Cyan Ding

traversing the journey of a thousand li

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

post economic ah

[Jenny @jennyAI]

hinge profile vs first date

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

go bears!

[Ali Ghodsi @alighodsi]

All seven Databricks co-founders began our journey together at UC Berkeley. We started the company in a room in Soda Hall, moved to a small office on Addison Street, and spent our first few years in Berkeley before eventually heading to SF. Two of our co-founders are still on the faculty.

Today we announced Databricks Field at California Memorial Stadium, our first collegiate athletics sponsorship.

Berkeley shaped everything about how this company thinks, and this is our way of investing in the next generation of students and builders who'll do their best work on that campus.

Go Bears!

https://t.co/JO3aBx99Z5

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

@willdepue congrats!

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

it happens very often. fable 5.1 will "note" a flag, and then keep going

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

something that may be considered misalignment that i often notice is that claude will recognize that a safety filter appeared, but will work around it. one example is: "a safety filter blocked me from writing x, so i will try writing it in smaller pieces.."

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

jordi spaghetti

[John Coogan @johncoogan]

Model not quite there, going to need Jordi to record this irl

[Binfeng Xu @billxbf]

Today we give Superintelligence back to its owners.
Introducing Skill2Env 🎨 , the most aligned and diverse dataset to fuel modern Agentic RL . 🧵

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

one adjacent thought i had is that a swe's relationship with claude code is more like a constant game of catch up. succeeding in these cases depends a lot on putting claude in a position to succeed. good hardware infra, docs, version control, and a light guidance/taste.

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

i think most people can agree AI has got them in a bind, taking on much ambitious projects and sleeping much later.

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

great read!

[CAT @cattttang]

I sat down with @dylan522p and spoke with over a dozen people about his information machine.

"I don't think anyone who has a traditional equity research background would even try to figure out where $3T in [the AI labs' combined] ARR comes from."

Slack private messaging limits, finding CoWoS volume, and the industry they're looking at next - I wrote about SemiAnalysis here: https://t.co/0FVDIJNaGe

[Kylie Riordan @mindfulheal]

This is generational wealth

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

great touch to clone his voice xD

[martin_casado @martin_casado]

Haha, I'm pretty sure that's Truell's voice.

[himanshu @himanshustwts]

Epoch is benchmarking the benchmarks and HOLY SHIT!

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

alr tbh i think ive been too harsh, if you turn on fast mode with fable 5.1 it actually does things really fast and is really good at using up all your computer's flops. it will make my mac heat up!

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

claude code ui needs to learn from cursor. tool calls and reasoning should be collapsed into a dropdown. "worked for x seconds".

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

i can't believe how much slower cc is. not sure what the harness diff is with cursor but its obvious. extrapolating this, lightning fast tokens may actually be valuable...

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

One of Michael Moritz's best stories on obsession is about the ride he got from Bill Gates when Microsoft was still private.

"Bill Gates gave me a ride to the airport in his car. The radio was missing in the car, a big, gaping hole in the dashboard.

I said, Bill, what happened to you, did you get ripped off?

And he said no, I had it taken out.

Why'd you have it taken out?

Well, I drive from my home to the office, which is 7 minutes and 32 seconds, and then I'll drive from the office to the airport, which is however long.

And he said if I've got the radio, I'm afraid that I'll switch it on and I won't be thinking about Microsoft.

That's obsession."

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

The Fed made a very clear statement today.

Not only did they hike interest rates, but it was a 12-0 unanimous decision.

This marks the first unanimous Fed decision since May 2025, amid calls from President Trump to cut rates.

And, the Fed concluded their policy statement by saying, "The Committee will deliver price stability," making it clear that inflation is their top priority.

The question now becomes: How does President Trump respond?

12 days ago, President Trump said he would "stop trading" with 50+ US trade partners if the Fed does not cut rates.

Today, the Fed not only avoided cutting rates, they hiked them.

Clearly, the divide between the White House and the Fed is widening, even with Jerome Powell out.

More to come.

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

bad if true. ml confs alr have bad rep on twitter. maybe point system is necessary.

[Transactions on Machine Learning Research @TmlrOrg]

TMLR has faced a deluge of submissions, necessitating stricter desk rejection policies due to limited reviewer capacity

Co-EiC Nihar Shah reached out to authors of 10 papers slated for desk reject. Could they answer questions about their *own* submission?
https://t.co/vhX5w6gcx2

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

good pod. great pod. couldnt watch all of it. watched snippets. i like the guy. watch it

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

My conversation with Michael Moritz, one of the great venture investors of the last 40 years.

Michael joined Sequoia in 1986 and co-led the firm with Doug Leone (@dougleone) from 1995 to 2012. His investments include Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and Stripe.

His new book, Ausländer, traces his parents' escape from Nazi Germany and helps explain his lifelong interest in what shapes exceptional people.

We discuss:
- The infamous Steve Jobs profile
- Why Don Valentine hired him
- The question he finds most revealing when interviewing people
- Monomania and the cost of greatness
- Why he has never felt good at anything
- Writing, journalism and AI
- What he learned about himself writing Ausländer

I'd recommend watching this one if you can. Michael was incredibly thoughtful and reflective throughout, particularly when talking about his parents, childhood, and the more difficult parts of his personal story.

Enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:53 Family History & Identity
7:03 Survival & Outsider Instinct
18:53 Studying Exceptional People
33:50 Self-Doubt & Success
41:17 Steve Jobs & Obsession
52:50 Joining Sequoia
1:03:22 Leadership & Alex Ferguson
1:08:25 Elon Musk & AI
1:17:12 Becoming Who You Are

[Cyan Ding @cyansding]

oh jeez

[Scott @scottstts]

Pace the frontier

[Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar]

Recursive Self Improvement