Too much clickbait … let’s ground some nuance here
1/ Start with the NSA part, because it’s backwards from what people think. The agency isn’t the target. It’s the buyer. Anthropic engineers reportedly embedded on site to run it
2/ The govts most sensitive networks are "air-gapped"…meaning they are physically disconnected from the public internet…. You can't just "hack" them from a laptop in your basement. An AI can’t magically jump across accounts
3/my best guess is it didn't crack AES256 encryption (math doesn't work that way). Instead…it likely acted with relentless proactivity…finding unpatched legacy bugs, misconfigurations, and weak internal credentials, instantly chaining them together to map the entire network
4/i think this exposes a lot of the legacy coding holes … it did in some of my apps and I’m not the NSA
It has been 23 years since I was a new associate in NYC, but this still rings true. The potted plant line will make anyone who has ever been in big law laugh.
Antonio Gracias lent Elon Musk $1 million in ‘08 to save SpaceX from bankruptcy for 7.2% of the company.
It’s now worth $90 billion, making it the single greatest investment in the history of the world.
People over focus on Musk and forget the wealth he’s created for others.
@SteelToeScribe@loganbrown799 Correct. When lateraled to K&E 20 years ago, it was ranked like tenth in AmLaw. I think most of my Davis Polk colleagues considered it a downgrade! Firms will rise or fall. A bold leader like Jeff Hammes was for K&E can make a huge difference.
*GOOG RAISING $80bn in equity... more compute, more AI spend... full send downrange
CAPEX is not the thing here (st at ~250bn next year and buy side higher)... my Spicier read -> maybe they/mgmt think equity is over valued here?... could very easily plug this with cheap debt, but no.... that is what is MOST interesting to me ... WHY equity here and now?
@AgustinLebron3 Tech overlords still think of themselves as the scrappy nerds fighting against the country club jocks. They think Noblesse-oblige is for the Winklevii, not the Zucks. They need to look around and realize that they won and start acting accordingly. Their bunkers won’t save them.
This is correct, with one clarification. Clients are not paying for unfettered manpower. Lots of firms can provide that. Clients pay double or more for the ability to say “I hired Davis Polk.” Why? It’s partially competence, yes, but also CYA insurance and luxury brand flexing.
Let me say this for the ppl in the back —
Some clients (businesses) are NOT cost sensitive
They will pay double for unfettered manpower
Don’t project your individual rationalities on large companies facing existential issues
Not good or bad. This is how it goes
@johnloeber Correct. Call it phantom equity, carveout, sale bonus, or whatever, it’s still just a tax-inefficient slice of exit proceeds that has to fit in the waterfall somewhere. It’s far from a magic bullet.
@tropicalupdate I agree. Meteorologists in FL especially like to talk in terms of “coverage” as a percentage, and I get why since sea breeze storms are hard to predict, but it still isn’t all that helpful, especially since just a few miles makes a massive difference in terms of rain chances.
I’m a lawyer. I’m the first to suggest caution and point out the risks.
But listen guys, if you’re sitting waiting for a recession, scoffing at others and thinking you’re the smarter than them, you’re a loser.
Make a plan, then let it fucking rip. We’ll be dead soon anyways.
@SMB_Attorney I could not agree more. That is the main thing holding me back from picking up the pen again and nothing else comes close. I never realized how much I hated most lawyers until I stopped interacting with them every day.
Malthusian thinking has been wrong for 200 years, but it's nearly unmatched as an attractor state.
Only socialism beats it for # believers/correctness ratio.
Fascinating that it doesn't seem to occur to these post-economic people to pass on their knowledge and experience. Teach, coach, mentor some bright kids, etc.
The fact it's seen as low status, when it even gets considered, says a lot about the solipsistic culture they're in.