Brian Wallins

VP Research (WorkTech) @ SIA

[Blind @JoinBlind]

Anthropic employees discovering what exponential growth looks like

[Brian Wallins @brianwallins]

Some may laugh and some may cry…

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

My wife mentioned a nice private school over dinner this week
She said the campus was beautiful
I asked what's the tuition
She said we should look at it as an investment in him not a cost
I made a note
She said don't make a note
I said I always make notes
She said this isn't a deal
I said everything is a deal
She closed her eyes

She said we'd discuss it Saturday
I agreed

Saturday 7:02am
She came downstairs in her Saturday robe
Coffee in hand
I had my cargo shorts on

The dining room had been cleared
The projector was on
The analyst was at the head of the table
Quarter zip on, three iced coffees, a legal pad, and two laptops
He had been there since 6:44am

I texted him at 11:14pm Friday
The text said dining room 6:45am bring the model
He sent a thumbs up

My wife stopped in the doorway
She said what is this
I said you said you wanted to discuss it
She said this is not a discussion
I did not respond
She sat down anyway

The analyst stood
He said good morning ma'am
She did not respond
He sat back down
A printed deck in front of each seat
A fourth copy in case

Slide 1 Tuition Schedule
$38,500 per year
Thirteen years
$500,500 nominal
Before escalators
The school has raised tuition 4.2% per year for a decade
With escalators $648,000
My wife said okay
I said I'm not done

Slide 2 Opportunity Cost
Even before escalators
$38,500 invested annually
10% nominal return
S&P long-run average since 1928
By his eighteenth birthday $944,000
My wife said we can afford it
I said I know that's not the slide

Slide 3 Terminal Value at Age 65
$83 million
She was quiet

The analyst slid the sensitivity tables across the table
8% return $31 million
10% return $83 million
12% return $222 million
She did not look

She said this isn't about money
I said it's always about money
She said no it isn't
I said then what is it about
She did not answer

She said you can't put a dollar value on his teachers his classmates his environment
I said I can the analyst already did slide 6
He flipped to slide 6
She did not look

She said the school is the best in the city
I said best is a feeling
She said it produces the best students
I said the students were already the best before they got there

She said our son deserves it
I said our son deserves $83 million

My son walked in
He is five
Dinosaur pajamas
He looked at the projector
He looked at the open deck on the table
He looked at slide 3
He said are we modeling pre-tax or after-tax
The analyst opened a new tab
My wife looked at the ceiling

He said what's the discount rate
The analyst set down his pen
She closed her eyes

He said is this the same return assumption from the 529 conversation
The analyst stopped typing
He looked at me
I did not say anything

She stood up
Sat back down

He said dad can I help
I said yes
He pulled up a chair
The analyst handed him a printout
He started reading

My wife watched him read
She watched him for a long time

She said his name
He looked up
She said do you like school
He said the work is too easy and the kids don't ask questions

She did not respond
She looked at the ceiling
She walked out of the room

The analyst started packing up
He said should I follow up Monday sir
I said no follow up needed

He'll be fine

Sent from my iPhone

[NASA @NASA]

We're building a Moon Base!

@NASAMoonBase will serve as a habitat where astronauts live and work during long-term science missions.

Join us at 2pm ET on Tuesday, May 26, for a live news event where we’ll share updates on our lunar exploration plans: https://t.co/IJXA7xYwju

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

Today, we share a breakthrough on the planar unit distance problem, a famous open question first posed by Paul Erdős in 1946.

For nearly 80 years, mathematicians believed the best possible solutions looked roughly like square grids.

An OpenAI model has now disproved that belief, discovering an entirely new family of constructions that performs better.

This marks the first time AI has autonomously solved a prominent open problem central to a field of mathematics.

[Marc Benioff @Benioff]

Welcome Salesforce Headless 360: No Browser Required! Our API is the UI. Entire Salesforce & Agentforce & Slack platforms are now exposed as APIs, MCP, & CLI. All AI agents can access data, workflows, and tasks directly in Slack, Voice, or anywhere else with Salesforce Headless 360. Faster builds, agentic everything. 🚀
#Salesforce #Agentforce #AI
https://t.co/mxySdJS7HR

[Physics & Astronomy Zone @zone_astronomy]

The highest quality video of the moon was just released… this is so beautiful.

[Brian Wallins @brianwallins]

Here's a novel approach to combatting candidate fraud

[tanuki42 @tanuki42_]

Here is a video of a North Korean IT worker being stopped dead in their tracks upon being required to insult Kim Jong Un.

It won't work forever, but right now it's genuinely an effective filter. I'm yet to come across one who can say it.

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[Google Quantum AI @GoogleQuantumAI]

Hear from Michel Devoret, our Chief Scientist of Quantum Hardware, on our latest breakthrough algorithm: Quantum Echoes. His early work on superconducting artificial atoms laid the foundation for the Willow chip, enabling verifiable quantum advantage.

[The Information @theinformation]

An OpenAI executive expects the “entire economy” to become an “Reinforcement Learning Machine.” This implies that AI might train on recordings of how professionals in all fields handle day-to-day work on their devices. Details on this new era of AI training:

• AI developers are training models on carefully curated examples of answers to difficult questions.
• Data labeling firms are hiring experienced professionals in niche fields to complete real-world tasks using specific applications that the AI can watch.

Read more: https://t.co/XrlVGLzqFL

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

After a year of scientific scrutiny, a rock sample collected by the Perseverance rover has been confirmed to contain a potential biosignature. The sample is the best candidate so far to provide evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. https://t.co/0BAO1dhMG8

[Brett Adcock @adcock_brett]

Significant progress in AI and Robotics this week.

So, I summarized everything from Nvidia, Anthropic, OpenAI, Baidu, xAI, Mistral, Roblox, Google, Boston Dynamics and more.

Here's everything you need to know and how to make sense out of it:

[OpenAI @OpenAI]

Announcing The Stargate Project

The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.

The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman.

Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements.

As part of Stargate, Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system. This builds on a deep collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA going back to 2016 and a newer partnership between OpenAI and Oracle.

This also builds on the existing OpenAI partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI will continue to increase its consumption of Azure as OpenAI continues its work with Microsoft with this additional compute to train leading models and deliver great products and services.

All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AI—and in particular AGI—for the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity.

[Brian Wallins @brianwallins]

This is startling and GPT-5’s expanded training dataset is right around the corner

[Kevin Bass @kevinnbass]

A new JAMA study investigated diagnostic accuracy of physicians at top medical centers using AI

It found doctors using AI had similar accuracy (76%) as those not using AI (74%)

But what they found next was shocking:

When AI was used without doctor interference, it scored 90%

[SIA Global @SIAnalysts]

We’ve had a busy morning at #HCStaffSummit. @AlexAzar helped us understand where healthcare is going, delving into the changes to the presidency and what it means to the industry. Followed by sessions discussing a wide range of topics from the healthcare staffing industry.

[Brian Wallins @brianwallins]

Venture capital has played a vital role in the evolution of the workforce solutions ecosystem.

Check out our new study exploring VC trends across this vast multi trillion-dollar industry!

[SIA Global @SIAnalysts]

SIA is excited to announce the release of its Venture Capital in the Workforce Solutions Ecosystem 2024 research report.

SIA members may view the full report at https://t.co/je90DWBIqF

#staffing #staffingresearch #venturecapital #venturefunding #workforcesolutions

[Satya Nadella @satyanadella]

Copilot is the UI for AI, and with Copilot Studio, customers can easily create, manage, and connect agents to Copilot.

Today we announced new autonomous agent capabilities across Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365 to help scale the impact of every individual, team, and business function. https://t.co/2EjIkgcgpo

[Brian Wallins @brianwallins]

Excited to share SIA's latest research around the growing trend of platforms in the staffing industry. Join us this December in London at Executive Forum Europe!

#execforum #platforms #staffing #recruitment #marketplaces #FutureOfWork

[SIA Global @SIAnalysts]

As firms compete in a complex, multi-channel world, understanding how to leverage platforms for growth while mitigating #risks is critical. SIA’s @brianwallins dives into how platform models can drive your business forward at #ExecForum Europe. Register at https://t.co/2BlUwYvebi

[Robert Scoble @Scobleizer]

Jeremiah’s thesis is right on.

[SIA Global @SIAnalysts]

📢 Last call to register for #SIACollab!

Don't miss the chance to attend SIA's one-of-a-kind, collaborative event where #technology, #talentsolutions, and suppliers converge.

Secure your spot with the entire #staffing and #worforcesolutios ecosystem >> https://t.co/C8gqx0ctkq