Shane Neman has done over $1B in deals. He was early in SpaceX, Figure AI, Anthropic, Neuralink and Liquid Death. When he showed Figure's robot to every robotics expert he knew, all of them said the actuator would never work. He invested anyway. "When you have that kind of consensus in a field that something's impossible, that's what deep tech is." His other rule: the founder has to be polarizing enough that you either think he's bananas or the next Elon. If everyone agrees, there's no asymmetry left to capture. Ravin Gandhi and I spent an hour with him on Forged in America...key points below: 0:00 Every robotics expert said Figure would never work. That was the signal. 2:18 The habits that make you a great founder are the ones that make you a bad investor. 3:12 The test he runs on every founder: will this person ruin their life for this company? 4:08 "A lot of VCs are bullshitters." What actually gets him in the door. 5:09 The Figure story: a robotic arm that half worked, on a Zoom he thinks belongs in a museum. 6:23 Brett Adcock put millions of his own money in. That alignment is rarer than people think. 9:03 What deep tech actually means, and why experts are the last to see it. 11:00 He dropped out of medical school in 1998 because his roommate at Goldman was living better. 11:45 His father died at 44 when Shane was 13. "That became my measuring stick." 13:40 The wire hits after his first exit. One day of euphoria, then nothing. "Total anticlimax." 15:15 Why abundance scares us more than scarcity: what happens to purpose. 17:20 AI will either make you the smartest generation or the dumbest, depending on how you use it. 18:00 SpaceX: he thought it was too expensive every single time, until a private tour changed his mind. 19:55 "Magic" is the word he and Josh Wolf both use. It's what lets you ignore the price. 22:13 Why founders must be storytellers, and why AI can't teach it. 23:52 He tells founders their pitch sucks and sends them to improv class. The coachable ones take it. 26:47 Convoy went from multi-billion to zero. "If I killed myself with regret I'd be dead by now." 30:35 Quantum: if you need a quantum computer to defend against a quantum computer, it's already too late. 34:43 Alex Honnold's brain in an MRI, and the traits that get you selected for extinction or greatness. 37:44 The barbell: deep tech on one end, "forever businesses" on the other. You'll still take vitamins in 20 years. 39:18 Lightning round. SpaceX or Figure? Figure. Elon or Sam Altman? Elon. Bitcoin or gold? Bitcoin. 41:46 Brilliant asshole founder or likable average one? "Asshole, all day long." 42:09 Amazing founder + mediocre idea, or the reverse? Founder, 100%. 43:11 What hurts more: losing $1M or watching something you passed on hit a billion? The pass. 43:34 Nightclub promoters or VCs, which has more bullshit? His answer is better than you'd guess. 47:16 He has now outlived the father he lost at 13. What that does to how you spend a day. 48:14 The gratitude ritual he runs with his kids in the car every morning. 49:18 What actually scares him about the next 10 years. 55:34 Book: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He also has the memento mori tattoo. @shaneneman @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @SpaceX @Figure_robot @AnthropicAI @neuralink @LiquidDeath

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was among 46 Egyptian-Americans who signed a 2012 statement supporting Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohamed Morsi and calling on him to “purge the media and the police as quickly as possible.” Published days after Morsi issued a declaration expanding his powers and shielding presidential decisions from judicial review, the statement also “strongly rejected” appeals for the US and Europe to intervene against Egypt’s government. “Dr. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed — New York” was listed as the 33rd signatory. El-Sayed was studying at Columbia University at the time. Press freedom subsequently deteriorated under the Muslim Brotherhood-backed government. By the end of 2012, at least six journalists faced charges including “insulting the president” or “insulting Islam.”

RT @BurggrabenH: Peter Thiel makes a very important point in his latest interview: we moralise far too much. Think German Energiewende. Th…

Illinois paid down some bills after 63 tax and fee hikes that took ~$86B from taxpayers. IRS data: Illinois lost a net 56,000 people and $6B in AGI in 2023 alone — 60% of those leavers earned over $100k and took $5.5B with them. Since 2000 that’s 1.6 million people and $94B in first-year AGI gone. Pensions are still ~$145B underfunded. Some cherry-picked data points aren't going to solve these problems.

Extremely well said here by @DavidSacks ...@AOC, @SenSanders, @BarackObama and others have jumped on this political opportunity to be the Chinese emperor that banned shipbuilding. Politicians rarely think about the next order effects of their actions, but rather just about more power and control. We need to be smarter than that and that shall come to the fear they're projecting. Let's advance intelligently and make sure the western world keeps the advantage in the AI frontier. Technological and economic prosperity is what drives human flourishing. Let's not give that up.

“you must be a yemeni farmer addicted to khat if you think muse is going to have 1 billion users” muse:

Like radiologists. We should continue to ignore the inventors as far as predictions for the future.

NEW SHORT FILM— Propaganda Warfare: Israel, Hamas & the Weaponization of the Narrative

Jensen Huang, on the Lex Fridman Podcast: "If we were to hire a new college graduate today, and I have a choice between two, one that has no clue what AI is and one that is expert in using AI, I would hire the one who's expert in using AI." "Every college student should graduate and be an expert in AI." He's not just talking about computer science majors. His examples span accounting, farming, pharmacy, law, the trades. His actual reasoning: AI won't erase most jobs outright, it automates the task inside them. "If your job is the task, then you're very highly going to be disrupted." The people who survive that shift are the ones who learned to direct the tool, not just do the task the old way. Same degree, same GPA, different hire. That's the filter he says he's already running.

Cornell just produced a massive new report on higher education noting that companies have a “jarring” skepticism of higher ed thanks to a new generation of degree holders who lack key skills like handling uncertainty, compromising, and absorbing feedback. Faculty also report that incoming students, despite four years of undergraduate education, are “underdeveloped” in these relational or interpersonal skills. This is a serious crises in higher education and the report calls for a greater need for conflict-resolution training. We need to do a better job training our students to deal with these issues. These are traditionally the skills students developed in higher education. I loved college because it challenged me, sparked debate, and required me to grapple with complexity. This should be an essential part of college--inside and outside the classroom. chronicle.com/article/compan…

The Only Muse I need is this

Very true unfortunately. We need to have the will to do something about it now or the solution is going to be that much worse for everyone

Show this chart in every European parliament tomorrow

You have to love the ambition even if it's years ahead of time. The fact that it takes longer is actually good for humanity so we have time to adapt and build.

God bless @JensenHuang for being a voice of reason. In 2016, Geoffrey Hinton said we should stop training radiologists b/c AI would "make them obsolete in 5 yrs, maybe 10." There are 28,700 in the US today, BLS projects 29,600 by 2035. We need an @OldTakesExposed but for tech

True

At this point pausing AI is pausing the US economy.

“Meta knows when a new product is in the early days of crazy growth, and this one is, scientifically speaking, a banger” - Alexandr Wang, Chief Ai Officer $META

Ok I'm all in...

Mark Zuckerberg pushes back on Dario Amodei and Sam Altman’s calls for AI regulations saying, “There’s a lot of rhetoric that is filled with doom … and I don't think that we need industry-wide coordination to not mess this up.”