TRW Issue#69

AI Eats the World / Weapons Gain Decision-Making Power / Google's Quite Nuclear Quest / How to Avoid to Become a VC Meme

Dec 01, 2024

Hello there 👋

I'm Edo, and welcome to the 69th issue of Tech Readings of the Week!

Every Sunday, I curate a digest of tech insights for non-tech folks and aspiring founders. From data-driven trends to tech leaders' opinions, with a pinch of startup wisdom, I help you cut through the noise and stay ahead of the curve.

Ready to dive in? Let's go! 🚀

In Today's Issue 👇

AI Eats the World According to Ben Evans
When Weapons Start Thinking: The New Frontier of Autonomous Decision-Making
Google's Nuclear Ambitions: What's Really Brewing?
How to Avoid Becoming a VC Meme
29 Business Moats that Help Keep Competitive Advantage

👓 Essays & articles

AI Eats the World - a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry (Benedict Evans)
Elon Musk’s DOGE is attracting young coders and tech CEOs to apply - the incoming Trump administration’s planned agency for cutting government excess is seeking 100 full-time hires in the nation’s capital (Forbes)(€)
The technology for autonomous weapons exists. What now? - in the future, humans may not be the only arbiters of who lives and dies in war, as weapons gain decision-making power (Undark)
How the world’s biggest laser smashed a nuclear-fusion record - the US National Ignition Facility is the only laboratory where a nuclear-fusion reaction has generated more energy than it consumed. Here’s how it achieved this historic milestone and sparked fresh interest in fusion energy (Nature)
The inside story of Google's quiet nuclear quest - for a decade, Google Research has helped advance nuclear energy R&D (IEEE Spectrum)
What is distributed computing? - our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines (Quanta Magazine)
Humanoid robot Figure 02 impresses at BMW plant with 400% efficiency upgrade - the Figure 02 humanoid demonstrates high-precision sheet metal insertion with a reduced cycle time at BMW’s Spartanburg plant (Interesting Engineering)
Why AI might finally break Polanyi's Paradox - ...and transform business forever (Exponential View)
A Minecraft town of AI characters made friends, invented jobs, and spread religion - hundreds of LLM-powered AI agents spontaneously made friends, invented jobs, and spread religion (MIT Technology Review)(€)
Singapore deploys more self-driving vehicles to ease labor shortages - the tiny country has embraced autonomous vehicles as a way to overcome labor shortages and use its scarce land more efficiently (Rest Of World)
Beauty is in the algorithm of the beholder - Ozempic, the Snob effect, and shifting societal beauty standards (Digital Native)
Bluesky has more than 21 million users. Where does it go from here? - The platform won’t touch ads for now, and is instead focused on paid subscriptions, payments, and getting more people signed up, its COO said (Marketing Brew)

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This startup is getting closer to bringing next-generation nuclear to the grid - Kairos Power signed a big deal with a tech giant and got approval to build its next test facility (MIT Technology Review)(€)
From East to West - lessons from China’s tech giants and their global dominance (New Economies)
Has AI scaling hit a limit? - signs are emerging that brute-force scaling alone may not be enough to drive continued improvements in AI (Foundation Capital)
I left my job to run an AI wrapper at Every - what it took to bet on myself, and why I think it will pay off (Every)
How to avoid becoming a VC meme and actually add value - a guide to avoid becoming a venture cliché and aiding your companies (The Generalist)

📊 Reports & Data

LangChain State of AI Agents Report - are AI agents living up to their potential, or are they just another buzzword? Who’s been deploying them, and what’s preventing others from diving in headfirst? (Langchain)
Atomico's State of European Tech - the broadest and most incisive insights into the forces shaping the ecosystem along with the steps that must be taken to fully realise the opportunity ahead (Atomico)

📚 Founder's Toolkit

TRW's collection of free fundraising resources for founders!

The ultimate 7-step GTM framework - a practical guide to growing your startup (The VC Corner)
29 business moats that helped shape the world’s most massive companies - a business moat is a key competitive advantage that sets a company apart from its competitors. From Amazon and Tesla to Starbucks and Coinbase, here is how 29 of the world's biggest companies have built and defended their moats (CB Insights Research)
The complete guide to Party Rounds: what they are and how they work - how startups leverage momentum to attract multiple investors, raise capital quickly, and fuel growth while navigating the unique challenges of party rounds (Substack Substack)