Poodle

LFG!

[Sam Altman @sama]

GPT-6 Astra is here.

We hope it will begin to enable a new generation of entrepreneurship, scientific discovery, and building.

We believe it is the best model in the world for computer use, professional work, science, coding, cybersecurity, and more.

It took us some extra time to ensure that we could meet the safety and alignment standards required for this capability level, but we think you’ll find it worth the wait.

It scores 98% on FrontierMath Tier 4, 99.9% on ARC-AGI 3, and 100% on ExploitBench.

[signüll @signulll]

cold open: google campus. a conference room named “moonshot serenity 4b.” twelve people are in a meeting titled: pre-sync for sync alignment on ai velocity.

sundar sits calmly at the head of the table.

a pm clicks to slide 1 of 187.

“the agenda today is simple,” she says. “how do we move faster while preserving our culture of not doing that?”

everyone nods.

then the door opens.

noam shazeer walks in.

the room goes silent.

noam: “i’m leaving.”

a vp of gemini reliability, brand, trust, latency, policy, and vibe raises a hand.

“leaving… this meeting?”

noam: “google.”

someone gasps. someone else opens a doc titled retention narrative draft final final noam v7.

sundar blinks once.

“noam, we brought you back.”

“for two point seven billion dollars.”

“technically you licensed some technology and reacquired talent.”

“that sentence is why we need legal in the room.”

legal is already there.

cut to: openai.

sam altman stands beside a whiteboard that just says ship.

an engineer walks by carrying a server rack and what appears to be the future.

sam: “we can offer speed, compute, and one meeting.”

noam: “one meeting per week?”

sam: “no. one meeting. total.”

back at google, the emergency retention committee forms instantly. it has 31 members.

a director says, “what if we give him a new title?”

“he already co-leads gemini.”

“distinguished super co-lead?”

“google fellow?”

“he already left google, founded a company, got brought back for billions, then left again. he’s folklore.”

meanwhile, a gemini launch review begins.

pm: “we’re ready to announce the model.”

policy: “can it answer questions?”

eng: “yes.”

policy: “too risky.”

marketing: “can we call it experimental?”

research: “the model is better than the last one.”

brand: “better is aggressive.”

trust & safety: “what about ‘more contextually adjacent to usefulness’?”

a staff engineer whispers, “openai just shipped a model while we were discussing the adjective.”

cut to noam’s exit interview.

hr: “what could google have done better?”

flashback montage:

a chatbot blocked because it might be too good.
a launch delayed because a button was the wrong shade of responsible blue.
a spreadsheet comparing twelve ai product names.
a meeting where someone says “we need a single coherent ai strategy” and three new strategies are created before lunch.

noam: “nothing comes to mind.”

hr: “great. we’ll mark that as positive attrition.”

later, sundar calls him privately.

“google is still google. best researchers. best infrastructure. billions of users.”

“yes.”

“so why leave?”

noam looks out the window.

“because you have everything except permission.”

silence.

sundar, softly: “we can create a permission working group.”

cut to all-hands.

sundar addresses the company.

“noam is leaving. this is not a loss. it is an opportunity to reflect on our operating model.”

chat explodes:

“is this recorded?”
“which gemini?”
“can we ask gemini why people keep leaving?”
“it said ‘insufficient context.’”

a vp steps up.

“to honor noam’s legacy, we’re launching project attention.”

applause.

“it will study whether attention is, in fact, all we need.”

a researcher raises a hand. “didn’t we answer that in 2017?”

“yes. but now we need enterprise readiness.”

final scene: noam arrives at openai. badge works instantly.

receptionist: “yeah, we just made one.”

no pre-read. no doc. just a whiteboard, five people, and a model running somewhere hot enough to toast bread.

sam: “ready?”

noam smiles.

cut back to google. a calendar invite appears:

meeting: reduce meetings task force kickoff
duration: 90 minutes
required attendees: 214

sundar sighs, opens gemini, and types:

“how do we move faster?”

gemini responds:

“have you considered leaving google?”

smash cut to credits.

[Anna Mutoh @anna_mutoh]

Startup founders - @OpenAI and @OpenNetwork_Lab are hosting a Startup pitch contest in Kyoto with OpenAI providing $1M USD in API credits across the program, including $100,000 USD for the 1st place winner! 🇯🇵
Apply NOW ! 👉 https://t.co/UPUKY8FdeA

[The Long View @HayekAndKeynes]

Let’s just call him Scamath @chamath

[@jason @Jason]

Jason’s Japan on Google Maps
https://t.co/kg1mB7bk66

[Ahmad @TheAhmadOsman]

> be me
> Alexandr Wang, born January 1997
> age 19, drop out of MIT
> co-found Scale AI
> "what if we label data, but mid?"
> convince every LLM company that this is fine

> 2016–2023
> flood the market with barely-labeled goat photos and out-of-context Reddit takes
> call it “foundational data”
> raise billions
> valuation hits $7.3B
> everyone claps

> 2025
> sell Scale AI to Meta for $14B
> not a typo.
> fourteen. billion. dollars.
> join Meta as Chief AI Officer
> rename division to Meta Superintelligence Labs
> start saying things like “AGI by 2027” in interviews

> meanwhile, researchers:
> "the data from Scale is trash"
> models hallucinate goat facts and mislabel wheelchairs as motorcycles
> AI alignment folks are malding
> i am Alexandr. unbothered. moisturized. thriving.

> ranked #1 in Times Top Grifters of All Time
> beat out SBF, Elizabeth Holmes, and your favorite VC
> literally built an empire out of copy-pasted Amazon Mechanical Turk tasks

> mfw I labeled 4chan posts for pennies and turned it into a 14B exit
> mfw I am now leading Meta's quest for godlike AI
> mfw data quality was never part of the business model
> never bet against the grind

[StarPlatinum @StarPlatinum_]

Coinbase bought the UpOnly NFT from Cobie for $25M

Paying $3.125M per episode for 8 new episodes.

UpOnly had around 50K–100K listeners at its peak in 2021–2022

For context, here’s how much the biggest podcasts cost:

• Joe Rogan Experience (Spotify) – $250M total → ~$800K per episode

• Call Her Daddy (SiriusXM) – $125M → ~$1M per episode

• SmartLess (Amazon) – $100M → ~$500K per episode

• Kelce Brothers (Wondery) – $100M+ → ~$600K per episode

• Armchair Expert (Wondery) – $80M → ~$400K per episode

UpOnly’s price is around 3–15x higher than top mainstream podcast deals.

Will this be worth it for Coinbase?

[Deedy @deedydas]

These are the top 15 most valued private AI companies, their latest public revenue and growth.

[SHRAPNEL » Play Now on Steam @playSHRAPNEL]

✦ Partnership Weapon Skins ✦

We’re thrilled to introduce our first collection of partnership weapon skins with @GamingOnAvax, @BoDoggosNFT, @SuperVerseDAO , @NeoTokyoCode, and @play_alchemy!

➜ Operator NFT holders are eligible for an airdrop of all weapon skins - just make sure to link your wallet holding an Operator NFT to your Shrapnel account before April 1st when we'll be taking a snapshot.

➜ If you hold a BoDoggos NFT, SuperVerse tokens, Neo Tokyo Citizens or Outer Citizens, or Alchemy Gods, please join our Discord for detailed instructions on how to claim. You’ll need to link your wallet through Collabland and fill out a Google form.

➜ To receive the Avalanche skin “Snowy Sentinel”, visit the Avalanche booth at GDC on Thursday, drop by the WolvesDen House #WolvesDENgdc , or find a member of team SHRAPNEL at GDC! #GDC

➜ All communities have until March 31st, 2024, to claim their skin. The airdrop will be executed before April 4th.

[Alex Mason 👁△ @AlexMasonCrypto]

$ALEO secured $298M in funding by Samsung, Coinbase, and a16z.

Aleo token launch is scheduled for Q2.

Time: 10 minutes
Cost: $0

Dive into the guide👇

[Alex Mason 👁△ @AlexMasonCrypto]

Wormhole raised $225M from Coinbase with a $2.5B valuation.

The upcoming airdrop is about to become the most generous in crypto history.

Time: 10 minutes
Cost: $2

Dive into the guide👇

[NEO TOKYO @NeoTokyoCode]

100+ Citizen companies propelling gaming into a new era, utilizing the most valuable network for builders and investors.

Citadel Law #4: We only win together.

Citizens, tag your companies below!👇

// Q1 '24 Update Received

[@jason @Jason]

Late-stage investing can be amazing, quick money.... or you can get your ass handed to you as we see here in the later stages of the Instacart IPO $cart

Congrats to founders and early investors: @ycombinator, @vkhosla (GOAT!), Sequoia and @pmarca!

[defizard @belizardd]

I managed to generate an impressive $50M by tracking VCs' wallets.

The top 10 crypto VCs have 1,200+ wallets combined, and I've been closely monitoring them throughout the last month.

Prepare to be amazed as I reveal all the VCs' wallets 🧵🔍

[Scott Galloway @profgalloway]

Market cap at IPO vs current

[John Carmack @ID_AA_Carmack]

I resigned from Meta, and my internal post got leaked to the press, resulting in some fragmented quotes. Here is the full thing: https://t.co/iUcr8TYMLD

[David Burge @iowahawkblog]

Musk: Imma buy Twitter
Twitter: or no you’re not
Musk: ok then I won’t
Twitter: the hell you won’t
Musk: ok then I will
Twitter: over my dead body

[LilMoonLambo @LilMoonLambo]

NAH IM DEAD LMFAO

[Stammy @Stammy]

I’m dying 😅

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@wholemars Haven’t even had sex in ages (sigh)