I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
Benchmarked an Intel Arc B70 vs an RTX 5090 in the same machine.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, tg128:
B70 (Vulkan): 41.9 t/s
5090 (CUDA): 264.8 t/s
6.3×. And that's the flattering number
#B70
This worth a read. The entire AI valuation was build on two companies that keep losing money. When the music stops there will be signs of derivative growth slow down. https://t.co/dsTSOG6qAD
The @pmarca episode
Marc is a many-time founder, investor, co-creator of the web browser, co-founder of Netscape, the "a" in @a16z. In this very special conversation, we dig into why we’re living through one of the most unique times in history, and what comes next.
We discuss:
🔸 Why AI is arriving at the perfect moment to counter demographic collapse and declining productivity
🔸 How Marc is raising his 10yo kid to thrive in the AI future
🔸 The 3-way standoff that’s happening between PMs, designers, and engineers
🔸 What’s actually going to happen with AI and jobs (spoiler: he thinks the panic is “totally off base”)
🔸Why AI is "the philosopher’s stone" made real
🔸 Why you should still learn to code
🔸 His media diet: X and old books, nothing in between
Don't miss this one.
Full episode embedded here on X 👇
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Hey you. Congrats, you built a company. Tax season is going to be fun.
ME: Awesome. I already paid income tax on my salary.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Cute. This is a wealth tax.
ME: Wealth as in cash?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Wealth as in vibes.
ME: What does that mean?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: It means your net worth is mostly your company stock.
ME: Right. I do not have liquidity. It is a private company.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Perfect. We love taxing things you cannot sell.
ME: So what do I owe?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: One time, 5% of your worldwide net worth if you are over $1 billion.
ME: That is $50 million dollars.
ME: I do not have $50 million dollars.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: That is a you problem.
ME: So I sell some stock?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: If you can. If you cannot, you can borrow.
ME: Borrow against private stock? In this market?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Exactly.
ME: What if the company has transfer restrictions?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Then you can sell your house.
ME: I thought they said this was only for billionaires.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: You can be a billionaire on paper and broke in real life. We call that progress.
ME: How do you even value a private company?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: You estimate.
ME: Based on what?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Comparable public comps, last funding round, secondary whispers, super voting shares and whatever makes the number bigger.
ME: What if I estimate wrong?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Penalty.
ME: Do you tell me the right number?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: No.
ME: Who audits it?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: People who have never built anything and barely know how to use a calculator.
ME: When do I pay?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: You pay starting next year. Or you can spread it over five years and pay extra for the privilege.
ME: So it is a "one time" tax but it comes with a payment plan and interest.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Now you are learning.
ME: What if my net worth drops after you tax me?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Hilarious.
ME: What if my company goes down 70%?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Still hilarious.
ME: What if I move?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: We have residency rules for that. Good luck proving you left at the right time.
ME: This seems designed to force liquidation and force founders to leave..
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: We prefer the term “unlocking revenue.”
ME: So this is only for 200 people, right?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: For now.
ME: For now?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: This is how it always works.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: First it is billionaires.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Then it is “centimillionaires.”
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Then it is “anyone with a paid off house.”
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Then it is “retirement accounts are a form of wealth.”
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Then it is “emergency surcharge, just this once.”
ME: You cannot just keep expanding it.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Watch us.
ME: What is the moral justification here?
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: You succeeded while living here.
ME: I also already paid massive taxes while living here.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: That was income. This is existence.
ME: So the crime is staying.
CA WEALTH TAX MAN: Correct.
ME: This is not a tax policy. This is a founder eviction notice.
>be Palmer Luckey
>born 1992, Long Beach, California
>homeschooled by mom, dad's a car salesman
>build railguns, Tesla coils, lasers in the garage as a teenager
>electrocute yourself, burn a gray spot into your own vision cleaning a laser
>no regrets
>start college courses at 14
>build a six-monitor gaming rig worth tens of thousands of dollars
>collect 43 VR headsets by the time you're 18
>largest private collection in the world
2009:
>found ModRetro Forums at 17
>turn old game consoles into portable units for fun
>work part-time at USC's Mixed Reality Lab designing VR for veterans with PTSD
2012:
>build the Oculus Rift prototype in your parents' garage at 19
>drop out of college
>John Carmack (Doom creator) demos your headset at E3
>Gabe Newell endorses it
>launch Kickstarter asking for $250K
>raise $2.4 million
2014:
>Mark Zuckerberg shows up
>Facebook acquires Oculus for $2 billion
>you're 21 years old
>Forbes estimates your net worth at $700 million
>described as "the face of virtual reality"
2016:
>donate $10K to a pro-Trump group
>post anti-Hillary memes on Reddit under a pseudonym
>get exposed
>game developers boycott Oculus
>Facebook pressures you to publicly endorse Gary Johnson instead
>refuse
2017:
>get fired from your own company
>Zuckerberg won't say why
>negotiate $100 million+ payout for wrongful termination
>immediately found Anduril Industries
>name it after Aragorn's sword from Lord of the Rings
>partner with Peter Thiel
>start building autonomous weapons and AI defense systems
2020-2024:
>win $1 billion contract with U.S. Special Operations Command
>drones deployed to Ukraine
>revenue doubles to $1 billion
>take over Microsoft's $22 billion military headset contract
>Pentagon can't stop writing you checks
2022:
>build a VR headset that literally kills you if you die in-game
>inspired by Sword Art Online
>three explosive charges aimed at your forehead
>call it "office art"
>"it won't be the last"
2025:
>Anduril valued at $30.5 billion
>announce plans to build Arsenal-1
>5 million square foot weapons factory in Ohio
>autonomous fighter jets, missiles, torpedoes
>China sanctions you personally
>net worth hits $3.5 billion
>pay yourself $100K salary
>still wearing Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops to Pentagon meetings
>own a submarine, helicopters, and a PT boat
>keep one of the world's largest video game collections underground
>married a woman who sews historically accurate Tudor costumes
>won first place at Texas Renaissance Festival dressed as Henry VIII
>Sword Art Online author drew your wedding gift
from garage tinkerer to youngest self-made billionaire to America's most important defense contractor
all while looking like he's headed to a beach party
I think people starting to manipulate polymarket 15 mins outcomes. it can make more money in polymarket than in the crypto exchamge. https://t.co/l7GVG5fb1B
A conversation I had with the founder of a company anyone in tech would recognize.
The California wealth tax, as currently written, would literally take 100% of his net worth and leave him dead broke.
This is insanity.
new polymarket market maker account
https://t.co/wa3qSWByxJ
this account recently pickup huge volume, earned maker rebates over 2k in a single day. worth looking into
@fuckmenostylist@Polymarket I believe that is not possible, because poly market will auto match those orders and it will never have this type of arbitrage opportunity. If you share your profile we can see what exactly is going on.
I’ve seen it ahead of release time. It is not very good in my view. Lots of plots are not following general common sense. My guess is it should be towards lower end. But my view are usually not represent common views
Will Avatar 3 make more than $90m over the weekend?
This is a very interesting market since a new movie is coming out.
At first, I thought it would hit that number.
But now I think the release timing is not great.
It’s a relatively quiet weekend and families may choose other movies.
Avatar is also a long movie which many families may skip.
The odds for <$90M are around 67%.
I will buy YES and will go watch the movie lol