Jake Harper

inventor of the blob scroller . cofounder of @sooteverywhere_

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

Squares always lose in the end. It's inevitable.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@WizLikeWizard @MollySOShea @sootworld_ @kobiefuller @upfrontvc heehee

[Turpentine @TurpentineMedia]

In this episode of Sourcery, @MollySOShea sits down with Jake Harper (@freakthefilter) and Amol Kapoor (@theahura_)of @Soot, a spatial, self-organizing file system that revolutionizes how they interact with their data. Joining the group is Soot investor @kobiefuller, GP at @upfrontvc.

Jake talks about Soot as a consumer-grade vector database with a user-friendly GUI, simplifying data navigation and making AI tooling accessible. He emphasizes the importance of beauty and user experience, aiming to empower and inspire users.

Amol also highlights how the company prioritizes seamless user experience with advanced AI capabilities hidden behind the scenes. They aim to empower users with a spatial, self-organizing view of their data, enabling intuitive exploration and collaboration.

From an investor’s perspective, Kobie believes Soot is a game-changer in how we interact with digital assets, emphasizing its spatial organization and intuitive design, and its ability to streamline content discovery, along with its potential to revolutionize file management.

Soot's founders discuss how their platform is revolutionizing design workflows and empowering creatives to share their work in new ways.

--

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Introduction & Context
(02:00) Kobe's Perspective on Soot
(03:33) Jake's Explanation of Soot:
(07:09) Emphasis on Beauty & Emotional Response
(09:50) Team Background & Founding Story
(12:30) Team Composition & Hiring
(16:37) Soot Demo & Functionality
(22:37) Kobe's User Testing Experience
(25:24) Technical Aspects & Underlying AI
(29:40) Graphics Performance & Design Decisions
(33:20) Target Customer Profiles & Future Features
(37:05) Soot as a Vector Database & User Feedback
(38:23) The Rainforest Analogy & Search Efficiency
(43:22) Design in Service of Technology
(44:20) Closing Thoughts

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

Culture is a remix (sound on)

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@WizLikeWizard Founder life = reading books on medieval illuminated manuscripts looking for UI references

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@dvassallo https://t.co/UNHnNLwFe8 does this

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@erica_wenger @spacecadet 💯

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@rsms Book two hours in the large private room at a Karaoke bar. At $7-$11 per person per hour, it's pretty affordable. Been our go-to for large private rooms in NYC for a while.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

The creative process and specialized problem solving have identical signal paths. Speeding up the ideation/curation rate benefits all forms of creativity, whether to make an image or to solve more specialized analytical thinking.

[Will Manidis @WillManidis]

I've never seen VCs make a bigger mistake than generative AI.

They are funding many projects that are destined to be abject failures.

Even worse, they are totally missing the places where ML will actually have impact and generate enterprise value.

Let me explain:

[IRELAND'S EDGE @IrelandsEdge]

This December, Ireland’s Edge returns to Dingle to present The Good Life / Slí Bheatha bringing together a compelling range of voices to explore how change has been and is being wrought in the world today.

+ more to be announced 🌙🐬

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@mhdempsey The novice: Uses notes app for everything
The student: Uses Notion+Roam+Evernote+.....
The master: Uses notes app for everything

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@lessin #2 is contentious because it is impossible/not meaningful to separate creation from distribution. As Marshal McLuhan famously said, 'the medium is the message'. Example: the impact of the CDJ on the music industry, and its widespread presence in club culture, emerged together.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@lessin The model for many cos building generative AI tools seems closer to apparel brands than traditional tech. Differentiated brand and user segment (AI writing for fiction, or for marketing), but undifferentiated raw materials (GPT3 being like a cotton hoodie in this metaphor).

[Miguel Solano @miguelisolano]

Preview of @VMindAI Fast Stable Diffusion — 4,300% faster @StabilityAI Stable Diffusion (1024x1024 images, 100 steps).

DM or [email protected] for early access.

[Miguel Solano @miguelisolano]

@f_j_j_ @alex @chrismessina @GaryMarcus @SchmidhuberAI @emilyriehl @asyapluggedin @VMindAI We're building the fastest AI compute infrastructure in the world — leaps above any public technology, and radically more energy efficient. (The images above give a hint.)

We aim to become our biggest customers, to build safe AGI.

We can't wait to show it to the world.

VMind.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@Plinz @miguelisolano The cdj did this for music. Democratizing ideation leads to greater surprise in the output.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@Mappletons A really great model for the solution to ‘collapsed context in a screen’ is the self organizing information spaces in nature. A rainforest soundscape is a highly performant multiplexed UI. Machine learning clustering algorithms can replicate aspects of this structure.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@KaliYuga_ai Or you could use https://t.co/UNHnNLf3Py. A visual filesystem with Stable Diffusion built into the search bar.

[Jake Harper @freakthefilter]

@defnotbeka @rsnous https://t.co/SFf3sOefuL

[amol @theahura_]

New collab 🎉

This one may take some explaining, but it starts from a prison cell and a potentially simple question:
“What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot box for almost thirty years dream of?”

1/

[Wiz 👨‍🚀 @WizLikeWizard]

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