hi buds,
one pattern that stood out to me this past week: open source <> ai.
roblox open-sourced cube, an ai model that builds 3d objects from text prompts. another instance of ai → open source in a way that ultimately benefits the little guys (in this case, indie devs)
google working on txgemma, an open source ai model for drug discovery. designed to predict molecule safety + effectiveness. love this
nvidia debuted groot, a new foundation model for humanoid robots. early demos show groot can enable robots with dexterous, general-purpose movement across different environments
ai is becoming increasingly open source in ways that seriously accelerate the productivity of “the little guys”: indie developers, tiny teams, under-resourced researchers. and yet, the biggest beneficiaries of this shift might still be the biggest players — microsoft, google, meta
so… the rich get richer, but the little guys do too?
the middle is what i’m most unsure about. mid-sized companies might get squeezed — out-paced by startups with ai superpowers, or out-distributed by giants with scale moats.
the return profile of our ai era might look like a barbell: massive incumbents and tiny upstarts thriving, while everything in between gets painfully squeezed into a teeny tiny little pancake.
xoxo,
dj
last week’s product news
hell yeah
openai testing chatgpt connectors for google drive and slack… this is going to kill a lot of ai productivity startups…
snap’s spectacles getting gps and hand tracking, so now devs can make location-aware lenses and track gestures. honestly this feels like a really big opportunity for cool new products / startups, yet haven’t heard much about this
anthropic voice mode is on the way. i use voice mode a ton with chatgpt to turn context dumps → polished outputs, so i’m excited about this.
pretty cooooo
discord dropped a social sdk to let devs quickly build multiplayer features into their games (e.g. cross-platform messaging)
spotify dropped a “concerts near you” playlist that updates weekly with artists touring in your area. honestly love this, seems like a great feature for live music lovers
bumble added an optional id verification, allowing users to authenticate their profiles by submitting a government-issued id and a selfie… i haven’t been in the dating scene for a minute… but this feels a bit obvious / overdue? why did this not exist already?
mildly interesting
google added healthcare features including improved overviews in google Search for health queries, medical records apis, and new health-focused “open” ai models. would never say this in public but low key i love the idea of our big tech overlords moving into healthcare + making a truly shitty system more efficient
klarna won walmart from affirm as its primary bnpl provider. afaict, this space is v commoditizable and will eventually be won by the giga banks with the biggest balance sheets?
stability ai launched stable virtual camera, which turns photos into 3d scenes with depth and motion. this makes my tummy hurt a bit, idk why
terribly uninteresting
meta’s threads now supports users adding topics to their profiles, allowing folks to… “connect with likeminded individuals”… lol i guess
bonus morsels for late night snacking
dude honestly YES; road tripped once with a non tesla ev and it absolutely sucked butt