Dave Frees

Be More Influential -Ideas & Information to Transform Your Business & Life - Dave is a Grand Master of the skills of #influence Steve Forbes

[Steve Skojec @SteveSkojec]

He’s dead on.

[CyrilXBT @cyrilXBT]

ANTHROPIC JUST PROVED MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO PROMPT CLAUDE.

Their applied AI team dropped a 24 minute free workshop.

Not a creator who reverse engineered it.

Not a Reddit thread.

ANTHROPIC.

The people who wrote the weights.

And what they showed is uncomfortable.

There are 6 elements to a properly structured Claude prompt.

Most people are using 1.

Maybe 2.

That is not a skill issue.

That is an information issue.

And it has been quietly costing you every single day.

The outputs that felt slightly off.

The responses you had to rewrite 4 times.

The prompts that worked once and never again.

All of it traces back to the same 6 missing elements.

The people who watch this 24 minute workshop tonight will understand something about Claude that most daily users still do not know exists.

The people who skip it will keep getting 30% of what the tool is actually capable of and wonder why the results never quite land.

I watched it twice.

Then I built a Claude Skill that applies all 6 elements to every prompt automatically.

No more thinking about structure.

No more guessing what Claude needs.

The framework runs in the background every single time.

Full breakdown and skill setup is below.

Bookmark this now.

Watch the workshop first.

Then read the guide.

This is the one that compounds.

Follow @cyrilXBT for the exact prompt architecture, Claude skills, and systems I use to get outputs most people do not believe came from one person working alone.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

If you’re more than a little curious about AI

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

Here's my conversation all about AI in 2026, including technical breakthroughs, scaling laws, closed & open LLMs, programming & dev tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, etc), China vs US competition, training pipeline details (pre-, mid-, post-training), rapid evolution of LLMs, work culture, diffusion, robotics, tool use, compute (GPUs, TPUs, clusters), continual learning, long context, AGI timelines (including how stuff might go wrong), advice for beginners, education, a LOT of discussion about the future, and other topics.

It's a great honor and pleasure for me to be able to do this kind of episode with two of my favorite people in the AI community:
1. Sebastian Raschka (@rasbt)
2. Nathan Lambert (@natolambert)

They are both widely-respected machine learning researchers & engineers who also happen to be great communicators, educators, writers, and X posters.

This was a whirlwind conversation: everything from the super-technical to the super-fun.

It's here on X in full and is up everywhere else (see comment).

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:57 - China vs US: Who wins the AI race?
10:38 - ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Grok: Who is winning?
21:38 - Best AI for coding
28:29 - Open Source vs Closed Source LLMs
40:08 - Transformers: Evolution of LLMs since 2019
48:05 - AI Scaling Laws: Are they dead or still holding?
1:04:12 - How AI is trained: Pre-training, Mid-training, and Post-training
1:37:18 - Post-training explained: Exciting new research directions in LLMs
1:58:11 - Advice for beginners on how to get into AI development & research
2:21:03 - Work culture in AI (72+ hour weeks)
2:24:49 - Silicon Valley bubble
2:28:46 - Text diffusion models and other new research directions
2:34:28 - Tool use
2:38:44 - Continual learning
2:44:06 - Long context
2:50:21 - Robotics
2:59:31 - Timeline to AGI
3:06:47 - Will AI replace programmers?
3:25:18 - Is the dream of AGI dying?
3:32:07 - How AI will make money?
3:36:29 - Big acquisitions in 2026
3:41:01 - Future of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta
3:53:35 - Manhattan Project for AI
4:00:10 - Future of NVIDIA, GPUs, and AI compute clusters
4:08:15 - Future of human civilization

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@jockowillink @RanaWillink @ufcbjj Outstanding

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@jockowillink @RanaWillink @ibjjf @jockofuel @ORIGINBJJ Congrats @RanaWillink !

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

We really don’t run out of resources thanks to knowledge. Perhaps it’s time to stop so many European deaths from heat and cold. Let’s help them with heating in winter and air conditioning for at least the month of August. ;)

[Naval @naval]

There’s only one @akirathedon

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

There’s established science on the benefits of analog note taking and building mental systems (over mere goals per @ScottAdamsSays ) and evolving science on the dangers of careless prolonged use of AI.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

I know that you’ve probably seen this thread by @naval many times. But like any classic that triggers you to see things from a new perspective AND to act differently, it’s worth re-reading. Many times.

[Naval @naval]

How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

People thought we were “locked-out” of these “rare” elements needed for progress OR we had to look to asteroids. But there appear to be more here on earth (but not yet controlled by the CCP). Another mental hack -always remember that when you’re out of options - you’re not.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

THE TRILLION METAL POTATOES HIDING UNDER THE OCEAN

More than 3 miles down in pitch-black freezing water sit apple-sized rocks packed with cobalt, nickel and manganese worth trillions.

They’re key for EV batteries but live in a no-man’s-land ocean zone nobody owns.

Now countries and companies are racing to grab them without wrecking an ecosystem we barely understand.

Source: johnny .harris

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

At the Business Black Ops events and in the monthly Intelligence Briefing we help you to acquire and operationalize knowledge that makes business and life better.,.and to do it sooner. To enjoy the time value of intentional change. Join us.

[Fermat's Library @fermatslibrary]

This week we're sharing "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice" a classic paper published by Tversky and Kahneman in 1981.

In this paper the authors show that wording alone can flip people’s choices on identical pay‑offs, proving we are far less logical than economics once believed. You should give the short paper a read - it might change how you phrase your next decision.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@KatTimpf Congratulations and let the healing begin.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

If you’re interested in becoming better at what you do then you’re interested in this. @hunleyeric is great at getting to what matters in the skills of enhanced communication. To join us in Business Black Ops just reach out to Lisa at 610.933.8069. https://t.co/9J5qoTmd7Q

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@LawyerTyson Now we should talk about AI as a tool of augmentation. The right mindset around AI matters no matter what specific new tool is released each week.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@LawyerTyson Thanks Sir. It was a great podcast. Always looking for ways to help my fellow lawyers!

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@kyl_e___ @JacquiHeinrich You know why. It’s apparently an unnecessary and poorly thought out “green” policy producing an environmental disaster for sea mammals. Either that’s wrong or …

[Naval @naval]

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

He’s a very smart man. Let’s commit to learning something helpful. ;)

[Naval @naval]

How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

From Professor Claude:

When a single influential voice breaks through enforced conformity in a repressive system, several key patterns tend to emerge in sequence:

First, there's often an initial shock effect - a sudden rupture in what political theorists call the "spiral of silence." The mere act of saying the forbidden creates a demonstration effect, proving that speaking is possible. This typically produces an immediate polarizing response: harsh condemnation from regime supporters alongside a surge of private recognition from those who had been silently harboring similar thoughts.

The second phase usually involves what social scientists call "preference falsification" beginning to break down. Others who privately held similar views but feared expressing them start to recognize they're not alone. There's often a "emperor has no clothes" moment where obvious but unspoken truths suddenly become discussable.

Historical examples are instructive here. Consider Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's publication of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962 - this single authorized truth-telling about the gulag system created hairline cracks that eventually contributed to wider questioning of the Soviet system. Similarly, Václav Havel's essay "The Power of the Powerless" articulated what many Czechoslovak citizens privately knew but couldn't say about life under communism.

However, the regime's response is crucial in determining what happens next. If the truth-teller can maintain their platform despite pressure, it often leads to what political scientists call "informational cascades" - where suddenly many people update their beliefs about what others believe. This can reach a tipping point where preference falsification collapses rapidly, as occurred in the East German revolution of 1989.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

@pmarca @pmarca “Cascade” is exactly the right word.

[Dave Frees @davefrees]

Mr Bean talks on the wave of arrests in the UK rooted in personal expression. The unjustified restriction of free speech subverts any social order. Let’s find ways to air competing ideas rather than seeking to criminalize them and finding insult or injury in every one.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨MUST WATCH: MR. BEAN'S DEFINITIVE DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH (FULL VIDEO)

Rowan Atkinson:

"The clear problem with the outlawing of insult - is that too many things can be interpreted as such."

Source: @avavidan