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[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

Wow ! If the numbers are right this is incredible

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

Tesla is an AI company.

[Alvaro Cintas @dr_cintas]

Follow me @dr_cintas for more AI news.

And if you have enjoyed this post, consider leaving a like/repost of the post below :)

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Joint philosophy and policy statement from @a16z and @Microsoft on Open Source AI. 🤖🚀

AI for Startups
Nov 1, 2024 | Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft; Brad Smith, Vice-Chair and President, Microsoft, Marc Andreessen, Cofounder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz; and Ben Horowitz, Cofounder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

Artificial intelligence is the most consequential innovation we have seen in a generation, with the transformative power to address society’s most complex problems and create a whole new economy—much like what we saw with the advent of the printing press, electricity, and the internet.

It is a moment so big that it would be shortsighted for us to ignore the power of collaborating across the AI ecosystem—and the possibilities and potential that stand to be born from it. That is what brings us together—a shared understanding of what the stakes of this moment require and the role innovators big and small play in expanding opportunity and maintaining economic competitiveness. Our two firms believe that Little Tech and Big Tech can work successfully together, both to build a broader innovation ecosystem and collaborate on public policy initiatives.

Our two companies might not agree on everything, but this is not about our differences. It is about jointly recognizing that the policy choices—or missteps—we make now will determine whether the U.S. can continue our long and proud history of fostering innovation and seeing startups, small businesses, and entrepreneurs succeed. After all, we both know a thing or two about the little guy working to achieve greatness from their garage. That is the story of Microsoft and the mission of a16z.

We both firmly believe that when it comes to AI, the opportunities are enormous and that our way forward to building a new AI economy is by spurring innovation and fostering competition. The best way to encourage innovation while also ensuring safety and security is through a variety of responsible market-based approaches and business models, including open-source AI. Open-source models have contributed indispensably to major advances in technology and research for decades, often by reducing or eliminating power imbalances between major institutions and scrappy upstarts, allowing the academic and startup community to have greater access and build upon existing knowledge while also offering real-time peer review.

A16z views competition and innovation through the lens of Little Tech: small businesses and startups. A16z published its policy agenda for Little Tech in February, proposing a series of policy ideas to promote AI innovation through regulation that creates an even playing field across all industries. The goal of the Little Tech Agenda is to ensure that public policy supports startups, providing entrepreneurs the “freedom to research, to invent, to create jobs, to build the future.”

Microsoft is committed to making large-scale AI infrastructure investments that only a Big Tech company with our scope and size can afford, creating a platform that is affordable and easily accessible to everyone, including startups and small firms. These infrastructure investments are essential to creating opportunities for new businesses to experiment and grow in the AI economy. In February of this year, Microsoft announced a set of principles (referred to as the AI Access Principles) to govern its operations and deliver on this commitment. One primary tenet that informs Microsoft’s AI Access Principles is the critical need to “spur innovation and competition across the new AI economy.”

Together, we believe in a competitive and broad ecosystem that harnesses the potential of academic research and business innovation, including a vital role for open-source innovation that will unleash the ideas of tomorrow to make life better for everyone and our country more secure and prosperous. By coming together, we hope to drive innovation and creativity and further live up to our highest aspirations and ideals that have defined the U.S. for generations. These are the policy objectives to get us there.

The policy opportunity for AI startups

Microsoft and a16z jointly recognize an opportunity to advance public policy that will allow American entrepreneurs and innovators to do what they do best—build new tools and businesses that solve problems, create new jobs and opportunities, and enable startups to flourish. Ensuring that companies large and small have a seat at the table will better serve the public and will accelerate American innovation. We offer the following policy ideas for AI startups so they can thrive, collaborate, and compete.

Regulation that promotes opportunity for U.S. businesses: U.S. AI laws and regulations should support the global success and proliferation of U.S. technology companies by promoting access and opportunity. This can be done by leveraging a science and standards-based approach that recognizes regulatory frameworks that focus on the application and misuse of technology. Regulation should be implemented only if its benefits outweigh its costs. In accounting for costs, policymakers should include an assessment of possible costs associated with unnecessary bureaucratic burdens to startups. As the new global competition in AI evolves, laws and regulations that mitigate AI harm should focus on the risk of bad actors misusing AI and aim to avoid creating new barriers to business formation, growth, and innovation.
Competition and choice: enabling choice and broad access fosters AI innovation and competition. Regulators should not only permit providers to offer a broad array of models—proprietary and open source, large and small—but should permit developers and startups the flexibility to choose which AI models to use wherever they are building solutions and not tilt the playing field to advantage any one platform. Developers should have the freedom to choose how to distribute and sell their AI models, tools, and applications for deployment to customers.
Open-source innovation: open–source software provides immense value to our economy by catalyzing the innovation ecosystem. It allows tech companies big and small the ability to build the next innovation quickly and gives them a wide array of tools for developing software safely, securely, and competitively. We believe the same is true for open–source AI models. They increase choice and allow startups to more easily develop fine-tuned systems and applications. The free availability and performance of these models allow startups to access, use, and benefit from AI by modifying it to suit their conditions and diverse needs. They also offer the promise of safety and security benefits, since they can be more widely scrutinized for vulnerabilities. Regulators and decision-makers should embrace a regulatory framework that protects open source and secures the ability of entrepreneurs, startups, and companies to create, build, transform and win the future.
Open data commons: data is a critical input for all AI developers. There is a role for government to enable and craft policies that support a thriving and growing ecosystem of data around the globe through Open Data Commons—pools of accessible data that would be managed in the public’s interest. Governments should participate and lead this effort by releasing data sets in ways that are useful for AI cultural institutions and libraries.  Governments should ensure that startups can easily access these data pools.
The right to learn: copyright law is designed to promote the progress of science and useful arts by extending protections to publishers and authors to encourage them to bring new works and knowledge to the public, but not at the expense of the public’s right to learn from these works. Copyright law should not be co-opted to imply that machines should be prevented from using data—the foundation of AI—to learn in the same way as people. Knowledge and unprotected facts, regardless of whether contained in protected subject matter, should remain free and accessible.
Invest in AI: the U.S. government should invest in AI to accelerate American innovation, strengthen our national security, and create economic opportunity. As part of this investment strategy, the government should examine its procurement practices to enable more startups to sell technology to the government.
Help people thrive in an AI-enabled world. building a new AI economy that supports startups, and American entrepreneurship will require public policy that cultivates technical talent and engages digital citizens. To that end, policy should fund digital literacy programs that help people understand how to use AI tools to create and access information. It should also support workforce skill development and workforce retraining programs to help people secure jobs in an AI-driven economy.
We obviously live in a tumultuous time, often characterized by disagreements among people and groups. But as in every age, we need to seize opportunities to find common ground. The United States has built a tech ecosystem that has helped fuel the nation’s economic growth for more than half a century. As reflected here, we believe that Little Tech and Big Tech can contribute even more in the decades ahead by coming together. We can build on each other’s strengths, and we can advocate together for public policies that will serve innovation and the nation’s broader interests.

[Ronald van Loon @Ronald_vanLoon]

The hydrofoiler XE-1 is the world's first water bike
by @IntEngineering

#Automotive #Transport #Tech #Technology #EmergingTech

cc: @iainljbrown @evankirstel @HaroldSinnott

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

Humans are truly amazing!

[Ronald van Loon @Ronald_vanLoon]

Right-sized packaging using #3D scanning #Technology
by @Sparck_Tech

#Robotics #AI #MachineLearning #Tech #Innovation

cc: @pbalakrishnarao @karpathy @chr1sa

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

To improve your writing, read more.
To improve your thinking, write more.
To improve your storytelling, present more.

To improve your energy, rest more.
To improve your understanding, teach more.
To improve your network, give more.

To improve your happiness, appreciate more.

[Spike Cohen @RealSpikeCohen]

This is Ross Ulbricht. 10 years ago today, Ross was arrested for creating a website.

If the government gets their way, he'll die in prison.

Ross is serving a double life sentence plus 40 years for, again, creating a website.

If that sounds ridiculous and infuriating to you, keep reading.  It gets worse.

Ross created a website called Silk Road, which he designed to be a free market, secure, anonymous marketplace.  It used Bicoin for payment, and utilized a system called Tor which allowed buyers and sellers to access it anonymously and without any trace.

An avid libertarian, Ross prohibited anything being sold on Silk Road that violated the Non-Aggression Principle.

This included stolen items, counterfeit/fraudulent items, child p**n, assassinations, etc.

A devout believer in nonviolence, Ross also prohibited the sale of weapons.

Many items that were sold on Silk Road were legal, and a third-party study of the site inventory by Carnegie-Mellon University concluded that the drugs most commonly sold were small amounts of cannabis. 

Most importantly, Ross was not convicted for selling, buying, or being in proximity to any of the items that were sold on Silk Road, legal or illegal.

He was convicted for what others did on the site.

Imagine if Elon, or Zuck, or any of the other owners of web platforms were charged for what other people did on them.

On October of 2013, Ross was arrested by the FBI and charged with money laundering conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, fake ID trafficking conspiracy and narcotics trafficking. (Ross did not actually launder money, hack computers or sell illegal items himself. These charges were based on what users listed on the site.)  

After his arrest, the prosecution fraudulently alleged that Ross attempted to have several people killed, but never charged him for this at trial, and his supposed "victim", Curtis Green, publicly stated that those allegations were false. He is a fervent supporter of Ross.

Despite the fact that these false, unproven allegations were never prosecuted, the federal government used them in the media to paint Ross as some kind of violent criminal kingpin, despite the fact that he was nonviolent and lived a very meager life, living with 3 other roommates in an apartment.

The FBI also seized over 144,000 Bitcoin that they found in a shared wallet on Ross's computer, which today is worth over $3.8 billion.

During Ross's trial:

- Evidence and testimony showing that multiple people ran the website was banned from being discussed at trial.

- Ross's defense team was not allowed to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses or present their own witnesses

- Key exonerating evidence was blocked by the judge

- The prosecution was permitted to allege to the jury that Ross had hired hits on people despite never charging him with this or allowing him the opportunity to defend himself against the allegation

The jury found Ross guilty on all charges, and the judge sentenced this first-time, nonviolent person to double life plus 40 years without parole.

After Ross's trial, two of the key investigating federal agents were convicted on corruption charges related to Ross's case. Their existence was hidden from the jury during trial.

Despite all of this, Ross’s conviction was lost on appeal, and the Supreme Court refused to hear his case.

There is no other way to say it: Ross was railroaded by a corrupt federal government that wanted to make an example of him and steal his Bitcoin.

During his 10 years in prison, Ross has continued to be a model citizen, teaching classes and tutoring his fellow inmates and helping them to earn their GEDs.  He has also completed several educational programs himself and has never received a single disciplinary sanction.

Ross Ulbricht is a peaceful, nonviolent man who has never harmed anyone and whose only "crime" was to create a website that other people used to sell drugs that shouldn't be illegal in the first place.

And for this, he's already spent a decade in prison.

If he is not pardoned, or his sentence commuted, he will die there.

That is unacceptable, and it is long past time for Ross to be set free.

Obama could have set Ross free with the stroke of a pen, but he wouldn't.

Neither would Trump.

Neither has Biden.

Let's replace them with someone who will.

Ross, I am sorry for what you're going through, and I will not stop fighting for your freedom until you're back home where you belong.

Free Ross Ulbricht.

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

My notes from Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger turned into maxims:

1. Find a simple idea and take it seriously. 

2. Good ideas are rare. When you find one bet heavily. 

3. Humans have been writing down their best ideas for 5,000 years. Read them.

4. Avoiding stupid mistakes is more important than being smart.

5. Don’t work with anyone you don’t admire.

6. Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy.

7. Avoiding a bad habit is easier than breaking a bad habit.

8. Work on your best idea. Don't diversify

9. Incentives rule everything around you. Look for them. 

10. Great businesses are built by going ridiculously far in maximizing or minimizing one or a few things. Think Costco. 

11. Learning is changing behavior. 

12. Do the unpleasant tasks first.

13. Charlie has read hundreds of biographies. Do the same. 

14. Stop multitasking. Concentrate.

15. Many hard problems are solved best when approached backwards.

16. Think of ideas as tools. When a better tool comes along use it.

17. Clip your business and personal expenses. Small leaks sink big ships.

18. Make friends with smart dead people. Adam Smith, Darwin, Cicero, Ben Franklin —whoever interests you. Read their writing. Steal their ideas. They don’t need them anymore.

19. Don't confuse intelligence with invincibility.

20. Bad things will happen to you. It’s inevitable. When they do get up and keep going and remember the next maxim.

21. Self pity has no utility.  

22. Find out what you are best at. Then pound away at it. Forever.

23. Only plays games where you have an edge.

24. Avoid mob rule. Avoid demagogues. Avoid dogma. Avoid bureaucracy.

25. Optimize for independence.

25. Use money to buy freedom.

26. Develop durability.

27. What do you have an *intense* interest in? Do that for money.

28. Self improvement has no end.

[Evan Kirstel #B2B #TechFluencer @EvanKirstel]

#MIT engineers have crafted an ultralight fabric solar cell that can turn almost any surface into a power source. Innovation at its finest! 🌞 #RenewableEnergy #MIT #renewables #Sustainability

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

@RyanMSchnitzler LI

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

@Ethan_Kaddu SEO

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

@hasantoxr AI

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

@iam_chonchol AI

[daniel debow @ddebow]

i’ve reached the age where friends are becoming grumpy old people, who enjoy bitching about “kids these days”.

terrifying.

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

A strong team can produce beautiful results. https://t.co/EBJKvZ4o9i

[Advantage10.com @GrowthLogic]

Working hard or smart won't ever make you wealthy #shorts https://t.co/UDltD0TnTu via @YouTube