madhu🦋

tending strange attractors | supporting r&d labs @alethia | sci/tech scene-building at |

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

i'm starting alethia.

i've been quiet because it feels premature to announce something while so much is still being figured out. but i feel compelled to be earnest about my hope for this project and what i can realistically promise this coming year. i'll try to share updates as it gains more contours.

tldr: alethia is a research institute for independent r&d labs.

i'm giving researchers stable conditions—stipends // housing // food // compute // support + a serious peer environment to pursue work that isn't well-housed in academia or a typical startup.

this much i can provide for now. how much of my larger vision will actually materialize in the next year—or at all—is tbd.

in the meantime, here are some stream-of-consciousness rambles in the thread, and an invitation to reach out if any of this resonates.

[divya venn @divya_venn]

sometimes I think your entire life is shaped by how happy you can be about someone else eating the fruit of a tree you planted

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

anyone know of an indian classical violin instructor in sf?

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

been seriously thinking about a move to sf recently but the weather’s finally nice in nyc so i’m having second thoughts

[The Other Stuff @OtherStuffShow]

HudZah (@hudzah) is someone exploring what it means, and what it takes, to operate at the edge of what is possible.

In this conversation, we traced HudZah's path from Riyadh to Sri Lanka to Waterloo. A childhood split across three countries, shaped by rationed wifi, a single HP desktop, and the discovery that what you build on a computer can change the world around you. We talked about coding HTML on Notepad at ten, building soundboard apps that funded his own move to Canada, and what it's like to grow up in a place with no permits, no regulators, and no one telling you what you can't do.

We explored the birth of esports through Half-Life mods, the machines behind the food we love, and a baklava maker in San Francisco whose irrational pursuit of quality you can taste in a single bite. We discussed how AI is collapsing the walls between disciplines, what that does to the identities we built around expertise, and why individual agency might be the only variable that matters now.

This is a conversation about curiosity, permission, and what happens when the cost of crossing boundaries drops to zero.

The Other Stuff is hosted by @internetvin, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and possibly the most curious man on Earth. Produced by New.

The Other Stuff #33 — HudZah: The Collapse of Permission Structures

— Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:38 Growing Up in Riyadh
00:05:59 Saudi Shawarma and Broasted Chicken
00:16:39 School in Saudi Arabia
00:21:48 The HP Desktop and First Lines of Code
00:25:55 YouTube Rabbit Holes and Gaming
00:45:35 The Birth of Esports
01:02:43 Valve's Employee Handbook
01:05:12 Indie Games and Pure Pursuit
01:06:05 Stardew Valley and ConcernedApe
01:07:03 Moving to Sri Lanka
01:10:34 SnapAPaper and Seeing Real Users
01:13:47 Soundboards, Shopify, and Funding the Move
01:27:38 Landing in Canada at 17
01:36:25 AI and Collapsing the Distance Between Disciplines
01:47:02 Identity, Expertise, and Permission Structures
02:00:32 The Baklava Maker in San Francisco
02:18:26 Machines Behind the Food We Love
02:36:02 Frederic Tudor and the Ice King
02:42:29 HudZah Flips the Interview
02:49:05 Being a Parent

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@neerajprasad killing it

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

“understanding the deep mystery of the universe is my religion”

[Kpaxs @Kpaxs]

This is a man who has been haunted since childhood and built a billion dollar company as a side effect of trying to make the haunting stop.

[Krish Mehta @djkesu1]

World models are neural simulators. But neural simulators need grounding.

If you close your eyes and reach out for the coffee cup in front of you, you’ll be able to manipulate it.

To pass The Physical Turing Test, we need action loops at scale, irrespective of the modality, and that’s what the bitter lesson teaches us.

We are upgrading Simulation 1.0 to 1.5 - generative assets and scenes, and we are calling it PhysReady. [1/]

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@aishdoingthings @WendiYan5 @jwmares @stuartbuck1 so so so exciting

[aishwarya🍎 @aishdoingthings]

Delighted to share our new fund: https://t.co/nGl2ZhbWOq

> Soviet papers from the 50s!
> Antimalarial drugs from Mao’s China!
> Buried research on reality and consciousness!

Led by @WendiYan5 and seeded by @jwmares and @stuartbuck1

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@mr_samosaman used to! @sksq96

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@sahil_ohe will dm!

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

i'm starting alethia.

i've been quiet because it feels premature to announce something while so much is still being figured out. but i feel compelled to be earnest about my hope for this project and what i can realistically promise this coming year. i'll try to share updates as it gains more contours.

tldr: alethia is a research institute for independent r&d labs.

i'm giving researchers stable conditions—stipends // housing // food // compute // support + a serious peer environment to pursue work that isn't well-housed in academia or a typical startup.

this much i can provide for now. how much of my larger vision will actually materialize in the next year—or at all—is tbd.

in the meantime, here are some stream-of-consciousness rambles in the thread, and an invitation to reach out if any of this resonates.

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@aryanmusharaf thanks aryann

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@parmita i talk about him a lot and unfortunately not many people know him unless i say ceo of deepmind

[Eric Gilliam @eric_is_weird]

BBNs built the ARPAnet and autonomous vehicles, but the R&D model went out of style. Could it still work today?

I spent 2025 focused on this experiment. First results are in: it’s working!

That’s why @janellehmtam and I are raising a fund to double down🧵https://t.co/v6wlr9rnX4

[Ben Reinhardt @Ben_Reinhardt]

Just published @Spec__Tech's yearly lessons and updated hypotheses.

Including:
- Work that's a poor fit for both venture and philanthropy,

- It is so much easier to make progress on ambitious research when you are already doing things.

- Deadlines are incredibly powerful.

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@AsimovPress well said. issue is institutional novelty is being bred inside an ecology w/ strong selection pressures toward a few stable forms.

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@themateomartez aww thanks mateo!

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@parmita @RealJPGE juan is truly brilliant!

[modest proposal @modestproposal1]

“He cites OpenAI former chief technology officer Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines (“I hope the investors know what they do”) and OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence (“There I know the investors have no idea what they do”)…”

[madhu🦋 @madhu___s]

@iambrunocoelho thank you!