Podcasts about Solvay

China's headstart in market dominance is significant, and its grip on critical mineral supply chains remains tight. The question now is whether other governments can move fast enough — and smart enough — to build something more secure, more sustainable, and less dependent. We head to La Rochelle in western France for a rare look inside one of the world's biggest rare earth processing plants, and find out what it reveals about Europe's efforts to build a supply chain of its own.Presenter: Jonathan Josephs Producer: Matt Lines(Image: A rare earth processing plant in La Rochelle, France, owned by chemicals giant Solvay)

From Utilities to Venture Capital: A Career at the Crossroads of InnovationMatt's career began in the energy sector during a pivotal time of deregulation in California. This early exposure to innovation within legacy industries laid the foundation for a lifelong pursuit: helping large corporations and startups work together to drive transformative change. After 15 years in VC, a stint as an entrepreneur, and a move into corporate venture capital, Matt now leads Syensqo Ventures, a fund backed by one of the world's largest materials science companies.What is Syensqo Ventures?Spun off from Solvay in 2024, Syensqo is a €7B global materials company focused on high-performance, sustainable solutions. Its venture arm—an €80M evergreen fund—invests globally in startups developing advanced materials, often at the intersection of mobility, circularity, bio-based products, and AI-powered materials discovery.Corporate VC with a Strategic EdgeUnlike traditional VCs, Syensqo Ventures looks for strategic alignment. Startups that can benefit from Syensqo's deep material science expertise, infrastructure, or supply chain are most likely to receive investment. “I want to know what Syensqo can do to help accelerate your business,” says Matt.When to Approach Syensqo VenturesThe team invests early—typically at seed or Series A stages—when startups are still figuring out product-market fit and need help with technical validation, de-risking, or market entry. With six team members across the US, Europe, and Asia, they invest globally and often co-invest with financial VCs. They can lead rounds if needed, with typical check sizes ranging from €250K to €3M, and reserves for follow-ons.Key Focus AreasBiomaterials: As demand grows for sustainable consumer products, bio-based inputs are becoming more relevant.Composites & Circular Design: Syensqo is prioritizing innovations that enable lightweight, recyclable, and high-performance materials for aviation, automotive, and consumer goods.AI & Materials Discovery: While AI is lowering the cost of discovery, commercialization still requires partnerships, manufacturing, and distribution—areas where corporates play a key role.Corporate Innovation Isn't a Solo GameMatt emphasizes that innovation doesn't belong solely to startups or corporates—it's a shared journey. Syensqo runs internal R&D, collaborates with universities, and co-develops products with startups. "There's no frontier—just partnerships that accelerate solutions."Circularity by Design: From Targets to ImplementationSyensqo publicly reports on circular sales, using a metric developed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. This isn't just marketing—it's part of how the company defines and measures sustainability goals across its value chains. For startups, this signals a strong alignment in building products that are recyclable, bio-based, or reduce environmental impact.Regional Insights & Global AmbitionsWhile the team sees startups following similar patterns globally, they tailor their approach by region—with specific networks in Europe, North America, and Asia. They're active co-investors in funds like Sofinnova and IndieBio, particularly in the biotech and advanced materials space.Learn More about Syensqo VenturesWebsite: Syensqo VenturesLinkedIn: Matt Jones – SyensqoCompany LinkedIn: Syensqo Be sure to follow Sesamers on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X for more cool stories from the people we catch during the best Tech events!

Ce lundi 28 avril, Marek Hudon, professeur à Solvay vient donner son analyse sur les changements radicaux de valeurs prônées par la Maison Blanche depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir de Donald Trump. Des changements qui s'observent facilement en comparant cette administration avec les précédente.

durée : 00:02:15 - Le grand format - Dans le Gard, à Salindres, les salariés de l'usine chimique Solvay sont en train de recevoir leur lettre de licenciement. Pendant des décennies, ils ont fabriqué des produits fluorés pour des engrais notamment. Des produits classés aujourd'hui dans les polluants éternels, et qui inquiètent.

L'invité du Trends Talk est Philippe Kehren, l'actuel CEO de Solvay. Olivier Mouton interroge le dirigeant sur la situation économique du groupe, ses projets d'avenir et son engagement écologique. Bonne écoute !

En ce début du mois d’avril, Microsoft fête son cinquantième anniversaire. À quels défis LA firme qui a révolutionné l’informatique est-elle désormais confrontée, après 50 ans d'histoire, dans un secteur en perpétuelle mutation? Il y a le développement de l’intelligence artificielle, mais aussi le défi de trouver sa place dans le segment du gaming, et puis plus globalement, le renouvellement de son offre. Le tout dans un contexte géopolitique compliqué. Ondine Werres a reçu, dans le studio du Brief, le journaliste spécialiste des nouvelles technologies à L'Echo, Maxime Samain, et Nicolas van Zeebroeck, enseignant-chercheur en économie digitale à l’ULB et à Solvay. Présentation: Ondine Werres Ecriture et réalisation: Guillaume Cordeaux et Ondine Werres Abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme d'écoute favorite Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Addict l Castbox | Deezer | Google PodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wat zit er in De 7?Ilham Kadri, de topvrouw van het chemiebedrijf Syensqo, kreeg al voor bijna 26 miljoen euro bonussen na de afsplitsing van Solvay. Intussen staat de beurskoers op een dieptepunt.Vlaams minister-president Matthias Diependaele wil een eigen defensiefonds oprichten, waar Vlaanderen tot 1 miljard euro in moet pompen. De coalitiepartners vinden dat bedrag erover.Gisteren was weer een nerveuze dag op de beurzen in de aanloop naar morgen, 'liberation day' volgens Trump. Hoe moet je als belegger kijken naar die nieuwe episode van de tarievenoorlog? Host: Bert RymenProductie: Lara DroessaertSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Depuis la scission de Solvay, Illam Khadri, la patronne de Syensqo a perçu plus de 25 millions de primes. C'est un peu la panique sur les marchés dans l'attente du Liberation Day, le jour où l'administration Trump va appliquer une nouvelle salve de droits de douanes. Une petite avancée dans les négociations gouvernementales à Bruxelles. Le MR tente l'idée d'un gouvernement minoritaire sans le PS et avec un strapontin pour la N-VA. Le Brief, le podcast matinal de L'Echo Ce que vous devez savoir avant de démarrer la journée, on vous le sert au creux de l’oreille, chaque matin, en 7 infos, dès 7h. Le Brief, un podcast éclairant, avec l’essentiel de l’info business, entreprendre, investir et politique. Signé L’Echo. Abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme d'écoute favorite Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Addict l Castbox | Deezer | Google PodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pep Martorell es director del Barcelona Supercomputing Center, hogar del MareNostrum 5. Sentimos una extraña mezcla de fascinación y temor por las nuevas tecnologías. La ciencia tiene un impacto en el mundo en el que vivimos y la computación del superordenador soluciona problemas que no podemos tan siquiera concebir. Escribió Eduardo Mendoza en su precioso discurso de aceptación del Premio Cervantes que “las vocaciones tempranas son árboles con muchas hojas, poco tronco y ninguna raíz”. Pep, que divulga también en su propio Substack, entró en el campo de la física fascinado por los documentales de Cosmos. Carl Sagan contagió y sigue contagiando a muchos jóvenes en busca de una vocación. Ese hombre, con su pasión por la ciencia, despertó la curiosidad de muchos y mi esperanza es que este podcast haga lo mismo.Quiero dar las gracias a la Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona por haber hecho posible este episodio. Me permitieron grabar en su fantástico ático de Diagonal y no habría podido encontrar un emplazamiento mejor para la charla con Pep. La propuesta de la Cambra es atractiva para todo tipo de perfiles relacionados con el mundo de la empresa y te animo a que explores los eventos que allí organizan. La Cambra quiere ser un punto de encuentro empresarial en la ciudad de Barcelona, facilitando conexiones inesperadas y creando oportunidades en la serendipia que se genera en esos círculos. Siempre la opcionalidad del amigo Taleb, los accidentes positivos de los que te hablo en Kapital.Así narra Stephen Fry el regalo del fuego por parte de Prometeo, en su fantástico libro Los mitos griegos revisitados: “Cuando les mostró a los hombres aquel demonio saltarín y célebre danzarín, de primeras chillaron atemorizados y recularon ante las llamas. Pero la curiosidad pronto superó al miedo y comenzaron a solazarse con aquel nuevo juguete mágico, aquella sustancia, fenómeno..., llamadlo como queráis. Supieron por Prometeo que el fuego no era su enemigo sino un poderoso aliado que, convenientemente domesticado, tenía diez mil millares de usos. Prometeo pasó de una aldea a otra enseñándoles técnicas para fabricar herramientas y armas, cocer cacerolas de arcilla, cocinar carne y hornear masas de cereales, lo que enseguida desencadenó una avalancha de ventajas que supuso la prevalencia del hombre sobre la presa animal, que no podía reaccionar a las lanzas y flechas de punta metálica. No tardó mucho Zeus en bajar la mirada desde el Olimpo y ver puntos de titilante luz naranja salpicando el paisaje a su alrededor. Al instante supo lo que había sucedido. Tampoco hizo falta que le dijesen quién era el responsable. Su ira fue arrebatada y terrible. Jamás se había presenciado una furia tan extrema, tan tumultuosa, tan apocalíptica. Ni siquiera Urano, en su mutilada agonía, había experimentado una rabia tan vengativa. Urano fue vencido por un hijo que le resultaba indiferente, pero Zeus había sido traicionado por el amigo al que más amaba. Ninguna traición podía ser más terrible.”Índice:1:21 Temor ancestral a lo desconocido.8:52 Labatut ve al científico como un poeta.19:10 Mirar en el abismo del conocimiento.27:06 Las bellísimas lecciones de Sagan.30:51 Faltan chicas en las carreras STEM.42:56 La tradición catalana de comprar tecnología en Andorra.51:35 Conferencia en Solvay en 1927.1:03:15 Los misterios del big bang.1:06:58 Hablar de Newton es como hablar de Messi.1:16:51 Un superordenador en una capilla.1:25:58 Ich probiere.1:35:06 AlphaGo.1:41:53 Nobel de Química para el plegado de proteínas.1:45:59 Kasparov contra Deep Blue.1:48:23 Destrucción mutua asegurada.1:59:39 El bosón de Higgs.2:06:31 Misterios por resolver.Apuntes:Cosmos. Carl Sagan.Cosmos. Neil deGrasse TysonUn verdor terrible. Benjamín Labatut.MANIAC. Benjamín Labatut.BTG Talks. Benjamín Labatut.Beauty, truth and... physics? Murray Gell-Mann.La utilidad de lo inútil. Nuccio Ordine.El orden del tiempo. Carlo Rovelli.Cuántica. José Ignacio Latorre.

Philippe Kehren, directeur général de Solvay, acteur majeur de la chimie, était l'invité de l'émission Ecorama du 28 mars 2025, présentée par David Jacquot sur Boursorama.com. Parmi les sujets abordés : le modèle de marché européen de l'énergie, la transition énergétique, les tarifs douaniers de Donald Trump, le parcours boursier et le rendement de l'action. Hébergé par Audion. Visitez https://www.audion.fm/fr/privacy-policy pour plus d'informations.

Een van de vuistregels voor beginnende beleggers is dat holdings een goed eerste belegging zijn. Danny Reweghs vertelt waarom. Daarnaast fileert hij de recente resultaten van holding AvH en chemiespeler Solvay. Z 7 op 7 is de nieuwe dagelijkse podcast van Kanaal Z en Trends. Elke ochtend, vanaf 5u30 uur luistert u voortaan naar een selectie van de meest opmerkelijke nieuwsverhalen, een frisse blik op de aandelenmarkten en een scherpe duiding bij de economische en politieke actualiteit door experts van Kanaal Z en Trends.Start voortaan elke dag met Z 7 op 7 en luister naar wat echt relevant is voor uw business, onderneming, carrière en geld.

Een van de vuistregels voor beginnende beleggers is dat holdings een goed eerste belegging zijn. Danny Reweghs vertelt waarom. Daarnaast fileert hij de recente resultaten van holding AvH en chemiespeler Solvay. De Trends Beleggen podcast is een productie van Trends en Kanaal Z. Meer info en advies voor uw beleggingen op www.trends.be/beleggen. Elke dag beleggingsadvies in uw mailbox, registreer u gratis op één van de e-newsletters op www.trends.be/newsletters.De Trends Beleggen podcast komt tot stand met de gewaardeerde steun van ING.

Een nieuwe maandag van een nieuwe maand. Het ideale moment voor een vooruitblik door  directeur Trends Beleggen Danny Reweghs. Donderdag wordt een spannende dag, want de Europese Centrale Bank komt samen om over de rente te beslissen. Krijgen we een zesde renteverlaging op rij, of niet? In de VS kijken we uit naar het nieuwste arbeidsmarktrapport, een van de belangrijkste indicatoren van deze week. En bij ons kijken we naar de resultaten van Solvay en Elia – wat mag je als belegger daarvan verwachten?  Z 7 op 7 is de nieuwe dagelijkse podcast van Kanaal Z en Trends. Elke ochtend, vanaf 5u30 uur luistert u voortaan naar een selectie van de meest opmerkelijke nieuwsverhalen, een frisse blik op de aandelenmarkten en een scherpe duiding bij de economische en politieke actualiteit door experts van Kanaal Z en Trends.Start voortaan elke dag met Z 7 op 7 en luister naar wat echt relevant is voor uw business, onderneming, carrière en geld.

Nous sommes le 30 août 1904, à la Cité scientifique, parc Léopold à Bruxelles, tout près des actuelles institutions européennes. C'est le jour de l'ouverture du Congrès des physiologistes organisé sous l'égide d'Ernest Solvay. Celui-ci déclare : « J'ai voulu associer et juxtaposer les laboratoires de physiologie, l'Institut de sociologie et l'Ecole de Commerce parce que la physiologie est la première des sciences sociales : elle nous fait connaître l'homme en nous révélant les lois de l'organisme humain, elle nous montre ce que nous devons faire pour améliorer un organisme social...» . Chemin faisant, l'industriel a érigé la Cité scientifique en un symbole de l'interdisciplinarité. Une interdisciplinarité nécessaire, selon lui, aux progrès de la connaissance. Quelques années plus tard, le passionné de chimie précisera : « Pourquoi ai-je fondé l'Institut de sociologie après celui de physiologie alors que le problème urgent de l'organisation sociale me préoccupait depuis 1871 ? Parce que le seul raisonnement dit qu'avant de chercher à établir des lois qui règlent l'évolution des groupements humains il faut, pour agir correctement, connaître celles qui règlent l'évolution de l'homme considéré en lui-même... Et nous voilà de la sorte engagé dans la direction « biologie » pour éclairer la direction « sociologie »». Dès la fin des années 1880, Ernest Solvay s'est engagé dans un programme ambitieux de soutien à la recherche scientifique qui débouchera sur la création de différents "instituts" au Parc Léopold. Il s'est fait mécène mais était-il philanthrope ? Patriote et internationaliste comment a-t-il noué le dialogue avec le monde scientifique et le monde politique ? Invité : Kenneth Bertrams, professeur à l'Université libre de Bruxelles, professeur extraordinaire en Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques à l'Université de Maastricht. Merci pour votre écoute Un Jour dans l'Histoire, c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 13h15 à 14h30 sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes d'Un Jour dans l'Histoire sur notre plateforme Auvio.be :https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/5936 Intéressés par l'histoire ? Vous pourriez également aimer nos autres podcasts : L'Histoire Continue: https://audmns.com/kSbpELwL'heure H : https://audmns.com/YagLLiKEt sa version à écouter en famille : La Mini Heure H https://audmns.com/YagLLiKAinsi que nos séries historiques :Chili, le Pays de mes Histoires : https://audmns.com/XHbnevhD-Day : https://audmns.com/JWRdPYIJoséphine Baker : https://audmns.com/wCfhoEwLa folle histoire de l'aviation : https://audmns.com/xAWjyWCLes Jeux Olympiques, l'étonnant miroir de notre Histoire : https://audmns.com/ZEIihzZMarguerite, la Voix d'une Résistante : https://audmns.com/zFDehnENapoléon, le crépuscule de l'Aigle : https://audmns.com/DcdnIUnUn Jour dans le Sport : https://audmns.com/xXlkHMHSous le sable des Pyramides : https://audmns.com/rXfVppvN'oubliez pas de vous y abonner pour ne rien manquer.Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

Dans cet épisode de Trends Talk, Amid Faljaoui, rédacteur en chef de Trends-Tendances et Canal Z discute avec Nicolas Van Zeebroeck, Professeur à l'ULB et à Solvay par rapport à son livre 'Economie numérique'.

Dans cet épisode Olivier Mouton reçoit sur le plateau de Trends Talk Roland Gillet, économiste belge, professeur en économie financière à l'École de management de la Sorbonne où il dirige le Master professionnel, mention sciences du management, spécialité « Gestion financière et fiscalité » et professeur à la Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management de l'Université libre de Bruxelles. Ensemble ils dressent le bilan et les perspectives de l'année économique et financière.

En France, en 2022, l'ancien patron de Peugeot Citroën, Philippe Varin, a rendu un rapport sur les métaux critiques : il montre que le pays dépend à près de 100% de l'extérieur pour ses approvisionnements en métaux nécessaires à la transition énergétique. Comme bien des pays développés, la France a progressivement fermé ses mines et abandonné la filière minière pour des raisons à la fois économiques - coûts plus élevés que la concurrence - et environnementales. Certes, les ressources du sous-sol français sont limitées mais c'est aussi la filière du raffinage qui fut abandonnée. Lorsqu'un industriel a besoin de métaux, il utilise des minerais qui ont déjà subi une première transformation. Entre le produit extrait de la mine et le produit fini, se situe l'étape du raffinage qui a pour but d'extraire le précieux métal de la quantité de terre et d'autres roches avec lequel il est amalgamé. Le processus de séparation nécessite beaucoup d'énergie, d'eau et est potentiellement source de grandes pollutions. Ainsi, alors que, dans les années 1980, le groupe français Rhône-Poulenc purifiait dans son usine de La Rochelle près de 10 000 tonnes de terres rares soit la moitié du marché mondial, cette activité a été pourtant progressivement abandonnée pour des raisons environnementales (des rejets radioactifs) et de coûts. Il était bien plus commode d'importer de Chine. Aujourd'hui, après le rapport Varin, le gouvernement cherche à reprendre la main. Le code minier a été simplifié, une nouvelle cartographie du sous-sol est en cours par le BRGM, le service géologique national, et plusieurs projets industriels sont en développement. Du côté de l'extraction, le groupe Imerys souhaite ouvrir une mine de lithium dans l'Allier tandis que le français Eramet et Electricité de France veulent exploiter du lithium issu d'eau géothermale en Alsace. C'est bien une filière qu'il faut mettre en place, ainsi dans le cas de l'Allier, le projet se décline en trois étapes, l'extraction à Echassières , un site de stockage à une quinzaine de kilomètres et une usine de conversion pour le raffinage à Montluçon à une cinquantaine de kilomètres. Et l'on reparle d'ouvrir à La Rochelle, avec le groupe belge Solvay, une usine de recyclage pour récupérer des terres rares. Mais, pour aboutir, ces projets doivent surmonter deux écueils : celui du financement d'abord, car ils sont toujours très coûteux (1 milliard d'euros pour le projet de l'Allier) ; celui ensuite du débat public qui révèle la vigueur d'oppositions diverses liées à la fois aux possibles conséquences environnementales et à l'utilité réelle du projet. L'Etat lui a choisi, il considère le projet dans l'Allier d' « intérêt national majeur », insistant ainsi sur l'aspect géopolitique de la question. S'intéresser aux matières premières, c'est donc prendre en compte une question majeure de notre siècle. Le pétrole a été l'or noir du XXe siècle. Le XXIe siècle sera donc métallique : dopée par la transition verte et la numérisation de l'économie mondiale, la demande en minerais s'envole. Or la production aujourd'hui ralentit, les découvertes de nouveaux gisements se raréfient. Les États se livrent donc à une compétition féroce pour sécuriser leurs approvisionnements.Les ressources présentes sur terre sont-elles suffisantes pour faire face à l'explosion des besoins ? Peut-on les exploiter sans détruire la planète ? Cette manne financière profite -t-elle réellement aux Etats producteurs ou sont-ils condamnés à la « malédiction des matières premières », un concept mis en valeur déjà il y a plusieurs décennies ? Les Occidentaux pourront-ils rattraper leur retard sur la Chine dans la sécurisation de leur filière minière ?

It's a big episode today! With information that could be a game changer when it comes to homeopathy, and the supplement industry in general.  I'm  chatting  with Daniel Dereser, the CEO of Boiron Canada. We dive into his journey from a pharmacy student in France to CEO in the natural health industry. Daniel talks about his early experiences with homeopathy, how it changed his perspective, and the growth of Boiron. Then, we explore the challenges and misconceptions surrounding homeopathy, especially in Canada. We also discuss the current regulatory landscape for natural health products and the potential impact of Health Canada's cost recovery program. It's a fascinating discussion on integrative medicine, the importance of informed choices, and how Daniel balances his high-stress role with personal wellness practices.Homeopathics Mentioned that can be found https://www.boiron.ca/en/CamiliaOscillococcinum (Oscillo)Arnica montanaNux vomicaCalendula CreamAconitum NapellusTo help with the changing of Health Canada's Regulations, click HERE to Save Our Supplements.Natural health product regulation in Canada: Natural health product cost recovery - Canada.caNHPs: Save Our Supplements - CHFAAbout Daniel:President and CEO since 2015 of Boiron Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Boiron Laboratories in France, which recently celebrated its 35th anniversary in Canada, Daniel Dereser has more than 18 years of expertise in the homeopathy industry across France, the USA, and Canada.Graduating with a doctorate in Pharmacy (France), he also has diverse experience in strategic management, sales and marketing strategies, drug production, regulatory affairs, and government relations.Before his official arrival at Boiron Canada, Daniel Dereser, born in Marseille, France, earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of the Mediterranean of Aix-Marseilles in 2002. As an internal pharmacist at Solvay, Mr. Dereser began studying management at the École de Management de Lyon (EM Lyon) in 2002, focusing on industrial production management. He obtained his graduate degree from the Institute of Industrial Pharmacy in 2003.That same year, he joined Les Laboratoires Boiron in France as a pharmacist responsible for manufacturing production. In 2004, he moved to the West Coast of the United States, where he became a pharmacist and head of the laboratory at Boiron USA, the American subsidiary of Boiron Laboratories. He also served as a specialist in professional education and as Director of Medical Development for Boiron USA.Additionally, he lectured at the Western University of California, focusing on integrative medicine and homeopathy.Mr. Dereser remained with Boiron USA for over 11 years until 2013. Upon his arrival at Boiron Canada, he joined the team as Director of Medical Development before becoming its current President and CEO.Daniel Dereser sits on the Board of Directors of the Homeopathic Pharmaceutical Association of Canada (HPCA) and is also a member of the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA). A passionate communicator, he has been involved since 2019 in the Coalition for Homeopathy in Quebec (CPHQ), which promotes and defends homeopathy in Quebec.He actively participates in debates, forums, round tables, and media interviews to positively advance homeopathy and its role in patient well-being within integrative medicine approaches.

L'invité de 7h50. Ce jeudi, Martin Buxant reçoit Roland Gillet. Professeur d'économie financière à La Sorbonne et à Solvay, Roland Gillet évoque les dossiers socio-économique qui empoisonnent la formation d'un gouvernement fédéral.

Retour sur l'épopée du SMS, ce petit message payant qu'il fallait écrire à l'aide d'un clavier à 12 touches, obligeant le pouce à une chorégraphie virtuose.  En envoyant Joyeux noël en 1992 sur le téléphone portable de son collègue, un développeur britannique envoie le tout premier SMS de l'Histoire.  Quelques années plus tard, il s'imposera ensuite, partout dans le monde, comme un mode de communication incontournable.  Comment le SMS a conquis nos vies ? Comment a-t-il changé nos manières d'écrire, de nous dire je t'aime, de nous révolter, d'aller à l'école, de travailler et d'être disponible jour et nuit ?  Le SMS a préfiguré sur bien des aspects l'arrivée des smartphones et des réseaux sociaux.  Nicolas Van Zeebroeck, professeur d'économie et de stratégie digitale à Solvay, auteur récemment d'un livre L'économie numérique, enjeux et ressorts d'une révolution (Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles) et Cédrick Fairon, professeur à l'UCL où il dirige le Centre de traitement automatisé du langage (CENTAL) sont nos invités.Merci pour votre écouteL'Histoire Continue c'est également en direct tous les samedis de 9h à 10h sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez l'ensemble des épisodes de l'Histoire Continue sur notre plateforme Auvio.behttps://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/l-histoire-continue-19690 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement. Intéressés par l'histoire ? Vous pourriez également aimer nos autres podcasts : Un jour dans l'Histoire : https://audmns.com/gXJWXoQL'heure H : https://audmns.com/YagLLiKEt sa version à écouter en famille : La Mini Heure H https://audmns.com/YagLLiKVous pourriez également apprécier ces podcasts de la RTBF: Un jour dans le sport : https://audmns.com/decnhFkAinsi que nos séries historiques :Chili, le Pays de mes Histoires : https://audmns.com/XHbnevhD-Day : https://audmns.com/JWRdPYIJoséphine Baker : https://audmns.com/wCfhoEwLa folle histoire de l'aviation : https://audmns.com/xAWjyWCLes Jeux Olympiques, l'étonnant miroir de notre Histoire : https://audmns.com/ZEIihzZMarguerite, la Voix d'une Résistante : https://audmns.com/zFDehnENapoléon, le crépuscule de l'Aigle : https://audmns.com/DcdnIUnSous le sable des Pyramides : https://audmns.com/rXfVppvN'oubliez pas de vous y abonner pour ne rien manquer.Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

Ubicada a 25 kilómetros de Santander, a los pies de la sierra del Dobra y conectada con el Cantábrico por el río Saja, Torrelavega luce con orgullo la historia de su particular revolución industrial. Factorías como Sniace o Solvay, sin olvidar La Lechera Montañesa, han marcado el pulso de esta animada ciudad que también sabe disfrutar de la vida. Ya sea tomando los blancos por los bares del centro, degustando sus crujientes polkas o entregándose a la celebración de las fiestas de la Virgen Grande, los torrelaveguenses son expertos buscadores de alegrías. Uno de sus máximos exponentes, muy querido en su tierra, es el coreógrafo, director artístico y presentador Javier Castillo, Poty. Él nos guía por algunos de sus rincones favoritos de Torrelavega, que incluyen la Plaza Mayor y la Baldomero Iglesias; el Bulevar Demetrio Herrero y la calle Consolación. En esta última se ubican establecimientos tan míticos como la Confitería Santos, con Luis Santos al frente de la tercera generación de reposteros. También guarda el recuerdo de la Escuela Superior de Ballet Akamine Smink, donde Poty comenzó su formación como bailarín profesional. Su compañero y gran amigo Orlando Peláez, coreógrafo y autor del libro 'La danza académica en Torrelavega', nos ayuda a entender la insólita vinculación de la ciudad del Besaya con el mundo del ballet. Además, contamos con la también torrelaveguense Marisa Corral, guía de turismo de Cantabria, y con el hostelero Sergio Castillo, hermano de Poty y continuador del negocio familiar, el bar Urbano's. Para redondear esta visita nos asomamos al envoltorio verde del municipio a través de la mirada de Jesús García Díaz, urbanista, naturalista y antiguo director del Centro de Investigación del Medio Ambiente de Cantabria.Escuchar audio

Solvay poursuit son plan de décarbonation. Le groupe chimique belge abandonne le charbon dans son usine de soude de Rheinberg en Allemagne. Il est remplacé par une chaudière biomasse pour fabriquer de l'énergie. Le gouvernement wallon considère le refus de Belfius de financer trois communes (Liège, Charleroi et Mons) comme un signal d'alarme grave. Les autorités régionales doivent trouver 233,8 millions d'euros d'ici la fin de l'année. L'ex-chancelière allemande Angela Merkel se confie dans ses mémoires qui paraîtront mardi dans son pays. Elle justifie notamment sa position de 2008 de ne pas vouloir intégrer l'Ukraine à l'Otan. Le Brief, le podcast matinal de L'Echo  Ce que vous devez savoir avant de démarrer la journée, on vous le sert au creux de l'oreille, chaque matin, en 7 infos, dès 7h. Le Brief, un podcast éclairant, avec l'essentiel de l'info business, entreprendre, investir et politique. Signé L'Echo. Abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme d'écoute favorite Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Addict l Castbox | Deezer | Google PodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

C'est le jour d'après l'élection présidentielle américaine. Pour l'instant, aucun des candidats ne peut revendiquer la victoire. Les résultats sont relativement conformes aux attentes. Kamala Harris accuse du retard sur Donald Trump qui fait la course en tête dans les "swing states". La formation du gouvernement fédéral patine chez nous. Si l'Arizona capote, certains envisagent de remplacer Vooruit par l'Open Vld dans le tour de table des négociations. Syensqo n'a pas fait une bonne année. Le spécialiste des matériaux, issu de Solvay, doit s'adapter au marché. Ses gros clients dans l'aéronautique et l'automobile ont subi des coups durs. Syensqo va devoir se séparer d'environ 300 personnes. Les annonceurs belges attendent avec impatience la formule de Netflix avec publicité. Aucune date n'a été communiquée pour le moment. L'idée serait de toucher un public plus précis que la télévision classique. Le Brief, le podcast matinal de L'Echo  Ce que vous devez savoir avant de démarrer la journée, on vous le sert au creux de l'oreille, chaque matin, en 7 infos, dès 7h. Le Brief, un podcast éclairant, avec l'essentiel de l'info business, entreprendre, investir et politique. Signé L'Echo. Abonnez-vous sur votre plateforme d'écoute favorite Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Addict l Castbox | Deezer | Google PodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest in this episode is Dr. Ilham Kadri, the CEO of Syensqo, a global speciality chemicals company listed in Brussels. In 2023, Ilham led the spin-off of Syensqo from Solvay, the 160-year old Belgian chemicals conglomerate. In this interview, Ilham discusses the strategic rationale behind the decision to split Solvay into two separate entities, highlighting the aim to unlock the full potential of both companies. She explains how Solvay, a historic leader in commodity chemicals, and Syensqo, a new entity focused on specialty chemicals, were positioned to pursue their unique growth strategies. The conversation delves into the meticulous planning and execution required for the separation, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder engagement and maintaining operational continuity during a volatile global environment. She highlights Syensqo's focus on innovation and sustainability, detailing its ambitious goals for carbon neutrality and its role in advancing technological solutions. The episode also touches on the broader implications of the spin-off, including the strategic benefits of being a publicly listed company and the impact on stakeholders, from employees to investors. Dr. Kadri's leadership and vision provide a comprehensive view of the complexities involved in creating two independent champions from a long-standing conglomerate. Disclaimer: The discussion in this episode is not financial advice, nor an investment recommendation, nor a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instruments or an offer for financial services or any other transaction. The information contained in the recording has no contractual value and is intended for informational purposes only. Amundsen Investment Management and the participants in this podcast may have holdings in the companies being discussed. Any views expressed are those of the guests only, and not of Amundsen Investment Management.

Il Rassemblement National ha vinto al primo turno delle elezioni legislative francesi. Il partito di Marine Le Pen ha ottenuto il 34% dei voti, seguito dalla sinistra unita nel Nuovo Fronte Popolare con il 28% dei consensi. Solo terza la coalizione del presidente Emmanuel Macron, che si è fermata al 21%. L'affluenza ha raggiunto il 66%, ai massimi da ventisette anni a questa parte. Il partito di Marine Le Pen è riuscito a ottenere 38 deputati al primo turno, e a piazzarne circa 400 nei ballottaggi. La partita si sposta allora al 7 luglio quando ci sarà il secondo turno. Intanto le Borse europee rispondono con un buon rialzo all'esito del primo turno delle elezioni parlamentari francesi tra il sollievo, dovuto al mancato avverarsi dell'ipotesi meno preferita dai mercati, ossia una vittoria netta del partito di Le Pen, e il rimbalzo tecnico dopo un mese di giungo deficitario. «L esito del primo turno delle elezioni parlamentari francesi ha spinto al rialzo i mercati azionari e anche l euro. La principale ragione, a nostro avviso, risiede nel fatto che sono diminuite le probabilità per una maggioranza assoluta del Rassemblement National di Marine Le Pen e Jordan Bardella e sono aumentate quelle per un hung parliament che potrebbe portare a un governo tecnico», commenta Filippo Diodovich, senior market strategist di Ig Italia. Le trattative tra i partiti politici «permetteranno molto probabilmente anche di appianare le proposte politiche più radicali formulate durante la campagna elettorale da alcuni gruppi politici, quelle misure radicali soprattutto in materia fiscale, che sono tipicamente quelle che spaventano di più i mercati finanziari». Tra i paesi che adottano l'euro e che hanno un rapporto tra indebitamento netto e Pil superiore al limite del 3 per cento, oltre l'Italia che è quello ad aver registrato il rapporto più elevato nel 2023, pari al 7,4 per cento, è doveroso ricordare che c'è anche la Spagna che lo scorso anno ha fatto registrare un rapporto del 5,5%. E con un debito attuale superiore al 110% del Pil. Secondo diversi analisti la Francia dovrà tagliare tra lo 0,5% e lo 0,8% per almeno i prossimi quattro anni. Tuttavia, nessuno dei partiti politici attualmente in corsa per le elezioni in Francia ha promesso di tagliare la spesa. Una situazione che potrebbe mettere nei guai sui mercati anche l'Italia. Approfondiamo il tema con Fabrizio Pagani, Partner Vitale&Co e docente a SciencesPo di Parigi.Vacanze, estate più cara, da Telepass, a voli e hotelSono 38 milioni gli italiani che nell'estate 2024 trascorreranno almeno un giorno di vacanza in Italia o all'estero, mezzo milione in più rispetto al 2023, per una spesa media di 746 euro a persona, con un aumento del 12% nel confronto con lo scorso anno. E' quanto emerge dall'indagine Coldiretti/Ixe' sulle ferie degli italiani diffusa al Villaggio Coldiretti a Venezia, dove è stata allestita la mostra sui nuovi sigilli, le specialità salvate dall'estinzione che rappresentano uno dei motori che alimentano i viaggi di italiani e stranieri. La modalità della vacanza più gettonata è quella dei tradizionali sette giorni, prediletta dal 28% di coloro che vanno in ferie, e un altro 25% si permetterà ferie fino a due settimane, mentre un 14% si spingerà fino a tre settimane fuori. Ma c'è anche un 7% che può permettersi un mese di vacanza e un 3% anche di più. Intanto Il Travel Innovation Hub del Gruppo Bluvacanze venerdì scorso a Milano ha presentato "Turismi.AI", la neonata Associazione per l'Intelligenza Artificiale nel turismo che si pone l'obiettivo di portare la travel industry nelle discussioni su digitalizzazione e innovazione, di cui l'AI è la frontiera più attuale. In realtà, l'industria dei viaggi organizzati, dell'ospitalità, del destination management e del business travel è un macrosettore economico trasformatosi ampiamente grazie al digitale: si pensi al lungo processo paperless della biglietteria aerea e ferroviaria, così come alle antesignane piattaforme di booking che il tour operating ha introdotto con le prime forme di dynamic packaging negli Anni Novanta. Eppure, il turismo con la sua distribuzione e nella sua produzione viene considerato marginalmente un comparto innovativo e latita nei tavoli istituzionali dedicati alla digitalizzazione. Ne parliamo con Domenico Pellegrino, AD Gruppo Bluvacanze.Boeing cerca di rialzarsi acquistando la produttrice di componenti per aerei Spirit AeroSystems insieme ad AirbusBoeing ha annunciato l intenzione di acquisire Spirit AeroSystems per 4,7 miliardi di dollari in una transazione interamente azionaria. Spirit, che produce ali e fusoliere per alcuni modelli di aerei di linea, fu fondata nel 2005 proprio da Boeing, che aveva deciso di creare una società indipendente a partire da alcuni suoi settori produttivi. Allo stesso tempo Airbus, un altra importante azienda produttrice di aerei con sede in Francia, acquisterà quattro impianti produttivi di Spirit situati negli Stati Uniti, in Francia, in Marocco e in Irlanda del Nord. Airbus ha detto che riceverà 559 milioni di dollari come compenso, dato che i quattro impianti sono in perdita. L'accordo sulla spartizione di Spirit, che dovrebbe concludersi entro la metà del 2025, è un raro caso di azione coordinata fra Boeing e Airbus, che sono le uniche due grandi produttrici di aerei civili al mondo. Negli ultimi mesi si è parlato di Spirit soprattutto perché l azienda aveva prodotto il pannello che si era staccato dalla fusoliera di un Boeing 737 Max 9 lo scorso gennaio: l incidente non aveva causato morti, ma ha attirato l attenzione sul processo di produzione degli aerei Boeing, in cui sono emersi numerosi elementi critici per quanto riguarda la sicurezza. Alcune criticità erano state attribuite a parti difettose consegnate dai fornitori. La stessa creazione di Spirit da parte di Boeing nel 2005 è stata vista come un tentativo di risparmiare sui costi anche a discapito della sicurezza, e l acquisizione è stata motivata proprio come un tentativo di migliorare i propri standard. Di questi problemi, anche se riguarda la produzione di 787, ne ha risentito anche Leonardo e nello specifico il sito produttivo di Grottaglie. Il sito tarantino dovrà fermarsi per 4 mesi per il rallentamento delle consegne di fusoliere del Boeing 787 (le consegne richieste per l'intero 2024 sono scese da 87 a 55 e il magazzino di Leonardo ne avrebbe gia' stoccate 50), ma sarà poi al centro di un programma di diversificazione che prevede l'assemblaggio finale del convertiplano AW609 in Italia. Tra le iniziative anche quella di un laboratorio sui nuovi materiali compositi insieme al gruppo Solvay. A Grottaglie sono prodotte due sezioni della fusoliera, poi spedite negli Usa, e lavorano un migliaio di persone. Approfondiamo il tema con Alessandro Plateroti, Newsmondo.it.

C'est l'histoire d'une grand-mère diabolique : Simone Weber. Derrière son apparence de bonne dame se cachait une terrible criminelle, accusée du meurtre de son amant Bernard Hettier et soupçonnée de l'empoisonnement de son second mari. Elle s'est éteinte au mois d'avril 2024. Son crime a marqué les annales judiciaires dans les années 90. Dans le dernier épisode, Caroline Nogueras reçoit Christophe Hondelatte, célèbre animateur de l'émission Hondelatte raconte sur Europe 1, qui a interviewé Simone Weber à sa sortie de prison en 2002 pour l'émission Faites entrer l'accusé. La disparition de l'amant Samedi 22 juin 1985. Dombasle, dans la banlieue de Nancy. Bernard Hettier, 55 ans, quitte l'usine de chimie Solvay où il travaille comme contremaître. Après une nuit de travail, il est fatigué mais heureux. Il emmène Monique, sa nouvelle compagne, en week-end ! Monique aussi est ravie, sa valise est prête. Elle guette l'arrivée de Bernard par sa fenêtre. Il ne devrait plus tarder. Les heures s'égrènent lentement et l'angoisse monte car Bernard ne vient pas... Découvrez la saison précédente en intégralité : David Nègre, une histoire d'emprise néonazie Un podcast enregistré dans les studios de Bababam Ecriture et voix : Caroline Nogueras Réalisation : Jean-Gabriel Rassat Production et diffusion : Bababam Originals En partenariat avec upday.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

De Europese autosector voelt al een tijdje de hete adem van de Chinese producenten van elektrische auto's. Danny Reweghs vertelt welke de winnaars en verliezers in dat verhaal zullen zijn. Daarnaast gaat hij in op de recentste resultaten bij AB Inbev en Solvay.

Los insectos polinizadores están desapareciendo a un ritmo mayor que el de otros grupos animales. Su pérdida es grave para la diversidad, para la economía, para nuestra seguridad alimentaria y para la vida del planeta. La UE se ha propuesto revertir ese declive y entre los proyectos en marcha se encuentra la “Creación de una colección nacional de referencia sobre polinizadores amenazados en España” (INC-STEP), liderado por el Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC). Hemos entrevistado su coordinador científico, Rob Wilson, y a la coordinadora de gestión, Celia Santos Mazorra. Verónica Fuentes nos ha informado del empleo de una bacteria intestinal para transformar sangre de los grupos A, B y AB en el grupo 0 universal, y de una investigación sobre la comunicación de los cachalotes. Hemos contado que las sociedades científicas reclaman al gobierno que rectifique la regulación de la cotización retroactiva de los becarios de investigación para que puedan jubilarse (con testimonio de Perla Wahnon, presidenta de la Confederación de Sociedades Científicas de España). Jesús Martínez Frías nos ha hablado de geología pre-planetaria, los procesos que tuvieron lugar durante la formación de las lunas y planetas. Con Bernardo Herradón hemos conocido el método Solvay para la fabricación de carbonato de sodio a nivel industrial y el papel fisiológico del sodio en el organismo. Este domingo 12 de mayo se celebra el Día de enfermería para rendir un homenaje a todos los enfermeros y a su fundadora, Florence Nightingale, que nació el 12 de mayo de 1820 y, como nos ha contado Fernando Blasco, introductora de los métodos estadísticos en su trabajo. Hemos informado de la segunda parte del Estudio sobre Cultura Científica de la Fundación BBVA 2024, sobre el nivel de conocimiento en 18 países (15 de Europa, Estados Unidos, Israel y Turquía). Los españoles se sitúan por debajo de la media europea y solo un 8 por ciento de los encuestados cita a Cajal entre los grandes de la ciencia. Escuchar audio

Tune In to hear EVERY Pick from 1 through 32 as Dan Tortora (DT) welcomes Al Romano, College Football National Champion, Pitt Panther alum, & Solvay, NY, Native, to share their predictions for the 1st Round of the 2024 NFL Draft! Stay close to "WakeUpCall" on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram! Listen LIVE to "Wake Up Call with Dan Tortora" MON through FRI, 9-11amET on wakeupcalldt.podbean.com & on the homepage of WakeUpCallDT.com from ANY Device! You can also Watch LIVE MON through FRI, 9-11amET on youtube.com/wakeupcalldt, facebook.com/wakeupcalldt, & facebook.com/LiveNowDT. This special is Proudly Presented EXCLUSIVELY by Pizza Man Pub... Head to 50 Oswego St, Baldwinsville, NY, for dinner during operating hours all week long! For takeout or delivery, Call 315- 638-1234

In der heutigen Folge von „Alles auf Aktien“ sprechen die Finanzjournalisten Anja Ettel und Holger Zschäpitz über den Fritten-Schock, die Kashkari-Volte, Aktivisten bei Delivery Hero und über eine europäische Chemieaktie, die erst auf den 2. Blick was kann. Außerdem geht es um Delivery Hero, Lamb Weston Holding, SAP, Hubspot, VanEck Global Mining ETF (WKN: A2JDEJ), iShares MSCI World Energy Sector (WKN: A2PHCF), Alphabet, ALPS Global Travel Beneficiaries ETF (WKN: A3DM2E), Tui, Booking Holdings, Trip.com, Expedia, AirBnB, Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Las Vegas Sands, Hertz, Avis Budget, Sixt, Samsonite, Aena, Amadeus IT, WH Smith, Airbus, Ryanair, Delta, United Airline, Royal Caribean, Amplify Travel Tech ETF (WKN: A402CT), Invesco Leisure & Entertainment ETF (WKN: A2JNWA), Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros Discovery, Eventbrite, Madison Square Garden, Instacart, Solvay und Syensqo. Wir freuen uns an Feedback über aaa@welt.de. Ab sofort gibt es noch mehr "Alles auf Aktien" bei WELTplus und Apple Podcasts – inklusive aller Artikel der Hosts und AAA-Newsletter.[ Hier bei WELT.](https://www.welt.de/podcasts/alles-auf-aktien/plus247399208/Boersen-Podcast-AAA-Bonus-Folgen-Jede-Woche-noch-mehr-Antworten-auf-Eure-Boersen-Fragen.html.) Disclaimer: Die im Podcast besprochenen Aktien und Fonds stellen keine spezifischen Kauf- oder Anlage-Empfehlungen dar. Die Moderatoren und der Verlag haften nicht für etwaige Verluste, die aufgrund der Umsetzung der Gedanken oder Ideen entstehen. Hörtipps: Für alle, die noch mehr wissen wollen: Holger Zschäpitz können Sie jede Woche im Finanz- und Wirtschaftspodcast "Deffner&Zschäpitz" hören. Außerdem bei WELT: Im werktäglichen Podcast „Das bringt der Tag“ geben wir Ihnen im Gespräch mit WELT-Experten die wichtigsten Hintergrundinformationen zu einem politischen Top-Thema des Tages. +++ Werbung +++ Du möchtest mehr über unsere Werbepartner erfahren? [**Hier findest du alle Infos & Rabatte!**](https://linktr.ee/alles_auf_aktien) Impressum: https://www.welt.de/services/article7893735/Impressum.html Datenschutz: https://www.welt.de/services/article157550705/Datenschutzerklaerung-WELT-DIGITAL.html

In the U.S., ADP data comes in hot but the service sector sees input prices fall to a four-year low. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says it is still too early to predict the path of inflation. Disney CEO Bob Iger fends off his boardroom challenge from activist investor Nelson Peltz, ending the multi-million dollar proxy giant. We hear from CEO of French dairy giant Danone Antoine Saint-Affrique who hails the company's official partnership with the Paris Olympics as well as its support for the farming industry. Greenhorn Capital's David Einhorn tells our colleagues Stateside that he has a stake in Belgian chemicals company Solvay which has a top 5 position within his portfolio.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vistazo al sector automovilístico, tras las cifras de Renault y Volvo, a Carrefour o a Solvay con Xavier Brun, responsable de RV europea de Trea AM.

Live from the Sohn Conference, David Einhorn, president at Greenlight Capital, and CNBC's Scott Wapner discuss Einhorn's thesis behind buying shares of European chemicals company Solvay, his outlook on value investing, and more. 

Dans le cadre de l'opération “un Ticket pour l'Europe”, nous mettons le cap sur Malte avec Quentin Veys, un des 8 jeunes lauréats du casting fraîchement rentré de voyage, Luc Huyghebaert, entrepreneur installé dans le sud de l'île et Mehdi Khelfat, initiateur du projet Jeune agriculteur de 24 ans installé aux pays des collines, Quentin Veys est le premier jeune sélectionné parmi 700 candidats ayant postulé pour cet appel lancé par la RTBF pour stimuler l'intérêt de la jeune génération aux thématiques européennes. Revenu enthousiasmé de son voyage sur place, il nous parlera en primeur de l'émission télé que vous pourrez découvrir sur Auvio dans les heures qui suivront Né à Courtrai, Luc Huyghebaert a étudié à Solvay. En 1988, cet entrepreneur quitte la Belgique et roule sa bosse autour du monde avant de se fixer, il y a 10 ans à Malte Durant 8 semaines, Adrien Joveneau et ses invités vous feront découvrir des destinations européennes au travers des voyages de l'opération “un Ticket pour l'Europe” sur La Première à 9 heures, chaque dimanche et en podcast sur Auvio.be Malte - 31/03/24 Merci pour votre écoute Les Belges du bout du Monde, c'est également en direct tous les samedis de 9h à 10h sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez l'ensemble des épisodes des Belges du bout du Monde sur notre plateforme Auvio.be : https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/432 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

In het afgelopen kwartaal was er een activaklasse die eruit sprong qua rendement, de bitcoin. Danny Reweghs overloopt de laatste ontwikkelingen en verwachtingen voor de populairst cryptomunt. Daarna legt hij de resultaten van Immobel en Syensqo-Solvay onder de loep.

"Quantum Drama From the Bohr-Einstein Debate to the Riddle of Entanglement" by Jim Baggot and John L. Heilbron is a non-fiction book from Oxford Press, which is due for release this coming April. I was expecting this review to be a difficult one, as it promised a historical walkthrough from the origins of quantum theory to the present day from the context of the physics world. What I found was an intriguing read that could disseminate enormous amounts of understanding via a structured delivery. Quantum Drama From the Bohr-Einstein Debate to the Riddle of Entanglement The read can educate any non-physics professional on the cornerstones supporting quantum theory, while engrossing them in the human debate and its social context of the time. Expert chapter craftsmanship by the authors lends itself to this balance between high-level understanding of complex topics, and the human story behind them. Like a classical opera, the authors set the chapters into three acts. The prologue introduces the first set of key players, including Einstein and Bohr. It then introduces societal context pre-World War 1, along with some historical rivalries, such as the competing theories of Newton and Descartes. The book as a read informs of the ever-present discourse, disagreement, and drama, which fuels progress in physics. After the prologue comes Act I: Correspondence to Complementarity. This is a 4 chapter act, which focuses on the early 20th century, where classical physics, noted for closing areas of discourse, meets challenge by those not satisfied at such limitations in seeking the truth. This new drama in physics discourse heralded many things, including the birth of a coherent theory around atomism. I found this act delivers real theoretical awareness, while exploring the somewhat opposing dynamic between the young Einstein and Bohr from circa 1900 to 1926. It also explored the impact of World War 1 on the society, and how this influenced both men in this era. The connections made shine a timeless light on where physics sits in society. This interdependence is undisputable by rational people to this day. Act II: Uncertainty to Orthodoxy is another 4 chapter act, which continues the journey from earlier theories and the birth of Quantum Mechanics at the Solvay conference in Brussels in 1927. It follows the journey in a similar manner to Act 1 chapters, but moves forward to World War 2, and what the authors call "The Americanization of Physics". The gravitational centre of physics in Europe moves to the USA in this act. There, a drop in interest around the fundamental problems that physicists were trying to solve, led to Einstein re-igniting the fire of discourse in these areas. He did so from Princeton University, up to his death in 1955. Act III: Orthodoxy to Uncertainty is another 4 chapter act. It smoothly continues the journey of revival in physics, where new theories arose from discourse around new interpretations of old problems that were once thought solved. The authors strike a good balance between the social context of the day behind this revival, and the actual theories raised on foot of it. They also pitch the constant struggle between closure and reassurance in these areas against the unrelenting pursuit of the truth. In the 1950s America, scientists, like today, had to thread carefully in a society that was set into a biased information environment. This social context made these chapters very intriguing indeed. Act IV: Productive to Inequalities is a 5 chapter installment. The focus is on experiments proving new theories raised in Act III, to today's physics world, and its associated drama. It features the societal and professional context for the shift in focus towards closure around the area of Quantum Mechanics. In the subsequent stages, researchers pursued leads generated by the accidental discovery of quantum polygons. This new direction led physicists on their journey towards quantum entanglement. Act IV ends with rece...

Ce sont les résultats d'analyses inédites, révélées mardi 6 février par Le Monde dans une enquête menée en collaboration avec France 3 et la RTBF (Belgique) : à Salindres, dans le Gard, les cours d'eau et l'eau potable contiennent des taux spectaculaires d'acide trifluoroacétique (TFA), un membre de la famille des PFAS, les polluants éternels.Cette découverte découle d'une précédente enquête coordonnée par Le Monde et publiée en février 2023. Elle avait identifié les cinq sites de production de PFAS en France, parmi lesquels une usine du groupe Solvay, à Salindres. Mais que sont exactement les PFAS, ces agents chimiques ultrarésistants présents dans de nombreux domaines de nos vies ? Et que sait-on de leur dangerosité pour la santé ?Pour mieux comprendre le contexte de ces nouvelles révélations, nous vous proposons de réécouter l'épisode de « L'Heure du Monde » consacré aux PFAS avec Stéphane Horel, journaliste au pôle enquête des Décodeurs du Monde. Cet épisode a été diffusé une première fois le 27 février 2023.Un épisode d'Adélaïde Tenaglia. Réalisation : Thomas Zeng. Musique et générique : Amandine Robillard. Présentation et rédaction en chef : Jean-Guillaume Santi. Dans cet épisode : extrait d'un journal de France 3, le 30 septembre 2009 ; extrait de la bande-annonce du film Dark Waters, de Todd Haynes, sorti en France en 2020.--- Pour soutenir "L'Heure du Monde" et notre rédaction, abonnez-vous sur abopodcast.lemonde.fr

durée : 00:05:53 - Camille passe au vert - par : Camille Crosnier - L'ONG Générations Futures a analysé les eaux à proximité de l'usine Solvay de Salindres, dans le Gard, qui produit des PFAS. Des concentrations record sont enregistrées, y compris dans l'eau potable de deux communes.

Selon le magazine Fortune, mon invitée figure parmi les femmes les plus influentes du monde, j'ai nommé Ilham Kadri. Cette femme intrigue. Née au Maroc dans un milieu très modeste et élevée par sa grand mère femme de ménage, elle n'est issu ni d'une grande ecole ni du monde des affaires et pourtant elle devient à moins de 50 ans la CEO d'un des plus grands groupes de Chimie au monde, Solvay. Aujourd'hui Ilham est la CEO de Syensqo, née de la scisson avec le groupe Solvay. Dans ce podcast cette docteure en chimie retrace son parcours et nous partage : Ses secrets pour mener des transformations au sein des entreprises ? Comment l'éducation lui permis de sortir de son milieu ? Comment se frayer un chemin en tant que femme d'origine maghrébine dans un milieu dominé par les hommes ? Bref une conversation passionnante pour découvrir comment cette icone a su vaincre la reproduction sociale sans oublier d'où elle vient, mais je ne vous en dis pas plus et laisse place à ma conversation avec Ilham Kadri. Let's keep in touch 1. Gatemeri lance sa chaine Youtube!!! Pour visionner certains interviews, rendez-vous sur notre nouvelle chaine Youtube, abonnez-vous et surtout partagez autour de vous

C'est la grande messe de l'économie en ce moment en Suisse… C'est le troisième jour du forum économique mondial de Davos. Le premier ministre Alexander De Croo, accompagné du Roi Philippe et de la Reine Mathilde sont arrivés hier dans l'après-midi/ La mission est double – faire exister la Belgique dans l'esprit de nombreux investisseurs et dirigeants d'entreprise… Alexander De Croo représente également la présidence belge de l'union européenne… Tom Denis, quelle est l'ambiance dans les couloirs du forum de Davos ¨ ((Tom Imaginez un village alpin niché à 1500 mètres d'altitude – sous 80 centimètres de neige. -14 degrés enregistrés hier matin. Alors, entre les montagnes : à l'intérieur du palais des congrès, les 2800 femmes et hommes d'affaires, intellectuels et politiques, sont pour la plupart équipés de bottines et de manteaux chauds. Un colloque hors du temps où se retrouve les puissants pour parler du monde. Au programme des rencontres, des discussions, du réseautage et sur toutes les lèvres : l'intelligence artificielle, les conflits, l'instabilité géopolitique, la chine, les semi-conducteurs… etc. .. Sophie Marenne est journaliste pour le journal économique suisse, nommé Agefi. Elle nous raconte l'ambiance particulière sur place. Marenne ok C'est ce que l'on appelle les maisons. La Belgique, et c'est une première cette année, a elle aussi investit dans la sienne. Un million d'euro financé par des sociétés privées belges pour organiser ces fameuses rencontres dans son pavillon. )) ((RELANCE)) Cette année ; La Belgique est représentée par le Roi et la Reine accompagné du premier ministre Alexander de Croo … Quel est son programme, pourquoi c'est important d'y être? ¨ ((Tom 36 heures sur place – Un marathon – Le premier a pu rencontrer hier déjà, le CEO de Coca Cola – Ils ont pu discuter de l'emploi à Bruxelles. Il y a aussi eu une rencontre avec la CEO de Solvay. Une autre avec Bill Gates qui investit dans les biotech belges. Aujourd'hui le premier ministre rencontrera également le CEO de l'agence internationale de l'Energie atomique. Alexander de Croo ira ensuite à la rencontre des dirigeants d'entreprises pharmaceutiques – Sanofi, Takeda, Astra Zeneca… En plus de ces rencontres officielles, Il y a aussi toutes celles informelles dans les couloirs… On dit que régulièrement certains accords entre états et gros industriels se nouent dans les salons de Davos. Mais ce rassemblement est aussi très politique – il y a 60 chefs d'état présents. Avec l'instabilité géopolitique… Le repli sur soi de certains pays… Davos est baignée dans une atmosphère peut-être un peu différente qu'auparavant. Par exemple : Hier Le premier ministre belge a pu s'entretenir avec le président ukrainien – Zelinski. J'ai pu contacter Alexander De Croo juste après cette rencontre... Alexandre de Croo Les dirigeants européens – appellent en effet à se retourner sur soi, valoriser l'Europe, se développer par eux même.)) ((RELANCE)) Dans ce contexte-là, est-ce que Le forum économique de Davos est-il encore vraiment utile ? ne représente-t-il pas un temps révolu ? ¨ ((Tom Certains disent qu'il est dépassé, ce congrès serait Hasbeen. C'est ce que pense en tout cas l'économiste Xavier Dupret. Xavier Dupret Pour d'autre, il ne faut pas passer à côté d'une telle occasion de réseautage - pour développer une stratégie économique globale, tisser des liens. Les grands acteurs de l'économie et de la politique s'y bousculent encore. Roland Gillet est professeur d'économie à la Sorbonne et à l'ULB. Roland Une chose est sûre, c'est qu'à Davos en ce moment pour sa 54-ème édition, le capitalisme est fracturé. Davos est-elle une institution en fin de course ? et bien, peut-être pas. Les puissants du monde économique sont encore au rendez vous cette année.)) Merci pour votre écoute Matin Première, c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 6h à 9h sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes de Matin Première sur notre plateforme Auvio.be : https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/60 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

"De beurs heeft het veel beter gedaan dan de meeste experts aanvankelijk dachten", concludeert Corné van Zeijl van Cardano. "En ikzelf was zelfs nog iets negatiever." Bob Homan van ING zat met zijn verwachting dichter bij de waarheid. Maar wat denken ze nu van het komende beursjaar? "De stijging voor aandelen in 2024 hebben we eigenlijk al voor een deel de laatste twee maanden gehad", zegt Corné. Ook hier is Bob ietsje optimistischer. "Wij denken dat er zowel bij aandelen als obligaties nog wel wat waarde zit", al geeft ook hij toe dat een deel al is gerealiseerd in de afgelopen weken.Philips doet het de laatste weken goed op de beurs en is dit jaar al bijna 50 procent gestegen. Toch bleek deze week dat ook de MRI-scanners van het bedrijf niet in orde zijn. "Met Exor als grote aandeelhouders geeft dat blijkbaar vertrouwen, een steun in de rug. Maar problemen in de VS met scherpe toezichthouders, ik zou ervan wegblijven", stelt Corné.Verder in de podcast aandacht voor o.a. OCI, Google en Apple. De luisteraarsvragen komen aan bod en de experts geven hun tips. Bob tip een Italiaanse multinational die kan profiteren van de energietransitie, Corné tipt een ETF met de ISIN-code IE00B3VVMM84. Geniet van de podcast!BeursTalk PremiumAls je BeursTalk de beste podcast voor beleggers vindt, sluit je dan aan bij BeursTalk Premium! Een abonnement kan per jaar of per maand en geeft je toegang tot podcast specials en columns, geschreven door experts. Je krijgt meer verdieping, meer achtergrondinformatie.Met je abonnement steun je de podcast financieel en levert extra rendement op in vorm van verdiepende content, waardoor je nog betere beleggingsbeslissingen maakt. En je maakt het voor mij mogelijk om de beste podcast voor beleggers te blijven maken. Kortom: alle reden om lid van BeursTalk Premium te worden! Ga naar de site en meld je aan!EasybrokerEasybroker is een partner van BeursTalk. Deze week spreek ik met André Brouwers van het Beleggingsinstituut. Klanten van Easybroker hebben gratis toegang tot de kennis van het instituut.André behandelt in deze aflevering vragen van beleggers. Zo is een luisteraar verbaasd over het feit dat banken positief zijn over het aandeel Solvay, maar het technische beeld is juist negatief. Wat maakt André daarvan? En het Black Swan event, waar ik het regelmatig met André over heb, blijft een lastig onderwerp. Hoe kun je je als belegger daar nou goed tegen indekken? Moet ik mijn stop loss orders steeds verwijderen? Uiteraard heeft André daar wel een antwoord op.Heb jij een vraag voor André over beleggen of over technische analyse? Mail die dan naar rob@beurstalk.com! En blijf dus luisteren tot het einde!Meer informatie over Easybroker vind je hier!Dank voor het luisteren naar BeursTalk! Meld je aan voor de nieuwsbrief op de website.Dank voor het luisteren naar BeursTalk! Meld je aan voor de nieuwsbrief op de website.Volg BeursTalk op Twitter of LinkedIn.

En Belgique comme en France d'ailleurs, on n'aime pas les personnes qui gagnent trop d'argent, sauf si ce sont des sportifs. En revanche, si ce sont des dirigeants d'entreprise, malheur à eux ou à elles. C'est tout de suite l'opprobre public. Alors, vu de la planète Mars, ce comportement semble plutôt curieux. Ça revient à fermer les yeux sur des salaires extrêmes de footballeurs qui donnent certes du plaisir à leurs spectateurs, mais qui ne créent aucune valeur pour la société. Alors que les dirigeants de certaines grandes entreprises emploient des milliers de personnes, paient des impôts et des cotisations sociales dans le pays du siège d'exploitation, alors que ces mêmes footballeurs sont souvent payés dans des paradis fiscaux. Alors j'en parle en cette fin d'année. Pourquoi ? Mais parce que la scission en deux entités d'un de nos fleurons industriels, la firme Solvay, a été une réussite complète. La valorisation combinée des deux nouvelles entités est nettement supérieure à celle du groupe avant l'opération. Ça a l'air technique dit comme ça, et ça l'est en réalité, scinder en deux entités un conglomérat et bien peu de gens savent le faire. Et y arriver sans faire de casse, c'est infiniment plus complexe et peu de patrons de grandes entreprises sont capables de mener à bien une telle opération. Chez Solvay, la CEO Ilham Kadri a réussi la scission de son entreprise, cette CEO très énergique a eu le malheur de recevoir 12 millions d'euros de bonus de la part de son conseil d'administration pour avoir mené à bien cette opération… Mots-Clés : scissions, entreprises, Bourse, conglomérats, acteurs actifs, activité, pure players, Belgique, excessif, signal, négatif, population, commentaires, métier, société privée, bonus, fiscalisé, salaires, actionnaires, milliards, euros, commentateurs, critique, américains, femme, Maroc, doctorat, sciences, France, Etats-Unis, belges, catholiques, noblesse, Casablanca, fleuron, européen, reportage, film, réussite, parcours. --- La chronique économique d'Amid Faljaoui, tous les jours à 8h30 et à 17h30 sur Classic 21, la radio Rock'n'Pop. Merci pour votre écoute Pour écouter Classic 21 à tout moment : www.rtbf.be/classic21 Retrouvez tous les épisodes de La chronique économique sur notre plateforme Auvio.be : https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/802 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

Macy's, zeg maar de V&D van Amerika, is ineens in trek op de beurs. Twee investeerders zouden bijna 6 miljard dollar voor het bedrijf over hebben. Op dezelfde dag trekt Occidental Petroleum de portemonnee. Het heeft 12 miljard dollar over voor een ander oliebedrijf. In welke tijd zijn beleggers beland, dat ouderwetse bedrijven ineens scoren? De AEX scoort ook. Helemaal na berichten over een dalende inflatie, een zakkende olieprijs en minder rentevrees. In deze aflevering bespreken we of de AEX verder stijgt of niet. Ook gaat het over Tesla. De autobouwer maakt steeds meer vijanden. Het bedrijf lag al overhoop met de vakbonden in Zweden en Denemarken en nu zitten ook pensioenfondsen achter Tesla aan. Het leek zo goed als zeker: de Chinese online kledingwinkel Shein die naar de beurs in New York gaat. De papieren waren ingediend en een notering volgend jaar was waarschijnlijk. Maar amper twee weken later kan Londen er zomaar met de buit vandoor gaan. Shein zou ook met de Londense beurs praten over een mogelijke beursgang, wat de grootste in jaren belooft te worden. Het zijn de laatste weken van het jaar en dan komen - zoals ieder jaar - de lijstjes. Vergeet de Top2000! Deze hele week bespreken we de best presterende aandelen van dit jaar, 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

L'Hôtel Solvay, le Palais Stoclet, la Villa Savoye... Ces édifices emblématiques et largement reconnus aujourd'hui ont vu le jour grâce aux paris fous de riches propriétaires qui, à contre-courant, ont osé la modernité pour s'inscrire dans d'autres façons de vivre. La clé de la réussite? Une totale liberté de créer accordée à l'architecte et... un budget illimité. La Villa Cavrois s'inscrit elle aussi dans ce patrimoine architectural d'exception et cette démarche audacieuse. Elle est le fruit du coup de foudre de Paul Cavrois, riche industriel du Nord de la France, pour un jeune théoricien de l'esthétique moderne, l'architecte Robert Mallet Stevens. Yasmine Boudaka retrace l'épopée de cette incroyable demeure en compagnie Carine Guimbart, administratrice de la circonscription nord des Hauts de France. Sujets traitrés :Villa Cavrois, patrimoine, Nord, France, Robert Mallet Stevens, Yasmine Boudaka, Carine Guimbart, Merci pour votre écoute Un Jour dans l'Histoire, c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 13h15 à 15h sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes d'Un Jour dans l'Histoire sur notre plateforme Auvio.be : https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/5936 Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement.

In this panel from the 2023 SOSV Climate Tech Summit (Sept 26-27, 2023), three corporate investors, from Toyota Ventures, Solvay Ventures and ADM Ventures discuss their mandates as investors in the climate space and how they prioritize investments. Toyota Ventures looks at technologies and solutions for emissions reduction, removal, and adaptation to support Toyota's efforts in achieving carbon neutrality. Solvay Ventures focuses on sustainability goals and investing in companies that leverage chemicals and materials to solve climate issues. Finally, ADM Ventures focus on investing in agriculture-related startups to achieve corporate sustainability goals. This conversation is moderated by Jonathan Shieber, Founder, Investor & Journalist. The video of this episode and more can be found online at sosvclimatetech.com. Speakers Coppelia Marincovic, Partner, Solvay Ventures Daniel Griffis, Managing Director, ADM Ventures Lisa Coca, Partner, Toyota Ventures Moderator Jonathan Shieber, Founder, Investor & Journalist Credits Producer: Ben Joffe  Podcast Summary: Written by gpt-3.5-turbo, edited by Ben Joffe Intro Voice: Cloned voice of Ben Joffe by ElevenLabs  Intro Music: EL Waili Keywords: #deeptech #venturecapital #climatetech #vc #robotics #lifesciences #biology #hardware #startups #innovation #technology #frontiertech #hardtech

Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 745 and Teamsters International Vice President of the Southern Region, Brent Taylor, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast and discussed his time with the union. Taylor also talked about the new contract at Solvay and the aftermath of the Yellow Freight bankruptcy. The America's Work Force Union Podcast welcomed back Labor Lawyer and OnLabor contributor Andrew Strom, who talked about the changes National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo wants to make to labor law. Strom outlined issues with several NLRB orders and explained why changes need to be made to them.

In this enthralling episode, we travel to the heart of Belgium to unravel the mysteries surrounding the infamous Château des Amerois. Known as the 'Mother of Darkness Castle', the château is steeped in rumors of secret societies, nefarious rituals, and hidden underground chambers. We delve into its intriguing history, the powerful Solvay family's connection, and the controversial theories sparked by the Marc Dutroux case. With no concrete evidence, the question remains: Are these just captivating tales spun around an old castle, or is there a darker truth hiding within its walls? Tune in to join us on this chilling journey. New merch: https://www.daredeverell.com/thsmerch Have a story you would like me to narrate? Send them to stories@daredeverell.com  Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/jamesdeverell Become a Patron: patreon.com/talesofhighstrangeness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talesofhighstrangeness/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/talesofhighstrangeness/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOHStrangeness

Corey Tyree is the co-founder and CEO of Trillium Renewable Chemicals. He raised $16M in financing from venture, strategic, and government sources in the Company's first 18 months. He built an experienced team and secured partnerships with Solvay, Hyosung, HELM, and others. He started his career as a chemical plant operator and went on to serve in various roles in engineering, plant management, and executive leadership. He holds a BS and PhD in Chemical Engineering. https://trilliumchemicals.com/ https://nexuspmg.com/

Read: https://www.latent.space/p/ai-interfaces-and-notionShow Notes* Linus on Twitter* Linus' personal blog* Notion* Notion AI* Notion Projects* AI UX Meetup RecapTimestamps* [00:03:30] Starting the AI / UX community* [00:10:01] Most knowledge work is not text generation* [00:16:21] Finding the right constraints and interface for AI* [00:19:06] Linus' journey to working at Notion* [00:23:29] The importance of notations and interfaces* [00:26:07] Setting interface defaults and standards* [00:32:36] The challenges of designing AI agents* [00:39:43] Notion deep dive: “Blocks”, AI, and more* [00:51:00] Prompt engineering at Notion* [01:02:00] Lightning RoundTranscriptAlessio: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio, partner and CTO in residence at Decibel Partners. I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, writer and editor of Latent Space. [00:00:20]Swyx: And today we're not in our regular studio. We're actually at the Notion New York headquarters. Thanks to Linus. Welcome. [00:00:28]Linus: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [00:00:29]Swyx: Thanks for having us in your beautiful office. It is actually very startling how gorgeous the Notion offices are. And it's basically the same aesthetic. [00:00:38]Linus: It's a very consistent aesthetic. It's the same aesthetic in San Francisco and the other offices. It's been for many, many years. [00:00:46]Swyx: You take a lot of craft in everything that you guys do. Yeah. [00:00:50]Linus: I think we can, I'm sure, talk about this more later, but there is a consistent kind of focus on taste that I think flows down from Ivan and the founders into the product. [00:00:59]Swyx: So I'll introduce you a little bit, but also there's just, you're a very hard person to introduce because you do a lot of things. You got your BA in computer science at Berkeley. Even while you're at Berkeley, you're involved in a bunch of interesting things at Replit, CatalystX, Hack Club and Dorm Room Fund. I always love seeing people come out of Dorm Room Fund because they tend to be a very entrepreneurial. You're a product engineer at IdeaFlow, residence at Betaworks. You took a year off to do independent research and then you've finally found your home at Notion. What's one thing that people should know about you that's not on your typical LinkedIn profile? [00:01:39]Linus: Putting me on the spot. I think, I mean, just because I have so much work kind of out there, I feel like professionally, at least, anything that you would want to know about me, you can probably dig up, but I'm a big city person, but I don't come from the city. I went to school, I grew up in Indiana, in the middle of nowhere, near Purdue University, a little suburb. I only came out to the Bay for school and then I moved to New York afterwards, which is where I'm currently. I'm in Notion, New York. But I still carry within me a kind of love and affection for small town, Indiana, small town, flyover country. [00:02:10]Swyx: We do have a bit of indulgence in this. I'm from a small country and I think Alessio, you also kind of identified with this a little bit. Is there anything that people should know about Purdue, apart from the chickens? [00:02:24]Linus: Purdue has one of the largest international student populations in the country, which I don't know. I don't know exactly why, but because it's a state school, the focus is a lot on STEM topics. Purdue is well known for engineering and so we tend to have a lot of folks from abroad, which is particularly rare for a university in, I don't know, that's kind of like predominantly white American and kind of Midwestern state. That makes Purdue and the surrounding sort of area kind of like a younger, more diverse international island within the, I guess, broader world that is Indiana. [00:02:58]Swyx: Fair enough. We can always dive into sort of flyover country or, you know, small town insights later, but you and I, all three of us actually recently connected at AIUX SF, which is the first AIUX meetup, essentially which just came out of like a Twitter conversation. You and I have been involved in HCI Twitter is kind of how I think about it for a little bit and when I saw that you were in town, Geoffrey Litt was in town, Maggie Appleton in town, all on the same date, I was like, we have to have a meetup and that's how this thing was born. Well, what did it look like from your end? [00:03:30]Linus: From my end, it looked like you did all of the work and I... [00:03:33]Swyx: Well, you got us the Notion. Yeah, yeah. [00:03:36]Linus: It was also in the Notion office, it was in the San Francisco one and then thereafter there was a New York one that I decided I couldn't make. But yeah, from my end it was, and I'm sure you were too, but I was really surprised by both the mixture of people that we ended up getting and the number of people that we ended up getting. There was just a lot of attention on, obviously there was a lot of attention on the technology itself of GPT and language models and so on, but I was surprised by the interest specifically on trying to come up with interfaces that were outside of the box and the people that were interested in that topic. And so we ended up having a packed house and lots of interesting demos. I've heard multiple people comment on the event afterwards that they were positively surprised by the mixture of both the ML, AI-focused people at the event as well as the interface HCI-focused people. [00:04:24]Swyx: Yeah. I kind of see you as one of the leading, I guess, AI UX people, so I hope that we are maybe starting a new discipline, maybe. [00:04:33]Linus: Yeah, I mean, there is this kind of growing contingency of people interested in exploring the intersection of those things, so I'm excited for where that's going to go. [00:04:41]Swyx: I don't know if it's worth going through favorite demos. It was a little while ago, so I don't know if... [00:04:48]Alessio: There was, I forget who made it, but there was this new document writing tool where you could apply brushes to different paragraphs. [00:04:56]Linus: Oh, this was Amelia's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:04:58]Alessio: You could set a tone, both in terms of writer inspiration and then a tone that you wanted, and then you could drag and drop different tones into paragraphs and have the model rewrite them. It was the first time that it's not just auto-complete, there's more to it. And it's not asked in a prompt, it's this funny drag-an-emoji over it. [00:05:20]Linus: Right. [00:05:21]Swyx: I actually thought that you had done some kind of demo where you could select text and then augment it in different moods, but maybe it wasn't you, maybe it was just someone else [00:05:28]Linus: I had done something similar, with slightly different building blocks. I think Amelia's demo was, there was sort of a preset palette of brushes and you apply them to text. I had built something related last year, I prototyped a way to give people sliders for different semantic attributes of text. And so you could start with a sentence, and you had a slider for length and a slider for how philosophical the text is, and a slider for how positive or negative the sentiment in the text is, and you could adjust any of them in the language model, reproduce the text. Yeah, similar, but continuous control versus distinct brushes, I think is an interesting distinction there. [00:06:03]Swyx: I should add it for listeners, if you missed the meetup, which most people will have not seen it, we actually did a separate post with timestamps of each video, so you can look at that. [00:06:13]Alessio: Sorry, Linus, this is unrelated, but I think you build over a hundred side projects or something like that. A hundred? [00:06:20]Swyx: I think there's a lot of people... I know it's a hundred. [00:06:22]Alessio: I think it's a lot of them. [00:06:23]Swyx: A lot of them are kind of small. [00:06:25]Alessio: Yeah, well, I mean, it still counts. I think there's a lot of people that are excited about the technology and want to hack on things. Do you have any tips on how to box, what you want to build, how do you decide what goes into it? Because all of these things, you could build so many more things on top of it. Where do you decide when you're done? [00:06:44]Linus: So my projects actually tend to be... I think especially when people approach project building with a goal of learning, I think a common mistake is to be over-ambitious and sort of not scope things very tightly. And so a classic kind of failure mode is, you say, I'm really interested in learning how to use the GPT-4 API, and I'm also interested in vector databases, and I'm also interested in Next.js. And then you devise a project that's going to take many weeks, and you glue all these things together. And it could be a really cool idea, but then especially if you have a day job and other things that life throws you away, it's hard to actually get to a point where you can ship something. And so one of the things that I got really good at was saying, one, knowing exactly how quickly I could work, at least on the technologies that I knew well, and then only adding one new unknown thing to learn per project. So it may be that for this project, I'm going to learn how the embedding API works. Or for this project, I'm going to learn how to do vector stuff with PyTorch or something. And then I would scope things so that it fit in one chunk of time, like Friday night to Sunday night or something like that. And then I would scope the project so that I could ship something as much work as I could fit into a two-day period, so that at the end of that weekend, I could ship something. And then afterwards, if I want to add something, I have time to do it and a chance to do that. But it's already shipped, so there's already momentum, and people are using it, or I'm using it, and so there's a reason to continue building. So only adding one new unknown per project, I think, is a good trick. [00:08:14]Swyx: I first came across you, I think, because of Monocle, which is your personal search engine. And I got very excited about it, because I always wanted a personal search engine, until I found that it was in a language that I've never seen before. [00:08:25]Linus: Yeah, there's a towel tower of little tools and technologies that I built for myself. One of the other tricks to being really productive when you're building side projects is just to use a consistent set of tools that you know really, really well. For me, that's Go, and my language, and a couple other libraries that I've written that I know all the way down to the bottom of the stack. And then I barely have to look anything up, because I've just debugged every possible issue that could come up. And so I could get from start to finish without getting stuck in a weird bug that I've never seen before. But yeah, it's a weird stack. [00:08:58]Swyx: It also means that you probably are not aiming for, let's say, open source glory, or whatever. Because you're not publishing in the JavaScript ecosystem. Right, right. [00:09:06]Linus: I mean, I've written some libraries before, but a lot of my projects tend to be like, the way that I approach it is less about building something that other people are going to use en masse. And make yourself happy. Yeah, more about like, here's the thing that I built, if you want to, and often I learn something in the process of building that thing. So like with Monocle, I wrote a custom sort of full text search index. And I thought a lot of the parts of what I built was interesting. And so I just wanted other people to be able to look at it and see how it works and understand it. But the goal isn't necessarily for you to be able to replicate it and run it on your own. [00:09:36]Swyx: Well, we can kind of dive into your other AIUX thoughts. As you've been diving in, you tend to share a lot on Twitter. And I just kind of took out some of your greatest hits. This is relevant to the demo that you picked out, Alessio. And what we're talking about, which is, most knowledge work is not a text generation task. That's funny, because a lot of what Notion AI is, is text generation right now. Maybe you want to elaborate a little bit. Yeah. [00:10:01]Linus: I think the first time you look at something like GPT, the shape of the thing you see is like, oh, it's a thing that takes some input text and generates some output text. And so the easiest thing to build on top of that is a content generation tool. But I think there's a couple of other categories of things that you could build that are sort of progressively more useful and more interesting. And so besides content generation, which requires the minimum amount of wrapping around ChatGPT, the second tier up from that is things around knowledge, I think. So if you have, I mean, this is the hot thing with all these vector databases things going around. But if you have a lot of existing context around some knowledge about your company or about a field or all of the internet, you can use a language model as a way to search and understand things in it and combine and synthesize them. And that synthesis, I think, is useful. And at that point, I think the value that that unlocks, I think, is much greater than the value of content generation. Because most knowledge work, the artifact that you produce isn't actually about writing more words. Most knowledge work, the goal is to understand something, synthesize new things, or propose actions or other kinds of knowledge-to-knowledge tasks. And then the third category, I think, is automation. Which I think is sort of the thing that people are looking at most actively today, at least from my vantage point in the ecosystem. Things like the React prompting technique, and just in general, letting models propose actions or write code to accomplish tasks. That's also moving far beyond generating text to doing something more interesting. So much of the value of what humans sit down and do at work isn't actually in the words that they write. It's all the thinking that goes on before you write those words. So how can you get language models to contribute to those parts of work? [00:11:43]Alessio: I think when you first tweeted about this, I don't know if you already accepted the job, but you tweeted about this, and then the next one was like, this is a NotionAI subtweet. [00:11:53]Swyx: So I didn't realize that. [00:11:56]Alessio: The best thing that I see is when people complain, and then they're like, okay, I'm going to go and help make the thing better. So what are some of the things that you've been thinking about? I know you talked a lot about some of the flexibility versus intuitiveness of the product. The language is really flexible, because you can say anything. And it's funny, the models never ignore you. They always respond with something. So no matter what you write, something is going to come back. Sometimes you don't know how big the space of action is, how many things you can do. So as a product builder, how do you think about the trade-offs that you're willing to take for your users? Where like, okay, I'm not going to let you be as flexible, but I'm going to create this guardrails for you. What's the process to think about the guardrails, and how you want to funnel them to the right action? [00:12:46]Linus: Yeah, I think what this trade-off you mentioned around flexibility versus intuitiveness, I think, gets at one of the core design challenges for building products on top of language models. A lot of good interface design comes from tastefully adding the right constraints in place to guide the user towards actions that you want to take. As you add more guardrails, the obvious actions become more obvious. And one common way to make an interface more intuitive is to narrow the space of choices that the users have to make, and the number of choices that they have to make. And that intuitiveness, that source of intuitiveness from adding constraints, is kind of directly at odds with the reason that language models are so powerful and interesting, which is that they're so flexible and so general, and you can ask them to do literally anything, and they will always give you something. But most of the time, the answer isn't that high quality. And so there's kind of a distribution of, like, there are clumps of things in the action space of what a language model can do that the model's good at, and there's parts of the space where it's bad at. And so one sort of high-level framework that I have for thinking about designing with language models is, there are actions that the language model's good at, and actions that it's bad at. How do you add the right constraints carefully to guide the user and the system towards the things that the language model's good at? And then at the same time, how do you use those constraints to set the user expectations for what it's going to be good at and bad at? One way to do this is just literally to add those constraints and to set expectations. So a common example I use all the time is, if you have some AI system to answer questions from a knowledge base, there are a couple of different ways to surface that in a kind of a hypothetical product. One is, you could have a thing that looks like a chat window in a messaging app, and then you could tell the user, hey, this is for looking things up from a database. You can ask a question, then it'll look things up and give you an answer. But if something looks like a chat, and this is a lesson that's been learned over and over for anyone building chat interfaces since, like, 2014, 15, if you have anything that looks like a chat interface or a messaging app, people are going to put some, like, weird stuff in there that just don't look like the thing that you want the model to take in, because the expectation is, hey, I can use this like a messaging app, and people will send in, like, hi, hello, you know, weird questions, weird comments. Whereas if you take that same, literally the same input box, and put it in, like, a thing that looks like a search bar with, like, a search button, people are going to treat it more like a search window. And at that point, inputs look a lot more like keywords or a list of keywords or maybe questions. So the simple act of, like, contextualizing that input in different parts of an interface reset the user's expectations, which constrain the space of things that the model has to handle. And that you're kind of adding constraints, because you're really restricting your input to mostly things that look like keyword search. But because of that constraint, you can have the model fit the expectations better. You can tune the model to perform better in those settings. And it's also less confusing and perhaps more intuitive, because the user isn't stuck with this blank page syndrome problem of, okay, here's an input. What do I actually do with it? When we initially launched Notion AI, one of my common takeaways, personally, from talking to a lot of my friends who had tried it, obviously, there were a lot of people who were getting lots of value out of using it to automate writing emails or writing marketing copy. There were a ton of people who were using it to, like, write Instagram ads and then sort of paste it into the Instagram tool. But some of my friends who had tried it and did not use it as much, a frequently cited reason was, I tried it. It was cool. It was cool for the things that Notion AI was marketed for. But for my particular use case, I had a hard time figuring out exactly the way it was useful for my workflow. And I think that gets back at the problem of, it's such a general tool that just presented with a blank prompt box, it's hard to know exactly the way it could be useful to your particular use case. [00:16:21]Alessio: What do you think is the relationship between novelty and flexibility? I feel like we're in kind of like a prompting honeymoon phase where the tools are new and then everybody just wants to do whatever they want to do. And so it's good to give these interfaces because people can explore. But if I go forward in three years, ideally, I'm not prompting anything. The UX has been built for most products to already have the intuitive, kind of like a happy path built into it. Do you think there's merit in a way? If you think about ChatGPT, if it was limited, the reason why it got so viral is people were doing things that they didn't think a computer could do, like write poems and solve riddles and all these different things. How do you think about that, especially in Notion, where Notion AI is kind of like a new product in an existing thing? How much of it for you is letting that happen and seeing how people use it? And then at some point be like, okay, we know what people want to do. The flexibility is not, it was cool before, but now we just want you to do the right things with the right UX. [00:17:27]Linus: I think there's value in always having the most general input as an escape hatch for people who want to take advantage of that power. At this point, Notion AI has a couple of different manifestations in the product. There's the writer. There's a thing we called an AI block, which is a thing that you can always sort of re-update as a part of document. It's like a live, a little portal inside the document that an AI can write. We also have a relatively new thing called AI autofill, which lets an AI fill an entire column in a Notion database. In all of these things, speaking of adding constraints, we have a lot of suggested prompts that we've worked on and we've curated and we think work pretty well for things like summarization and writing drafts to blog posts and things. But we always leave a fully custom prompt for a few reasons. One is if you are actually a power user and you know how language models work, you can go in and write your custom prompt and if you're a power user, you want access to the power. The other is for us to be able to discover new use cases. And so one of the lovely things about working on a product like Notion is that there's such an enthusiastic and lively kind of community of ambassadors and people that are excited about trying different things and coming up with all these templates and new use cases. And having a fully custom action or prompt whenever we launch something new in AI lets those people really experiment and help us discover new ways to take advantage of AI. I think it's good in that way. There's also a sort of complement to that, which is if we wanted to use feedback data or learn from those things and help improve the way that we are prompting the model or the models that we're building, having access to that like fully diverse, fully general range of use cases helps us make sure that our models can handle the full generality of what people want to do. [00:19:06]Swyx: I feel like we've segway'd a lot into our Notion conversation and maybe I just wanted to bridge that a little bit with your personal journey into Notion before we go into Notion proper. You spent a year kind of on a sabbatical, kind of on your own self-guided research journey and then deciding to join Notion. I think a lot of engineers out there thinking about doing this maybe don't have the internal compass that you have or don't have the guts to basically make no money for a year. Maybe just share with people how you decided to basically go on your own independent journey and what got you to join Notion in the end. [00:19:42]Linus: Yeah, what happened? Um, yeah, so for a little bit of context for people who don't know me, I was working mostly at sort of seed stage startups as a web engineer. I actually didn't really do much AI at all for prior to my year off. And then I took all of 2022 off with less of a focus on it ended up sort of in retrospect becoming like a Linus Pivots to AI year, which was like beautifully well timed. But in the beginning of the year, there was kind of a one key motivation and then one key kind of question that I had. The motivation was that I think I was at a sort of a privileged and fortunate enough place where I felt like I had some money saved up that I had saved up explicitly to be able to take some time off and investigate my own kind of questions because I was already working on lots of side projects and I wanted to spend more time on it. I think I also at that point felt like I had enough security in the companies and folks that I knew that if I really needed a job on a short notice, I could go and I could find some work to do. So I wouldn't be completely on the streets. And so that security, I think, gave me the confidence to say, OK, let's try this kind of experiment.[00:20:52]Maybe it'll only be for six months. Maybe it'll be for a year. I had enough money saved up to last like a year and change. And so I had planned for a year off and I had one sort of big question that I wanted to explore. Having that single question, I think, actually was really helpful for focusing the effort instead of just being like, I'm going to side project for a year, which I think would have been less productive. And that big question was, how do we evolve text interfaces forward? So, so much of knowledge work is consuming walls of text and then producing more walls of text. And text is so ubiquitous, not just in software, but just in general in the world. They're like signages and menus and books. And it's ubiquitous, but it's not very ergonomic. There's a lot of things about text interfaces that could be better. And so I wanted to explore how we could make that better. A key part of that ended up being, as I discovered, taking advantage of this new technologies that let computers make sense of text information. And so that's how I ended up sort of sliding into AI. But the motivation in the beginning was less focused on learning a new technology and more just on exploring this general question space. [00:21:53]Swyx: Yeah. You have the quote, text is the lowest denominator, not the end game. Right, right. [00:21:58]Linus: I mean, I think if you look at any specific domain or discipline, whether it's medicine or mathematics or software engineering, in any specific discipline where there's a narrower set of abstractions for people to work with, there are custom notations. One of the first things that I wrote in this exploration year was this piece called Notational Intelligence, where I talk about this idea that so much of, as a total sidebar, there's a whole other fascinating conversation that I would love to have at some point, maybe today, maybe later, about how to evolve a budding scene of research into a fully-fledged field. So I think AI UX is kind of in this weird stage where there's a group of interesting people that are interested in exploring this space of how do you design for this newfangled technology, and how do you take that and go and build best practices and powerful methods and tools [00:22:48]Swyx: We should talk about that at some point. [00:22:49]Linus: OK. But in a lot of established fields, there are notations that people use that really help them work at a slightly higher level than just raw words. So notations for describing chemicals and notations for different areas of mathematics that let people work with higher-level concepts more easily. Logic, linguistics. [00:23:07]Swyx: Yeah. [00:23:07]Linus: And I think it's fair to say that some large part of human intelligence, especially in these more technical domains, comes from our ability to work with notations instead of work with just the raw ideas in our heads. And text is a kind of notation. It's the most general kind of notation, but it's also, because of its generality, not super high leverage if you want to go into these specific domains. And so I wanted to try to improve on that frontier. [00:23:29]Swyx: Yeah. You said in our show notes, one of my goals over the next few years is to ensure that we end up with interface metaphors and technical conventions that set us up for the best possible timeline for creativity and inventions ahead. So part of that is constraints. But I feel like that is one part of the equation, right? What's the other part that is more engenders creativity? [00:23:47]Linus: Tell me a little bit about that and what you're thinking there. [00:23:51]Swyx: It's just, I feel like, you know, we talked a little bit about how you do want to constrain, for example, the user interface to guide people towards things that language models are good at. And creative solutions do arise out of constraints. But I feel like that alone is not sufficient for people to invent things. [00:24:10]Linus: I mean, there's a lot of directions, I think, that could go from that. The origin of that thing that you're quoting is when I decided to come help work on AI at Notion, a bunch of my friends were actually quite surprised, I think, because they had expected that I would have gone and worked… [00:24:29]Swyx: You did switch. I was eyeing that for you. [00:24:31]Linus: I mean, I worked at a lab or at my own company or something like that. But one of the core motivations for me joining an existing company and one that has lots of users already is this exact thing where in the aftermath of a new foundational technology emerging, there's kind of a period of a few years where the winners in the market get to decide what the default interface paradigm for the technology is. So, like, mini computers, personal computers, the winners of that market got to decide Windows are and how scrolling works and what a mouse cursor is and how text is edited. Similar with mobile, the concept of a home screen and apps and things like that, the winners of the market got to decide. And that has profound, like, I think it's difficult to understate the importance of, in those few critical years, the winning companies in the market choosing the right abstractions and the right metaphors. And AI, to me, seemed like it's at that pivotal moment where it's a technology that lots of companies are adopting. There is this well-recognized need for interface best practices. And Notion seemed like a company that had this interesting balance of it could still move quickly enough and ship and prototype quickly enough to try interesting interface ideas. But it also had enough presence in the ecosystem that if we came up with the right solution or one that we felt was right, we could push it out and learn from real users and iterate and hopefully be a part of that story of setting the defaults and setting what the dominant patterns are. [00:26:07]Swyx: Yeah, it's a special opportunity. One of my favorite stories or facts is it was like a team of 10 people that designed the original iPhone. And so all the UX that was created there is essentially what we use as smartphones today, including predictive text, because people were finding that people were kind of missing the right letters. So they just enhanced the hit area for certain letters based on what you're typing. [00:26:28]Linus: I mean, even just the idea of like, we should use QWERTY keyboards on tiny smartphone screens. Like that's a weird idea, right? [00:26:36]Swyx: Yeah, QWERTY is another one. So I have RSI. So this actually affects me. QWERTY was specifically chosen to maximize travel distance, right? Like it's actually not ergonomic by design because you wanted the keyboard, the key type writers to not stick. But we don't have that anymore. We're still sticking to QWERTY. I'm still sticking to QWERTY. I could switch to the other ones. I forget. QORAC or QOMAC anytime, but I don't just because of inertia. I have another thing like this. [00:27:02]Linus: So going even farther back, people don't really think enough about where this concept of buttons come from, right? So the concept of a push button as a thing where you press it and it activates some binary switch. I mean, buttons have existed for, like mechanical buttons have existed for a long time. But really, like this modern concept of a button that activates a binary switch really gets like popularized by the popular advent of electricity. Before the electricity, if you had a button that did something, you would have to construct a mechanical system where if you press down on a thing, it affects some other lever system that affects as like the final action. And this modern idea of a button that is just a binary switch gets popularized electricity. And at that point, a button has to work in the way that it does in like an alarm clock, because when you press down on it, there's like a spring that makes sure that the button comes back up and that it completes the circuit. And so that's the way the button works. And then when we started writing graphical interfaces, we just took that idea of a thing that could be depressed to activate a switch. All the modern buttons that we have today in software interfaces are like simulating electronic push buttons where you like press down to complete a circuit, except there's actually no circuit being completed. It's just like a square on a screen. [00:28:11]Swyx: It's all virtualized. Right. [00:28:12]Linus: And then you control the simulation of a button by clicking a physical button on a mouse. Except if you're on a trackpad, it's not even a physical button anymore. It's like a simulated button hardware that controls a simulated button in software. And it's also just this cascade of like conceptual backwards compatibility that gets us here. I think buttons are interesting. [00:28:32]Alessio: Where are you on the skeuomorphic design love-hate spectrum? There's people that have like high nostalgia for like the original, you know, the YouTube icon on the iPhone with like the knobs on the TV. [00:28:42]Linus: I think a big part of that is at least the aesthetic part of it is fashion. Like fashion taken very literally, like in the same way that like the like early like Y2K 90s aesthetic comes and goes. I think skeuomorphism as expressed in like the early iPhone or like Windows XP comes and goes. There's another aspect of this, which is the part of skeuomorphism that helps people understand and intuit software, which has less to do with skeuomorphism making things easier to understand per se and more about like, like a slightly more general version of skeuomorphism is like, there should be a consistent mental model behind an interface that is easy to grok. And then once the user has the mental model, even if it's not the full model of exactly how that system works, there should be a simplified model that the user can easily understand and then sort of like adopt and use. One of my favorite examples of this is how volume controls that are designed well often work. Like on an iPhone, when you make your iPhone volume twice as loud, the sound that comes out isn't actually like at a physical level twice as loud. It's on a log scale. When you push the volume slider up on an iPhone, the speaker uses like four times more energy, but humans perceive it as twice as loud. And so the mental model that we're working with is, okay, if I make this, this volume control slider have two times more value, it's going to sound two times louder, even though actually the underlying physics is like on a log scale. But what actually happens physically is not actually what matters. What matters is how humans perceive it in the model that I have in my head. And there, I think there are a lot of other instances where the skeuomorphism isn't actually the thing. The thing is just that there should be a consistent mental model. And often the easy, consistent mental model to reach for is the models that already exist in reality, but not always. [00:30:23]Alessio: I think the other big topic, maybe before we dive into Notion is agents. I think that's one of the toughest interfaces to crack, mostly because, you know, the text box, everybody understands that the agent is kind of like, it's like human-like feeling, you know, where it's like, okay, I'm kind of delegating something to a human, right? I think, like, Sean, you made the example of like a Calendly, like a savvy Cal, it's like an agent, because it's scheduling on your behalf for something. [00:30:51]Linus: That's actually a really interesting example, because it's a kind of a, it's a pretty deterministic, like there's no real AI to it, but it is agent in the sense that you're like delegating it and automate something. [00:31:01]Swyx: Yeah, it does work without me. It's great. [00:31:03]Alessio: So that one, we figured out. Like, we know what the scheduling interface is like. [00:31:07]Swyx: Well, that's the state of the art now. But, you know, for example, the person I'm corresponding with still has to pick a time from my calendar, which some people dislike. Sam Lesson famously says it's a sign of disrespect. I disagree with him, but, you know, it's a point of view. There could be some intermediate AI agents that would send emails back and forth like a human person to give the other person who feels slighted that sense of respect or a personalized touch that they want. So there's always ways to push it. [00:31:39]Alessio: Yeah, I think for me, you know, other stuff that I think about, so we were doing prep for another episode and had an agent and asked it to do like a, you know, background prep on like the background of the person. And it just couldn't quite get the format that I wanted it to be, you know, but I kept to have the only way to prompt that it's like, give it text, give a text example, give a text example. What do you think, like the interface between human and agents in the future will be like, do you still think agents are like this open ended thing that are like objective driven where you say, Hey, this is what I want to achieve versus I only trust this agent to do X. And like, this is how X is done. I'm curious because that kind of seems like a lot of mental overhead, you know, to remember each agent for each task versus like if you have an executive assistant, like they'll do a random set of tasks and you can trust them because they're a human. But I feel like with agents, we're not quite there. [00:32:36]Swyx: Agents are hard. [00:32:36]Linus: The design space is just so vast. Since all of the like early agent stuff came out around auto GPT, I've tried to develop some kind of a thesis around it. And I think it's just difficult because there's so many variables. One framework that I usually apply to sort of like existing chat based prompting kind of things that I think also applies just as well to agents is this duality between what you might call like trust and control. So you just now you brought up this example of you had an agent try to write some write up some prep document for an episode and it couldn't quite get the format right. And one way you could describe that is you could say, Oh, the, the agent didn't exactly do what I meant and what I had in my head. So I can't trust it to do the right job. But a different way to describe it is I have a hard time controlling exactly the output of the model and I have a hard time communicating exactly what's in my head to the model. And they're kind of two sides of the same coin. I think if you, if you can somehow provide a way to with less effort, communicate and control and constrain the model output a little bit more and constrain the behavior a little bit more, I think that would alleviate the pressure for the model to be this like fully trusted thing because there's no need for trust anymore. There's just kind of guardrails that ensure that the model does the right thing. So developing ways and interfaces for these agents to be a little more constrained in its output or maybe for the human to control its output a little bit more or behavior a little bit more, I think is a productive path. Another sort of more, more recent revelation that I had while working on this and autofill thing inside notion is the importance of zones of influence for AI agents, especially in collaborative settings. So having worked on lots of interfaces for independent work on my year off, one of the surprising lessons that I learned early on when I joined notion was that if you build a collaboration permeates everything, which is great for notion because collaborating with an AI, you reuse a lot of the same metaphors for collaborating with humans. So one nice thing about this autofill thing that also kind of applies to AI blocks, which is another thing that we have, is that you don't alleviate this problem of having to ask questions like, oh, is this document written by an AI or is this written by a human? Like this need for auditability, because the part that's written by the AI is just in like the autofilled cell or in the AI block. And you can, you can tell that's written by the AI and things outside of it, you can kind of reasonably assume that it was written by you. I think anytime you have sort of an unbounded action space for, for models like agents, it's especially important to be able to answer those questions easily and to have some sense of security that in the same way that you want to know whether your like coworker or collaborator has access to a document or has modified a document, you want to know whether an AI has permissions to access something. And if it's modified something or made some edit, you want to know that it did it. And so as a compliment to constraining the model's action space proactively, I think it's also important to communicate, have the user have an easy understanding of like, what exactly did the model do here? And I think that helps build trust as well. [00:35:39]Swyx: Yeah. I think for auto GPT and those kinds of agents in particular, anything that is destructive, you need to prompt for, I guess, or like check with, check in with the user. I know it's overloaded now. I can't say that. You have to confirm with the user. You confirm to the user. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:56]Linus: That's tough too though, because you, you don't want to stop. [00:35:59]Swyx: Yeah. [00:35:59]Linus: One of the, one of the benefits of automating these things that you can sort of like, in theory, you can scale them out arbitrarily. I can have like a hundred different agents working for me, but if that means I'm just spending my entire day in a deluge of notifications, that's not ideal either. [00:36:12]Swyx: Yeah. So then it could be like a reversible, destructive thing with some kind of timeouts, a time limit. So you could reverse it within some window. I don't know. Yeah. I've been thinking about this a little bit because I've been working on a small developer agent. Right. Right. [00:36:27]Linus: Or maybe you could like batch a group of changes and can sort of like summarize them with another AI and improve them in bulk or something. [00:36:33]Swyx: Which is surprisingly similar to the collaboration problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. [00:36:39]Linus: I'm telling you, the collaboration, a lot of the problems with collaborating with humans also apply to collaborating with AI. There's a potential pitfall to that as well, which is that there are a lot of things that some of the core advantages of AI end up missing out on if you just fully anthropomorphize them into like human-like collaborators. [00:36:56]Swyx: But yeah. Do you have a strong opinion on that? Like, do you refer to it as it? Oh yeah. [00:37:00]Linus: I'm an it person, at least for now, in 2023. Yeah. [00:37:05]Swyx: So that leads us nicely into introducing what Notion and Notion AI is today. Do you have a pet answer as to what is Notion? I've heard it introduced as a database, a WordPress killer, a knowledge base, a collaboration tool. What is it? Yeah. [00:37:19]Linus: I mean, the official answer is that a Notion is a connected workspace. It has a space for your company docs, meeting notes, a wiki for all of your company notes. You can also use it to orchestrate your workflows if you're managing a project, if you have an engineering team, if you have a sales team. You can put all of those in a single Notion database. And the benefit of Notion is that all of them live in a single space where you can link to your wiki pages from your, I don't know, like onboarding docs. Or you can link to a GitHub issue through a task from your documentation on your engineering system. And all of this existing in a single place in this kind of like unified, yeah, like single workspace, I think has lots of benefits. [00:37:58]Swyx: That's the official line. [00:37:59]Linus: There's an asterisk that I usually enjoy diving deeper into, which is that the whole reason that this connected workspace is possible is because underlying all of this is this really cool abstraction of blocks. In Notion, everything is a block. A paragraph is a block. A bullet point is a block. But also a page is a block. And the way that Notion databases work is that a database is just a collection of pages, which are really blocks. And you can like take a paragraph and drag it into a database and it'll become a page. You can take a page inside a database and pull it out and it'll just become a link to that page. And so this core abstraction of a block that can also be a page, that can also be a row in a database, like an Excel sheet, that fluidity and this like shared abstraction across all these different areas inside Notion, I think is what really makes Notion powerful. This Lego theme, this like Lego building block theme permeates a lot of different parts of Notion. Some fans of Notion might know that when you, or when you join Notion, you get a little Lego minifigure, which has Lego building blocks for workflows. And then every year you're at Notion, you get a new block that says like you've been here for a year, you've been here for two years. And then Simon, our co-founder and CTO, has a whole crate of Lego blocks on his desk that he just likes to mess with because, you know, he's been around for a long time. But this Lego building block thing, this like shared sort of all-encompassing single abstraction that you can combine to build various different kinds of workflows, I think is really what makes Notion powerful. And one of the sort of background questions that I have for Notion AI is like, what is that kind of building block for AI? [00:39:30]Swyx: Well, we can dive into that. So what is Notion AI? Like, so I kind of view it as like a startup within the startup. Could you describe the Notion AI team? Is this like, how seriously is Notion taking the AI wave? [00:39:43]Linus: The most seriously? The way that Notion AI came about, as I understand it, because I joined a bit later, I think it was around October last year, all of Notion team had a little offsite. And as a part of that, Ivan and Simon kind of went into a little kind of hack weekend. And the thing that they ended up hacking on inside Notion was the very, very early prototype of Notion AI. They saw this GPT-3 thing. The early, early motivation for starting Notion, building Notion in the first place for them, was sort of grounded in this utopian end-user programming vision where software is so powerful, but there are only so many people in the world that can write programs. But everyone can benefit from having a little workspace or a little program or a little workflow tool that's programmed to just fit their use case. And so how can we build a tool that lets people customize their software tools that they use every day for their use case? And I think to them, seemed like such a critical part of facilitating that, bridging the gap between people who can code and people who need software. And so they saw that, they tried to build an initial prototype that ended up becoming the first version of Notion AI. They had a prototype in, I think, late October, early November, before Chachapiti came out and sort of evolved it over the few months. But what ended up launching was sort of in line with the initial vision, I think, of what they ended up building. And then once they had it, I think they wanted to keep pushing it. And so at this point, AI is a really key part of Notion strategy. And what we see Notion becoming going forward, in the same way that blocks and databases are a core part of Notion that helps enable workflow automation and all these important parts of running a team or collaborating with people or running your life, we think that AI is going to become an equally critical part of what Notion is. And it won't be, Notion is a cool connected workspace app, and it also has AI. It'll be that what Notion is, is databases, it has pages, it has space for your docs, and it also has this sort of comprehensive suite of AI tools that permeate everything. And one of the challenges of the AI team, which is, as you said, kind of a startup within a startup right now, is to figure out exactly what that all-permeating kind of abstraction means, which is a fascinating and difficult open problem. [00:41:57]Alessio: How do you think about what people expect of Notion versus what you want to build in Notion? A lot of this AI technology kind of changes, you know, we talked about the relationship between text and human and how human collaborates. Do you put any constraints on yourself when it's like, okay, people expect Notion to work this way with these blocks. So maybe I have this crazy idea and I cannot really pursue it because it's there. I think it's a classic innovator's dilemma kind of thing. And I think a lot of founders out there that are in a similar position where it's like, you know, series C, series D company, it's like, you're not quite yet the super established one, you're still moving forward, but you have an existing kind of following and something that Notion stands for. How do you kind of wrangle with that? [00:42:43]Linus: Yeah, that is in some ways a challenge and that Notion already is a kind of a thing. And so we can't just scrap everything and start over. But I think it's also, there's a blessing side of it too, in that because there are so many people using Notion in so many different ways, we understand all of the things that people want to use Notion for very well. And then so we already have a really well-defined space of problems that we want to help people solve. And that helps us. We have it with the existing Notion product and we also have it by sort of rolling out these AI things early and then watching, learning from the community what people want to do [00:43:17]Swyx: with them. [00:43:17]Linus: And so based on those learnings, I think it actually sort of helps us constrain the space of things we think we need to build because otherwise the design space is just so large with whatever we can do with AI and knowledge work. And so watching what people have been using Notion for and what they want to use Notion for, I think helps us constrain that space a little bit and make the problem of building AI things inside Notion a little more tractable. [00:43:36]Swyx: I think also just observing what they naturally use things for, and it sounds like you do a bunch of user interviews where you hear people running into issues and, or describe them as, the way that I describe myself actually is, I feel like the problem is with me, that I'm not creative enough to come up with use cases to use Notion AI or any other AI. [00:43:57]Linus: Which isn't necessarily on you, right? [00:43:59]Swyx: Exactly. [00:43:59]Linus: Again, like it goes way back to the early, the thing we touched on early in the conversation around like, if you have too much generality, there's not enough, there are not enough guardrails to obviously point to use cases. Blank piece of paper. [00:44:10]Swyx: I don't know what to do with this. So I think a lot of people judge Notion AI based on what they originally saw, which is write me a blog post or do a summary or do action items. Which, fun fact, for latent space, my very, very first Hacker News hit was reverse engineering Notion AI. I actually don't know if I got it exactly right. I think I got the easy ones right. And then apparently I got the action items one really wrong. So there's some art into doing that. But also you've since launched a bunch of other products and maybe you've already hinted at AI Autofill. Maybe we can just talk a little bit about what does the scope or suite of Notion AI products have been so far and what you're launching this week? Yeah. [00:44:53]Linus: So we have, I think, three main facets of Notion AI and Notion at the moment. We have sort of the first thing that ever launched with Notion AI, which I think that helps you write. It's, going back to earlier in the conversation, it's kind of a writing, kind of a content generation tool. If you have a document and you want to generate a summary, it helps you generate a summary, pull out action items, you can draft a blog post, you can help it improve, it's helped to improve your writings, it can help fix grammar and spelling mistakes. But under the hood, it's a fairly lightweight, a thick layer of prompts. But otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward use case of language models, right? And so there's that, a tool that helps you write documents. There's a thing called an AI block, which is a slightly more constrained version of that where one common way that we use it inside Notion is we take all of our meeting notes inside Notion. And frequently when you have a meeting and you want other people to be able to go back to it and reference it, it's nice to have a summary of that meeting. So all of our meeting notes templates, at least on the AI team, have an AI block at the top that automatically summarizes the contents of that page. And so whenever we're done with a meeting, we just press a button and it'll re-summarize that, including things like what are the core action items for every person in the meeting. And so that block, as I said before, is nice because it's a constrained space for the AI to work in, and we don't have to prompt it every single time. And then the newest member of this AI collection of features is AI autofill, which brings Notion AI to databases. So if you have a whole database of user interviews and you want to pull out what are the companies, core pain points, what are their core features, maybe what are their competitor products they use, you can just make columns. And in the same way that you write Excel formulas, you can write a little AI formula, basically, where the AI will look at the contents of the page and pull out each of these key pieces of information. The slightly new thing that autofill introduces is this idea of a more automated background [00:46:43]Swyx: AI thing. [00:46:44]Linus: So with Writer, the AI in your document product and the AI block, you have to always ask it to update. You have to always ask it to rewrite. But if you have a column in a database, in a Notion database, or a property in a Notion database, it would be nice if you, whenever someone went back and changed the contents of the meeting node or something updated about the page, or maybe it's a list of tasks that you have to do and the status of the task changes, you might want the summary of that task or detail of the task to update. And so anytime that you can set up an autofilled Notion property so that anytime something on that database row or page changes, the AI will go back and sort of auto-update the autofilled value. And that, I think, is a really interesting part that we might continue leading into of like, even though there's AI now tied to this particular page, it's sort of doing its own thing in the background to help automate and alleviate some of that pain of automating these things. But yeah, Writer, Blocks, and Autofill are the three sort of cornerstones we have today. [00:47:42]Alessio: You know, there used to be this glorious time where like, Roam Research was like the hottest knowledge company out there, and then Notion built Backlinks. I don't know if we are to blame for that. No, no, but how do Backlinks play into some of this? You know, I think most AI use cases today are kind of like a single page, right? Kind of like this document. I'm helping with this. Do you see some of these tools expanding to do changes across things? So we just had Itamar from Codium on the podcast, and he talked about how agents can tie in specs for features, tests for features, and the code for the feature. So like the three entities are tied together. Like, do you see some Backlinks help AI navigate through knowledge basis of companies where like, you might have the document the product uses, but you also have the document that marketing uses to then announce it? And as you make changes, the AI can work through different pieces of it? [00:48:41]Swyx: Definitely. [00:48:41]Linus: If I may get a little theoretical from that. One of my favorite ideas from my last year of hacking around building text augmentations with AI for documents is this realization that, you know, when you look at code in a code editor, what it is at a very lowest level is just text files. A code file is a text file, and there are maybe functions inside of it, and it's a list of functions, but it's a text file. But the way that you understand it is not as a file, like a Word document, it's a kind of a graph.[00:49:10]Linus: Like you have a function, you have call sites to that function, there are places where you call that function, there's a place where that function is tested, many different definitions for that function. Maybe there's a type definition that's tied to that function. So it's a kind of a graph. And if you want to understand that function, there's advantages to be able to traverse that whole graph and fully contextualize where that function is used. Same with types and same with variables. And so even though its code is represented as text files, it's actually kind of a graph. And a lot of the, of what, all of the key interfaces, interface innovations behind IDEs is helping surface that graph structure in the context of a text file. So like things like go to definition or VS Code's little window view when you like look at references. And interesting idea that I explored last year was what if you bring that to text documents? So text documents are a little more unstructured, so there's a less, there's a more fuzzy kind of graph idea. But if you're reading a textbook, if there's a new term, there's actually other places where the term is mentioned. There's probably a few places where that's defined. Maybe there's some figures that reference that term. If you have an idea, there are other parts of the document where the document might disagree with that idea or cite that idea. So there's still kind of a graph structure. It's a little more fuzzy, but there's a graph structure that ties together like a body of knowledge. And it would be cool if you had some kind of a text editor or some kind of knowledge tool that let you explore that whole graph. Or maybe if an AI could explore that whole graph. And so back to your point, I think taking advantage of not just the backlinks. Backlinks is a part of it. But the fact that all of these inside Notion, all of these pages exist in a single workspace and it's a shared context. It's a connected workspace. And you can take any idea and look up anywhere to fully contextualize what a part of your engineering system design means. Or what we know about our pitching their customer at a company. Or if I wrote down a book, what are other places where that book has been mentioned? All these graph following things, I think, are really important for contextualizing knowledge. [00:51:02]Swyx: Part of your job at Notion is prompt engineering. You are maybe one of the more advanced prompt engineers that I know out there. And you've always commented on the state of prompt ops tooling. What is your process today? What do you wish for? There's a lot here. [00:51:19]Linus: I mean, the prompts that are inside Notion right now, they're not complex in the sense that agent prompts are complex. But they're complex in the sense that there is even a problem as simple as summarize a [00:51:31]Swyx: page. [00:51:31]Linus: A page could contain anything from no information, if it's a fresh document, to a fully fledged news article. Maybe it's a meeting note. Maybe it's a bug filed by somebody at a company. The range of possible documents is huge. And then you have to distill all of it down to always generate a summary. And so describing that task to AI comprehensively is pretty hard. There are a few things that I think I ended up leaning on, as a team we ended up leaning on, for the prompt engineering part of it. I think one of the early transitions that we made was that the initial prototype for Notion AI was built on instruction following, the sort of classic instruction following models, TextWG003, and so on. And then at some point, we all switched to chat-based models, like Claude and the new ChatGPT Turbo and these models. And so that was an interesting transition. It actually kind of made few-shot prompting a little bit easier, I think, in that you could give the few-shot examples as sort of previous turns in a conversation. And then you could ask the real question as the next follow-up turn. I've come to appreciate few-shot prompting a lot more because it's difficult to fully comprehensively explain a particular task in words, but it's pretty easy to demonstrate like four or five different edge cases that you want the model to handle. And a lot of times, if there's an edge case that you want a model to handle, I think few-shot prompting is just the easiest, most reliable tool to reach for. One challenge in prompt engineering that Notion has to contend with often is we want to support all the different languages that Notion supports. And so all of our prompts have to be multilingual or compatible, which is kind of tricky because our prompts are written, our instructions are written in English. And so if you just have a naive approach, then the model tends to output in English, even when the document that you want to translate or summarize is in French. And so one way you could try to attack that problem is to tell the model, answering the language of the user's query. But it's actually a lot more effective to just give it examples of not just English documents, but maybe summarizing an English document, maybe summarize a ticket filed in French, summarize an empty document where the document's supposed to be in Korean. And so a lot of our few-shot prompt-included prompts in Notion AI tend to be very multilingual, and that helps support our non-English-speaking users. The other big part of prompt engineering is evaluation. The prompts that you exfiltrated out of Notion AI many weeks ago, surprisingly pretty spot-on, at least for the prompts that we had then, especially things like summary. But they're also outdated because we've evolved them a lot more, and we have a lot more examples. And some of our prompts are just really, really long. They're like thousands of tokens long. And so every time we go back and add an example or modify the instruction, we want to make sure that we don't regress any of the previous use cases that we've supported. And so we put a lot of effort, and we're increasingly building out internal tooling infrastructure for things like what you might call unit tests and regression tests for prompts with handwritten test cases, as well as tests that are driven more by feedback from Notion users that have chosen to share their feedback with us. [00:54:31]Swyx: You just have a hand-rolled testing framework or use Jest or whatever, and nothing custom out there. You basically said you've looked at so many prompt ops tools and you're sold on none of them. [00:54:42]Linus: So that tweet was from a while ago. I think there are a couple of interesting tools these days. But I think at the moment, Notion uses pretty hand-rolled tools. Nothing too heavy, but it's basically a for loop over a list of test cases. We do do quite a bit of using language models to evaluate language models. So our unit test descriptions are kind of funny because the test is literally just an input document and a query, and then we expect the model to say something. And then our qualification for whether that test passes or not is just ask the language model again, whether it looks like a reasonable summary or whether it's in the right language. [00:55:19]Swyx: Do you have the same model? Do you have entropic-criticized OpenAI or OpenAI-criticized entropic? That's a good question. Do you worry about models being biased towards its own self? [00:55:29]Linus: Oh, no, that's not a worry that we have. I actually don't know exactly if we use different models. If you have a fixed budget for running these tests, I think it would make sense to use more expensive models for evaluation rather than generation. But yeah, I don't remember exactly what we do there. [00:55:44]Swyx: And then one more follow-up on, you mentioned some of your prompts are thousands of tokens. That takes away from my budget as a user. Isn't that a trade-off that's a concern? So there's a limited context window, right? Some of that is taken by you as the app designer, product designer, deciding what system prompt to provide. And then the

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