Recent startup, tech, AI, crypto learnings: “The surest sign of a midcurved institution is its insistence on an ability to control, predict, and dictate to complex adaptive systems”

19/ I have 0 insight if/when Indian policies change but honestly feel like the fact that the most populous country on earth has banned crypto is not discussed enough
Utterly massive opportunity when/if this changes

With a simple meme, you can make millions of people laugh all over the world. I can tweet a joke that gets 15 million views, and I can do it from my toilet. That’s scale. And as every good entrepreneur knows, wherever there’s scale, there’s a chance to turn a massive profit.

If there were one rule to unite all memelords, it would be this: capitalize on the current thing.

Mr. Beast —
Anytime we do something that no other creator can do, that seperates us in their mind and makes our videos more special to them. It changes how they see us and it does make them watch more videos and engage more with the brand. You can’t track the “wow factor” but I can describe it. Anything that no other youtuber can do. And it’s important we never lose our wow.

Let’s say we have 10 minute video about a guy surviving weeks in the woods. Instead of making the first 3 minutes of the video about his first day then progressing from there like a logical filmmaker would. We’d tried to cover multiple days in the first 3 minutes of the video so the viewer is now super invested in the story.

But in general once you have someone for 6 minutes they are super invested in the story and probably in what I call a “lull”. They are watching the video without even realizing they are watching a video.

There were days back in the early 2000s when you would have no idea what to expect from a Bernanke or Greenspan-led Fed. The FOMC meetings were actually quite riveting because you simply had no idea what to expect. But not the Powell-led Fed. They often explicitly tell you what they will do, but in rare cases when they don’t, they leak it to their favorite Wall Street Journal puppet, Nick Timiraos, who spells it out for you.

Lest you think I’m being unfair to our ivory-tower friends, here’s the lore of the term “capitalism”: borne from a socialist French intellectual and popularized by Marx. Lol. Yeah. The guys who don’t like the natural system, named the natural system something that’s kinda pejorative.

I want you to help me build a media empire, where we make (formerly) obscure scholars famous, compile the real time history of ASI, and produce the very best intellectual content in the world.

Content, confidence, and context—these are the three dimensions Shreyas Doshi discovered traditional companies use to promote employees. “This is unfortunately the cause of a lot [of] persistent frustration for otherwise-talented people who are GREAT at content, but repeatedly get passed over for promotion to higher levels… it is usually because they are not projecting as much confidence as they ought to for the next level and they are not as attuned to the context of the org & the company.”

Their SwiftNet private key infrastructure and banking messaging standards like ISO20022 are used by 11,000+ banks globally to facilitate the communication of payment instructions between banks

On Mr. Beast as Buzzfeed 2.0
(he can only sell very generic products like chocolate because his audience is so poor and so broad) — and he is in the most competitive part of the ecosystem / general entertainment.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone.

This “secret privatization” of the entire North Korean economy has been incredibly thorough. It’s estimated that around 80 percent of all goods and services in North Korea are provided in secret and in shadow. It’s capitalism as an extremophile species of lichen, colonizing the cracks and crevices of the official society, and keeping the whole system afloat.

“The concern was that 200 phones traveling at 800 kilometers per hour in a plane could rapidly connect to many towers at once, overloading the infrastructure. At least that’s what the FCC thought could happen. So, they banned cell phone use in flight in 1991. But there’s a problem with this theory—a plane is a big metal enclosure, essentially a Faraday cage. So, it should block almost all electromagnetic signals.”

After analyzing value spread throughout his career, AQR Capital cofounder concludes that markets are becoming less informationally efficient. “You’d be forgiven if, like me, your initial whiggish assumption is that markets would get more efficient over time. After all, over the last 20-40 years the ubiquity and speed of available information has continuously grown, and at the same time trading costs have come rapidly down. But like me initially, you’d be mistaking speed for accuracy.”

In the 1950s alone, America built five generations of fighter jets, three generations of manned bombers, two classes of aircraft carriers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-powered attack submarines.

In 2020/21, very loose monetary conditions + huge money printing combined with two major breakout innovations DeFi & NFTs. People were given stimmies, fiat was massively devalued again, and the prospect of decentralized finance being the genuine future of finance, alongside NFTs being the future of digital property caused enormous retail participation.

“Your highly questionable parenting vision,” responded Nicole, who was a day away from labor. “One, no school or college. Two, separate apartment in childhood. Three, move out at 16. Four, learn to drive all machines as early as possible. Five, leave the family fortune to one child. Six, children have to fly in economy while we are in business.” Luckey also believes strongly in (legally obtained) child labor (permits), that having fewer than 2.1 children would make him a traitor to the nation, and that children as young as 2 are fully capable of walking several miles without a stroller (“History shows it,” he says).

“At some point, in business and in life and in romance, you have to commit to a path,” said the 31-year-old Luckey. “A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this philosophy … They’re always pursuing everything with optionality.

By 2023, the cold war between these tribes had escalated into open conflict as hedge fund billionaires led the charge to oust Ivy League presidents and The New York Times sued OpenAI. Incursions into enemy territory are treated with alarm, like when Google’s AI model Gemini was criticized by Riverians for reflecting distinctively Villagey political attitudes.

Villagers see themselves as being clearly right on the most important big-picture questions of the day, from climate change to gay and trans rights. So they view the Riverian inclination to poke holes in arguments and “just ask questions’’ as being a waste of time at best, and as potentially empowering a wake of bad-faith actors and bigots.

Bitcoin is worth a trillion bucks and half of Wall Street owns it at this point. All the rest of crypto is worth another trillion. Tether owns more Treasuries than Germany. There’s been more than $20bn of venture capital poured into this space in the last four years. We’re not that early.

The surest sign of a midcurved institution is its insistence on an ability to control, predict, and dictate to complex adaptive systems. You don’t control them, they control you.

Envision interest rates as futures for dollars.
Interest rates = price of money

I trust GPT4 more than I trust our politicians. In the coming years AI models will become so much more capable that their judgment will start being used to mediate disputes – first inside companies but then legally . Lawyers already use it constantly.

China was The State.
Crypto was The Individual.
It’s the Machine that will overthrow the plutocracy, because the core of the plutocracy – its super bubble was the false insistence it was a machine.

Podcast notes – Palmer Luckey (founder of Oculus and Anduril) on the Good Time Show

Palmer – founded Oculus, Anduril

Elon’s “what did you get done this week” as a clear filter for who agrees / disagrees with you

“It’s time to build”

What helped him start Oculus
1. Started dissembling and assembling smartphones – funded a lot of his early R&D
2. PC gamer – after 8 monitor setup, he asked “what’s next from here?”
3. Mod retro – modding game systems like N64, adding screens, batteries, etc

Oculus was a community of people learning hardware + software – very collaborative, helping and sharing work
Bunch of teenagers
Early employees were moderators / participants on Mod Retro

Oculus was not just a headset – it was the engaged community and SDK that made it easy to build VR software

At 19yo, realized Oculus was not just cheaper but also better than VR headsets available in the market
Predistortion was a novel mainstream idea at that point

Met John Carmack – he was studying VR because he was posting on a different forum, and Palmer helped him
“John is one of top 10 most productive people in tech”
Absolutely brilliant; doesn’t care if he upsets you; tells you exactly what he thinks and will always do things the way he thinks is right; deeply understands hardware + software (not just assembly but also deep into each piece of hardware and how it operates)
Not only made Quake and Doom but started a rocket company well before Elon
Also would hot-rod cars and was world-class at this

AR vs VR is a spectrum
Eg, VR world but when you bring your own hands in
Eg, AR but you edit out elements of background
It’s all the same – “allow person to see or experience anything they can imagine”

Aarthi: Why start Anduril?

Anduril is more successful than Oculus on any measurable metric – but everyone knows Oculus because it was consumer tech

Couldn’t retire – ego wouldn’t let him – it was partly spite (“they’re gonna regret it, and they’re gonna look like idiots”) – regarding Facebook firing him
All the criticisms – “there wasn’t a place for him”, “the company has grown past him” – a lot of passive aggressive takes, really dismissive of him

Settled on national security (Anduril) because it was the most important problem he could work on
Existing tech cos couldn’t work with US government because they were beholden to China, foreign governments and suppliers

Before Oculus, worked at army-funded VR research lab (military VR projects)
Saw how far behind DoD was on technology, made industry friends
Became concerned when he was in Silicon Valley and culturally everyone there thought working on defense was bad

Growing up, his favorite media characters were weapons manufacturers – big fan of Yu Gi Oh, Iron Man

“Did I have a choice in any of this?”

Wanted to punch above his weight, certain it would be / become important
Clear that Russia will invade Ukraine, China will invade Taiwan
We’re going to build tools to defend western democracy – and one day, everyone else will understand it

Most tech workers are pro military – but often not willing to say it
But very vocal minority who are anti-military – and executives use them to advance agendas
Google’s project Maven – working with military in small capacity – lots of protest, 1000s of Googlers signed petition against it – but that’s only 1% of Google’s workforce!

Most defense cos (the primes) work on cost-plus basis – doesn’t incentivize the best work

Before Anduril, only 2 unicorns who worked with military – Palantir and SpaceX – while there were 4 mattress unicorns, 100 gaming unicorns

Tech founders are turned off by this, hard to get scale, can’t recruit best people
Smart investors don’t invest in them either

When started Anduril, had more people on PR and government relations than engineering – you need it for defense

Core of early Anduril were ex-Oculus, ex-Palantir

ON RUSSIA – UKRAINE

Conflict headed in a bad direction – Anduril’s been involved since 2nd week of conflict

Met Zelensky shortly after he was elected – at that time US didn’t want to sell military tech to Ukraine because it was afraid of provoking Russia

Ukraine has re-built extraordinarily quickly – Kiev does not feel like a war zone

Russia has full control over media in their own nation – probably their most powerful weapon
Lots of Russian soldiers believed in invading they were actually helping liberate pro-Russian Ukrainians – thought it’d be over in a few days

See parallels with China – Taiwan
Russia able to convince their citizens of a crazy lie, what about China?
Not independent free thinking people

Putin very likely to use a tactical nuke
-US believes nukes are strategic weapons – huge bombs to take out large cities – dis-assembled all our tactical nukes
-Tactical nukes are smaller, more limited, used to win a battle, not a war
-Russia has tactical nukes, part of their military doctrine, way to even the odds with NATO
-thinks Putin will use it to blow up an airfield, or take out a heavily built up military area

Europe headed to winter – really need Russian gas
Anti-nuclear people – “what a disaster”

People unwilling to sacrifice like they did during WW2
Putin sees our resolve isn’t that strong

“There’s no easy button”

If Putin is killed, the one who replaces him probably isn’t better

CHINA – TAIWAN

Some of Taiwan’s weapons purchases are buying wrong things – trying to build large submarines that can’t fight in Strait; buying non-stealth jets that are easy to shoot down

Some Taiwanese politicians want to appear strong, but won’t actually deter Chinese aggression

Taiwanese billionaire committed to buying $100s of millions in small weaponized drones, other asymmetric weapons – “that’s worth noting”

Theory for how the conflict plays out
-China won’t do massive large scale invasion and raise the flag a week later
Will launch trade blockade to block all harbors
-Have a narrative to justify to local Chinese – enforce customs, immigration, tax law
Expel every merchant ship that comes to Taiwan
-This makes it less likely that Taiwan’s allies will start shooting war
-How many are willing to see US fire the first shot in a “trade dispute”?
-Will be devastating to US economy

US carrier group used to be unbeatable – but in war games, they’re increasingly vulnerable – China won’t fire 5 hypersonic missiles they’ll fire 300

In China the best companies are required by law to work with military
Only thing that could stop China would be economic collapse

People don’t build in China because it’s cheap – that’s old school thinking
Chinese are very competent, very smart, unmatched supply chain, government that gets stuff done even at expense of human rights

Apple only shifting out of China to extent that Chinese government allows it – eg 10% to Germany or 5% to Japan, “China would lose its minds”

During Oculus, critics weren’t upset at what he actually did – more upset at what media reported that he did
Biggest mistake was Facebook PR convinced him to not fight the criticism
Online editor of his college newspaper – understands how media works
He encourages entrepreneurs to confront haters, be aggressive – make yourself too prickly a target to lie about
If they lie about you, you’re going to punch back

“King of direct communication” – Trump

VR wasn’t popular when he started Oculus – was a joke technology when he first tried to raise money

After Oculus, looked at several other areas other than Anduril
1. petroleum food products to solve obesity epidemic
2. private prison reform – only charge governments after prisoners served sentence and remained out of prison for 5 years

See a lot of founders that think they’re better than they are – important to accurately assess your strengths

Job of executive is to make themselves obsolete

If you really love tech, do not start a tech company – start it if you want to work on nonstop bullshit – HR, fundraising, interpersonal employee issues, working with gov’t regulators

Podcast notes – Palmer Lucky (Anduril) – talk at All-In Summit

Starting Anduril, raising VC was hard despite having sold Oculus for $1B+ – lots of hesitation / resistance against national security, building tools used for violence

Ukraine war has shattered view that we live at end of history

Defense procurement today is slow, broken

US has strongest commercial AI, followed closely by China
But the defense contractors (the Defense primes) are far behind in implementing AI / autonomy – more AI in John Deere than Department of Defense

Putin: “Ruler of world will be one that masters AI”

Defense primes don’t have access to best talent or tech
Yet the best talent, tech cos, are prohibited from working with them

After Oculus, Palmer wanted to use his money, reputation to do something unpopular

1951-59 – built 5 generations of fighter jets, 2 generations of carriers
Now we’re lucky to do one of them in a decade

After Cold War, US government wasn’t a great customer for military investment

Lots of these companies opposed to working with military – but it’s a smoke screen to preserve access to China markets and capital, it’s for self interest

Once armed conflict breaks out, we’ll realize how dependent we are on our adversary (ie China)

Wars happen if one or both sides mis-estimates probability of winning – if both agree on probabilities, they’ll negotiate / compromise

Blamed Jason Calacanis and others like him about losing his job at Oculus – “destroyed me…still filled with rage about it…”
Upset about JCal’s personal attacks, especially about his family
Palmer donated $9K to a PAC which created an anti-Hillary billboard – start of massive controversy
Why was he fired from Facebook? “Clear that a lot of people in media and tech…kept attacking me…Trump winning was what made it un-tenable”

Pmarca – feels safer to be in the mob, you’re part of the group, and you also get to attack

Andrew Bosworth leads Oculus @ Facebook now – it’s about being on right side of politics (he was extremely anti-Trump)

Lots of people at FB won’t reveal their politics if they’re right of Bernie Sanders for fear of losing job / reputations

Palmer is Republican, his Anduril CEO is Democrat

Chamath – invested in seafaring drones – had DoD contract opportunity, but faction inside team was opposed to it, resulted in a 3 year detour to make a weather app, but now back to working with government contractors which was right move

“Broadly technology industry needs to support military” – but people can choose where to work

Anduril is ~1000 employees now

VR is final computing platform – “it’s not the next one…it’s the final one”
Why is VR not massive yet?
-need more popular content to build self-sustaining flywheel
-need to improve on device quality, weight, cost

Effective use of drones in Russia-Ukraine conflict – cost asymmetry between $200K drone that destroys a multi-million tank

Anduril has $1b contract to do counter-drone work; Russia doesn’t have that tech
Cost-plus contracting is standard – everyone incentivized to build most expensive systems, not just prime contractor but also all sub-contractors – because you also get a % of that!

Anduril uses own money, builds own products – talk deeply to government about its problems
Go to government with working product, instead of just a whitepaper

US can ship weapons to Ukraine because of allies like Poland

Jason: what would Taiwan conflict look like?
-could be a drawn out blockade – economically strangle them, prevent weapons from coming in
-Taiwan doesn’t have tools today – maybe a decade ago they did – but China military tech has been ascendant
David: How vulnerable are our carriers?
Extremely – designed to project power when you have uncontested air superiority
One carrier = 5K lives lost with one hit

“If you did that to Kara Swisher…she woulda pulled you off stage”
Kara calls Palmer a “douchey man-boy”

If you care about these issues – changing your Twitter PFP isn’t enough – or who are silent

China fighting strategic and economic war against us for a long time
Hollywood promoted delusion that we can solve any problem in the last second