The hottest Substack posts right now

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Long Take: How the Machine Economy combining AI, blockchain, and Fintech is growing

The Fintech Blueprint • 727 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
đź•ą Technology Crypto AI Blockchain Fintech
  1. Web3 is becoming the venue for the emerging machine economy with AI and blockchain integration.
  2. There is a need for infrastructure to support decentralized AI development and deployment.
  3. The future may see AI agents centralized by tech giants, prompting a shift towards AI custody and control in Web3.

People Frameworks

Fish Food for Thought • 36 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Performance Culture Management Leadership Org Design Decision-making Talent
  1. Assume people are competent and mean well; instead of blaming, ask what made success hard and focus on clarifying expectations.
  2. Behavior usually has a backstory — look for constraints, patterns, and incentives rather than jumping to character judgments, and trust by default while verifying when needed.
  3. Treat failures as data for learning, not moral proof; ask whether a choice makes sense given the person’s information and constraints and fix systems or incentives accordingly.

Why Hallucinations Will Never Be Eliminated

Teaching computers how to talk • 167 implied HN points • 03 Dec 25
đź•ą Technology Safety AI Models Language Data Statistics
  1. Language models are just predictions and approximations of text, which means they can sometimes make up information that sounds believable but isn't true.
  2. These models don't understand the world the way humans do; they only see words related to other words, so they can get confused easily and not follow conversations well.
  3. People who develop language models try to make them safer, but sometimes these systems can be tricked, and that’s a serious concern since they can't truly differentiate between safe and dangerous content.

Perfectly Designed for These Results

Fish Food for Thought • 27 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Corporate culture Systems Thinking Organizational Design Operations Strategy Leadership
  1. Systems produce the results they’re designed for; when outcomes repeat, it’s a feature of the system, not just a few bad actors. If you want different results, you must change the system.
  2. How a team is organized and how people communicate directly shape the products and processes they build. Siloed or misaligned structures create brittle, broken systems, while aligned, autonomous teams make scalable, resilient ones.
  3. Leadership’s real work is system design: set information flows, decision rights, and incentives so the system rewards the behaviors you want. Blame and training are cheap fixes—real change is slow and structural.
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Systemic Concentrated Cyber Risks

Resilient Cyber • 79 implied HN points • 28 Jul 24
đź•ą Technology Cybersecurity Market Dynamics
  1. Concentrated cyber risks can cause major problems when a few companies dominate the market. If something goes wrong with a major vendor, it affects many organizations relying on them.
  2. Having a diverse range of vendors can help reduce risks. This diversity encourages innovation and prevents over-dependence on one company's tools.
  3. Finding the right mix between using dominant vendors and maintaining vendor diversity is crucial. Organizations must look for a balance that meets their unique needs while minimizing risks.

Strategic Reset: The 7 Interconnected Forces.

The Future Does Not Fit In The Containers Of The Past • 49 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
đź’Ľ Business Energy Talent Strategy Technology Geopolitics Globalization Demographics Healthcare
  1. Seven interconnected forces — AI, American aspiration, bio‑pharma, China, energy, demographics and immigration — are reshaping every industry and require a strategic reset. Look at how they interact because their combined effects determine politics, markets and the future of work.
  2. AI is accelerating faster than most expect and will affect every job and business, with especially big impacts in medicine, drug discovery and physical AI like robotics. Recent platform integrations and new models mean organizations need to act now, not later.
  3. The U.S. and China dominate global GDP and modern innovation, and China’s strength in manufacturing, research and cheap electricity gives it important advantages. Aging populations and low birthrates make immigration and automation key levers for future labor, markets and political choices.

Offer accepted

Off to Lunch • 687 implied HN points • 07 Feb 24
đź’Ľ Business Media Podcasts Social media Mergers Infrastructure
  1. Barratt Developments is acquiring Redrow in a ÂŁ2.5 billion deal, creating the largest housebuilder in the UK
  2. The all-share deal values Redrow's shares at a 27% premium, with Barratt shareholders owning 67.2% of the new company
  3. The merger expects to save up to ÂŁ90 million in annual costs and position Redrow as the premium housing brand within the group

Introducing the AI Frontier

The AI Frontier • 59 implied HN points • 08 Aug 24
đź•ą Technology Software AI Innovation Startups Research
  1. The blog is now focusing more on specific AI topics instead of a wide range of subjects. This will help them share deeper insights and experiences.
  2. They aim to discuss what they've learned from building their AI product and how technology changes impact AI startups.
  3. Going forward, the blog will highlight useful projects and focus on practical lessons, like data cleaning, rather than generic news about AI.

News of the Week (Jan 29 - Feb 2)

Stock Market Nerd • 707 implied HN points • 03 Feb 24
đź’° Finance Earnings Market Analysis Investing Economic Indicators Stock Market
  1. Apple beat revenue estimates but had mixed performance in different product segments, especially in China.
  2. Mastercard surpassed revenue estimates and saw growth in various sectors like cross-border revenue and value-add services.
  3. Match's financial results were strong, although challenges like negative payer growth from price hikes are temporary.
  4. AMD ranked well in Cloud Workload Security and continues to expand its offerings with the potential for higher revenue and margins.
  5. CrowdStrike received recognition in Forrester's Cloud Workload Security report and shows promising growth potential with increased modules for clients.

Q4 NY Fed Report: Credit Scores for Mortgages Still Solid, Foreclosures Increase Slightly

CalculatedRisk Newsletter • 28 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Foreclosures Delinquencies Household Debt Credit Mortgages Housing
  1. Household debt rose in Q4 2025, driven by increases in mortgage balances and higher credit card balances.
  2. Delinquency rates edged up as more mortgages moved into 30–60 day late status and fewer loans cured back to current, while foreclosures increased slightly but remain below pre‑pandemic levels.
  3. Mortgage originations show strong credit quality (median score ~775) with almost no new loans to borrowers below 620, reflecting much tighter underwriting than during the housing bubble.

Thoughts on the AI 2027 discourse

DYNOMIGHT INTERNET NEWSLETTER • 828 implied HN points • 23 Jun 25
đź•ą Technology AI Methodology Critique Peer Review Discourse
  1. The discourse around AI 2027 shows both excitement for its predictions and criticism regarding its methods. This mix of reactions indicates a deep interest and concern about the future of AI.
  2. Peer review in academic work has flaws and can often delay important findings. This can sometimes result in long and complicated processes that may not effectively ensure the accuracy of research.
  3. An open and collaborative approach to discussing and critiquing ideas, like what's happening with AI 2027, could lead to better outcomes. When people engage directly and constructively, it helps improve the ideas being presented.

Who can you trust?

Glenn’s Substack • 1395 implied HN points • 07 Apr 23
đź•ą Technology AI Deepfakes Encryption
  1. Questioning the trustworthiness of audio, video, and photographs due to the rise of deepfakes.
  2. Historically, relying on human witnesses has been essential in situations where visual evidence is questionable.
  3. Considering the utilization of specially trained observers, similar to Heinlein's concept of Fair Witnesses, to navigate the challenges of trust in evidence.

Time and the flesh are short- technologically augmented death contemplation

Philosophy bear • 57 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź“– Philosophy Moral Psychology Technology Ethics Existentialism Death Meditation
  1. We live at a hinge point where many powerful, dangerous, and transformative forces intersect, so time and opportunity are unusually precious and easily wasted.
  2. Personal, specific reminders of mortality—imagining yourself or loved ones dying—create sharp urgency. That urgency helps you act now instead of procrastinating.
  3. Technology can augment traditional death contemplation, for example by creating images of yourself as dead to keep on your phone, making the reminder more immediate. This can motivate quicker, more creative, and braver expressions of love and generosity.

Non-Ordinary Sensemaking: How to Navigate a New Reality

rebelwisdom • 1552 implied HN points • 06 Jun 23
đź“– Philosophy Morality Spirituality Consciousness Reality Metaphysics
  1. The more time we spend online, the more we risk being influenced by different states of consciousness.
  2. To effectively navigate different states of consciousness, we need 'state competence' and should learn to translate between them.
  3. Understanding cognition as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended can help us adapt to different environments and perspectives.

Valuations Don’t Matter When Money Is Fake

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 61 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
đź’° Finance Macro economics Investment strategy Asset allocation Inflation Market Valuation Monetary Policy Central Banking
  1. Central bank money printing and nonstop liquidity have decoupled prices from fundamentals, so extreme valuation multiples can persist because liquidity, not earnings, drives markets.
  2. That liquidity is uneven, concentrating in a handful of mega-cap firms that prop up indexes while most stocks and the real economy lag behind.
  3. Given these distortions, protecting wealth matters more than timing the market — diversify into sound money, real assets, and non-dollar exposure instead of relying on historical valuation limits.

Craft World: A Beginner's Guide

Ronin’s Newsletter • 24 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
đź”® Crypto Tokens Gaming NFTs DeFi Economy
  1. Craft World is a free-to-play resource-management game with a fully on-chain economy on Ronin where the core loop is collect, craft, trade, and build using blockchain-tracked materials and DynoCoin.
  2. Progression revolves around repairing and upgrading your base (Town Hall, Exchange, Vault, Workshop, Mastery) and balancing power, production chains, and permanent choices like Workshop Points to optimize long-term efficiency.
  3. Earning comes from many paths—selling on the Exchange, Vault passive gains, community Masterpieces, Live-Ops, liquidity pools, and owning Water/Fire Dyno NFTs—so a patient, market-aware strategy beats short-term grinding.

The Silver Market Just Nuked The Narrative

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 106 implied HN points • 27 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Investment strategy Monetary Policy Precious metals Macroeconomics Central Banks Market Analysis Commodities
  1. Silver's sudden, violent price surge is a clear signal that problems in the monetary system are showing up in markets, and it's more a systemic warning than a one-off trade.
  2. A rare convergence of falling real yields, Fed-cut expectations, central bank gold buying, new institutional demand, thin physical supply, and speculative derivatives created a squeeze that amplified the move.
  3. Precious metals are acting as an honest barometer of eroding confidence in fiat and central planning, implying a regime change driven by decades of loose monetary policy and rising deficits.

Palantir (PLTR) Q4 Earnings Review

Stock Market Nerd • 687 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
đź’° Finance Balance Sheet Profitability Revenue Metrics
  1. Palantir beat revenue and profit estimates, showing strong demand and profitability growth.
  2. Balance sheet details indicate a healthy financial position with no traditional debt and significant cash reserves.
  3. The company has shown impressive growth, particularly in the U.S. commercial sector, and is poised for further success with its AI platform.

On strategy, good and bad (mostly bad)

Simplicity is SOTA • 131 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
đź’Ľ Business Management Strategy Leadership Operations Decision-making Organization
  1. Good strategy is a clear, simple response to an important challenge: diagnose the core problem, pick a guiding policy, and specify coherent actions that people can actually implement.
  2. Bad strategy hides behind fluff, vague goals, or infeasible objectives and often fails because leaders avoid hard choices or rely on templates and positive thinking instead of confronting obstacles.
  3. You improve strategic skill by developing deep domain knowledge and design taste, practicing judgment (avoid myopia, question assumptions, and write down your reasoning), and honestly testing strong alternatives and pre-mortems.

Tesla in November 2023: Story twists & turns, with value consequences!

Musings on Markets • 1238 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
đź’Ľ Business Investing Market Analysis Automotive Industry Company Valuation Innovation
  1. Tesla has faced ups and downs in its stock price lately, dropping below $200 after some tough weeks. This shows how quickly the market reacts to Tesla's news.
  2. Three big stories are influencing Tesla's future: price cuts to stay competitive, advancements in their self-driving technology, and the highly-anticipated Cybertruck launch.
  3. Valuing Tesla is complex because it has multiple business areas. Right now, the estimated value per share is around $180, but it can change depending on how their stories develop.

Kimi K2 and when "DeepSeek Moments" become normal

Democratizing Automation • 680 implied HN points • 14 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Modeling Geopolitics AI Open Source Innovation
  1. Kimi K2 is a new AI model from a Chinese startup and shows that China is catching up to or surpassing the U.S. in AI development. This means we need to rethink how we view AI technology in the future.
  2. Training leading AI models is becoming easier and cheaper, which means more organizations can create powerful models. This trend hints at a growing competition in the AI landscape.
  3. The gap between open AI models from the West and those from China is widening. This signals a need for stronger support and investment in AI research in the West.

Agency motivates more than perks

A Bit Gamey • 33 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Management Employee engagement Workplace culture Organizational Design Human Resources Leadership
  1. People are motivated more by trust, autonomy and ownership than by perks; give clear responsibility and freedom and they will invest effort and care.
  2. Heavy rules, measurement and presence-for-presence policies push people toward safe, explainable work and kill initiative. Visibility and checklists can look like control but often reduce real progress.
  3. Design for agency by pairing clear outcomes and context with freedom in method; boundaries, not micro‑rules, keep teams creative and resilient—especially as AI takes on rule-following.

Ilya on deep learning in 2015

Democratizing Automation • 760 implied HN points • 28 Jun 25
đź•ą Technology Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Deep Learning Data science Optimization
  1. Deep learning is not as complicated as it seems; the basic ideas are pretty straightforward and can be learned quickly with the right guidance. You don't need years of study to understand how it works.
  2. Getting the right random initialization for neural networks is crucial. If the initialization is too small, the signal can decay and become unnoticeable, making it hard for the model to learn effectively.
  3. Machine learning focuses on achieving good enough results rather than perfect solutions. It’s more about finding practical and useful models with the resources available.

ESP32-S3 ZX Spectrum - Update 22-06-2024

Single Board ESP32 ZX Spectrum • 159 implied HN points • 22 Jun 24
đź•ą Technology Software Hardware Manufacturing Crowdfunding Design
  1. The creator is grateful for the support shown for the ESP32-S3 ZX Spectrum project, with 432 people signing up for updates.
  2. Progress has been made in applying to platforms like Crowd Supply, developing prototypes with new features, and creating new artwork for the project.
  3. Key questions are addressed about the project, including display options, pricing, support for games, and potential selling platforms.

"Economy Is In Recession": Only 181k Jobs Gained For All Of 2025

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 20 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Commodities Economic Indicators Economic data Monetary Policy Labor Market Macroeconomics
  1. Headline payrolls showed only 181,000 net jobs added in 2025 — about 15,000 per month — which is very weak and consistent with recessionary conditions.
  2. Large downward revisions removed roughly 1.2 million jobs from prior estimates, with monthly revisions averaging around 105k, making the recent labor picture much worse than initially reported.
  3. The year’s reported positive job growth depends largely on the BLS birth/death assumption (+1.15M), while actual measured job counts were negative, so most gains reflect model assumptions about new business formation rather than recorded hires.

Formabble Prepares to Go Open Source

Formabble’s Substack • 2 HN points • 01 Oct 24
đź•ą Technology Artificial Intelligence Open Source Game Development Software Engineering Networking
  1. Formabble is going open source soon, which will make it more accessible for developers. This shift aims to encourage transparency and collaboration in game development.
  2. The platform uses AI to help developers create games more easily. Its features include automating coding tasks and offering intelligent suggestions, making game design simpler and more creative.
  3. Formabble's new design promotes better teamwork, especially for multiplayer games. It allows players to sync their game data in real-time and even continue playing offline, improving the overall gaming experience.

OpenAI o3 Model Is a Message From the Future: Update All You Think You Know About AI

The Algorithmic Bridge • 2080 implied HN points • 20 Dec 24
đź•ą Technology Computing Artificial Intelligence Software Development Machine Learning Innovation
  1. OpenAI's new o3 model performs exceptionally well in math, coding, and reasoning tasks. Its scores are much higher than previous models, showing it can tackle complex problems better than ever.
  2. The speed at which OpenAI developed and tested the o3 model is impressive. They managed to release this advanced version just weeks after the previous model, indicating rapid progress in AI development.
  3. O3's high performance in challenging benchmarks suggests AI capabilities are advancing faster than many anticipated. This may lead to big changes in how we understand and interact with artificial intelligence.

Efficient Computer's Electron E1 CPU

More Than Moore • 653 implied HN points • 24 Jul 25
đź•ą Technology Embedded Systems Computing Hardware Startups Innovation
  1. The Electron E1 CPU by Efficient Computer uses a unique design that aims to be much more energy-efficient than traditional chips. It does this by changing how data moves and is processed, reducing energy waste.
  2. This CPU has a special architecture called 'Fabric' that lets data flow directly between computing nodes. This design is supposed to save a lot of energy that typical CPUs lose moving data around.
  3. Efficient Computer believes their chip could be 10 to 100 times more efficient than the best ARM CPUs. However, until more independent tests are done, it's hard to say how well it’ll really perform in the real world.

How does Uber handle petabytes of Spark shuffle data every day?

VuTrinh. • 159 implied HN points • 22 Jun 24
đź•ą Technology Cloud Computing Software Development Distributed Systems Data Engineering Big Data
  1. Uber uses a Remote Shuffle Service (RSS) to handle large amounts of Spark shuffle data more efficiently. This means data is sent to a remote server instead of being saved on local disks during processing.
  2. By changing how data is transferred, the new system helps reduce failures and improve the lifespan of hardware. Now, servers can handle more jobs without crashing and SSDs last longer.
  3. RSS also streamlines the process for the reduce tasks, as they now only need to pull data from one server instead of multiple ones. This saves time and resources, making everything run smoother.

BBNs Toward Universal Fabricators

FreakTakes • 15 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
đź•ą Technology Materials science Protein engineering Biotechnology
  1. Proteins can be engineered to act as “universal fabricators” that assemble materials with molecular precision, opening the door to new classes of electronic, energy, and structural materials beyond today’s manufacturing methods.
  2. Small, interdisciplinary Frontier Research Contractor (BBN/FRC) teams—combining protein engineers, soft-matter experts, mineralization specialists, and process engineers—are the right organizational form to iterate quickly from sequence to macroscopic, functional assemblies.
  3. Building this vision requires infrastructure partners that scale protein production and rapid metrology, and those supplier FRCs can be commercially viable by serving multiple industries while accelerating the core materials programs.

How to get rich combining generic drugs: lessons from Axsome

Trevor Klee’s Newsletter • 820 implied HN points • 21 Jun 25
đź’Ľ Business Innovation Finance Healthcare Pharma Startups
  1. Combining generic drugs can create new treatments and opportunities for profit. It’s all about understanding how the drugs work together for better results.
  2. Developing a unique formulation is key. You need to offer something that can't be simply made with existing medications, like a special combination or dosage.
  3. Working closely with regulators and payers from the start is crucial. You need to show them why your combination is valuable and why they should support it.

Jester’s Privilege

Becoming Noble • 1375 implied HN points • 14 Jul 23
đź“– Philosophy Existence Truth Knowledge Meaning Ethics
  1. The Vitalist Right movement is described as being built on a disembodied space of pure voice lacking physicality, leading to a constant state of transition with no lasting structures being built
  2. The jester in this environment thrives due to the privilege of provocation without fear of physical retribution, a role that overshadows proper leadership qualities
  3. Embracing solitude, silence, and decisive action appears to be valued virtues over endless gossip and dreaming in a space where nothing tangible can be built

Import AI 364: Robot scaling laws; human-level LLM forecasting; and Claude 3

Import AI • 519 implied HN points • 11 Mar 24
đź•ą Technology Generative models Biology AI Robots
  1. Scaling laws are transforming the world of robotics - more data, bigger context windows, and more parameters in models lead to significant improvements quickly.
  2. Advancements in AI forecasting show that language models can match human capabilities in predicting binary outcomes, suggesting a future of accurate forecasting by AI systems.
  3. New datasets like Panda-70M for video captioning and models like Evo for biological predictions are pushing the boundaries of AI and demonstrating the power of generative models in various domains.