Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s spy industry connections
Leaked emails show Epstein’s attempts to dabble in security tech—across borders—in the last years of his life.| Reason.com
VTA's Sam Sargent on the past, present and future of transit in the South Bay.| Streetsblog USA
On the third and final day of the National Conservatism conference, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gave an uncompromising speech on the dangers of AI-fueled transhumanism. From 1950s eugenicists to the tech overlords of Silicon Valley today, Hawley addressed many of the dark undercurrents seething below the surface of the AI revolution. In a telling moment, Hawley emphasized that AI is continuously being curated to serve the powerful transhumanist leaders in Silicon Valley and the government: "A...| Blaze Media
VTA's Sam Sargent on the past, present and future of transit in the South Bay.| Streetsblog New York City
Technocrats love the twee metaphor| UnHerd
Leaked emails show Epstein’s attempts to dabble in security tech—across borders—in the last years of his life.| Reason.com
I first met Ian Howells in London long ago, as fellow footsoldiers in the early relational database wars. While you had to be pretty technical to do product marketing in those days, Ian was technical with a capital T, having … Continue reading → The post Smart Conversations by Ian Howells: A Must-Read Book on Where B2B Marketing Strategy Meets Generative AI appeared first on Kellblog.| Kellblog
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) announced Friday that he’s investigating Meta after it was discovered that the company’s policies allowed its AI chatbots to interact with children in a “romantic or sensual” manner.| SFist - San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports
It’s a great week to chase spirits of every variety. For the alcoholic sort, catch classes, happy hours, tastings, and dinners across the Bay Area. For souls seeking summer, catch the final days of SF Fringe and street-side parties. Scratch your itch for adventure in Healdsburg, Los Gatos, and Yountville—nd don't forget to heed the Hungry Ghost. --- Jump ahead to this week's top events: Bring your happy hour outside at the Embarcadero Center. Embrace the gloom with a Fogust party in Sunse...| 7x7 Bay Area
Astounding as it may seem, some people are saying that summer is over—a sentiment likely stemming from the fact that our public school system somehow crept up its start date to early August (anyone over the age of twenty will remember that school always started after Labor Day). Sadly, this pretty m...| 7x7 Bay Area
Figma’s first conference, Config 2020. Note: On September 16, 2022, I wrote a post about Figma after the announcement of a $20B acquisition offer from Adobe. As it turns out, that acquisition…| Psychohistory
Internet Sans Frontières se réjouit du choix du magazine californien Nobhill Gazette d’inclure Julie Owono en courverture de son numéro de Mars. Consacré aux femmes d’influence dans la Silicon Valley, le numéro met en avant des femmes qui construisent le futur de la Silicon Valley. L’article consacré à Julie Owono évoque la création du Content L’article Notre Directrice parmi les femmes influentes de la Silicon Valley est apparu en premier sur Internet Sans Frontières.| Internet Sans Frontières
Meta is making big moves in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). The company is trying to hire top experts from Thinking Machines Lab, a startup in San Francisco. This startup was started by Mira Murati, who used to work...| <FrontBackGeek/>
Our vision ensures that our tools, however powerful, remain servants of the permanent things that make us human.| The American Mind
Each year, thousands of Bay-Area tech workers attend Burning Man: an annual art festival in the Nevada desert. In this article, an ethnographer of AI development joins his interlocutors at the event and reflects on its resonances with the AI industry he studies. He argues that Burning Man’s unique environment and otherworldly experiences can help us think about the AI industry’s aspirations for civilizational transformation.| Platypus
Deep-pocketed tech companies are coming to the defense of an obscure banking rule, introduced under the Biden administration, that some industry leaders claim is an exception to the rule when it comes to opposing government overreach. At the heart of the debate is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Section 1033 open banking rule, a European-inspired […]| Trending Politics Conservative News and Commentary
My first two years in Silicon Valley were spent in Burlingame at a dotcom that hoped to revolutionize telecommunicatons online - with Web meetings, conference calls and even faxing from the Web. They had great services, but not enough customers, and eventually ran out of funding in early 2001, jettisoning marketing, sales and business development folks, before selling for scraps to Oracle. Being in Marketing myself, this meant it was my first trial to try and find a full-time job, in a world ...| louisgray.com
Career Paths Are Often Circuitous Routes My career in Silicon Valley started before I'd even graduated from college. Rather than plug away at Berkeley and try to get top grades, I split my time my senior year between going to classes and commuting across the Bay Bridge to Burlingame, working for a revenue light startup during the initial dot com boom. By the end of 2018, I will have completed twenty full years in the Valley. In these twenty years, I've been laid off. I've been promoted. I've ...| louisgray.com
This nice home would probably go for $2 million in some Bay Area cities. That Silicon Valley housing is very expensive is no surprise to anyone who is paying attention. Fueled by a bullish tech market for the better part of a decade, with inventory dramatically constrained, each new home entering the market can be flooded with aspiring buyers who are eager to pony up millions of dollars for uninspiring homes, with the desirable promise of reduced commute times to big tech companies or startup...| louisgray.com
At the beginning of last year, as the Trump presidency sickeningly took hold, I worried his mere presence and daily volleys against what most of us thought to be good and proper, right and just, would dominate our every thought and conversation. His long shadow of darkness constantly loomed against any chance of progress and invention - taking the luster off usual excitement, demanding an unrelenting distraction, and regular dread. I pushed pause on the blog because I felt like my comments on...| louisgray.com
Editor’s Note: Part 11 in an irregular series of stories from my many years in Silicon Valley. Part 10 talked about the time I left my job for a competitor and rescinded the offer. This time, a story involving industrial espionage, the SVP of HR and way too many lawyers. If I could show the leads from the lawyers’ lists were gone from our system, we’d be on a path to redemption. The day had started innocently enough. I was hosting our company’s public relations firm at the office, as ...| louisgray.com
For most people, new ideas and perspectives make us uncomfortable. It’s easier and less taxing to surround ourselves with people who agree with our worldview, and reinforce our way of thinking, to make us believe we are correct. We self-select our communities, both in the physical world, and the online space, and these friends or peers become an extension of our own identity. A byproduct of this selection process is that our communities end up looking a lot like us and behaving like us. Tec...| louisgray.com
Layoffs Are Painful. Even if the X Doesn’t Land on You (Image: Dreamstime) In seventeen years of work in Silicon Valley, I’ve only left a job by choice once — in 2011, when I made the jump from being a partner at my own consulting group to join Google. The other three times, my employer informed me my time was up, and at that my services were no longer needed, loyalty be damned. In two cases, the startup I worked for ran out of funding, and once, the new VP wanted to change things u...| louisgray.com
As a member of the Google Analytics team, I regularly field questions at events or on our social channels about how online and offline activity can drive results, and what metrics have value. As no two businesses are the same, it's critical to determine the status of your company and find if your activity can bring impact to results that matter, be they clicks, leads, registrations, opportunities or real revenue. When the goals are determined, and you have stakeholder buyin, then you can star...| louisgray.com
In Silicon Valley, some of the most prosperous cities and most sought after zip codes to live, raise a family and send kids to school, are directly dependent on the proximity to corporate headquarters of the leading technology companies. As some of the biggest companies are running out of room in their headquarter cities, the resulting demand for continued growth is putting pressure on neighboring communities. Sunnyvale looks like ground zero for this next wave. Cupertino, home to Apple, the ...| louisgray.com
Just about four years ago, Eli Pariser raised some very real flags about the "filter bubble", concerned that many of us on the Web were limiting our viewpoints by following those people and companies with whom we were most aligned. Our personal positions on politics, sports, and yes, even technology, have us in a constant state of affirmation seeking, and the desire to be part of a group of like-minded people, to reinforce our position and strengthen our decided upon beliefs, that we just mig...| louisgray.com
Altman, Musk, Thiel und Co. glauben, dass die Technologie die Menschheit retten wird. Sie blenden damit bewusst Fragen von Macht und Verteilung aus.| Surplus – Das Wirtschaftsmagazin
n the past decade, technology companies have spent tens of millions of dollars funding academic research surrounding the most pressing regulatory and ethical issues. Google has funded over 329 research papers on technology regulation, antitrust law, and ethical frameworks. “AI Ethics” institutes have been co-founded by Amazon and Facebook. Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and more [...] The post Big Tech, Big Checks: The Role of Tech Giant in Shaping Academic Research appeared first on Stanfo...| Stanford Politics
The Silicon Valley entrepreneur and computer scientist died Saturday surrounded by family, Adobe said in a statement. The company didn’t give a cause of death or say where he died| EL PAÍS English
La patronne d'Instacart se voit confier un poste nouvellement créé au sein de la start-up de Sam Altman qui prépare son introduction en Bourse| l'Opinion
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the U.S. is in “decline” and embraces a cultish tech movement to build “network” societies beyond the reach of nation-states—and he’s got Congress eating out of his hand.| The New Republic
The Nerd Reich Podcast: The Network State with Brooke Harrington and Dave Karpf This podcast episode delves into the alarming rise of “network states,” a concept promoted by some tech billionaires …| Notes by Johannes Kleske
Donald Trump policies benefit wealthy elites. His admin has 13 billionaires, with Elon Musk. He cuts taxes on rich and corporations. Tariffs are consumption tax on poor| Geopolitical Economy Report
Breaking the false binary of Back-to-the-land hippies vs Transhumanist Tech Bros| Space Commune
The industry’s liberal reputation is misleading. Its reactionary tendencies – celebrating wealth, power and traditional masculinity – have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990s| the Guardian
Myths persist where facts are absent. The microelectronics industry is perceived as clean due to the absence of contrary facts, and because there is so much to be gained by neglecting the bad news about high-tech. The high-tech industry is touted by both liberal and conservative politicians as the industrial salvation of the U.S. economy – the jobs and investment replacement for the faltering American steel and auto industries. Local politicians promise jobless workers new employment opport...| Science for the People Archives
n the past decade, technology companies have spent tens of millions of dollars funding academic research surrounding the most pressing regulatory and ethical issues. Google has funded over 329 research papers on technology regulation, antitrust law, and ethical frameworks. “AI Ethics” institutes have been co-founded by Amazon and Facebook. Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and moreRead More| Stanford Politics
If Balaji Srinivasan is any guide, then the Silicon Valley plutocrats are definitely not OK.| The New Republic
The media hate Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter, now X, into an open forum with very little censorship| The Spectator World
Steven Zorn set out to create software that addressed timeless human desires. What could possibly go wrong? "I am telling this story backwards, which is perhaps fitting for a story of inside-out...| Tumblr
If these Silicon Valley plutocrats have their way, a swath of Solano County will be transformed into their own nation-state.| The New Republic
Stephen Grugett is the co-founder of Manifold Markets, the world's largest prediction market platform where people bet on politics, te...| infoproc.blogspot.com
Great conversation with Erik, a well-known SV Founder and investor. TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Intro (02:01) Political polarization in academi...| infoproc.blogspot.com
A totally fictional — but simultaneously true! — portrayal of one Irish elk’s experience with uncertainty, mimicry, envy, and burnout in an alternative Silicon Valley Antlerz’ updated marketing col…| Zander Nethercutt
Living a healthy financial life is far more difficult than most people believe. For most of us, our education in personal finance is relatively limited. We learn some from our parents and our friends, but for the most part, we are left to educate ourselves. This is not primarily an issue of intelligence, ambition, or … Continue reading Putting Family First in Financial Planning| Psychohistory
A little less than four years ago, I wrote a post about home prices in Silicon Valley and how they relate to stock prices and Bitcoin. It was one of the most popular posts on my blog from 2017. The original compared housing prices in Palo Alto to a few of the largest technology companies … Continue reading Silicon Valley Home Prices, Stock Prices & Bitcoin (2021)| Psychohistory
Some personal news to share today. After a great tour of duty at Dropbox, I’ve decided to take the leap into something new. Having a January birthday has always added a little weight to my New Year’s resolutions, and as it turns out, 2020 was a big one for me. 45 might not be the … Continue reading A New Year & A New Adventure| Psychohistory
On October 8, 2019, I was asked to give my talk, “Be A Great Product Leader” to a huge audience at Amplify 2019, the product management conference organized by Amplitude.* The talk is named after possibly my most famous blog post on the topic of product leadership from 2011, Be A Great Product Leader. For … Continue reading Be A Great Product Leader – Amplify 2019| Psychohistory
One of the fond memories I have of my first two years at LinkedIn was coming into the office almost every Sunday to spend a couple of hours with Reid Hoffman. Our conversations covered a wide range of topics, but the time ensured that we were fully aligned on the strategy of the company and … Continue reading Three Types of Risk: Making Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty| Psychohistory
Over the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to work in a variety of different functions. No matter whether it is engineering, design, product, or service, every role has its own unique set of requirements and challenges. Maybe that’s why I have always believed strongly that software is a team sport. If you want to … Continue reading Every Function Has a Superpower. What’s Yours?| Psychohistory
For those looking for the course material, I’ve posted the slides for all 10 sessions on a parallel site: http://cs007.blog On September 26th, I had the great pleasure of officially kicking off a brand new course at Stanford University, “Personal Finance for Engineers“. The course was offered through the Computer Science department (CS 007), but was … Continue reading Stanford CS 007: Personal Finance for Engineers (Reviews & Reflection)| Psychohistory
Update: For those looking for full course material, I’m posting it on a parallel site: Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of officially kicking off a new course at Stanford University, ̶…| Psychohistory
I’m writing this post with a bit of trepidation, because talking about Silicon Valley home prices these days is a bit dicey. The surge of the last five years has been shocking, and almost no one I know feels good about how difficult it is for people to buy a new home in Silicon Valley … Continue reading Silicon Valley Home Prices, Stock Prices & Bitcoin| Psychohistory
This is an extension to my original three post series on user acquisition. Today, AirBnB announced that it had reached a settlement with the city of San Francisco on how to effectively register and monitor legal listings in the city. I am a huge fan of the company, and it seems like a positive outcome for … Continue reading Spend Time Thinking About The People Who Don’t Use Your Product| Psychohistory
In 2016, voice-based interfaces exploded into the imagination of the startup community as a potential new consumer platform. Amazon deserves much of the credit for this radical shift, as the Amazon Echo seemed to jump the chasm from early adopters to a more mainstream market. Of course, voice has been a hot topic now for years, as … Continue reading Forget the Turing Test. The Key to Conversational Engagement Might Be Trampoline Moments| Psychohistory
Dive into the transformative world of AI and data analytics! Embrace the future and unlock your company’s potential using the power of AI.| Futurety
We are on the verge of a nightmare era of mass surveillance by the state and private companies. It’s not too late to stop it.| BuzzFeed News
There is a piece in the New York Times Magazine about the economist Robert Gordon which has the potential to paradigm-shift our view of an ever improving life and endless economic growth. His main …| silent listening
Indigenous peoples see Silicon Valley’s faux “green tech” and raise it with a new yet ancient solution against climate catastrophe.| Rest of World
