OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s decade–in-the-making effort to understand how handing out free money affects recipients and the broader economy delivered its first big results Monday. OpenResearch found that when it gave some of the poorest Americans $1,000 a month for three years with no strings attached, they put much of the money toward basic needs … Read more
Andreessen talks about the proposal as if it were Putin himself invading Atherton, California, the elite zip code where he resided until recently. If this tax is imposed, he says, investors will exit the market and innovations won’t be funded. “Number one, you kill startups and venture capital. So congratulations, you kill the technology industry, … Read more
When he first ran for president in 2016, Donald Trump infamously enjoyed the support of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. But for the most part, Silicon Valley avoided Trump and funded his opponent. However, the weeklong Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump will give his first speech tonight after surviving Saturday’s would-be assassination, has made … Read more
Aaron Damigos’ inbox was hit with a dreaded, ubiquitous business-update calendar invite on June 3. The meeting included someone from HR, his manager, and upper management—and ultimately resulted in the sudden end to his job as a web support associate with Microsoft. Microsoft reportedly laid off some 1,000 people in early June, pulling from its … Read more
Neither database mandates nor generally contains up-to-date versions of the records that UBI Charitable and OpenResearch had said they provided in the past. The original YC Research conflict-of-interest policy that Das did share calls for company insiders to be upfront about transactions in which their impartiality could be questioned and for the board to decide … Read more
Meanwhile, in less visible ways, AI is already changing education, commerce, and the workplace. One friend recently told me about a big IT firm he works with. The company had a lengthy and long-established protocol for launching major initiatives that involved designing solutions, coding up the product, and engineering the rollout. Moving from concept to … Read more
In his polarizing “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” last year, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen listed a number of enemies to technological progress. Among them were “tech ethics” and “trust and safety,” a term used for work on online content moderation, which he said had been used to subject humanity to “a mass demoralization campaign” against new technologies such … Read more
Argentina’s President Javier Milei waves during the commemoration of the 214th anniversary of the May Revolution that led to the independence from Spain, at Plaza San Martin in Cordoba, Argentina, on May 25, 2024. Diego Lima | Afp | Getty Images Argentina President Javier Milei met with leaders of some of the world’s largest tech … Read more
Allen, a data scientist, and Massachi, a software engineer, worked for nearly four years at Facebook on some of the uglier aspects of social media, combating scams and election meddling. They didn’t know each other but both quit in 2019, frustrated at feeling a lack of support from executives. “The work that teams like the … Read more
An in-depth report from The New York Times is offering an intriguing look at Nicole Shanahan’s days in Silicon Valley. Shanahan, who was announced as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate in March, reportedly lived a plush life during her five-year marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, when she was part of the Valley’s most … Read more
