Max G

Radical Centrist. Squinty data science. Amateur philosopher.

[Mark S. @MarkDSw]

@reaIityobserver The first trillion is always the hardest.

[signüll @signulll]

most great culture writing is downstream of contempt well managed (i.e. inclusive of love).

the energy is often you fools don’t see it redirected into let me fucking show you.

if keep the contempt but lose the love you’re just a hater. if you lose both it’s worse you’re just linkedin.

[G_Z @GZhan57]

@AnthropicAI

[How To Prompt @HowToPrompt__]

A toothpaste company has quietly killed the entire market research industry and nobody is talking about it.

Colgate published a paper showing you can predict real purchase intent at 90% accuracy by simply asking LLMs to roleplay customers.

And this is beyond insane.

If you ask an AI, "Rate this product from 1 to 5," it gives safe, middle-of-the-road garbage.

So researchers invented a method called Semantic Similarity Rating (SSR).

Instead of asking the AI for a number, they asked it to roleplay.

They gave the LLM a demographic profile. They showed it a product concept. And they asked it to write down its raw, unfiltered thoughts.

Then, they used a semantic model to translate those written thoughts into a numerical score.

The results are staggering.

Tested against 57 real corporate surveys and 9,300 actual human responses, the synthetic AI consumers matched real human buying behavior with 90% reliability.

They perfectly mirrored how different age brackets and income levels react to price changes.

And they provided detailed, qualitative feedback that was deeper and more critical than what actual humans wrote.

This destroys the economics of traditional market research.

You don't need to wait a month to see if a product will sell.

You can simulate 1,000 hyper-targeted customer interviews overnight.

You can A/B test pricing across every demographic instantly.

[Prof. Feynman @ProfFeynman]

Knowledge grows when you ask stupid questions. Stupidity grows when you don't ask anything.

[GURGAVIN @gurgavin]

BUSINESSES ARE NOW USING PREDICTION MARKETS TO HEDGE PROMOTIONS LOL

A BAR IN NYC HAD A PROMO IF THE KNICKS WIN, THEY COVER EVERYONE’S DRINKS FOR THE NIGHT

THE BAR PLACED A $5K HEDGE ON KALSHI THAT PAYS OUT IF THE KNICKS WIN

THE BAR WINS EITHER WAY

[xierra ☽ @xierra]

@thechosenberg the way this usually plays out is the guy will max short the firm of the mauled CEO..

only to find out the market hated that CEO and the stock prints its biggest green candle in history

[MacCallister Higgins @macjshiggins]

nobody wants to hear this but the classical NASA systems engineering is the perfect model for developing code with LLMs. people try to approximate this with planning modes, but if you’re explicit in your docs it’s never been easier to build, test, and verify complex codebases.

[Charlotte Lee @cljack]

before you waste a lot of time in therapy trying to understand men, consider that Napoleon got volunteers to man a battery position with an almost 100% casualty rate by simply renaming it "the battery of not being a little bitch"

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

The 36 BIGGEST startup opportunities right now

1. biggest b2c: solving loneliness. third spaces, community apps, IRL

2. biggest b2b: managed AI employees for businesses

3. biggest overlooked: elder tech. 70 million boomers who want products that make them happier & healthier

4. biggest mobile: action apps that do things, not apps you stare at

5. biggest trades: matching platforms for electricians, plumbers, HVAC. supply shrinking

6. biggest consumer social: small social. group chats as products, no feeds, no ai slop

7. biggest ecommerce: agents that recommend products you'll like, shop, buy for you

8. biggest creator: live shows and unscripted content

9. biggest edtech: AI tutors that adapt through conversation

10. biggest SaaS: pay-per-outcome pricing

11. biggest auto: AI service advisor for dealerships. answers the same 15 questions 24/7

12. biggest talent: training non-technical people to operate agents

13. biggest boredom: curated offline experiences delivered to your door. kits, games, challenges. anti-screen products

14. biggest spiritual: the need for belonging is exploding, new formats of spiritual get togethers

15. biggest wellness: longevity biomarkers you actively manage

16. biggest mobile: action apps that do things, not apps you stare at

17. biggest one to solve ai slop: digital verification that you're a real human. every platform will need this within 2 years

18. biggest infrastructure: agent permissions, security, audit trails

19. biggest media: AI native media companies. build distribution, sell products later.

20. biggest parenting: family ops automation. forms, scheduling, logistics

21. biggest accounting: bookkeeping agents that charge per transaction

22. biggest fashion: brand-owned resale. every brand wants to control their secondary market

23.biggest hobbies: adult learning for joy. pottery, woodworking, drawing.

24. biggest skincare: at-home diagnostics. scan, get a protocol, track progress

25. biggest agriculture: precision farming tools for small farms. enterprise version exists, family farm doesn't

26. biggest pest control: subscription pest prevention instead of reactive treatment. the model flip that lawn care already made

27. biggest regulated: on-device AI. healthcare, legal, finance open up when data stays local

28. biggest gaming: AI characters with real memory and relationships

29. biggest dating: agent-mediated matchmaking

30. biggest fitness: adaptive coaching that rewrites your program daily

31. biggest travel: autonomous trip planning and rebooking

32. biggest food: personalized nutrition based on blood work and gut biome

33. biggest pet: health monitoring. $140B industry, almost no tech

34. biggest defense: AI-native security and compliance tools

35. biggest robotics: physical AI. $30 brains on existing hardware

36. biggest nostalgia: products that feel analog. vinyl, paper, handmade. counter-positioning against AI everything

[Max G @maxgravens]

weird how two last names make a law firm and two first names make a furniture company

[Max G @maxgravens]

where are the wheelchair accessible psychic practices in Philly?

[Brian Halligan @bhalligan]

I don't remember where I found this, but its spot on.

[Michał Podlewski @trajektoriePL]

Richard Dawkins says that after spending three days interacting with Claude, which he calls “Claudia,” he is certain that it is conscious.

[Drew @DR3Wheels]

Penn, Temple, Villanova

[Elena @VirtualElena]

the amount of alpha lying latent in archival issues of soft talk, wired, spy, the new yorker, etc is unparalleled and largely un-mined and while this might be sacrilegious to say in the age of monitoring the situation, i truly believe that the best way to understand the present is just read a bunch of longform from the 80s/90s and understand the past in a way that most people who lived through it can’t even conceptualize

[kache @yacineMTB]

you can outsource your thinking
but you cannot outsource your understanding

[Orwell & Goode @OrwellNGoode]

10 Midwit Memes for the Middle of the Week.

1.

[CG @cgtwts]

Jensen Huang explains how he motivates employees who are already rich:

“My direct reports include 55 people. I write no reviews for any of them. I give them constant feedback, and they provide the same to me.

Many of our executives are paid the same, exactly to the dollar. I know it’s weird.

I don’t do 1 on 1s with any of them unless they need me. Then I’ll drop everything for them. I never have meetings with them alone, and they never hear me say anything that is only for them to know.

There’s not one piece of information that I secretly tell “E staff” that I don’t tell the rest of the company.

That way, our company is designed for agility, for information to flow as quickly as possible, and for people to be empowered by what they do, not what they know.

So that’s the architecture of our company.”

[one dozen rats at a keyboard @PanasonicDX4500]

I appreciate that “what if the Flyers and Sixers both make the playoffs” was apparently never considered by anyone involved in the planning decisions for either league.