimble and moving with AI.

We will look back at the Twitter acquisition as one of the best acquisitions in history that set an example for getting out in front of a disruptive force by removing the people and bureaucracy that were destined to prevent Twitter from playing a meaningful role in AI. Ad revenue will likely pale in comparison to feeds and search API revenue for powering AI experiences.

Many more opportunities like Twitter are playing out in healthcare, finance, consulting, and law. Revenue models will change. Access to data and building an architecture and culture for AI will be priority. Smaller more nimble orgs will win while those staying big and protectionist will lose.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

If there is an NCAA record for making a mistake then immediately making up for it, Reed Sheppard would have the record.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

@bradluttrell @Rupp_Arena great first game

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

Bring back the platoons.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

@ladaytweets Yea, not sure we have the social infrastructure to handle this at scale. Need to figure out a methodical roll out strategy.

[Evan Knowles @EvanKnowles_]

We are not prepared for this to exist...

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨TELSA'S OPTIMUS FOLDING LAUNDRY