Nowfal Khadar

I like Robotics and Marketplaces.
Previously @Amazon Robotics.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

3 of my 4 essays from last month made it to the front page of Hacker News.

✍️ AI's Dial Up Era (469 votes)
✍️ Wrapping My Head Around AI Wrappers (52 votes)
✍️ Command Lines: AI Coding's Control Spectrum (68 votes)

Thanks @ycombinator

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

When @OpenAI hears @AnthropicAI is buying @physical_int

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

ChatGPT says these are FIFA Football World Cup 2026 playing styles after group stage.

Argentina: pass to Messi and pray.

Brazil: dribble and flamboyance first, goals later, maybe.

Spain: why score goals when you can pass?

France: eleven (and more) stars, occasionally a system.

Germany: machine but might need oiling.

England: world-class players, zero chemistry.

Portugal: serve CR7 and hope he doesn’t miss again.

Netherlands: beautiful rotations, tragic final heartbreaks.

@ChatGPTapp

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

“American suburbia might not have a medieval town’s charm but affluence oozes from the McMansion garages.”

Unfortunately people in those McMansions believe they are living “paycheck to paycheck” and in some cases they are because the American economy offers many such opportunities.

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

European football fans visiting America are discovering the mass affluence of the country’s suburbs. The wealth enticing holidaymakers troubles European elites. America, once a peer, seems to be racing ahead https://t.co/TMRIvZW6yC

Illustration: Álvaro Bernis

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@bilalfarooqui Do you agree with PG that it would not be made now? What has changed to prevent this kind of mistake?

[Paul Graham @paulg]

@BrendanFoody Believe me, we're well aware of this mistake. We talk about it all the time. It would not be made now.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

What’s interesting is how traditional notions of left and right wrt economic policies are shifting.

As @pitdesi has pointed out Trump and many MAGA Republicans like Josh Hawley, JD Vance advocate traditional socialist policies of populism and heavy govt involvement in business. Many lean anti-corporate, pro-labor/pro-union, anti-datacenter etc.

“The new socialists thus want the state to dictate the prices of many goods and services, especially essentials such as food and rent. The message is so simple, and so attractive, that Gen-Z socialism is gaining adherents. The solutions are naive, and often unworkable. Whether or not more Gen-Z socialists succeed at the polls, Gen-Z socialism is not going away.”

Will a pro-business politician who supports markets and are against price controls be able to make a come back in the US? Or will the next decade be all about populists? It looks increasingly like the latter across all political parties.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

Jeff Bezos had a somewhat similar idea based on ice cream trucks and funded a team called Treasure Truck at Amazon. The constant moving adds significant operational complexity without corresponding increase in demand. Delivery is easier to execute and generates much higher demand.

https://t.co/b1yQBwzTJb

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@lpolovets Cost reduction will unlock market segments.

This is the Uber versus Taxi TAM all over again.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@tanayj Do you think they should pivot hard into AI data space or what?

Handshake has had good success. And Uber, Doordash, LinkedIn all think if you have a marketplace of people already they can be utilized for this task?

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@tanayj Didn’t they acquire a stake in Toloka for AI training data too? Interesting to see them assemble an entire stack mostly through acquisitions.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

Did anyone look at this and say, yes, looks great, let’s post it? Or did AI make that decision too? 🤦‍♂️

[Sony | Xperia @sonyxperia]

The new AI Camera Assistant* with Xperia Intelligence brings stories to life. Using subject, scene and weather, it suggests expressive options with adjustments of colour, exposure, bokeh, and lens for breathtaking photos*.

https://t.co/zgSQ9MLWFP

#SonyXperia #Xperia1VIII

[mark pincus @markpinc]

Your instinct is right 95% of the time but your idea is right at best 25% of the time.

Most founders die on the hill of their first idea when the real win is the instinct underneath it.

In 2003, i had the instinct that we should be able to order a taxi through our phone. My idea was to text message the dispatcher. I bought https://t.co/WJJdc45ugh and wrote a business plan that only ever got to a million dollars a month in revenues so I never acted on it (i figured i’d make a dollar per ride).

The winning idea that @travisk and @gc brilliantly invented was to enable anyone to be a taxi, launching the gig economy. I never would have come up with that.

I write about this paradox and how to avoid it in my new book out June 23: https://t.co/a6OgyOIqsr

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@deeplyunsure @krishnanrohit Interesting. For me, so far, even giving several Harry Potter books hasn’t reduced emdashes or the it’s not X - it’s Y structure, let alone write like JK Rowling. Increased focus on RLHF techniques, especially better writing might get us there 🤷‍♂️

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@Tocelot @karpathy Great take.

For social: passive consumption (floor) versus content creation (ceiling)

[John Collison @collision]

We've been thinking a lot at Stripe about the Coasean lens on AI:

- The obvious near-term effect is reduced transaction costs within companies: shared context, systems of record, aligned incentives etc.
- But inter-company transaction costs also reduce sharply: agents are great at discovery, make it trivially easy to integrate; make contracting much more straightforward; agent-to-agent commerce.
- On net, we think second effect bigger in medium term: fewer people per firm, more output per firm, just more firms, and more coordination happening through market-like mechanisms

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

Okay but this is kinda smart

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@ManusMeta @chris_j_paxton @finkd @Meta Even the name is already ManusMeta 😁

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@pmarca They use AI to hate on AI. Even the haters can’t help it.

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

@max_spero_ Yes!

[Nowfal Khadar @nowfalkhadar]

Not sure why people are dunking on this. Even if you know all of this, it’s still a good refresher. And if you don’t know, then this is an excellent one-pager on revenue recognition.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Here's YC's official advice about being truthful and precise about what is pilot, bookings, revenue and recurring revenue.

Founders, particularly first time founders, need to sear this into their brains. Don't mistake one tier for another. Be precise, and always be truthful.