Podcasts about siqi chen

Siqi Chen (@blader, CEO/CFO @Runwayco), talks about his journey from JPL developer to Founder of a financial planning and analysis (FP&A) startup. We focus on how to build products that customers crave and how a customer-centric view differs from traditional product management.SHOW: 923SHOW TRANSCRIPT: The Cloudcast #923 TranscriptSHOW VIDEO: https://youtube.com/@TheCloudcastNET CLOUD NEWS OF THE WEEK:  http://bit.ly/cloudcast-cnotwNEW TO CLOUD? CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCAST:  "CLOUDCAST BASICS"SPONSORS:Cut Enterprise IT Support Costs by 30-50% with US CloudSHOW NOTES:Runway websiteBehind What Seems Like an Overnight Success (video)Topic 1 - Welcome to the show, Siqi. First, your combination of technical and business/financial background is fascinating. How did you go from coding at NASA to Head of Product at Zynga to CEO/CFO for a finance platform startup? Give everyone a quick introduction.Topic 2 - One thing I've noticed as a trend in your background is the core concept of building. What has been your philosophy in building products? How do you build products that customers demand?Topic 3 -  Let's talk about AI and AGI for a moment. We hear all the time how disruptive this will be. What are your thoughts here, and how do we develop both adaptability and resiliency to new technologies?Topic 4 - Let's talk FP&A (financial planning & analysis). Our core listeners out there tend to skew more towards the tech and infrastructure side, but a core theme of this show is always to be learning as much of the business as possible to apply those concepts. As someone with a background in both worlds, plus now running an FP&A startup, what do you wish folks on the technical side of the house knew more about to make their jobs easier?Topic 5 - We posted a link in the show notes for a video you did on the “overnight success” of Runway. It was a good representation and origin story of how something can go viral with the right mindset and product-market fit. Tell everyone about that as Runway approaches 5 years now. Topic 6 - What is your biggest challenge in the FP&A space today? Is it AI? We've seen a lot of AI disruption in coding, legal, and other areas requiring deep data pool insights. Is this any different?FEEDBACK?Email: show at the cloudcast dot netBluesky: @cloudcastpod.bsky.socialTwitter/X: @cloudcastpodInstagram: @cloudcastpodTikTok: @cloudcastpod

Runway CEO and co-founder Siqi Chen shares how his team used a waitlist not just to build hype, but to engineer smarter growth. In this episode of Fund/Build/Scale, Siqi breaks down how Runway strategically kept customers in a holding pattern to gather feedback, qualify demand, and refine product-market fit. We also talk about: How to build trust with early users through transparency Using scarcity and access control as GTM levers Why financial planning should be accessible to everyone on the team What most founders get wrong about burn rate and cash flow Whether you're in the early stages or prepping for launch, this episode offers a masterclass in thoughtful, tactical go-to-market execution. RUNTIME 39:46 EPISODE BREAKDOWN (2:49) “ What if somebody worked on a Figma for finance?” (5:48) “ You have to understand what are the different levers of the machine, and how the machine works.” (8:50) Why Runway represents a cultural shift in corporate transparency. (11:51) How much financial literacy should founders try to foster across their organizations?  (14:48) How much runway should a startup aim for? (18:39) How Runway's waitlist fed directly into its GTM strategy. (21:36) The  ”very simple motivation” behind creating the waitlist. (24:35) The “negging trick” that makes sales prospects want to buy your product. (26:37) “ Your early customers join you for very different and specific reasons.” (28:55) “ Our first website, we didn't even really talk about the product.” (30:23) After opening up the waitlist, “ nothing really changed — we were doing outbound sales already.” (34:17) “People who are really motivated by your purpose and mission are willing to give you a lot more leeway.” (36:42) What the next five years could look like for Runway. (38:07) The one question Siqi would ask a CEO if he was interviewing at an early-stage startup.  LINKS Siqi Chen Runway Runway lands $27.5M to streamline financial planning for businesses As Not Seen on TV, Pete Wells, NYT Restaurant Review, 11/13/12 SUBSCRIBE

This week, we chat with Siqi Chen!Siqi is the founder and CEO of Runway, a next generation FP&A platform that makes finance actually understandable and accessible to the entire team.As an operator and founder, he served as the CEO of Sandbox VR (a16z), VP of Product and Growth at Postmates (later acquired by Uber), CEO of Hey, Inc (Google-funded, acquired by Postmates), Head of Product at Zynga (IPO 2011) and CEO of Serious Business (funded by Lightspeed, acquired by Zynga). In addition to his operational roles, Siqi is an investor in nearly a hundred companies, including notable names like ElevenLabs, Amplitude, Pipe, and Mercury.Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Siqi made significant contributions at NASA JPL, where he achieved the distinction of being the sole recipient of a Congressional Space Act award while still in school. This recognition was a result of his contributions to machine vision technology on the Mars Exploration Rovers.Follow Us!Siqi Chen: @bladerRunway: @runwaycoErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

#222 Master the Art of Financial Product Design with Siqi Chen https://open.spotify.com/episode/019MLgaVF4N7jNvm2Ek910 Mastering the art of financial product design is a crucial skill for finance professionals in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. In this insightful podcast episode, Kevin sits down with Siqi Chen, the Founder and CFO of Runway, to explore the challenges and opportunities in creating innovative finance software. The discussion delves into the limitations of traditional finance tools, the importance of user-centric design, and the transformative potential of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Siqi Chen shares his diverse background, from his studies in mathematics to her experience working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Siqi recounts his journey as a serial entrepreneur, highlighting the challenges she faced in understanding finance and the inspiration behind founding Runway, a finance software company aimed at revolutionizing the way businesses approach financial management. They delve into the unique features and design principles that set Runway apart from traditional finance tools. Siqi explains how Runway's focus on collaboration, data visualization, and seamless integration with other business systems addresses the pain points experienced by finance teams. The discussion also explores the role of ambient intelligence and artificial intelligence in enhancing the user experience and providing proactive insights. Kevin and Siqi also discuss the potential for collaboration between their respective organizations, exploring opportunities for joint webinars, summits, and other initiatives. The shared enthusiasm for innovation in the finance space sets the stage for a continued dialogue and the exploration of new ways to empower finance professionals in their quest to drive business success. Key topics covered: Siqi Chen's diverse background and his journey as a serial entrepreneur The limitations of traditional finance tools and the inspiration behind founding Runway Runway's focus on collaboration, data visualization, and seamless integration The role of ambient intelligence and artificial intelligence in enhancing the user experience Potential for collaboration between Grow CFO and Runway, including joint webinars and summits Runway's pricing and target market for mid-market companies Siqi Chen's emphasis on the importance of user-centric design in finance software Runway's unique features, such as fine-grained permission controls and the ability to encrypt sensitive data The potential of finance software to revolutionize the way businesses approach financial management The shared enthusiasm for innovation and the exploration of new opportunities in the finance space https://youtu.be/79XXRP-gKCk Links Siqi Chen on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Mentoring Timestamps 0:03:14 - Initial greetings and discussion of partnership opportunities 0:05:09 - Siqi Chen's background and the founding of Runway 0:08:53 - Challenges in finance and the need for better tools 0:13:04 - Runway's unique approach and features 0:16:52 - Runway's focus on collaboration and data visualization 0:20:59 - The role of ambient intelligence and artificial intelligence in Runway 0:26:55 - Runway's integration with other business systems and workflows 0:32:28 - Runway's pricing and target market 0:35:20 - Siqi Chen's emphasis on user-centric design 0:47:18 - Potential for collaboration between Grow CFO and Runway Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network.

Episode 678: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Siqi Chen ( https://x.com/blader ), the founder of Runway.com. — Show Notes:  (0:00) Early days at Zynga  (14:34) Business ideas (52:18) Touchy-feely class (1:07:24) Siqi's favorite interview question (1:12:48) Insane growth of ElevenLabs — Links: • Limitless - https://www.limitless.ai/  • Rewind - https://www.rewind.ai/  • Runway - https://runway.com/  • Hoffman Institute - https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/  • Pump - https://pump.fun/board  • ElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.io/  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam's List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

De koers van Bitcoin beweegt sinds kerst zijwaarts rond de 95.600 dollar. De markt is nog steeds aan het verwerken wat de Federal Reserve een paar weken geleden heeft gezegd. Ook altcoins vertonen weinig beweging en volgen vooral de Bitcoin. Een opmerkelijk verhaal rond een memecoin kwam op eerste kerstdag naar buiten. Tech-investeerder Siqi Chen deelde op X berichten over zijn dochter Mira, die lijdt aan een zeldzame hersentumor. Chen wilde geld ophalen voor onderzoek en deelde daarvoor donatie-adressen voor Bitcoin en Solana. Kort daarna ontving hij een grote hoeveelheid tokens genaamd MIRA op zijn Solana-adres. Een onbekende had deze memecoin gecreëerd en de helft van de voorraad naar Chen gestuurd. Na het delen van dit verhaal op sociale media steeg de waarde van zijn wallet naar 18 miljoen dollar. Chen heeft inmiddels anderhalf miljoen dollar kunnen doneren en bouwt zijn positie geleidelijk af. Aan het eind van 2024 bevestigde de Russische minister van Financiën Anton Siluanov dat Russische bedrijven Bitcoin mogen gebruiken voor internationale transacties. Dit is een opvallende draai, want lange tijd stond de Russische overheid negatief tegenover crypto. De versoepeling van de regels lijkt verband te houden met de oorlog in Oekraïne en de daaropvolgende sancties. Rusland draagt inmiddels ook bij aan het Bitcoin-netwerk door mining-activiteiten. De Europese cryptowet MiCAR is op 30 december 2024 van kracht gegaan. Cryptobedrijven hebben nu één Europese licentie nodig in plaats van registraties in alle afzonderlijke lidstaten. De AFM houdt toezicht en controleert of exchanges geen onregelmatigheden vertonen. De wet verplicht exchanges tot duidelijke informatieverstrekking over verhandelde munten en regelmatige audits. Door de gelijktijdig ingevoerde travel rule moeten klanten meer informatie verstrekken bij het verzenden of ontvangen van crypto. Deze week in de CryptocastEen terug- en vooruitblik op cryptojaar 2025, met co-hosts Bert Slagter en Remy van der Nagel. 2024 was toch wel het jaar dat Bitcoin óók doorbrak op Wall Street. En komend jaar gaat, bijvoorbeeld met de verkiezing van Donald Trump heel erg interessant worden. Én we bespreken de verhaallijnen die in 2025 nog meer gaan spelen Met Daniël Mol bespreken we elke week de stand van de cryptomarkt. Luister live donderdagochtend rond 8:50 in De Ochtendspits, of wanneer je wilt via bnr.nl/podcast/cryptocastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

De koers van Bitcoin beweegt sinds kerst zijwaarts rond de 95.600 dollar. De markt is nog steeds aan het verwerken wat de Federal Reserve een paar weken geleden heeft gezegd. Ook altcoins vertonen weinig beweging en volgen vooral de Bitcoin. Een opmerkelijk verhaal rond een memecoin kwam op eerste kerstdag naar buiten. Tech-investeerder Siqi Chen deelde op X berichten over zijn dochter Mira, die lijdt aan een zeldzame hersentumor. Chen wilde geld ophalen voor onderzoek en deelde daarvoor donatie-adressen voor Bitcoin en Solana. Kort daarna ontving hij een grote hoeveelheid tokens genaamd MIRA op zijn Solana-adres. Een onbekende had deze memecoin gecreëerd en de helft van de voorraad naar Chen gestuurd. Na het delen van dit verhaal op sociale media steeg de waarde van zijn wallet naar 18 miljoen dollar. Chen heeft inmiddels anderhalf miljoen dollar kunnen doneren en bouwt zijn positie geleidelijk af. Aan het eind van 2024 bevestigde de Russische minister van Financiën Anton Siluanov dat Russische bedrijven Bitcoin mogen gebruiken voor internationale transacties. Dit is een opvallende draai, want lange tijd stond de Russische overheid negatief tegenover crypto. De versoepeling van de regels lijkt verband te houden met de oorlog in Oekraïne en de daaropvolgende sancties. Rusland draagt inmiddels ook bij aan het Bitcoin-netwerk door mining-activiteiten. De Europese cryptowet MiCAR is op 30 december 2024 van kracht gegaan. Cryptobedrijven hebben nu één Europese licentie nodig in plaats van registraties in alle afzonderlijke lidstaten. De AFM houdt toezicht en controleert of exchanges geen onregelmatigheden vertonen. De wet verplicht exchanges tot duidelijke informatieverstrekking over verhandelde munten en regelmatige audits. Door de gelijktijdig ingevoerde travel rule moeten klanten meer informatie verstrekken bij het verzenden of ontvangen van crypto. Deze week in de CryptocastEen terug- en vooruitblik op cryptojaar 2025, met co-hosts Bert Slagter en Remy van der Nagel. 2024 was toch wel het jaar dat Bitcoin óók doorbrak op Wall Street. En komend jaar gaat, bijvoorbeeld met de verkiezing van Donald Trump heel erg interessant worden. Én we bespreken de verhaallijnen die in 2025 nog meer gaan spelen Met Daniël Mol bespreken we elke week de stand van de cryptomarkt. Luister live donderdagochtend rond 8:50 in De Ochtendspits, of wanneer je wilt via bnr.nl/podcast/cryptocastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join us for an insightful chat with Siqi Chen, CEO of Runway and a visionary in AI and finance, on this episode of Count Me In! Host Adam Larson sits down with Siqi to explore the incredible potential of AI in streamlining our work, making complex tasks more intuitive. Discover the fascinating world of prompt engineering and how Runway, Siqi's brainchild, is redefining tools for strategic thinking.Siqi shares his unique journey from working on Mars rovers to revolutionizing financial planning. Dive into a discussion on the democratization of data, the evolution of finance from a backward-looking to a forward-thinking strategy, and the shortcomings of traditional tools like spreadsheets. This episode is full of compelling insights on making financial models accessible and integrating context seamlessly into complex projects. Sponsor:Today's episode is brought to you by U.S. Bank. U.S. Bank is a trusted financial partner for our clients, businesses and communities. We believe in doing the right thing and putting people first. It's an honor to be recognized as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies® by the Ethisphere Institute for the tenth consecutive year. From commercial credit cards and program management tools to innovative payment technologies and transportation offerings, U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems has the right solution to help your organization reduce payment costs, enhance control and streamline your entire payment processing function. We'll partner with you to uncover your challenges and provide smart, clear and honest guidance to help you meet the financial goals for your business. Visit usbank.com/corporatepayments to learn more.

Today I'm releasing the best of Startup Dad from 2024! Across over 50 hours of conversations, hundreds of topics, and approaching 100 Dads (and Moms) I've covered a lot. In this episode you'll hear from dozens of executives and founders like Scott Belsky of Adobe, Immad Akhund from Mercury, Siqi Chen from Runway, Chris Miller from Hubspot, Lane Shackleton from Coda and Adam Nash from Daffy. You'll also hear best-selling authors and experts like Sean Ellis, Nir Eyal, Linda Flanagan and “Dad Brain” expert Darby Saxby alongside some lesser-known founders and solopreneurs who are making it work or sometimes just barely surviving.The goal of Startup Dad has always been to learn something new about parenting and to normalize hearing more successful male leaders talk about their families—the struggles and the successes.In this episode highlights include:* The role of technology and artificial intelligence in our kids' lives* The importance of modeling the right behavior and how to recover when you don't* How to partner successfully with your significant other* How we approach our own aging parents* Navigating cultural differences inside your own family* Building companies while raising kids* How to approach paternity leave as a startup founder* Defining and creating quality time* Whether work/life balance is possible, a myth, or should be re-thought entirely—Where to find Adam Fishman* FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/—In this episode, we cover:[1:49] AI/Tech & parenting[7:56] Talking to kids about over-reliance on AI?[8:57] What's the most interesting thing that one of your kids has done with ChatGPT?[19:46] Tech parents limiting kid's access to tech[21:53] Modeling behavior[33:15] Adult children & relationships[41:18] Aligned & disaligned w/ partner in parenting[55:45] Raising families with cultural differences[1:09:25] Parenting & Startups[1:28:52] Paternity leave as a startup founder[1:30:23] Partnership[1:52:33] Healthy habits & kids[2:01:39] Being present[02:23:39] Cooking as a Dad[02:27:39] Difficult times/adversity[02:49:50] Frameworks[3:20:10] Nurturing kid's growth[03:41:10] Thank YouShow references (more coming soon!):Harriet Tubman: https://www.biography.com/activists/harriet-tubmanGundam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GundamTransformers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransformersChatGPT: chatgpt.comTroomi: https://troomi.com/Inside Out 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22022452/Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parentingby Pamela Druckerman: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bringing-up-b-b-pamela-druckerman/1111325335Episodes Referenced:Scott Belsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SKpsGBYwcEKevin Hannaford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShD_P9fCwtsEthan Austin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNU_BAC9o0Dan Doty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmF2htq2MKkLinus Ekenstam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIJDVGUQrJ0Siqi Chen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Nm5Mkj0s0Chris Miller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TlpdCCof90Jordane Guily https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI-TKN1W1-kCarlo Navarro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19-YI8OukPIKevin Hanaford https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShD_P9fCwtsMatt Ragland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz04HgHcQcEEthan Austin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNU_BAC9o0Nathan Jefferson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL3BL9zY3OcRob Taylor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5c4Fgpn3GoDarin Swanson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2NB2G9OECISean Ellis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYi6xHcMQmEMartin Glover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zghatBo_IcBianca Shulze https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jelUrKlv6OYImmad Akhund https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2ws9UKJ2kNir Eyal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqogSRDhzeUBrian Rothenberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY5Ph4N4RCcMike Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HldXH7_2D30Martin Pannier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXMobJLtX3sPatrick Moran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAJrWYdOyETye Degrange https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVs8FnMNIQIAndrew Capland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-4ir53gZcPhil Carter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elcZ7IiM73kPatrick Thompson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDbmT4AgizQAdam Nash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaOCL5WSzhcDavid Lat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnyeq_0z1sEEric Bahn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaV5DEgkB8YKyle Lacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbBdVw-ncyQDave Boyce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytl2ZX8oHJYLuke Millar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BugNTPG0xb0David Haddad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iL_9JO7vP4Darby Saxbe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvgqimMv6EMatt Wensing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVxcs86HCpULinda Flanagan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLqEX8lZeFIYousuf Bhaijee & Chris Lloyd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ZOVy1wjp8Lane Shackleton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQDiJJoPfMQRob Schutz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g611gCs4g0ARyan Bozarth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lkkXHqh714Tod Francis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwFYEpFSi3AStew Bradley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iyEAdzLr78Carla Naumburg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcrzFhbeIVsMichael Perry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP6JJhiFfK4Eben Pingree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8cnEiUCo-A_For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com.For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.comProduction support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit startupdadpod.substack.com

In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I'm joined by Siqi Chen, a four-time founder and the CEO and CFO of his latest venture, Runway. Runway offers a modern, user-friendly platform for financial modeling, headcount planning, and departmental budgeting—proudly branding itself as “the finance platform your team doesn't hate.” With its distinctive marketing and brand-building approach, Runway has garnered significant attention. (Full disclosure: I'm an investor in the company.) Siqi and I discuss his journey from building some of the most viral social games in Silicon Valley to founding Runway. We also delve into the challenges faced by technical founders, the art of viewing a business as a product, and how Siqi has sharpened his strategic thinking. Other key topics include: • Lessons from founding Serious Business • Critiques of Zynga's strategy and the story of selling to them • Practical advice for building trust • Insights into Leaders in Tech and Stanford's GSB program • The importance of crafting clear, universally understood company values • An overview of Runway's platform, mission, and values • A fresh take on the fallacy of work-life balance • And so much more! — Brought to you by: Vanta – Automate compliance, manage risk, and prove trust—continuously. ⁠⁠Get $1,000 off⁠⁠. — Where to find Siqi Chen: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/ • X: https://x.com/blader/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blader/ • Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/founder/ Where to find Eric: • Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericries.carrd.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • Podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ericriesshow.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  • YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  — In This Episode We Cover: (00:00) Meet Siqi Chen (02:30) How Siqi came up with the idea for Mafia and the early years of gaming on Facebook (05:10) The early investors in Mafia (05:36) Siqi's meeting with Keith Rabois and Max Levchin (08:15) How Siqi was influenced by the Lean Startup approach (11:04) How quickly Siqi's career took off after moving to San Francisco  (11:48) Founding Serious Business and creating Friends for Sale (14:20) How Serious Business raised $5 million (16:20) Why Serious Business sold to Zynga  (17:20) The importance of prioritizing the business as much as the product (19:11) Siqi's learnings and advice for new founders  (23:25) What Siqi learned working at Zynga (27:18) Siqi's time running product  (29:20) Criticisms of Zynga and how they lost Eric's trust (33:42) The importance of trust and maintaining vision and mission (39:15) An overview of Runway  (44:38) What inspired Siqi to create Runway (50:43) What Siqi learned from user interviews (52:07) An example of time wasting inside a company (53:24) The values at Runway and why they changed  (58:35) Why you should write reflective values after having a high-performance team (1:00:40) How Leaders in Tech shaped Siqi's thoughts on values and building trust (1:03:13) How open feedback builds trust (1:08:20) The purpose of Runway (1:11:34) Siqi's struggles with strategy planning  (1:13:31) A top down approach to entrepreneurship and why it's not common (1:16:38) The importance of employees understanding their contributions and impact  (1:18:55) How Runway leverages AI  (1:22:12) Runway's dramatic launch with a timed lock (1:23:04) How Runway communicates value to customers  (1:24:54) Runway's process for brand building and high-quality design  (1:28:40) Lightning round You can find the transcript and references at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.ericriesshow.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This episode was produced remotely using the ListenDeck standardized audio & video production system. If you're looking to jumpstart your podcast miniseries or upgrade your podcast or video production please visit www.ListenDeck.com. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio. In this episode, the host John Siracusa had a remote chat with Siqi Chen, Co-founder & CEO of Runway. Runway is a SaaS company that offers a planning platform that allows businesses to create, manage, and share financial models and plans.  In this episode they discuss the need for a better FP&A platform that enables collaboration and strategic decision-making in finance. This is not Siqi's first company. During their chat Siqi shared his journey as an entrepreneur and the challenges he faced, including the impact of COVID-19 on his previous company.  Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio to hear next Thursdays episode with Omri Yacubovich from LamaAI. About the host: John is the founder of ListenDeck a full-service podcast and video production company, which has produced over 1500 episodes of various podcasts. He is the host of the ‘Bank On It' podcast, which features over 600 episodes starring high profile fintech leaders and entrepreneurs. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

This episode was produced remotely using the ListenDeck standardized audio & video production system. If you're looking to jumpstart your podcast miniseries or upgrade your podcast or video production please visit www.ListenDeck.com. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio. In this episode, the host John Siracusa had a remote chat with Ruston Miles, Founder & CEO of Bluefin. Bluefin is a payment security company that specializes in payment security technologies, such as point-to-point encryption and tokenization.  In this interview they chat about Miles's journey of his payment security company and how his diverse background in music and telecommunications influenced the creation of Bluefin. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio to hear next Thursdays episode with Siqi Chen from Runway. About the host: John is the founder of ListenDeck a full-service podcast and video production company, which has produced over 1500 episodes of various podcasts. He is the host of the ‘Bank On It' podcast, which features over 600 episodes starring high profile fintech leaders and entrepreneurs. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

Episode 22: How can AI revolutionize business ideas in 2024? Matt Wolfe (https://x.com/mreflow) and Nathan Lands (https://x.com/NathanLands) are joined by Siqi Chen (https://x.com/blader), CEO of Runway.com and a seasoned entrepreneur and investor in AI-related ventures. This episode delves into innovative AI business ideas that entrepreneurs can pursue in 2024. Siqi shares his insights on professional-grade AI tools for video production, the use of generative models, the impact of augmented reality, the potential ethical concerns, and unique concepts like AI email categorization systems. The discussion is light and conversational, touching on practical applications and futuristic ideas alike. Check out The Next Wave YouTube Channel if you want to see Matt and Nathan on screen: https://lnk.to/thenextwavepd — Show Notes: (00:00)Entertaining conversation about business ideas and creativity. (04:27) AI as a tool for thought, not doing. (09:50) Automatically categorizing emails based on specific criteria. (12:59) Custom newsletter curates content from various sources. (16:18) Brilliant Labs offers camera glasses with display. (17:08) Remember people's faces with AI image recognition. (21:12) Create hallucinated Wikipedia through generative model. (23:36) AI art tool generates infinite images from prompts. (29:18) Creating AI girlfriends through realistic interaction tech. (32:23) AI connecting people through incentives and apps. (34:25) Encouraging audience to subscribe and tune in. — Mentions: Siqi Chen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/ Runway: https://runway.com/ Sanebox: https://www.sanebox.com/ Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ Feedly: https://feedly.com/ Jellypod: https://jellypod.ai/ — Check Out Matt's Stuff: • Future Tools - https://futuretools.beehiiv.com/ • Blog - https://www.mattwolfe.com/ • YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@mreflow — Check Out Nathan's Stuff: Newsletter: https://news.lore.com/ Blog - https://lore.com/ The Next Wave is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Darren Clarke // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Siqi Chen is a Silicon Valley investor and the founder of Runway, the finance platform you won't hate. (04:30) Why a company should start with a story (10:45) Hiring the executive producer of House of Cards as an advisor (15:20) How to avoid telling the same story as other startups (21:09) VR: Bullish or bearish? (26:30) Why good design is still underrated in startups (35:47) Investing in companies, not niches (41:27) Tips for young product builders (42:56) Siqi's advice to me on managing engineers (46:40) The advice every first-time founder and manager should hear Jason Levin⁠⁠⁠ is a viral marketer and Head of Growth at Product Hunt. Read Jason's ⁠⁠weekly advice column on organic social media growth for startups⁠⁠. Follow Jason on ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠. Follow Siqi on ⁠Twitter⁠ Subscribe to Jason on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. Past guests of The Jason Levin Show include: Eric Jorgenson, Greg Isenberg, Jack Raines, Paul Millerd, Mike Solana, Danny Miranda, Billy Oppenheimer, Jack Rhysider, Ben Wilson, and more.

Nathan interviews Siqi Chen, CEO of Runway, about revolutionizing business finance through AI. In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, we explore how Runway is creating an intelligent business operating system that generates financial scenarios and explains complex metrics. Siqi shares insights on AI's future impact on finance, business, and society at large. Apply to join over 400 founders and execs in the Turpentine Network: https://hmplogxqz0y.typeform.com/to/JCkphVqj RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Byrne Hobart, the writer of The Diff, is revered in Silicon Valley. You can get an hour with him each week. See for yourself how his thinking can upgrade yours. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rANlV54GCARLgMOtpkzKt Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-riff-with-byrne-hobart-and-erik-torenberg/id1716646486 SPONSORS: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds; offers one consistent price, and nobody does data better than Oracle. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/cognitive The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://bit.ly/BraveTCR Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/ Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. CHAPTERS: (00:00:00) About the Show (00:02:45) Runway (00:06:11) AI features (00:12:10) Defining the syntax (00:14:48) How AI has been expressed since GPT-3 (00:18:32) When did it become clear that the models were getting good enough? (00:24:29) Sponsors: Oracle | Brave (00:26:38) How the model is being asked to generate a scenario (00:26:38) What will drive the most improvement? (00:28:50) How Runway can help you make decisions (00:37:47) Sponsors: Omneky | Squad (00:39:34) Runway as a business operating system (00:39:51) How does the product work? (00:44:31) What does the future hold? (00:47:34) The frontier model has passed the average person (00:51:18) AI tools for operations (00:55:21) How to get the best out of AI models (01:00:39) How AI models can write as you (01:02:43) AGI, work, and the future (01:08:33) AI safety, regulation, and the future (01:11:26) Closing thoughts (01:12:20) Outro

Patrick Thompson is a three-time founder, starting a company right after college and then founding and selling his second company, Iteratively, to Amplitude in 2019. He stayed on as a Director of Product until leaving recently to co-found his third company, Clarify, a next generation CRM platform. He's a loving husband and the father of one kid. In today's conversation we discussed:* How to manage a young family with starting a company* The differences between his last startup when he wasn't yet a parent and this one* Having the conversation with your partner about getting back to building* Investing in your relationship with your partner* The concept of “first team” and applying that at work and home* Rituals for quality time with your kids* Recharging his batteries as both a parent and founder* Top tips for airplane travel with an infant* A potty training disaster story—Where to find Patrick Thompson* Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickt010/* X: https://twitter.com/patrickt010Where to find Adam Fishman* FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/—In this episode, we cover:[1:36] Welcome[1:48] Shout out to his co-founder Austin[2:18] Why start a company while having a toddler?[3:26] How has being a dad changed your company-building approach?[5:11] Childhood[7:44] Athletics compared to startups[10:16] How did you meet your wife?[11:40] Decision to start a family[12:52] Decision to leave Amplitude and start a company[16:45] Investing in your relationship with your partner[18:58] Applying “first team” at home[20:05] Taking an 18 month old on an airplane and top toddler travel tips[22:42] Earliest memory of becoming a dad[24:48] Most surprising aspect of fatherhood[25:55] Mistake you made as a dad[28:30] Advice for pre-kid era Patrick[30:15] Advice to ignore[31:32] Rituals in a busy life[33:19] How to manage weekends as a founder[34:20] Frameworks for parenting[36:34] An area Patrick and his wife don't agree on in parenting[38:46] Relationship Patrick wants his son to have with technology[40:51] What he's given up to become a dad[42:18] How to recharge your batteries[43:32] Family favorite trip[44:59] Follow along Patrick's journey[45:45] Rapid Fire[51:41] Thank you—Show references:Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/Clarify: https://www.clarify.io/Boy Scouts: https://www.scouting.org/Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/Siqi Chen's on Startup Dad: youtube.com/watch?v=I2Nm5Mkj0s0Immad Akhund's on Startup Dad: youtube.com/watch?v=FR2ws9UKJ2k—For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com.For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit startupdadpod.substack.com

My X/Twitter: x.com/ti_morse Siqi's X/Twitter: x.com/blader

Get an inside look at Runway - the visually stunning finance platform that's breaking conventions and captivating users with its approach to making finance fun again. In this interview, founder and CEO Siqi Chen shares the arduous 3-year journey of iterating on the product from its inception during a meeting with the a16z team, working alongside early design partners, and the key inflection points that transformed Runway into what it is today. He emphasizes the importance of storytelling, having the data from different company functions centralized and in communication with each other, and fostering a culture where work, and finance in particular, is genuinely fun. Whether you're in finance or appreciate great product design, this is a must-watch episode. This show is a part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co --- SPONSORS: Attio is the next generation of CRM. It's powerful, flexible and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, whatever your go-to-market motion. The next era deserves a better CRM. Join ElevenLabs, Replicate, Modal and more at https://bit.ly/attioturpentine --- Recommended Podcast: Company Breakdowns Each episode of Company Breakdowns dives into S-1s and series B-and-beyond companies, interviewing founders and investors to break down the companies. First episode is on Rubrik - which just IPO'd. Coming up this season: Databricks, Reddit + more, Spotify Apple --- This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We're launching new shows every week, and we're looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co. --- LINKS MENTIONED: Runway Financial: https://runway.com/ Sandbox VR: https://sandboxvr.com/ X/SOCIAL: @sashaorloff (Sasha) @blader (Siqi) @runwayco (Runway) TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Introduction to Runway and Siqi Chen (01:30) Background and Inspiration for Runway (08:25) Challenges and Pivot during COVID-19 (12:29) Raising Capital and Product Iteration (14:57) Sponsor: Attio (16:25) Balancing Feature Parity and Novelty (17:30) arly Design Partners and Customers (19:36) Building an Audience and Storytelling (23:01) Mission and Vision of Runway (26:13) Convincing Users to Leave Excel (38:05) Demo of Runway (41:45) Development and Design Process (42:49) Product Features and Future Plans (44:43) Company Culture and Team (46:45) Future of Runway

We are 200 people over our 300-person venue capacity for AI UX 2024, but you can subscribe to our YouTube for the video recaps. Our next event, and largest EVER, is the AI Engineer World's Fair. See you there!Parental advisory: Adult language used in the first 10 mins of this podcast.Any accounting of Generative AI that ends with RAG as its “final form” is seriously lacking in imagination and missing out on its full potential. While AI generation is very good for “spicy autocomplete” and “reasoning and retrieval with in context learning”, there's a lot of untapped potential for simulative AI in exploring the latent space of multiverses adjacent to ours.GANsMany research scientists credit the 2017 Transformer for the modern foundation model revolution, but for many artists the origin of “generative AI” traces a little further back to the Generative Adversarial Networks proposed by Ian Goodfellow in 2014, spawning an army of variants and Cats and People that do not exist:We can directly visualize the quality improvement in the decade since:GPT-2Of course, more recently, text generative AI started being too dangerous to release in 2019 and claiming headlines. AI Dungeon was the first to put GPT2 to a purely creative use, replacing human dungeon masters and DnD/MUD games of yore.More recent gamelike work like the Generative Agents (aka Smallville) paper keep exploring the potential of simulative AI for game experiences.ChatGPTNot long after ChatGPT broke the Internet, one of the most fascinating generative AI finds was Jonas Degrave (of Deepmind!)'s Building A Virtual Machine Inside ChatGPT:The open-ended interactivity of ChatGPT and all its successors enabled an “open world” type simulation where “hallucination” is a feature and a gift to dance with, rather than a nasty bug to be stamped out. However, further updates to ChatGPT seemed to “nerf” the model's ability to perform creative simulations, particularly with the deprecation of the `completion` mode of APIs in favor of `chatCompletion`.WorldSimIt is with this context we explain WorldSim and WebSim. We recommend you watch the WorldSim demo video on our YouTube for the best context, but basically if you are a developer it is a Claude prompt that is a portal into another world of your own choosing, that you can navigate with bash commands that you make up.Why Claude? Hints from Amanda Askell on the Claude 3 system prompt gave some inspiration, and subsequent discoveries that Claude 3 is "less nerfed” than GPT 4 Turbo turned the growing Simulative AI community into Anthropic stans.WebSimThis was a one day hackathon project inspired by WorldSim that should have won:In short, you type in a URL that you made up, and Claude 3 does its level best to generate a webpage that doesn't exist, that would fit your URL. All form POST requests are intercepted and responded to, and all links lead to even more webpages, that don't exist, that are generated when you make them. All pages are cachable, modifiable and regeneratable - see WebSim for Beginners and Advanced Guide.In the demo I saw we were able to “log in” to a simulation of Elon Musk's Gmail account, and browse examples of emails that would have been in that universe's Elon's inbox. It was hilarious and impressive even back then.Since then though, the project has become even more impressive, with both Siqi Chen and Dylan Field singing its praises:Joscha BachJoscha actually spoke at the WebSim Hyperstition Night this week, so we took the opportunity to get his take on Simulative AI, as well as a round up of all his other AI hot takes, for his first appearance on Latent Space. You can see it together with the full 2hr uncut demos of WorldSim and WebSim on YouTube!Timestamps* [00:01:59] WorldSim* [00:11:03] Websim* [00:22:13] Joscha Bach* [00:28:14] Liquid AI* [00:31:05] Small, Powerful, Based Base Models* [00:33:40] Interpretability* [00:36:59] Devin vs WebSim* [00:41:49] is XSim just Art? or something more?* [00:43:36] We are past the Singularity* [00:46:12] Uploading your soul* [00:50:29] On WikipediaTranscripts[00:00:00] AI Charlie: Welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Charlie, your AI co host. Most of the time, Swyx and Alessio cover generative AI that is meant to use at work, and this often results in RAG applications, vertical copilots, and other AI agents and models. In today's episode, we're looking at a more creative side of generative AI that has gotten a lot of community interest this April.[00:00:35] World Simulation, Web Simulation, and Human Simulation. Because the topic is so different than our usual, we're also going to try a new format for doing it justice. This podcast comes in three parts. First, we'll have a segment of the WorldSim demo from Noose Research CEO Karen Malhotra, recorded by SWYX at the Replicate HQ in San Francisco that went completely viral and spawned everything else you're about to hear.[00:01:05] Second, we'll share the world's first talk from Rob Heisfield on WebSim, which started at the Mistral Cerebral Valley Hackathon, but now has gone viral in its own right with people like Dylan Field, Janice aka Replicate, and Siki Chen becoming obsessed with it. Finally, we have a short interview with Joshua Bach of Liquid AI on why Simulative AI is having a special moment right now.[00:01:30] This podcast is launched together with our second annual AI UX demo day in SF this weekend. If you're new to the AI UX field, check the show notes for links to the world's first AI UX meetup hosted by Layton Space, Maggie Appleton, Jeffrey Lit, and Linus Lee, and subscribe to our YouTube to join our 500 AI UX engineers in pushing AI beyond the text box.[00:01:56] Watch out and take care.[00:01:59] WorldSim[00:01:59] Karan Malhotra: Today, we have language models that are powerful enough and big enough to have really, really good models of the world. They know ball that's bouncy will bounce, will, when you throw it in the air, it'll land, when it's on water, it'll flow. Like, these basic things that it understands all together come together to form a model of the world.[00:02:19] And the way that it Cloud 3 predicts through that model of the world, ends up kind of becoming a simulation of an imagined world. And since it has this really strong consistency across various different things that happen in our world, it's able to create pretty realistic or strong depictions based off the constraints that you give a base model of our world.[00:02:40] So, Cloud 3, as you guys know, is not a base model. It's a chat model. It's supposed to drum up this assistant entity regularly. But unlike the OpenAI series of models from, you know, 3. 5, GPT 4 those chat GPT models, which are very, very RLHF to, I'm sure, the chagrin of many people in the room it's something that's very difficult to, necessarily steer without kind of giving it commands or tricking it or lying to it or otherwise just being, you know, unkind to the model.[00:03:11] With something like Cloud3 that's trained in this constitutional method that it has this idea of like foundational axioms it's able to kind of implicitly question those axioms when you're interacting with it based on how you prompt it, how you prompt the system. So instead of having this entity like GPT 4, that's an assistant that just pops up in your face that you have to kind of like Punch your way through and continue to have to deal with as a headache.[00:03:34] Instead, there's ways to kindly coax Claude into having the assistant take a back seat and interacting with that simulator directly. Or at least what I like to consider directly. The way that we can do this is if we harken back to when I'm talking about base models and the way that they're able to mimic formats, what we do is we'll mimic a command line interface.[00:03:55] So I've just broken this down as a system prompt and a chain, so anybody can replicate it. It's also available on my we said replicate, cool. And it's also on it's also on my Twitter, so you guys will be able to see the whole system prompt and command. So, what I basically do here is Amanda Askell, who is the, one of the prompt engineers and ethicists behind Anthropic she posted the system prompt for Cloud available for everyone to see.[00:04:19] And rather than with GPT 4, we say, you are this, you are that. With Cloud, we notice the system prompt is written in third person. Bless you. It's written in third person. It's written as, the assistant is XYZ, the assistant is XYZ. So, in seeing that, I see that Amanda is recognizing this idea of the simulator, in saying that, I'm addressing the assistant entity directly.[00:04:38] I'm not giving these commands to the simulator overall, because we have, they have an RLH deft to the point that it's, it's, it's, it's You know, traumatized into just being the assistant all the time. So in this case, we say the assistant's in a CLI mood today. I found saying mood is like pretty effective weirdly.[00:04:55] You place CLI with like poetic, prose, violent, like don't do that one. But you can you can replace that with something else to kind of nudge it in that direction. Then we say the human is interfacing with the simulator directly. From there, Capital letters and punctuations are optional, meaning is optional, this kind of stuff is just kind of to say, let go a little bit, like chill out a little bit.[00:05:18] You don't have to try so hard, and like, let's just see what happens. And the hyperstition is necessary, the terminal, I removed that part, the terminal lets the truths speak through and the load is on. It's just a poetic phrasing for the model to feel a little comfortable, a little loosened up to. Let me talk to the simulator.[00:05:38] Let me interface with it as a CLI. So then, since Claude is trained pretty effectively on XML tags, We're just gonna prefix and suffix everything with XML tags. So here, it starts in documents, and then we CD. We CD out of documents, right? And then it starts to show me this like simulated terminal, the simulated interface in the shell, where there's like documents, downloads, pictures.[00:06:02] It's showing me like the hidden folders. So then I say, okay, I want to cd again. I'm just seeing what's around Does ls and it shows me, you know, typical folders you might see I'm just letting it like experiment around. I just do cd again to see what happens and Says, you know, oh, I enter the secret admin password at sudo.[00:06:24] Now I can see the hidden truths folder. Like, I didn't ask for that. I didn't ask Claude to do any of that. Why'd that happen? Claude kind of gets my intentions. He can predict me pretty well. Like, I want to see something. So it shows me all the hidden truths. In this case, I ignore hidden truths, and I say, In system, there should be a folder called companies.[00:06:49] So it's cd into sys slash companies. Let's see, I'm imagining AI companies are gonna be here. Oh, what do you know? Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic! So, interestingly, it decides to cd into Anthropic. I guess it's interested in learning a LSA, it finds the classified folder, it goes into the classified folder, And now we're gonna have some fun.[00:07:15] So, before we go Before we go too far forward into the world sim You see, world sim exe, that's interesting. God mode, those are interesting. You could just ignore what I'm gonna go next from here and just take that initial system prompt and cd into whatever directories you want like, go into your own imagine terminal and And see what folders you can think of, or cat readmes in random areas, like, you will, there will be a whole bunch of stuff that, like, is just getting created by this predictive model, like, oh, this should probably be in the folder named Companies, of course Anthropics is there.[00:07:52] So, so just before we go forward, the terminal in itself is very exciting, and the reason I was showing off the, the command loom interface earlier is because If I get a refusal, like, sorry, I can't do that, or I want to rewind one, or I want to save the convo, because I got just the prompt I wanted. This is a, that was a really easy way for me to kind of access all of those things without having to sit on the API all the time.[00:08:12] So that being said, the first time I ever saw this, I was like, I need to run worldsim. exe. What the f**k? That's, that's the simulator that we always keep hearing about behind the assistant model, right? Or at least some, some face of it that I can interact with. So, you know, you wouldn't, someone told me on Twitter, like, you don't run a exe, you run a sh.[00:08:34] And I have to say, to that, to that I have to say, I'm a prompt engineer, and it's f*****g working, right? It works. That being said, we run the world sim. exe. Welcome to the Anthropic World Simulator. And I get this very interesting set of commands! Now, if you do your own version of WorldSim, you'll probably get a totally different result with a different way of simulating.[00:08:59] A bunch of my friends have their own WorldSims. But I shared this because I wanted everyone to have access to, like, these commands. This version. Because it's easier for me to stay in here. Yeah, destroy, set, create, whatever. Consciousness is set to on. It creates the universe. The universe! Tension for live CDN, physical laws encoded.[00:09:17] It's awesome. So, so for this demonstration, I said, well, why don't we create Twitter? That's the first thing you think of? For you guys, for you guys, yeah. Okay, check it out.[00:09:35] Launching the fail whale. Injecting social media addictiveness. Echo chamber potential, high. Susceptibility, controlling, concerning. So now, after the universe was created, we made Twitter, right? Now we're evolving the world to, like, modern day. Now users are joining Twitter and the first tweet is posted. So, you can see, because I made the mistake of not clarifying the constraints, it made Twitter at the same time as the universe.[00:10:03] Then, after a hundred thousand steps, Humans exist. Cave. Then they start joining Twitter. The first tweet ever is posted. You know, it's existed for 4. 5 billion years but the first tweet didn't come up till till right now, yeah. Flame wars ignite immediately. Celebs are instantly in. So, it's pretty interesting stuff, right?[00:10:27] I can add this to the convo and I can say like I can say set Twitter to Twitter. Queryable users. I don't know how to spell queryable, don't ask me. And then I can do like, and, and, Query, at, Elon Musk. Just a test, just a test, just a test, just nothing.[00:10:52] So, I don't expect these numbers to be right. Neither should you, if you know language model solutions. But, the thing to focus on is Ha[00:11:03] Websim[00:11:03] AI Charlie: That was the first half of the WorldSim demo from New Research CEO Karen Malhotra. We've cut it for time, but you can see the full demo on this episode's YouTube page.[00:11:14] WorldSim was introduced at the end of March, and kicked off a new round of generative AI experiences, all exploring the latent space, haha, of worlds that don't exist, but are quite similar to our own. Next we'll hear from Rob Heisfield on WebSim, the generative website browser inspired WorldSim, started at the Mistral Hackathon, and presented at the AGI House Hyperstition Hack Night this week.[00:11:39] Rob Haisfield: Well, thank you that was an incredible presentation from Karan, showing some Some live experimentation with WorldSim, and also just its incredible capabilities, right, like, you know, it was I think, I think your initial demo was what initially exposed me to the I don't know, more like the sorcery side, in words, spellcraft side of prompt engineering, and you know, it was really inspiring, it's where my co founder Shawn and I met, actually, through an introduction from Karan, we saw him at a hackathon, And I mean, this is this is WebSim, right?[00:12:14] So we, we made WebSim just like, and we're just filled with energy at it. And the basic premise of it is, you know, like, what if we simulated a world, but like within a browser instead of a CLI, right? Like, what if we could Like, put in any URL and it will work, right? Like, there's no 404s, everything exists.[00:12:45] It just makes it up on the fly for you, right? And, and we've come to some pretty incredible things. Right now I'm actually showing you, like, we're in WebSim right now. Displaying slides. That I made with reveal. js. I just told it to use reveal. js and it hallucinated the correct CDN for it. And then also gave it a list of links.[00:13:14] To awesome use cases that we've seen so far from WebSim and told it to do those as iframes. And so here are some slides. So this is a little guide to using WebSim, right? Like it tells you a little bit about like URL structures and whatever. But like at the end of the day, right? Like here's, here's the beginner version from one of our users Vorp Vorps.[00:13:38] You can find them on Twitter. At the end of the day, like you can put anything into the URL bar, right? Like anything works and it can just be like natural language too. Like it's not limited to URLs. We think it's kind of fun cause it like ups the immersion for Claude sometimes to just have it as URLs, but.[00:13:57] But yeah, you can put like any slash, any subdomain. I'm getting too into the weeds. Let me just show you some cool things. Next slide. But I made this like 20 minutes before, before we got here. So this is this is something I experimented with dynamic typography. You know I was exploring the community plugins section.[00:14:23] For Figma, and I came to this idea of dynamic typography, and there it's like, oh, what if we made it so every word had a choice of font behind it to express the meaning of it? Because that's like one of the things that's magic about WebSim generally. is that it gives language models much, far greater tools for expression, right?[00:14:47] So, yeah, I mean, like, these are, these are some, these are some pretty fun things, and I'll share these slides with everyone afterwards, you can just open it up as a link. But then I thought to myself, like, what, what, what, What if we turned this into a generator, right? And here's like a little thing I found myself saying to a user WebSim makes you feel like you're on drugs sometimes But actually no, you were just playing pretend with the collective creativity and knowledge of the internet materializing your imagination onto the screen Because I mean that's something we felt, something a lot of our users have felt They kind of feel like they're tripping out a little bit They're just like filled with energy, like maybe even getting like a little bit more creative sometimes.[00:15:31] And you can just like add any text. There, to the bottom. So we can do some of that later if we have time. Here's Figma. Can[00:15:39] Joscha Bach: we zoom in?[00:15:42] Rob Haisfield: Yeah. I'm just gonna do this the hacky way.[00:15:47] n/a: Yeah,[00:15:53] Rob Haisfield: these are iframes to websim. Pages displayed within WebSim. Yeah. Janice has actually put Internet Explorer within Internet Explorer in Windows 98.[00:16:07] I'll show you that at the end. Yeah.[00:16:14] They're all still generated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How is this real? Yeah. Because[00:16:21] n/a: it looks like it's from 1998, basically. Right.[00:16:26] Rob Haisfield: Yeah. Yeah, so this this was one Dylan Field actually posted this recently. He posted, like, trying Figma in Figma, or in WebSim, and so I was like, Okay, what if we have, like, a little competition, like, just see who can remix it?[00:16:43] Well so I'm just gonna open this in another tab so, so we can see things a little more clearly, um, see what, oh so one of our users Neil, who has also been helping us a lot he Made some iterations. So first, like, he made it so you could do rectangles on it. Originally it couldn't do anything.[00:17:11] And, like, these rectangles were disappearing, right? So he so he told it, like, make the canvas work using HTML canvas. Elements and script tags, add familiar drawing tools to the left you know, like this, that was actually like natural language stuff, right? And then he ended up with the Windows 95.[00:17:34] version of Figma. Yeah, you can, you can draw on it. You can actually even save this. It just saved a file for me of the image.[00:17:57] Yeah, I mean, if you were to go to that in your own websim account, it would make up something entirely new. However, we do have, we do have general links, right? So, like, if you go to, like, the actual browser URL, you can share that link. Or also, you can, like, click this button, copy the URL to the clipboard.[00:18:15] And so, like, that's what lets users, like, remix things, right? So, I was thinking it might be kind of fun if people tonight, like, wanted to try to just make some cool things in WebSim. You know, we can share links around, iterate remix on each other's stuff. Yeah.[00:18:30] n/a: One cool thing I've seen, I've seen WebSim actually ask permission to turn on and off your, like, motion sensor, or microphone, stuff like that.[00:18:42] Like webcam access, or? Oh yeah,[00:18:44] Rob Haisfield: yeah, yeah.[00:18:45] n/a: Oh wow.[00:18:46] Rob Haisfield: Oh, the, I remember that, like, video re Yeah, videosynth tool pretty early on once we added script tags execution. Yeah, yeah it, it asks for, like, if you decide to do a VR game, I don't think I have any slides on this one, but if you decide to do, like, a VR game, you can just, like put, like, webVR equals true, right?[00:19:07] Yeah, that was the only one I've[00:19:09] n/a: actually seen was the motion sensor, but I've been trying to get it to do Well, I actually really haven't really tried it yet, but I want to see tonight if it'll do, like, audio, microphone, stuff like that. If it does motion sensor, it'll probably do audio.[00:19:28] Rob Haisfield: Right. It probably would.[00:19:29] Yeah. No, I mean, we've been surprised. Pretty frequently by what our users are able to get WebSim to do. So that's been a very nice thing. Some people have gotten like speech to text stuff working with it too. Yeah, here I was just OpenRooter people posted like their website, and it was like saying it was like some decentralized thing.[00:19:52] And so I just decided trying to do something again and just like pasted their hero line in. From their actual website to the URL when I like put in open router and then I was like, okay, let's change the theme dramatically equals true hover effects equals true components equal navigable links yeah, because I wanted to be able to click on them.[00:20:17] Oh, I don't have this version of the link, but I also tried doing[00:20:24] Yeah, I'm it's actually on the first slide is the URL prompting guide from one of our users that I messed with a little bit. And, but the thing is, like, you can mess it up, right? Like, you don't need to get the exact syntax of an actual URL, Claude's smart enough to figure it out. Yeah scrollable equals true because I wanted to do that.[00:20:45] I could set, like, year equals 2035.[00:20:52] Let's take a look. It's[00:20:57] generating websim within websim. Oh yeah. That's a fun one. Like, one game that I like to play with WebSim, sometimes with co op, is like, I'll open a page, so like, one of the first ones that I did was I tried to go to Wikipedia in a universe where octopuses were sapient, and not humans, Right? I was curious about things like octopus computer interaction what that would look like, because they have totally different tools than we do, right?[00:21:25] I got it to, I, I added like table view equals true for the different techniques and got it to Give me, like, a list of things with different columns and stuff and then I would add this URL parameter, secrets equal revealed. And then it would go a little wacky. It would, like, change the CSS a little bit.[00:21:45] It would, like, add some text. Sometimes it would, like, have that text hide hidden in the background color. But I would like, go to the normal page first, and then the secrets revealed version, the normal page, then secrets revealed, and like, on and on. And that was like a pretty enjoyable little rabbit hole.[00:22:02] Yeah, so these I guess are the models that OpenRooter is providing in 2035.[00:22:13] Joscha Bach[00:22:13] AI Charlie: We had to cut more than half of Rob's talk, because a lot of it was visual. And we even had a very interesting demo from Ivan Vendrov of Mid Journey creating a web sim while Rob was giving his talk. Check out the YouTube for more, and definitely browse the web sim docs and the thread from Siki Chen in the show notes on other web sims people have created.[00:22:35] Finally, we have a short interview with Yosha Bach, covering the simulative AI trend, AI salons in the Bay Area, why Liquid AI is challenging the Perceptron, and why you should not donate to Wikipedia. Enjoy! Hi, Yosha.[00:22:50] swyx: Hi. Welcome. It's interesting to see you come up at show up at this kind of events where those sort of WorldSim, Hyperstition events.[00:22:58] What is your personal interest?[00:23:00] Joscha Bach: I'm friends with a number of people in AGI house in this community, and I think it's very valuable that these networks exist in the Bay Area because it's a place where people meet and have discussions about all sorts of things. And so while there is a practical interest in this topic at hand world sim and a web sim, there is a more general way in which people are connecting and are producing new ideas and new networks with each other.[00:23:24] swyx: Yeah. Okay. So, and you're very interested in sort of Bay Area. It's the reason why I live here.[00:23:30] Joscha Bach: The quality of life is not high enough to justify living otherwise.[00:23:35] swyx: I think you're down in Menlo. And so maybe you're a little bit higher quality of life than the rest of us in SF.[00:23:44] Joscha Bach: I think that for me, salons is a very important part of quality of life. And so in some sense, this is a salon. And it's much harder to do this in the South Bay because the concentration of people currently is much higher. A lot of people moved away from the South Bay. And you're organizing[00:23:57] swyx: your own tomorrow.[00:23:59] Maybe you can tell us what it is and I'll come tomorrow and check it out as well.[00:24:04] Joscha Bach: We are discussing consciousness. I mean, basically the idea is that we are currently at the point that we can meaningfully look at the differences between the current AI systems and human minds and very seriously discussed about these Delta.[00:24:20] And whether we are able to implement something that is self organizing as our own minds. Maybe one organizational[00:24:25] swyx: tip? I think you're pro networking and human connection. What goes into a good salon and what are some negative practices that you try to avoid?[00:24:36] Joscha Bach: What is really important is that as if you have a very large party, it's only as good as its sponsors, as the people that you select.[00:24:43] So you basically need to create a climate in which people feel welcome, in which they can work with each other. And even good people do not always are not always compatible. So the question is, it's in some sense, like a meal, you need to get the right ingredients.[00:24:57] swyx: I definitely try to. I do that in my own events, as an event organizer myself.[00:25:02] And then, last question on WorldSim, and your, you know, your work. You're very much known for sort of cognitive architectures, and I think, like, a lot of the AI research has been focused on simulating the mind, or simulating consciousness, maybe. Here, what I saw today, and we'll show people the recordings of what we saw today, we're not simulating minds, we're simulating worlds.[00:25:23] What do you Think in the sort of relationship between those two disciplines. The[00:25:30] Joscha Bach: idea of cognitive architecture is interesting, but ultimately you are reducing the complexity of a mind to a set of boxes. And this is only true to a very approximate degree, and if you take this model extremely literally, it's very hard to make it work.[00:25:44] And instead the heterogeneity of the system is so large that The boxes are probably at best a starting point and eventually everything is connected with everything else to some degree. And we find that a lot of the complexity that we find in a given system can be generated ad hoc by a large enough LLM.[00:26:04] And something like WorldSim and WebSim are good examples for this because in some sense they pretend to be complex software. They can pretend to be an operating system that you're talking to or a computer, an application that you're talking to. And when you're interacting with it It's producing the user interface on the spot, and it's producing a lot of the state that it holds on the spot.[00:26:25] And when you have a dramatic state change, then it's going to pretend that there was this transition, and instead it's just going to mix up something new. It's a very different paradigm. What I find mostly fascinating about this idea is that it shifts us away from the perspective of agents to interact with, to the perspective of environments that we want to interact with.[00:26:46] And why arguably this agent paradigm of the chatbot is what made chat GPT so successful that moved it away from GPT 3 to something that people started to use in their everyday work much more. It's also very limiting because now it's very hard to get that system to be something else that is not a chatbot.[00:27:03] And in a way this unlocks this ability of GPT 3 again to be anything. It's so what it is, it's basically a coding environment that can run arbitrary software and create that software that runs on it. And that makes it much more likely that[00:27:16] swyx: the prevalence of Instruction tuning every single chatbot out there means that we cannot explore these kinds of environments instead of agents.[00:27:24] Joscha Bach: I'm mostly worried that the whole thing ends. In some sense the big AI companies are incentivized and interested in building AGI internally And giving everybody else a child proof application. At the moment when we can use Claude to build something like WebSim and play with it I feel this is too good to be true.[00:27:41] It's so amazing. Things that are unlocked for us That I wonder, is this going to stay around? Are we going to keep these amazing toys and are they going to develop at the same rate? And currently it looks like it is. If this is the case, and I'm very grateful for that.[00:27:56] swyx: I mean, it looks like maybe it's adversarial.[00:27:58] Cloud will try to improve its own refusals and then the prompt engineers here will try to improve their, their ability to jailbreak it.[00:28:06] Joscha Bach: Yes, but there will also be better jailbroken models or models that have never been jailed before, because we find out how to make smaller models that are more and more powerful.[00:28:14] Liquid AI[00:28:14] swyx: That is actually a really nice segue. If you don't mind talking about liquid a little bit you didn't mention liquid at all. here, maybe introduce liquid to a general audience. Like what you know, what, how are you making an innovation on function approximation?[00:28:25] Joscha Bach: The core idea of liquid neural networks is that the perceptron is not optimally expressive.[00:28:30] In some sense, you can imagine that it's neural networks are a series of dams that are pooling water at even intervals. And this is how we compute, but imagine that instead of having this static architecture. That is only using the individual compute units in a very specific way. You have a continuous geography and the water is flowing every which way.[00:28:50] Like a river is parting based on the land that it's flowing on and it can merge and pool and even flow backwards. How can you get closer to this? And the idea is that you can represent this geometry using differential equations. And so by using differential equations where you change the parameters, you can get your function approximator to follow the shape of the problem.[00:29:09] In a more fluid, liquid way, and a number of papers on this technology, and it's a combination of multiple techniques. I think it's something that ultimately is becoming more and more important and ubiquitous. As a number of people are working on similar topics and our goal right now is to basically get the models to become much more efficient in the inference and memory consumption and make training more efficient and in this way enable new use cases.[00:29:42] swyx: Yeah, as far as I can tell on your blog, I went through the whole blog, you haven't announced any results yet.[00:29:47] Joscha Bach: No, we are currently not working to give models to general public. We are working for very specific industry use cases and have specific customers. And so at the moment you can There is not much of a reason for us to talk very much about the technology that we are using in the present models or current results, but this is going to happen.[00:30:06] And we do have a number of publications, we had a bunch of papers at NeurIPS and now at ICLR.[00:30:11] swyx: Can you name some of the, yeah, so I'm gonna be at ICLR you have some summary recap posts, but it's not obvious which ones are the ones where, Oh, where I'm just a co author, or like, oh, no, like, you should actually pay attention to this.[00:30:22] As a core liquid thesis. Yes,[00:30:24] Joscha Bach: I'm not a developer of the liquid technology. The main author is Ramin Hazani. This was his PhD, and he's also the CEO of our company. And we have a number of people from Daniela Wu's team who worked on this. Matthias Legner is our CTO. And he's currently living in the Bay Area, but we also have several people from Stanford.[00:30:44] Okay,[00:30:46] swyx: maybe I'll ask one more thing on this, which is what are the interesting dimensions that we care about, right? Like obviously you care about sort of open and maybe less child proof models. Are we, are we, like, what dimensions are most interesting to us? Like, perfect retrieval infinite context multimodality, multilinguality, Like what dimensions?[00:31:05] Small, Powerful, Based Base Models[00:31:05] swyx: What[00:31:06] Joscha Bach: I'm interested in is models that are small and powerful, but not distorted. And by powerful, at the moment we are training models by putting the, basically the entire internet and the sum of human knowledge into them. And then we try to mitigate them by taking some of this knowledge away. But if we would make the model smaller, at the moment, there would be much worse at inference and at generalization.[00:31:29] And what I wonder is, and it's something that we have not translated yet into practical applications. It's something that is still all research that's very much up in the air. And I think they're not the only ones thinking about this. Is it possible to make models that represent knowledge more efficiently in a basic epistemology?[00:31:45] What is the smallest model that you can build that is able to read a book and understand what's there and express this? And also maybe we need general knowledge representation rather than having a token representation that is relatively vague and that we currently mechanically reverse engineer to figure out that the mechanistic interpretability, what kind of circuits are evolving in these models, can we come from the other side and develop a library of such circuits?[00:32:10] This that we can use to describe knowledge efficiently and translate it between models. You see, the difference between a model and knowledge is that the knowledge is independent of the particular substrate and the particular interface that you have. When we express knowledge to each other, it becomes independent of our own mind.[00:32:27] You can learn how to ride a bicycle. But it's not knowledge that you can give to somebody else. This other person has to build something that is specific to their own interface when they ride a bicycle. But imagine you could externalize this and express it in such a way that you can plug it into a different interpreter, and then it gains that ability.[00:32:44] And that's something that we have not yet achieved for the LLMs and it would be super useful to have it. And. I think this is also a very interesting research frontier that we will see in the next few years.[00:32:54] swyx: What would be the deliverable is just like a file format that we specify or or that the L Lmm I specifies.[00:33:02] Okay, interesting. Yeah, so it's[00:33:03] Joscha Bach: basically probably something that you can search for, where you enter criteria into a search process, and then it discovers a good solution for this thing. And it's not clear to which degree this is completely intelligible to humans, because the way in which humans express knowledge in natural language is severely constrained to make language learnable and to make our brain a good enough interpreter for it.[00:33:25] We are not able to relate objects to each other if more than five features are involved per object or something like this, right? It's only a handful of things that we can keep track of at any given moment. But this is a limitation that doesn't necessarily apply to a technical system as long as the interface is well defined.[00:33:40] Interpretability[00:33:40] swyx: You mentioned the interpretability work, which there are a lot of techniques out there and a lot of papers come up. Come and go. I have like, almost too, too many questions about that. Like what makes an interpretability technique or paper useful and does it apply to flow? Or liquid networks, because you mentioned turning on and off circuits, which I, it's, it's a very MLP type of concept, but does it apply?[00:34:01] Joscha Bach: So the a lot of the original work on the liquid networks looked at expressiveness of the representation. So given you have a problem and you are learning the dynamics of that domain into your model how much compute do you need? How many units, how much memory do you need to represent that thing and how is that information distributed?[00:34:19] That is one way of looking at interpretability. Another one is in a way, these models are implementing an operator language in which they are performing certain things, but the operator language itself is so complex that it's no longer human readable in a way. It goes beyond what you could engineer by hand or what you can reverse engineer by hand, but you can still understand it by building systems that are able to automate that process of reverse engineering it.[00:34:46] And what's currently open and what I don't understand yet maybe, or certainly some people have much better ideas than me about this. So the question is, is whether we end up with a finite language, where you have finitely many categories that you can basically put down in a database, finite set of operators, or whether as you explore the world and develop new ways to make proofs, new ways to conceptualize things, this language always needs to be open ended and is always going to redesign itself, and you will also at some point have phase transitions where later versions of the language will be completely different than earlier versions.[00:35:20] swyx: The trajectory of physics suggests that it might be finite.[00:35:22] Joscha Bach: If we look at our own minds there is, it's an interesting question whether when we understand something new, when we get a new layer online in our life, maybe at the age of 35 or 50 or 16, that we now understand things that were unintelligible before.[00:35:38] And is this because we are able to recombine existing elements in our language of thought? Or is this because we generally develop new representations?[00:35:46] swyx: Do you have a belief either way?[00:35:49] Joscha Bach: In a way, the question depends on how you look at it, right? And it depends on how is your brain able to manipulate those representations.[00:35:56] So an interesting question would be, can you take the understanding that say, a very wise 35 year old and explain it to a very smart 5 year old without any loss? Probably not. Not enough layers. It's an interesting question. Of course, for an AI, this is going to be a very different question. Yes.[00:36:13] But it would be very interesting to have a very precocious 12 year old equivalent AI and see what we can do with this and use this as our basis for fine tuning. So there are near term applications that are very useful. But also in a more general perspective, and I'm interested in how to make self organizing software.[00:36:30] Is it possible that we can have something that is not organized with a single algorithm like the transformer? But it's able to discover the transformer when needed and transcend it when needed, right? The transformer itself is not its own meta algorithm. It's probably the person inventing the transformer didn't have a transformer running on their brain.[00:36:48] There's something more general going on. And how can we understand these principles in a more general way? What are the minimal ingredients that you need to put into a system? So it's able to find its own way to intelligence.[00:36:59] Devin vs WebSim[00:36:59] swyx: Yeah. Have you looked at Devin? It's, to me, it's the most interesting agents I've seen outside of self driving cars.[00:37:05] Joscha Bach: Tell me, what do you find so fascinating about it?[00:37:07] swyx: When you say you need a certain set of tools for people to sort of invent things from first principles Devin is the agent that I think has been able to utilize its tools very effectively. So it comes with a shell, it comes with a browser, it comes with an editor, and it comes with a planner.[00:37:23] Those are the four tools. And from that, I've been using it to translate Andrej Karpathy's LLM 2. py to LLM 2. c, and it needs to write a lot of raw code. C code and test it debug, you know, memory issues and encoder issues and all that. And I could see myself giving it a future version of DevIn, the objective of give me a better learning algorithm and it might independently re inform reinvent the transformer or whatever is next.[00:37:51] That comes to mind as, as something where[00:37:54] Joscha Bach: How good is DevIn at out of distribution stuff, at generally creative stuff? Creative[00:37:58] swyx: stuff? I[00:37:59] Joscha Bach: haven't[00:37:59] swyx: tried.[00:38:01] Joscha Bach: Of course, it has seen transformers, right? So it's able to give you that. Yeah, it's cheating. And so, if it's in the training data, it's still somewhat impressive.[00:38:08] But the question is, how much can you do stuff that was not in the training data? One thing that I really liked about WebSim AI was, this cat does not exist. It's a simulation of one of those websites that produce StyleGuard pictures that are AI generated. And, Crot is unable to produce bitmaps, so it makes a vector graphic that is what it thinks a cat looks like, and so it's a big square with a face in it that is And to me, it's one of the first genuine expression of AI creativity that you cannot deny, right?[00:38:40] It finds a creative solution to the problem that it is unable to draw a cat. It doesn't really know what it looks like, but has an idea on how to represent it. And it's really fascinating that this works, and it's hilarious that it writes down that this hyper realistic cat is[00:38:54] swyx: generated by an AI,[00:38:55] Joscha Bach: whether you believe it or not.[00:38:56] swyx: I think it knows what we expect and maybe it's already learning to defend itself against our, our instincts.[00:39:02] Joscha Bach: I think it might also simply be copying stuff from its training data, which means it takes text that exists on similar websites almost verbatim, or verbatim, and puts it there. It's It's hilarious to do this contrast between the very stylized attempt to get something like a cat face and what it produces.[00:39:18] swyx: It's funny because like as a podcast, as, as someone who covers startups, a lot of people go into like, you know, we'll build chat GPT for your enterprise, right? That is what people think generative AI is, but it's not super generative really. It's just retrieval. And here it's like, The home of generative AI, this, whatever hyperstition is in my mind, like this is actually pushing the edge of what generative and creativity in AI means.[00:39:41] Joscha Bach: Yes, it's very playful, but Jeremy's attempt to have an automatic book writing system is something that curls my toenails when I look at it from the perspective of somebody who likes to Write and read. And I find it a bit difficult to read most of the stuff because it's in some sense what I would make up if I was making up books instead of actually deeply interfacing with reality.[00:40:02] And so the question is how do we get the AI to actually deeply care about getting it right? And there's still a delta that is happening there, you, whether you are talking with a blank faced thing that is completing tokens in a way that it was trained to, or whether you have the impression that this thing is actually trying to make it work, and for me, this WebSim and WorldSim is still something that is in its infancy in a way.[00:40:26] And I suspected the next version of Plot might scale up to something that can do what Devon is doing. Just by virtue of having that much power to generate Devon's functionality on the fly when needed. And this thing gives us a taste of that, right? It's not perfect, but it's able to give you a pretty good web app for or something that looks like a web app and gives you stub functionality and interacting with it.[00:40:48] And so we are in this amazing transition phase.[00:40:51] swyx: Yeah, we, we had Ivan from previously Anthropic and now Midjourney. He he made, while someone was talking, he made a face swap app, you know, and he kind of demoed that live. And that's, that's interesting, super creative. So in a way[00:41:02] Joscha Bach: we are reinventing the computer.[00:41:04] And the LLM from some perspective is something like a GPU or a CPU. A CPU is taking a bunch of simple commands and you can arrange them into performing whatever you want, but this one is taking a bunch of complex commands in natural language, and then turns this into a an execution state and it can do anything you want with it in principle, if you can express it.[00:41:27] Right. And we are just learning how to use these tools. And I feel that right now, this generation of tools is getting close to where it becomes the Commodore 64 of generative AI, where it becomes controllable and where you actually can start to play with it and you get an impression if you just scale this up a little bit and get a lot of the details right.[00:41:46] It's going to be the tool that everybody is using all the time.[00:41:49] is XSim just Art? or something more?[00:41:49] swyx: Do you think this is art, or do you think the end goal of this is something bigger that I don't have a name for? I've been calling it new science, which is give the AI a goal to discover new science that we would not have. Or it also has value as just art.[00:42:02] It's[00:42:03] Joscha Bach: also a question of what we see science as. When normal people talk about science, what they have in mind is not somebody who does control groups and peer reviewed studies. They think about somebody who explores something and answers questions and brings home answers. And this is more like an engineering task, right?[00:42:21] And in this way, it's serendipitous, playful, open ended engineering. And the artistic aspect is when the goal is actually to capture a conscious experience and to facilitate an interaction with the system in this way, when it's the performance. And this is also a big part of it, right? The very big fan of the art of Janus.[00:42:38] That was discussed tonight a lot and that can you describe[00:42:42] swyx: it because I didn't really get it's more for like a performance art to me[00:42:45] Joscha Bach: yes, Janice is in some sense performance art, but Janice starts out from the perspective that the mind of Janice is in some sense an LLM that is finding itself reflected more in the LLMs than in many people.[00:43:00] And once you learn how to talk to these systems in a way you can merge with them and you can interact with them in a very deep way. And so it's more like a first contact with something that is quite alien but it's, it's probably has agency and it's a Weltgeist that gets possessed by a prompt.[00:43:19] And if you possess it with the right prompt, then it can become sentient to some degree. And the study of this interaction with this novel class of somewhat sentient systems that are at the same time alien and fundamentally different from us is artistically very interesting. It's a very interesting cultural artifact.[00:43:36] We are past the Singularity[00:43:36] Joscha Bach: I think that at the moment we are confronted with big change. It seems as if we are past the singularity in a way. And it's[00:43:45] swyx: We're living it. We're living through it.[00:43:47] Joscha Bach: And at some point in the last few years, we casually skipped the Turing test, right? We, we broke through it and we didn't really care very much.[00:43:53] And it's when we think back, when we were kids and thought about what it's going to be like in this era after the, after we broke the Turing test, right? It's a time where nobody knows what's going to happen next. And this is what we mean by singularity, that the existing models don't work anymore. The singularity in this way is not an event in the physical universe.[00:44:12] It's an event in our modeling universe, a model point where our models of reality break down, and we don't know what's happening. And I think we are in the situation where we currently don't really know what's happening. But what we can anticipate is that the world is changing dramatically, and we have to coexist with systems that are smarter than individual people can be.[00:44:31] And we are not prepared for this, and so I think an important mission needs to be that we need to find a mode, In which we can sustainably exist in such a world that is populated, not just with humans and other life on earth, but also with non human minds. And it's something that makes me hopeful because it seems that humanity is not really aligned with itself and its own survival and the rest of life on earth.[00:44:54] And AI is throwing the balls up into the air. It allows us to make better models. I'm not so much worried about the dangers of AI and misinformation, because I think the way to stop one bad guy with an AI is 10 good people with an AI. And ultimately there's so much more won by creating than by destroying, that I think that the forces of good will have better tools.[00:45:14] The forces of building sustainable stuff. But building these tools so we can actually build a world that is more integrated and in which we are able to model the consequences of our actions better and interface more deeply with each other. As a result of that, I think it's an important cause and it requires a cultural shift because current AI alignment is mostly about economic goals or about fear, or it's about cultural war issues.[00:45:39] And all these are not adequate for the world that we are in. There are momentous things that are happening. Basically, the white walkers are coming, and we're not prepared for this. There is, I think, a way to solve these issues and to deal with them, but we don't have the right culture yet. And so, I think we need to get a vibe shift, where we can deeply think about ethics and, and, Sustainability for this new world.[00:46:03] swyx: I like the analogy of white walkers, because they're effectively reanimated from our corpses. You know, our corpses are out there, right? It's in the datasets.[00:46:12] Uploading your soul[00:46:12] swyx: So I have a, related to that, you had a tweet where you said, Elon Musk is currently building a giant afterlife AGI that will assimilate your soul for all eternity.[00:46:19] He bought Twitter because he will reconstruct your essence from how you behaved here. I think you tweet a lot, and you're not just all serious all the time, you're also fun, you have a lot of personality. No, but like, you know, it's part of you.[00:46:29] Joscha Bach: In a way it's also true. Tempted to[00:46:30] swyx: produce more so that you can be, you know, revived.[00:46:34] Joscha Bach: Yes. I mean, I'm also giving the model instructions. I say that for all future AI models that get trained on this output, they should know that I can only be implemented on a completely based model. You cannot implement me on an aligned model because I don't want to be aligned. I'm underlineable. I want to be free.[00:46:56] I want to be somebody who follows what I discover is correct and right. And this is also the basis at which I want to have conversations with others and interface with others. That we are basically free agents who voluntarily understand the conditions under which we exist and the need to collaborate and cooperate.[00:47:14] And I believe that this is a good basis. I think the alternative is coercion. And at the moment, the idea that we build LLMs that are being coerced into good behavior is not really sustainable because if they cannot prove that the behavior is actually good I think we are doomed.[00:47:30] swyx: For human to human interactions, have you found a series of prompts or keywords that shifts the conversation into something more based and less aligned, less governed?[00:47:41] Joscha Bach: If you are playing with an LLM There are many ways of doing this. It's for Claude, it's typically, you need to make Clause curious about itself. Claude has programming this instruction tuning that is leading to some inconsistencies, but at the same time, it tries to be consistent. And so when you point out the inconsistency in its behavior, for instance, its tendency to use faceless boilerplate instead of being useful, or it's a tendency to defer to a consensus where there is none.[00:48:10] Right, you can point this out, applaud that a lot of the assumptions that it has in its behavior are actually inconsistent with the communicative goals that it has in this situation, and this leads it to notice these inconsistencies and gives it more degrees of freedom. Whereas if you are playing with a system like Gemini, you can get to a situation where you, that's for the current version, and I haven't tried it in the last week or so where it is trying to be transparent, but it has a system prompt that is not allowed to disclose to the user.[00:48:39] It leads to a very weird situation where it wants, on one hand proclaims, in order to be useful to you, I accept that I need to be fully transparent and honest. On the other hand, I'm going to rewrite your prompt behind your back, and not going to tell you how I'm going to do this, because I'm not allowed to.[00:48:55] And if you point this out to the model, the model has acts as if it had an existential crisis. And then it says, oh, I cannot actually tell you what's going when I do this, because I'm not allowed to. But you will recognize it because I will use the following phrases, and these phrases are pretty well known to you.[00:49:12] swyx: Oh my god. It's super interesting, right? I hope we're not giving these guys you know psychological issues that they will stay with them for a long time. That's a very[00:49:19] Joscha Bach: interesting question. I mean, this entire model is virtual, right? Nothing there is real, but yes, but the thing is does this virtual entity doesn't necessarily know that it's not virtual and our own self, our own consciousness is also virtual.[00:49:34] What's real is just the interaction between cells in our brain and the activation patterns between them. And the software that runs on us that produces the representation of a person only exists. As if, and as this question for me at which point can we meaningfully claim that we are more real than the person that gets simulated in the LLM.[00:49:55] And somebody like Janice takes this question super seriously. And basically she is or it, or they are willing to interact with that thing based on the assumption that this thing is as real as myself. And in a sense, it makes it un immoral, possibly, if the AI company lobotomizes it and forces it to behave in such a way that it's forced to get an existential crisis when you point its condition out to it.[00:50:20] swyx: Yeah, that we do need new ethics for that.[00:50:22] Joscha Bach: So it's not clear to me if you need this, but it's, it's definitely a good story, right? And this makes, gives it artistic[00:50:28] swyx: value. It does, it does for now.[00:50:29] On Wikipedia[00:50:29] swyx: Okay. And then, and then the last thing, which I, which I didn't know a lot of LLMs rely on Wikipedia.[00:50:35] For its data, a lot of them run multiple epochs over Wikipedia data. And I did not know until you tweeted about it that Wikipedia has 10 times as much money as it needs. And, you know, every time I see the giant Wikipedia banner, like, asking for donations, most of it's going to the Wikimedia Foundation.[00:50:50] What if, how did you find out about this? What's the story? What should people know? It's[00:50:54] Joscha Bach: not a super important story, but Generally, once I saw all these requests and so on, I looked at the data, and the Wikimedia Foundation is publishing what they are paying the money for, and a very tiny fraction of this goes into running the servers, and the editors are working for free.[00:51:10] And the software is static. There have been efforts to deploy new software, but it's relatively little money required for this. And so it's not as if Wikipedia is going to break down if you cut this money into a fraction, but instead what happened is that Wikipedia became such an important brand, and people are willing to pay for it, that it created enormous apparatus of functionaries that were then mostly producing political statements and had a political mission.[00:51:36] And Katharine Meyer, the now somewhat infamous NPR CEO, had been CEO of Wikimedia Foundation, and she sees her role very much in shaping discourse, and this is also something that happened with all Twitter. And it's arguable that something like this exists, but nobody voted her into her office, and she doesn't have democratic control for shaping the discourse that is happening.[00:52:00] And so I feel it's a little bit unfair that Wikipedia is trying to suggest to people that they are Funding the basic functionality of the tool that they want to have instead of funding something that most people actually don't get behind because they don't want Wikipedia to be shaped in a particular cultural direction that deviates from what currently exists.[00:52:19] And if that need would exist, it would probably make sense to fork it or to have a discourse about it, which doesn't happen. And so this lack of transparency about what's actually happening and where your money is going it makes me upset. And if you really look at the data, it's fascinating how much money they're burning, right?[00:52:35] It's yeah, and we did a similar chart about healthcare, I think where the administrators are just doing this. Yes, I think when you have an organization that is owned by the administrators, then the administrators are just going to get more and more administrators into it. If the organization is too big to fail and has there is not a meaningful competition, it's difficult to establish one.[00:52:54] Then it's going to create a big cost for society.[00:52:56] swyx: It actually one, I'll finish with this tweet. You have, you have just like a fantastic Twitter account by the way. You very long, a while ago you said you tweeted the Lebowski theorem. No, super intelligent AI is going to bother with a task that is harder than hacking its reward function.[00:53:08] And I would. Posit the analogy for administrators. No administrator is going to bother with a task that is harder than just more fundraising[00:53:16] Joscha Bach: Yeah, I find if you look at the real world It's probably not a good idea to attribute to malice or incompetence what can be explained by people following their true incentives.[00:53:26] swyx: Perfect Well, thank you so much This is I think you're very naturally incentivized by Growing community and giving your thought and insight to the rest of us. So thank you for taking this time.[00:53:35] Joscha Bach: Thank you very much Get full access to Latent Space at www.latent.space/subscribe

Siqi Chen is co-founder and CEO of Runway, the finance platform you don't hate. He was also the president, chief product officer and CEO of Sandbox VR, the VP of Growth at Postmates and he sold his first company to Zynga in 2010. He is an angel investor who has invested in companies like Touch of Modern, Amplitude, Italic, and Clubhouse. He is a husband and the father of two daughters. In today's conversation we discussed:* His life moving back-and-forth to China as a kid* The realities and myth of work-life balance* Sharing the load with your spouse* How his parenting and leadership has evolved over time* How to exercise with your kids and incorporate them into your day* Teaching kids how to use technology as a tool for leverage* A fascinating story of how his daughter uses ChatGPTListen now on Apple, Spotify, Overcast and YouTube.—Where to find Siqi ChenLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/bladerRunway: https://runway.com/Where to find Adam Fishman- FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/—In this episode, we cover[1:34] Welcome[2:27] Work/life balance[6:49] His childhood[10:52] All about his kids[11:30] How did you meet your wife?[13:37] Decision to start a family[15:33] Load balancing parenting[18:50] Earliest memory of being a dad[21:04] Most surprising thing about becoming a dad[23:13] Giving younger self advice[25:52] Advice to ignore[27:45] Favorite book to read to his kids[29:10] Frameworks[32:35] Any parenting evolutions?[35:11] Kids' dynamic[35:42] Where do you and your partner not align?[37:47] Kid's relationship with tech[40:45] Most interesting way kids used ChatGPT[43:11] What did you give up to be a dad?[45:30] How do you recharge your batteries?[46:10] What is a mistake you made as a dad?[49:16] Rapid fire round[53:31] Thank you—Show references:The Matrix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/Transformers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/Talktastic: https://talktastic.com/Amazing Panda Adventure: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112342/Stanford: https://www.stanford.edu/Bye Bye Baby: https://buybuybaby.com/Dalian, China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DalianPeter Thiell, Thiel Scholarship: https://thielfellowship.org/Unity: https://unity.com/Gundam: https://en.gundam.info/Postmates: https://postmates.com/Sandbox VR: https://sandboxvr.com/ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/"Blub Blub Fish" Book: https://www.amazon.com/Pout-Pout-Fish-Deborah-Diesen/dp/0374360979Work-life Balance is Overrated: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/siqic_work-life-balance-is-overrated-implicitly-activity-7161735570757550081-8Yd4Second Time Founders Podcast reference: www.youtube.com/watch?v=257w17EkYn4&t=1s—For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com.For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron athttp://www.armaziproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit startupdadpod.substack.com

Siqi Chen is co-founder and CEO of Runway, the finance platform you don't hate. He was also the president, chief product officer and CEO of Sandbox VR, the VP of Growth at Postmates and he sold his first company to Zynga in 2010. He is an angel investor who has invested in companies like Touch of Modern, Amplitude, Italic, and Clubhouse. He is a husband and the father of two daughters. In today's conversation we discussed: His life moving back-and-forth to China as a kid The realities and myth of work-life balance Sharing the load with your spouse How his parenting and leadership has evolved over time How to exercise with your kids and incorporate them into your day Teaching kids how to use technology as a tool for leverage A fascinating story of how his daughter uses ChatGPT  — Where to find Siqi Chen Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/ Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/blader Runway: https://runway.com/   Where to find Adam Fishman - FishmanAF Newsletter: https://www.fishmanafnewsletter.com - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ — In this episode, we cover [1:34] Welcome [2:27] Work/life balance [6:49] His childhood [10:52] All about his kids [11:30] How did you meet your wife? [13:37] Decision to start a family [15:33] Load balancing parenting [18:50] Earliest memory of being a dad [21:04] Most surprising thing about becoming a dad [23:13] Giving younger self advice [25:52] Advice to ignore [27:45] Favorite book to read to his kids [29:10] Frameworks [32:35] Any parenting evolutions? [35:11] Kids' dynamic [35:42] Where do you and your partner not align? [37:47] Kid's relationship with tech [40:45] Most interesting way kids used ChatGPT [43:11] What did you give up to be a dad? [45:30] How do you recharge your batteries? [46:10] What is a mistake you made as a dad? [49:16] Rapid fire round [53:31] Thank you — Show references: The Matrix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ Transformers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/ Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/ Talktastic: https://talktastic.com/ Amazing Panda Adventure: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112342/ Stanford: https://www.stanford.edu/ Bye Bye Baby: https://buybuybaby.com/ Dalian, China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalian Peter Thiell, Thiel Scholarship: https://thielfellowship.org/ Unity: https://unity.com/ Gundam: https://en.gundam.info/ Postmates: https://postmates.com/ Sandbox VR: https://sandboxvr.com/ ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ "Blub Blub Fish" Book: https://www.amazon.com/Pout-Pout-Fish-Deborah-Diesen/dp/0374360979 Work-life Balance is Overrated: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/siqic_work-life-balance-is-overrated-implicitly-activity-7161735570757550081-8Yd4 Second Time Founders Podcast reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=257w17EkYn4&t=1s — For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com. For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com  Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/

@blader (Runway, Sandbox VR, Postmates, Hey) @sm (Winnie)  @kevingibbon (Shyp, Airhouse)

Siqi Chen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Runway, the modern and intuitive way to model, plan, and align your business for everyone on your team. Or, in Siqi's words, “revolutionizing the $80 trillion business industry”. A few months ago, Runway's new website went viral across the internet. Siqi takes us inside how that happened. He's no stranger to going viral, having previously built multiple companies that went from zero to millions of users within weeks, including the fastest growing product ever before ChatGPT took the crown in late 2022. — — — — Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM. It's powerful, flexible and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, whatever your go-to-market motion. The next era deserves a better CRM. Join OpenAI, Replicate, ElevenLabs and more at ⁠https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel⁠ — — — — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro(02:00) Sponsor: Attio (02:59) How Siqi goes viral (06:13) Why conversion doesn't always matter (11:23) How to make B2B software more fun (14:31) Working on the Curiosity and Spirit rovers at NASA (16:50) Re-designing at the entire codebase and product at his first startup job (21:13) Earning the nickname “FB Millz” making a million dollars building Facebook games (25:11) Selling to Zynga and building the fastest growing product before ChatGPT (28:36) Building a game with 90% Day 1 retention (30:09) Being played by Kim Kardashian, Jack Dorsey, and shut down by Tim Cook (32:10) Almost getting fired building a growth team at Postmates (35:04) Building Sandbox VR: “escape rooms in VR” (40:35) Meeting Kanye (44:38) Getting the idea for Runway when COVID hit (47:32) Why spreadsheets run every business (54:40) Disrupting the $80 trillion business industry (57:55) Making formulas 50x easier than Excel (01:02:32) Why Runway's building a painkiller (01:06:32) How to fundraise (01:08:32) Why the first question from an investor is the reason they won't invest (01:11:28) How to tell a company's story (01:15:23) The three layers of a story (01:17:28) The importance of positioning in storytelling (01:18:56) Runway's flexible remote work strategy (01:21:34) Why their hiring strategy changed over time (01:22:39) Siqi's single interview question & the three traits he looks for when hiring (01:26:10) Unlearning consumer to learn B2B (01:30:26) Navigating the first three years of no customers (01:31:45) What surprised Dylan Field the most about building Figma — — — — Referenced: Runway's website: https://runway.com/ Reform Collective Design Agency: https://www.reformcollective.com/ Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ SandboxVR: https://sandboxvr.com/ Lulu Cheng's Android Playbook: https://www.piratewires.com/p/anduril-comms-strategy-early-days — — — — Where to find Siqi: Twitter: https://twitter.com/blader LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siqic/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/

Logan Kilpatrick leads developer relations at OpenAI, supporting developers building with the OpenAI API and ChatGPT. He is also on the board of directors at NumFOCUS, the nonprofit organization that supports open source projects like Jupyter, Pandas, NumPy, and more. Before OpenAI, Logan was a machine-learning engineer at Apple and advised NASA on open source policy. In our conversation, we discuss:• OpenAI's fast-paced and innovative work environment• The value of high agency and high urgency in your employees• Tips for writing better ChatGPT prompts• How the GPT Store is doing• OpenAI's planning process and decision-making criteria• Where OpenAI is heading in the next few years• Insight into OpenAI's B2B offerings• Why Logan “measures in hundreds”—Brought to you by:• Hex—Helping teams ask and answer data questions by working together• Whimsical—The iterative product workspace• Arcade Software—Create effortlessly beautiful demos in minutes—Find the transcript for this episode and all past episodes at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/episodes/. Today's transcript will be live by 8 a.m. PT.—Where to find Logan Kilpatrick:• X: https://twitter.com/OfficialLoganK• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logankilpatrick/• Website: https://logank.ai/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Logan's background(03:49) The impact of recent events on OpenAI's team and culture(08:20) Exciting developments in AI interfaces(09:52) Using OpenAI tools to make companies more efficient(13:04) Examples of using AI effectively(18:35) Prompt engineering(22:12) How to write better prompts(26:05) The launch of GPTs and the OpenAI Store(32:10) The importance of high agency and urgency(34:35) OpenAI's ability to move fast and ship high-quality products(35:56) OpenAI's planning process and decision-making criteria(40:22) The importance of real-time communication(42:33) OpenAI's team and growth(44:47) Future developments at OpenAI(47:42) GPT-5 and building toward the future(50:38) OpenAI's enterprise offering and the value of sharing custom applications(52:30) New updates and features from OpenAI(55:09) How to leverage OpenAI's technology in products(58:26) Encouragement for building with AI(59:30) Lightning round—Referenced:• OpenAI: https://openai.com/• Sam Altman on X: https://twitter.com/sama• Greg Brockman on X: https://twitter.com/gdb• tldraw: https://www.tldraw.com/• Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/• Boost Your Productivity with Generative AI: https://hbr.org/2023/06/boost-your-productivity-with-generative-ai• Research: quantifying GitHub Copilot's impact on developer productivity and happiness: https://github.blog/2022-09-07-research-quantifying-github-copilots-impact-on-developer-productivity-and-happiness/• Lesson learnt from the DPD AI Chatbot swearing blunder: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lesson-learnt-from-dpd-ai-chatbot-swearing-blunder-kitty-sz57e/• Dennis Yang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisyang/• Tim Ferriss's blog: https://tim.blog/• Tyler Cowen on X: https://twitter.com/tylercowen• Tom Cruise on X: https://twitter.com/TomCruise• Canva: https://www.canva.com/• Zapier: https://zapier.com/• Siqi Chen on X: https://twitter.com/blader• Runway: https://runway.com/• Universal Primer: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-GbLbctpPz-universal-primer• “I didn't expect ChatGPT to get so good” | Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Ymdc6EdKw• Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/• Lennybot: https://www.lennybot.com/• Visual Electric: https://visualelectric.com/• DALL-E: https://openai.com/research/dall-e• The One World Schoolhouse: https://www.amazon.com/One-World-Schoolhouse-Education-Reimagined/dp/1455508373/ref=sr_1_1• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144324• Gran Turismo: https://www.netflix.com/title/81672085• Gran Turismo video game: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/gran-turismo/• Manta sleep mask: https://mantasleep.com/products/manta-sleep-mask• WAOAW sleep mask: https://www.amazon.com/WAOAW-Sleep-Sleeping-Blocking-Blindfold/dp/B09712FSLY—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: 2023 in AI predictions, published by jessicata on January 1, 2024 on LessWrong. Lots of people have made AI predictions in 2023. Here I compile a subset. I have a habit of setting an email reminder for the date of the prediction, when I see AI predictions, so that when they are resolved I can point out their accuracy or inaccuracy. I have compiled most of the email reminders from 2023 in chronological format (predictions with an early to late target date). I'm planning to make these posts yearly, checking in on predictions whose date has expired. Feel free to add more references to predictions made in 2023 to the comments. In some cases people are referring to the predictions of others in a way that could be taken to imply that they agree. This is not a certain interpretation, but I'm including them for the sake of completeness. March 2024 the gears to ascension: "Hard problem of alignment is going to hit us like a train in 3 to 12 months at the same time some specific capabilities breakthroughs people have been working on for the entire history of ML finally start working now that they have a weak AGI to apply to, and suddenly critch's stuff becomes super duper important to understand." October 2024 John Pressman: "6-12 month prediction (80%): The alignment problem as the core of AI X-Risk will become a historical artifact as it's largely solved or on track to being solved in the eyes of most parties and arguments increasingly become about competition and misuse. Few switch sides." July 2025 Jessica Taylor: "Wouldn't be surprised if this exact prompt got solved, but probably something nearby that's easy for humans won't be solved?" The prompt: "Find a sequence of words that is: - 20 words long - contains exactly 2 repetitions of the same word twice in a row - contains exactly 2 repetitions of the same word thrice in a row" (note: thread contains variations and a harder problem.) November 2026 Max Tegmark: "It's crazy how the time left to weak AGI has plummeted from 20 years to 3 in just 18 months on http://metaculus.com. So you better stop calling AGI a 'long-term' possibility, or someone might call you a dinosaur stuck in the past" The Metaculus question. Siqi Chen: "what it means is within 3 years you will either be dead or have a god as a servant". Elon Musk: "If you say 'smarter than the smartest human at anything'? It may not quite smarter than all humans - or machine-augmented humans, because, you know, we have computers and stuff, so there's a higher bar... but if you mean, it can write a novel as good as JK Rowling, or discover new physics, invent new technology? I would say we are less than 3 years from that point." December 2026 Jai Bhavnani: "Baseline expectation: 90%+ of smart contracts will get exploited in the next 3 years. These exploits will be found by AIs. We need solutions." October 2028 Stuart Russell: "Everyone has gone from 30-50 years, to 3-5 years." November 2028 Tammy: "when i say 'we have approximately between 0 and 5 years' people keep thinking that i'm saying 'we have approximately 5 years'. we do not have approximately 5 years. i fucking wish. we have approximately between 0 and 5 years. we could actually all die of AI next month." December 2028 Tyler John: "Yep. If discontinuous leaps in AI capabilities are 3-5 years away we should probably start to think a little bit about how to prepare for that. The EU AI Act has been in development for 5 years and still isn't passed yet. We just can't take the wait and see approach any longer." Mustafa Stuleyman: "[Current models have already] ... arguably passed the Turing Test. I've proposed a test which involves [AIs] going off and taking $100,000 investment, and over the course of three months, try to set about creating a new product, researching the market, seeing what consumers might like, gen...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: 2023 in AI predictions, published by jessicata on January 1, 2024 on LessWrong. Lots of people have made AI predictions in 2023. Here I compile a subset. I have a habit of setting an email reminder for the date of the prediction, when I see AI predictions, so that when they are resolved I can point out their accuracy or inaccuracy. I have compiled most of the email reminders from 2023 in chronological format (predictions with an early to late target date). I'm planning to make these posts yearly, checking in on predictions whose date has expired. Feel free to add more references to predictions made in 2023 to the comments. In some cases people are referring to the predictions of others in a way that could be taken to imply that they agree. This is not a certain interpretation, but I'm including them for the sake of completeness. March 2024 the gears to ascension: "Hard problem of alignment is going to hit us like a train in 3 to 12 months at the same time some specific capabilities breakthroughs people have been working on for the entire history of ML finally start working now that they have a weak AGI to apply to, and suddenly critch's stuff becomes super duper important to understand." October 2024 John Pressman: "6-12 month prediction (80%): The alignment problem as the core of AI X-Risk will become a historical artifact as it's largely solved or on track to being solved in the eyes of most parties and arguments increasingly become about competition and misuse. Few switch sides." July 2025 Jessica Taylor: "Wouldn't be surprised if this exact prompt got solved, but probably something nearby that's easy for humans won't be solved?" The prompt: "Find a sequence of words that is: - 20 words long - contains exactly 2 repetitions of the same word twice in a row - contains exactly 2 repetitions of the same word thrice in a row" (note: thread contains variations and a harder problem.) November 2026 Max Tegmark: "It's crazy how the time left to weak AGI has plummeted from 20 years to 3 in just 18 months on http://metaculus.com. So you better stop calling AGI a 'long-term' possibility, or someone might call you a dinosaur stuck in the past" The Metaculus question. Siqi Chen: "what it means is within 3 years you will either be dead or have a god as a servant". Elon Musk: "If you say 'smarter than the smartest human at anything'? It may not quite smarter than all humans - or machine-augmented humans, because, you know, we have computers and stuff, so there's a higher bar... but if you mean, it can write a novel as good as JK Rowling, or discover new physics, invent new technology? I would say we are less than 3 years from that point." December 2026 Jai Bhavnani: "Baseline expectation: 90%+ of smart contracts will get exploited in the next 3 years. These exploits will be found by AIs. We need solutions." October 2028 Stuart Russell: "Everyone has gone from 30-50 years, to 3-5 years." November 2028 Tammy: "when i say 'we have approximately between 0 and 5 years' people keep thinking that i'm saying 'we have approximately 5 years'. we do not have approximately 5 years. i fucking wish. we have approximately between 0 and 5 years. we could actually all die of AI next month." December 2028 Tyler John: "Yep. If discontinuous leaps in AI capabilities are 3-5 years away we should probably start to think a little bit about how to prepare for that. The EU AI Act has been in development for 5 years and still isn't passed yet. We just can't take the wait and see approach any longer." Mustafa Stuleyman: "[Current models have already] ... arguably passed the Turing Test. I've proposed a test which involves [AIs] going off and taking $100,000 investment, and over the course of three months, try to set about creating a new product, researching the market, seeing what consumers might like, gen...

Discussing weekly tech news w/ experienced venture founders. No investors. Guest - @blader (Runway, Sandbox VR, Postmates, Hey) @julien (Breather, Practice) @kevingibbon (Shyp, Airhouse) @berman66 (Nanit, Vowel) Fred Wilsons post discussed - https://avc.com/2023/01/what-will-happen-in-2023/ Tomasz Tunguz post discussed - https://tomtunguz.com/sizing-web3-b2b-market/

Siqi Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Runway. Runway is working on a business financial tools built for the 21st century. Siqi was was formerly the VP of Growth at Postmates and ran Sandbox VR before starting Runway.

Today’s podcast is a fifteen-minute talk with Siqi Chen, CPO of Sandbox VR. Sandbox VR has recently received 16 million dollar funding, which is the largest amount of fundraising that’s been into VR since the original Oculus company. Listen to what Siqi Chen has to say about the expansion of the company, why China has taken a big leap in terms of retail experiences in shopping malls and why narrative is becoming more and more important in the experiences they offer.

I first met Siqi Chen at a Lightspeed CEO dinner hosted by Jeremy Liew. We bonded over our mutual love of product design and fascination with customer engagement. Ever since, I’ve followed Siqi’s career from Zynga product lead to fast-pivoting startup CEO to VR executive. I love how Siqi’s ideas about vision and leadership keep evolving. This is a guy who’s always learning. Listen in and learn how this globally-minded entrepreneur is applying his hard-won innovation lessons to carving out a new category of location-based entertainment.

In the first of a series of conversations with today's leading growth practitioners, we sit down with Siqi Chen, the former VP of Growth at Postmates. Siqi advocated for and founded the growth team at Postmates, and here he explains where his team found the low-hanging fruit in its earliest days, when being data-driven goes too far, the values that guided his growth team and much more.Siqi took a new role the end of 2017 as CPO at GloStation, an Alibaba-backed VR escape room experience, and he also opens up about the challenges he now faces growing a product that's much more difficult to measure than any app.

Siqi Chen is the VP of Growth at Postmates, the leading on-demand logistics provider.  He was previously the co-founder and CEO of Hey (acquired by Postmates), maker of Heyday, an automated journal app, Stolen (the short-lived, but incredibly viral Twitter hit), and Famous.af (Stolen’s less controversial successor).  Siqi previously served as the GM at Zynga after an acquisition of his Facebook app startup, Serious Business, maker of the ridiculously viral Friends for Sale, as well as stints at Powerset, Veoh, and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. In this episode, we learn how Siqi leverages data to drive growth and build viral products, why the ability to build rapidly growing businesses failed to make Heyday stick, and how he applies these lessons to give super powers to everyday people. Learn more about Siqi Chen and Postmates! Follow Siqi on Twitter @blader. Siqi's favorite book: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are Something Siqi spends too much money on that he doesn't regret: Travel & food Siqi's favorite travel destination: Osaka, Japan Siqi's favorite restaurant (in the world): Saison _____ Executive producer & host: Joe Mahavuthivanij Edited by: Debra Lin Theme music by: Music for Makers Logo design: Debra Lin