Henry

Supporting those shaping the future @QomonHQ

[Rod (Izzy) 🇺🇸🦅 @1zzyzyx1]

Ali Velshi remembers the three heroes who were killed in Neshoba County, Mississippi, sixty-two years ago. These men had helped register Black voters, and the Klan waited for their return. The men knew what they were probably going to face but went back anyway. #DemsUnited

[Sam Parr @thesamparr]

When I was 14 years old and in 8th grade I had braces, bad skin, and an afro. That was the same year Napoleon Dynamite came out.

The only 2 things I wanted at 14 were: 1) to have friends 2) convince girls to like me.

The haircut and braces made #2 nearly impossible. But then that damn movie came out. #2 definitely wasn't happening.

So that summer before freshman year I read every book out there on how to meet girls. Seriously - ALL OF THEM. Peacocking. Opening a set. Field test. Ya boy can still cite it all.

(And if you're a 30 year old plus nerd on twitter, I know you read the game so don't act like you're above it)

At the time, a big takeaway I had was to "be cool". Don't get too excited and be even keel with calm energy.

Aka be "non-chalant."

Now, to be clear: most girls still didn't like me.

But then I got into my 20's, something clicked.

Because of my job (startups) I had to convince people to do all types of stuff. To believe in my idea, invest, join my company, buy into the cause. Whatever.

So, I used this "non-chalant" schtick at first -- and it was most certainly a schtick -- in the startup world. And like my experience with girls...lots of zeros.

Then I thought screw it. I'm naturally a very excitable, passionate dude. I'll just start dialing up the enthusiasm when talking to people. And I'll start posting online about what I'm building, shit I'm interested in, and just wear my heart on my sleeve.

And it started to click. People started saying stuff like "Your business idea isn't great, I love your enthusiasm, you'll figure it out."

I also met my wife around that time. Our early dates were me bringing her along to hobbies I was super into. The nerdiest shit like vintage denim flea markets and track and field meets. But I was super into the stuff, explained the story behind it all, and made my enthusiasm contagious.

It took about 10 years of figuring out how to attract people. But I realized a very important thing:

People are drawn to those who passionately point to their goals and say "this is where I'm going. I'm going with or without you. But I sure would love if you came alone."

And guess what? The goal or place where you're going...or the hobby you're into...it really doesn't even matter. Building a great company, being a world famous artist, or the world's best at a thing isn't even popular. IT DOESN'T MATTER. That's the best part.

As long as you give a damn, you show how much you care, and let your ambition be known, you're good!

My buddy Isaac French told me this quote: “Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.” I think that sums it all up perfectly.

Now, I still think braces + afro ain't gonna help.

But...if you're one of those guys who thinks its cool to act like you don't care about shit...or think its cool to be non-chalant...I say f that. BE CHALANT.

That's the end of my life, laugh love wanna be novel. The end.

[B.W. Carlin @BaileyCarlin]

Good lord this edit. Insane.

[Henry @henrymack]

@AlfieJCarter Outreach

[Henry @henrymack]

@AlfieJCarter Agents

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

The takeaway from Fable 5 being BANNED by the government: GET GOOD AT LOCAL MODELS SO YOU HAVE 100% CONTROL.

My entire weekend was going to be building my craziest ideas with Fable 5. That's now cancelled.

So instead of building with Fable this weekend, I've decided I'll go deep on local models:

1. Start with the runtime. Download Ollama or LM Studio first. This is the thing that actually runs models on your machine.

2. Match the model to your hardware. A model's size is measured in billions of parameters (7B, 32B, 70B). Bigger is smarter but needs more memory. Rule of thumb: a 7B model runs on almost any laptop, a 32B needs a good Mac with 32GB+ RAM, a 70B needs serious hardware like a DGX Spark or a maxed-out Mac Studio.

3. Know which model for which job. Qwen 3 is the best all-around choice for most tasks. DeepSeek for reasoning and coding. Gemma 4 when you need something tiny that runs on a phone. Llama when you want the biggest community and the most fine-tunes.

4. Quantization. You can shrink a model to run on weaker hardware with barely any quality loss. Look for versions labeled Q4 or Q5. This is how a model that "needs" a server runs on your laptop. Learning this one concept changes everything.

5. Connect it to your agent. Point Hermes or your agent stack at a local model.

6. Context window is your real constraint locally. Cloud models give you huge context for free. Local models make you pay for it in memory. A bigger context window eats RAM fast. Keep your sessions tight and your prompts lean or your machine chokes.

7. Learn to give local models tools. A smaller local model with web search, file access, and code execution beats a giant model with none. The capability gap closes fast when you wire up the right tools. The model is the engine but the tools are the wheels.

8. Fine-tuning is more accessible than you think. You don't need this on day one, but know it exists. You can take an open model and train it on your own data so it gets good at your specific domain.

I'll probably do a breakdown at some point on this @startupideaspod if people are into it.

The lesson from this ban is basically don't build your entire workflow on something that can disappear with a single letter. Own part of your stack. Local models are insurance.

It reminds me when people realized they don't own social media accounts. And then you saw people build email lists etc.

I remember running a startup and my biggest traffic source was organic FB. All of a sudden, algo changed, and I lost 99% of my traffic.

Same sorta moment (but bigger) for AI.

This is a wake up call.

[Henry @henrymack]

@bentossell also "that's the play"

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

6:49am: sudden spike in oil futures trading. no news. no announcement. nothing public.
7:05am: trump announces a pause on iran strikes. markets move.
someone knew. 16 minutes early. $580 million in contracts. the corruption is staggering.

[Henry @henrymack]

Is AI a Life Boat for Digital Advertising? https://t.co/u1uW1kh2LS

[Jesse Walker @notjessewalker]

Admit it. You feel at least a little bit of envy for these people.

[Henry @henrymack]

feels like paris has won @TheWarOnCars

[Henry @henrymack]

https://t.co/zDvIvZeTxf

[Peter Maass @maassp]

The Iraq war is passing from America's memory but not mine. I don't know whether we'll ever accept moral & legal responsibility but until a reckoning comes, the truth must be kept alive.

Here's what I witnessed 20 years ago today at the Diyala Canal outside Baghdad. (Thread)

[Henry @henrymack]

@Alvarops97 @theSamParr It's perfect rn

[Henry @henrymack]

@domwhiting Amazing. Come down to Lisbon! 🙏🏻

[Henry @henrymack]

@mbertulli carrd

[Henry @henrymack]

@Certinfy @the_LTA @EmmaRaducanu @Eurosport_UK she's 5-0 up already

[Henry @henrymack]

@antonnewcombe When's the European tour 🙏🏻?

[Henry @henrymack]

@ArlanWasHere For UX/UI -> @an__yes