Internet Marketer Extraordinaire @ Battle Bridge. We grow revenue. Lover of freedom & personal responsibility. I'm kind of a big deal.
Medellín, Colombia
Joined March 2008
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Travis Phipps retweeted
Dusting off this tweet from April because this gap in shared understanding of LLM capability is *widening*. It's now less "two groups of people speaking past each other" and more a sharp funnel.
- Napkin math somewhere around 6B people (~75% of the population) have barely come in contact with LLMs at all.
- Around 1-2B (~20%) are casual and infrequent users of free-tier ChatGPT-like products. This group sees derpy chatbots and treats them a bit like a better Google search, a writing aid, or etc. Maybe an agent tries to book you a flight. I have non-tech friends who (reasonably, imo) say they have not much use for it at all. Even many professionals outside of math&code are in this tier. For example, execs and many other functions spend a lot of their time talking to other people, so while they understand what is happening intellectually, it is still second-hand and a bit abstract.
- Now we get to professional use of frontier-grade LLMs in math&code. Somewhere around 20M people (0.2%) see first-hand that large, complex projects that used to take them weeks/months can now be completed by agents with a prompt. Building apps, copying apps, translating apps, decompiling apps from binaries... This has all happened very quickly and recently - less than 1 year ago, I was writing code manually by hand, typing memorized computer code commands into a code editor character by character, occasionally pressing Tab to autocomplete a little chunk of code.
- And finally we get to the ~5,000 people (~0.00006%) with access to frontier-grade systems internally. The external world has seen the preview. It looks like swarms of thousands of agents collaborating over weeks on software mega projects: minting zero days, running cyber attacks and defenses at machine speeds, discovering new science, advancing the frontier of mathematics. Things that would have taken top professionals in the industry years of work. Meanwhile, human review and comprehension are starting to fall behind. For example, people are still involved in the "archeology" of the OpenAI-HF incident from many months ago. Mathematicians may be poring over the 722 manuscripts on frontier mathematics for a while.
The funnel is driven by a combination of factors:
1. The impact scales with ambition, problem size, and horizon. A question with a paragraph answer barely stresses the system. You need a reservoir of big, difficult problems that you really care about. This aspect drives the consumer / professional dimension of the funnel.
2. The jaggedness of the system (which I have written about a lot separately). Capability peaks in domains that are digital, verifiable and economically valuable. This is because LLM capability emerges from reinforcement learning on verifiable rewards on a curated environment mixture driven by revenue potential. This aspect primarily drives the area (e.g. math&code) dimension of the funnel.
3. Access. Free-tier, paid-tier, internal.
So this is the weirdness of the moment. The general public has mostly not interacted with these systems. When they have, it looks like a derpy chatbot. The majority of professionals still see only a modest uplift. And a small sliver of professionals are experiencing the vertigo of the curve going vertical. And it is all happening at the same time.
Judging by my tl there is a growing gap in understanding of AI capability.
The first issue I think is around recency and tier of use. I think a lot of people tried the free tier of ChatGPT somewhere last year and allowed it to inform their views on AI a little too much. This is a group of reactions laughing at various quirks of the models, hallucinations, etc. Yes I also saw the viral videos of OpenAI's Advanced Voice mode fumbling simple queries like "should I drive or walk to the carwash". The thing is that these free and old/deprecated models don't reflect the capability in the latest round of state of the art agentic models of this year, especially OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.
But that brings me to the second issue. Even if people paid $200/month to use the state of the art models, a lot of the capabilities are relatively "peaky" in highly technical areas. Typical queries around search, writing, advice, etc. are *not* the domain that has made the most noticeable and dramatic strides in capability. Partly, this is due to the technical details of reinforcement learning and its use of verifiable rewards. But partly, it's also because these use cases are not sufficiently prioritized by the companies in their hillclimbing because they don't lead to as much $$$ value. The goldmines are elsewhere, and the focus comes along.
So that brings me to the second group of people, who *both* 1) pay for and use the state of the art frontier agentic models (OpenAI Codex / Claude Code) and 2) do so professionally in technical domains like programming, math and research. This group of people is subject to the highest amount of "AI Psychosis" because the recent improvements in these domains as of this year have been nothing short of staggering. When you hand a computer terminal to one of these models, you can now watch them melt programming problems that you'd normally expect to take days/weeks of work. It's this second group of people that assigns a much greater gravity to the capabilities, their slope, and various cyber-related repercussions.
TLDR the people in these two groups are speaking past each other. It really is simultaneously the case that OpenAI's free and I think slightly orphaned (?) "Advanced Voice Mode" will fumble the dumbest questions in your Instagram's reels and *at the same time*, OpenAI's highest-tier and paid Codex model will go off for 1 hour to coherently restructure an entire code base, or find and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems. This part really works and has made dramatic strides because 2 properties: 1) these domains offer explicit reward functions that are verifiable meaning they are easily amenable to reinforcement learning training (e.g. unit tests passed yes or no, in contrast to writing, which is much harder to explicitly judge), but also 2) they are a lot more valuable in b2b settings, meaning that the biggest fraction of the team is focused on improving them. So here we are.
Travis Phipps retweeted
People are often surprised to hear that my podcast (2M+ listens/month) is literally just me and one producer + freelance editors.
You don't need a lot of people to make videos, you need a system, curiosity, desire, and reps. I've done 790 videos since 2021, so at this point it's second nature.
The real trick is I'm not doing this full time. I'm running companies all day, and that's actually where the content comes from.
I'm taking notes on what I'm learning as I go, and when something's interesting I tell myself to come back and make something out of it. Or I'm in a meeting with someone sharp and I go "you should come on the podcast."
It's not a second job I bolt on, I just made it part of how I already live and work.
how is @gregisenberg making so many high quality videos so frequently? does anyone know how big his team is? i can only imagine just the setup and planning of all his tutorial videos would take a massive amount of time and man hours
doing them + running multiple companies seems like a superhuman thing to do
Travis Phipps retweeted
59 breakdown!!
Something I never would have thought I’d do.
What a day. Let’s get into it
Travis Phipps retweeted
America is the land of the free, home of the brave.
"Safety nets" are chains to the free & brave.
This quoted post is unavailable.
Travis Phipps retweeted
The most interesting part of the red card saga isn't the ruling. It's how differently Americans and Europeans process the idea that they might have been wronged.
Europeans are fundamentally different from Americans in one particular way: they expect life to be aggravating and at times unfair. It's just a fact of moving through the world. I joke that in Europe, the customer is always wrong. You didn't read the fine print. The only pharmacy in town is closed every other Tuesday for three hours, and even if the times weren't posted, that's still your problem. Too bad if you want the bill, because the waiter's on his union-mandated half-hour smoke break, and you're just going to have to wait.
To quote the great Mark Knopfler: sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. There's something freeing in that. Things are less in your control, so there's less angst in managing your expectations.
In America, things couldn't be more different. We simply can't accept a wrong left unrighted.
The flight attendant sneezed handing you a drink on your one-hour flight? 15,000 frequent flyer miles. Didn't like your appetizer? A replacement is on the way, and the whole course comes off the bill. There's a reason our interstates are lined with trial lawyer billboards.
Europeans have turned complaining into a continental pastime with no expectation that the universe owes them a remedy for their grief. You gripe about the train being late, your friends nod solemnly and everyone goes back to their apéro. In America, we launch a full-blown investigation of the train system, sue the government (and its contractors) that allowed for the tardiness and hold a Congressional hearing on the state of national infrastructure.
So to an objective observer, the red card shouldn't have happened, and VAR was a travesty. To Americans, our star player shouldn't be unfairly banned from a match we couldn't afford to lose for a card he so obviously didn't deserve.
Who cares that FIFA used a little-used reversal to fix it. Who cares that other people are mad about it. We. Were. Wronged. It was unjust. It must be corrected. We would accept nothing less.
Europeans waxing poetic about the sanctity of the game are, of course, talking about a governing body whose last tournament host was decided via confirmed cash bribes — one that imposed dress codes on women, shrugged off widespread allegations of modern slavery and reconfigured the entire tournament calendar to suit the host country. Which is exactly the point. If you've made peace with all of that, at least enough to watch the tournament four years later, a probationary suspension isn't actually a scandal.
Maybe that's the real divide. Over millennia, Europeans have made peace with being the bug. Americans have never once considered it, and apparently, we're not about to start now.
Travis Phipps retweeted
If anybody sees any Americans complaining that Balogun gets to play today please let me know so we can deport them until the World Cup is over 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Travis Phipps retweeted
Today is America's 250th birthday.
1 year ago, I became of citizen of the USA.
America is the one place where chasing your crazy idea makes people root for you. Whatever the idea is.
A startup nobody asked for. A pop-punk band at 30. A weird little product you can't stop thinking about.
You say it out loud here and people get excited and ask how they can help. That's the magic.
Other places I've lived, I've gotten torn town. Not here.
The USA celebrates you for going after the thing you actually want to build. 250 years in, the best thing America still gives you is permission.
Permission to try. Permission to reinvent yourself. Permission to believe you can do better than the people who came before you.
It isn't perfect. No place is. But I think it's worth celebrating.
Happy birthday to the best place on earth to build your dream.
I'm grateful to be part of it.
Today, I officially became a citizen of the USA.
I’ve lived in other countries. Built companies in other ecosystems.
But there’s still nothing like America.
The optimism. The permission to reinvent yourself. The way people bet on ideas before they make sense.
Nowadays, you can build from anywhere, but America still feels like the home court for builders.
Just a feeling I have.
Where ambition isn’t seen as ego.
Where people want you to win.
Where capital, talent, and story all collide.
This country was built by people who thought they could do better.
That energy is still here.
Still infectious.
Grateful to officially be part of it.
Travis Phipps retweeted
Three things:
1. “It’s time for an economic reset” is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard an American politician say. If you don’t get what those words portend, you don’t understand 20th century history.
2. Among Democrats, Newsom is considered a moderate, not a progressive. His endorsement of a wealth tax makes it an official part of the Democratic Party platform for moderates and progressives alike; the policy is now table stakes for any Democrat seeking office at any level and in any region. We are no longer going to be able to escape this by simply claiming it’s the fringe left advocating for it.
3. Notice that Newsom calls it a “billionaires tax” but references the wealth of the top 10%. If you think a tax such as this would be limited to billionaires, you are delusional (remember that the income tax originally applied to less than 1% of earners). Billionaires have an entire industry of wealth managers, lawyers, and tax advisors helping them shelter assets. When this “billionaires tax” fails to collect even a small percentage of what Democrats promise it will, they will quickly expand it to apply to anyone with even $5M of assets (which is a top 2% net worth). Ordinary people far below the level of the ultra-wealthy—main street small business owners, mom-and-pop real estate investors, farmers, anyone with a decent-size nest egg in their IRA or 401k account—will quickly feel the pain as well.
Pay attention. This is serious, it’s not going away, and it’s going to come for all of us, billionaire or not.
It's time for a national billionaires tax and a new social contract.
10% of Americans own two-thirds of the wealth. Wages have stagnated. The cost of living has skyrocketed.
The system is fundamentally broken.
The federal tax code, a corporate code, and an inheritance code were written for a different set of Americans.
It’s time for an economic reset.
substack.com/@gavinnewsom
Travis Phipps retweeted
The Constitution is full of phrases like, "'Congress shall not...no law shall be passed.’ It's not about what the government will DO for you" says @robkhenderson.
It's about how "government is not going to interfere in your lives."
More reasons America thrived for 250 years:
Travis Phipps retweeted
Fellow Patriots, kin of the free and the brave,
Let me tell you a tale from these very days ... a tale of wanderers from across the sea who came not as conquerors, but as guests to our shores for the great tournament that draws the world together. From the green hills of the Celts, the ancient forests of the Germans, and the rugged fjords where the Viking blood still runs, they arrived ... sons and daughters of the same old stock that once crossed the same waters in longships and galleys, seeking new beginnings.
They came expecting a land of strangers. Instead, they found kin.
In the warm embrace of the southern lands ... where the magnolias bloom and the air carries the scent of pine and hearth-smoke ... they discovered a hospitality that felt like the old halls of their own ancestors. Doors opened not out of obligation, but from the same ancient code that bids a man welcome the traveler to his fire. Tables were laid with simple fare offered freely ... sweet tea poured without measure, stories shared long into the night beneath the stars. These were not the cold, hurried manners of distant cities, but the open-hearted welcome of folk who still remember what it means to guard the home and honor the guest.
And as they walked the streets, sat in the stands, and broke bread with everyday Americans ... farmers, craftsmen, fathers and mothers raising their children under the same sun ... they saw their own faces looking back. The same laughter, the same fierce pride in family and work, the same quiet strength that asks only to be left alone to build a life worth passing on. They spoke of liberty ... not the empty word shouted from towers, but the living freedom to raise their own children in their own way, to speak their own tongues, to keep the customs their grandfathers held sacred. They spoke of prosperity earned by honest hands, not stolen by decree. They spoke of a stable future ... one where the next generation inherits fields, homes, and traditions, not ruins and strangers in their place.
We are all one people, though the winds of time and the schemes of lesser men have tried to convince us otherwise. The Celt who sings the old songs, the German who keeps the feast days, the Viking who still feels the call of the open sea, and the American settler who tamed the wilderness with axe and plow ... we are branches of the same ancient tree. Our heritages are not chains that divide us, but roots that bind us. Our dreams are the same dream: to live free, to prosper by our own labor, and to leave our children a world where their own sons and daughters can do the same without apology or fear.
Those who would divide us ... who whisper that our cultures must be erased, that our borders mean nothing, that our shared blood is a sin ... they fear nothing more than this moment of recognition. They fear the day when the folk on both sides of the sea look at one another and remember: we are not rivals. We are not replacements for one another. We are the same people, scattered by history but never truly separated.
Let this tournament be more than games. Let it be a reminder that the old blood still answers the call. That the same love of liberty, the same hunger for honest prosperity, and the same fierce devotion to family still beats in every heart that traces its line back to those ancient shores.
We are one.
Stand fast. The dawn is coming....
A son of Asgard, an American first.
Travis Phipps retweeted
The moment Zverev became a Roland-Garros champion!
#RolandGarros
