Introducing Underdog, your Private Personal AI on devices you already own Today we're announcing our backing from @a16z @khoslaventures @HummingbirdVC Anthology (@AnthropicAI @MenloVentures) @patrickc @naval @rauchg @polynoamial @Thom_Wolf @Mascobot @tszzl @OfficialLoganK and other top AI leaders Our mission is to provide free, capable, reliable and private AI to billions of people. Underdog’s Law: today’s frontier intelligence reaches your devices in six months. We’re starting with fast, capable AI that runs on consumer hardware. By co-designing models and inference engines, we’re pushing the frontier of capability, speed, power and data efficiency. Our research also spans agentic commerce, confidential inference, and how AI will reshape the internet economy. Privacy and capability no longer needs to be a tradeoff. If you believe in this future, join us. Time to build.

Slop is for cowards. We back founders who write with blood. Applications close Sunday.

Your boy yapped about AGI & the Future of Work Thanks @kylejohnmorris & the @demi_network for the invite 🤝

Two conversations this weekend make me think that there's a vibe shift afoot in Silicon Valley around what one should work on and what is worthwhile. Culturally, it feels like the moment is ripe for new frameworks: • Davos expert morality is stale and discredited. • It's also apparent that the "just be super based" Counter-Enlightenment is not really an answer. (Yes, woke went too far, but simply inverting it doesn't work.) • EA is no longer the automatic default for smart people. • There's increasing skepticism of slot and slop machine dynamics. Overall, "what is worthy and valuable?" feels like it's becoming more central.

fun announcement: workshop labs is moving to san francisco! most of us will move this month, and everyone will be in SF by the beginning of next year.

The founder of Google flying his $150M blimp over San Francisco on the day Gemini 3 beats nearly every model benchmark is the exact type of big baller energy this city loves. “I’m still daddy” - Sergey Brin, probably

Today, we're announcing @episteme, a new type of R&D company that recruits exceptional scientists to pursue high-impact ideas. Science isn’t bottlenecked by the availability of talent, but by places where they can do their best work. Scientific progress has driven human flourishing: extending lifespans, lifting billions from poverty, and expanding our understanding of the universe. But history is littered with transformational ideas that were overlooked in their time. That problem is still acute today: too much promising talent remains uncultivated, and remarkable ideas die in the lab or are filtered out by misaligned incentives. Today, scientists face suboptimal paths for translating their research into impact: academia is famously risk-averse and incentivizes publications and winning grants vs. translational research. Industry is too often focused on short‑term incentives. And startups lack the substantial capital, expertise, and complex infrastructure needed to deliver long-term scientific progress. On top of that, recent funding cuts in the US mean the overall supply of ideas is decreasing. Put together, the global scientific production system is operating at a fraction of its capacity. How Episteme operates is different: we identify great scientists who can meaningfully benefit humanity, but who aren’t supported efficiently within traditional institutions today. Researcher by researcher, we work with them to determine the bespoke resources, operational support, and environmental conditions to execute on their research. We bring them together in-house, and provide those resources to ensure that their breakthroughs are deployed for real-world impact. We’ve already assembled an amazing team of operators, ranging from the Gates Foundation, DeepMind, ARPAs, DoE – just to name a few – and researchers who are pursuing important problems across physics, biology, computing, and energy. Our team has spoken to hundreds of researchers across disciplines and geographies to understand the limitations they’re facing and what can be done better, and designed Episteme for them. We’re backed by individuals like @sama, Masayoshi Son, and other long-term partners who share our mission of enabling ambitious science for tangible human impact. About me: I started working as a researcher 9 years ago, on problems ranging from AI-driven drug discovery to developing brain-machine interfaces. It was that experience that led me to realize that so many scientists with great potential to change the world don’t have access to opportunities equal to their capacities. @sama and I believe that much better science should happen for humanity, and that a new engine is needed to support that. We decided to cofound Episteme together, and I am incredibly grateful for Sam’s unwavering support as a thought partner and founding investor. Our conviction is that by supporting the right people with the right incentives, we're set to generate breakthrough discoveries to benefit humanity. We cannot rely on the course of history to shape scientific progress; we need to proactively shape the system by supporting the most talented people with the right resources and incentives.

it's so cool when a friend groups consistently executes on a passion project for years my ex-roommates recently put on a musical about group house culture in sf, complete with a custom (working) robot. it was all extremely cute. they put on 4 showings for all of their friends

I saw Silicon Valley The Musical yesterday. Here’s my review: For an amateur musical, it exceeded my expectations. The script was excellent, perfectly encapsulating many Silicon Valley tropes. Those familiar with the culture would be laughing the whole way through. @belindmo as Quinn delivered a strong vocal performance, making you forget you’re not on Broadway. @kylejohnmorris’s performance of Dave DuCharme was both convincing and comical. Threading the needle just right on the level of outlandishness. @scottfits played the VC Gordon Greene and displayed impressive falsetto in the upper register. I can’t forget the star of the show, the robot Ava, controlled by @amydeng_ . What an extraordinary feat to be controlling a robot from backstage, and to do it near flawlessly. The score was a little repetitive, and the plot gets muddled towards the end, but everything else more than makes up for it. Overall a terrific show and well worth seeing for those into the Silicon Valley tech scene if they ever run another production. An incredible effort by all who participated in it. This was the most enjoyable musical I’ve seen in SF. (the only other one I saw was Aladdin)