Superintelligence: Which way modern (western) man?

It’s a 165 pages, but it reads pretty well for anyone that has any interest in AI and what it might mean for the world. Can check it out for yourself here.

My biggest takeaways:

• The progress we’re making is actually pretty linear and not that crazy to map out.

• The technology itself is what can go exponential because it has the potential to become self-improving.

• That means that if AI gets good enough to work on AI (AI researcher level intelligence) that it can improve AI.

• Once AI can improve AI we get an “intelligence explosion” that can get pretty wacky if we don’t handle it right.

• Leopold equates this level of technology to the invention of the Atomic Bomb.

• Whoever gets there first has a huge advantage over everyone else.

• If China gets there first, it’s a big problem.

• If the US gets there first (we have an early lead), it’s good for the western world (which I’m biased towards obv).

• Given what’s at stake, the biggest thing we’re lacking on today is security around these AI projects.

• Would you open-source the Atomic Bomb? Probably not smart.

All in all - it’s a bit scary, but only because of the speed at which things are happening and the stakes of failure. Speed can be scary generally. Driving on a tight bridge at 10 MPH. You screw up. You brake before you fall off. Driving on the same tight bridge at 100 MPH is scary. You screw up. You die. The road is the same. The speed ups the stakes and the nerves.

I wrote something a long time ago about this same feeling during Covid. This feeling that things were moving faster and that felt scary. Information moves faster. Tech moves faster. Markets move faster. What I said there - to you and to myself - was that it’s important to keep your wits about you. To lean into the speed.

The only thing that’s worse than driving on tight bridge at 100 MPH is driving nervously on a tight bridge at 100 MPH. Stay frosty out there, compadre.

Also, Google (search company that tries to do other stuff to) is about to buy Wiz (baller cyber security co) in what would be it’s biggest acquisition ever. Feels like the European regulators are going to have something to say about this, but we’ll see. And Sequoia is buying more Stripe because they’re long-term capital partners and also they don’t have anything better to do with it apparently. I like Stripe - just feels like all Sequoia does nowadays is buy more Stripe.

Sandhill Exclusive Content

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Investing for Unaccredited Investors → July 18th at 2:30 PM ET

We’ll be going live with:

• Steph Mui, founder and CEO at Pin, a platform for raising money & creating an investment vehicle to invest in startups with your community.

• Zehra Naqvi, a consumer investor at Headline with a large portfolio of angel investments.

Be sure to RSVP and mark the event in your calendar!

New Podcast Drop 👇

The Publicly Traded Private Markets Paradox: with the Founders of Desitcy XYZ and Hiive

A little background:

Sim is the founder and CEO of Hiive, a marketplace for private company stock that centralizes and automates traditional market processes. He previously spent over 13 years at Setter Capital, founding and leading the venture capital secondaries team since 2015, growing it into a major global hub.

Sohail is the Founder & CEO of Destiny (D/XYZ), an investment management company providing public access to private tech markets. Before Destiny, he founded and led Forge, a private securities marketplace. Sohail has advised and invested in over 150 startups, including Rappi, Rippling, and Notion. He continues to invest in seed-stage companies through S2 Capital and has held roles at Zynga, Chartboost, Google, and the MIT Media Lab.

Catch up on All Things Stablecoin & Fintech Infrastructure…

We were lucky enough to be joined a few weeks ago by Bahnu Kohli and Farooq Malik. They dove into everything from the rise of stablecoin payments, their best uses, and how they fit with current payment systems.

And here’s a bit more context on them:

Bahnu Kohli is the Co-founder and CEO of Layer 2 Financial, a Payments, Banking as a Service that enables fintechs and neobanks to launch fully compliant, fiat and digital currency products in days. Before that, he worked at Capco and co-founded the software, PlatformZero, acquired.

Farooq Malik is the Co-founder and CEO of Rain, a fintech company that helps crypto-native teams launch credit cards backed by stablecoins. Before that, he spent time as a fellow at OnDeck.

​This event is brought to you in partnership with our friends at Sacra.

Talk soon,
Adam

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