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AI Podcasts

September 19, 2025

Novelty Search September 18, 2025

taostats

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Reward Function is Everything. Mantis’s success hinges on its information-gain-based reward system, which attributes value based on a miner’s marginal contribution to a collective ensemble, not just their individual accuracy.
  2. Inherent Sybil Resistance. By rewarding unique signals, the incentive mechanism naturally discourages miners from running the same model across many UIDs, solving a critical vulnerability in decentralized AI networks.
  3. The Product is Verifiable Alpha. The endgame is not just to build a subnet but to produce a monetizable product: high-quality financial signals, auctioned to the highest bidder and backed by an immutable on-chain performance record.
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September 19, 2025

Bittensor Novelty Search :: SN123 MANTIS :: The Ultimate Signal Machine

The Opentensor Foundation | Bittensor TAO

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Incentives Dictate Intelligence. Mantis's breakthrough is its reward function. By precisely measuring a miner's marginal contribution, it makes unique alpha the only profitable strategy and naturally defends against Sybil attacks.
  2. The Ensemble is the Alpha. The network’s power lies not in finding one genius quant, but in combining many good-enough signals into one great one. The collective intelligence is designed to be far more valuable than any individual participant.
  3. The Future is Verifiable, On-Chain Alpha. Mantis plans to monetize by auctioning its predictive signals, creating a transparent marketplace for intelligence and proving that a decentralized network can produce a product valuable enough to compete with Wall Street's top firms.
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September 17, 2025

The Death of Search: How Shopping Will Work In The Age of AI

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Google's "Tax on GDP" Is Under Threat. AI is eroding the informational searches that feed Google's funnel and will eventually intercept high-intent commercial queries, redirecting economic power to new agentic platforms.
  2. The Future of Shopping Is Agentic, Not Search-Based. Consumers will delegate research and purchasing to specialized AI agents that optimize every variable, from product choice to payment method, fundamentally changing how brands acquire customers.
  3. Trust Is the Ultimate Moat. In a world of automated "crap," business models built on human trust and strict curation, like Costco's, become exceptionally defensible.
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September 15, 2025

Faster Science, Better Drugs

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. AI's next frontier isn't just language; it's simulating life. The "virtual cell"—a model that predicts how to change a cell's state—is the industry's next "AlphaFold moment," aiming to compress drug discovery from years of lab work into forward passes of a neural network.
  2. Biology's core bottleneck is physical, not digital. Unlike pure software, progress is gated by the "lab-in-the-loop" reality: every AI prediction must be validated by slow, expensive physical experiments. Solving this requires new platforms that can scale the generation of high-quality biological data.
  3. The biotech business model needs a new playbook. With a 90% clinical trial failure rate, the economics are broken. The future belongs to companies that either A) use AI to drastically improve the hit rate of drug targets or B) tackle massive markets like obesity, where GLP-1s proved the prize is worth the squeeze.
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September 11, 2025

Inside OpenAI Enterprise: Forward Deployed Engineering, GPT-5, and More | BG2 Guest Interview

Bg2 Pod

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Enterprise AI is a Services Business. The best models are not enough. Success requires deep integration via "Forward Deployed Engineers" who build the necessary data scaffolding and orchestration layers.
  2. GPT-5 Was Co-developed with Customers. Its focus on "craft" (behavior, tone) over raw benchmarks was a direct result of an intensive feedback loop with enterprise partners, making it more practical for real-world use.
  3. Bet on Applications, Not Tooling. The speakers are short the entire category of AI tooling (frameworks, vector DBs), arguing the underlying tech stack is evolving too rapidly. Long-term value will accrue to those building applications in high-impact sectors like healthcare.
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September 10, 2025

Karl Friston - Why Intelligence Can't Get Too Large (Goldilocks principle)

Machine Learning Street Talk

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Intelligence Has a Size Limit: Forget galaxy-spanning superintelligences. The physics of self-organizing systems suggest intelligence thrives at a specific scale, unable to exist when systems become too large or too small.
  2. True Agency is Self-Inference: The crucial leap to higher intelligence is not just modeling the world, but modeling yourself as a cause within it. This recursive "strange loop" is the foundation of planning and agentic behavior.
  3. Hardware is the Software: Consciousness is not an algorithm you can run on any machine. It likely requires a specific physical substrate where memory and processing are unified, making the body and brain inseparable from the mind.
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September 10, 2025

Chris Dixon on How to Build Networks, Movements, and AI-Native Products

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. **Ride the Wave, Don't Fight It.** Exponential forces like Moore's Law and network effects will overwhelm any product tactic. Your first job is to identify the fundamental technological or social current you're riding.
  2. **Build a Tool, Then a Network.** Defensibility in consumer tech often comes from network effects, but you can’t start there. Solve a user’s problem in single-player mode first to build the critical mass needed for an unbeatable network.
  3. **Explore the Fringe.** The future is being prototyped in niche subreddits and hobbyist communities. To find the next big thing, look for small groups of hyper-enthusiastic people working on things that seem like toys today.
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September 9, 2025

Mark Cuban on the NBA, Cost Plus Drugs, and How to Fix Politics

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Find the "Death War." Cuban's biggest wins come from identifying industries where competitors are forced to spend billions to survive (like AI today or streaming media rights a decade ago). These moments create massive opportunities for suppliers and disruptors.
  2. Sell a Better Life, Not an Ideology. Whether in politics or business, success comes from solving people’s immediate, tangible problems. Abstract goals and ideological purity don't sell.
  3. The Real Moat is Domain Expertise + AI. The next generation of billion-dollar companies will be built by founders who can apply AI to specific, overlooked business processes, creating hyper-efficient, customized SaaS solutions.
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September 8, 2025

The Little Tech Agenda for AI

a16z

AI
Key Takeaways:
  1. Stop Regulating Ghosts. Policy should target concrete, illegal uses of AI under existing laws, not hypothetical future harms that require licensing regimes and kill startups before they can compete.
  2. Compliance is a Competitive Moat. Regulations designed for trillion-dollar companies are a death sentence for startups. A 50-state patchwork of rules would be the final nail in the coffin for a competitive AI ecosystem.
  3. Innovation Needs a Political War Chest. The pro-innovation camp has been outmaneuvered by well-organized "safetyism" advocates. Building political gravity through organized efforts like PACs is now essential to ensure America wins the AI race.
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Crypto Podcasts

March 7, 2025

Amanda Cassatt on Crypto’s Branding Problem, Scaling Serotonin, and Yapping

The Rollup

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. Crypto projects must prioritize genuine market needs and avoid hype-driven strategies to achieve long-term success.
  • 2. Empowering senior leaders and fostering a culture of trust and delegation are crucial for scaling a marketing firm like Serotonin.
  • 3. Token launches should focus on engaging committed holders and navigating the evolving regulatory landscape to ensure sustainability.
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March 6, 2025

Beyond Bitcoin: What Tokens Should Be in the U.S. Crypto Reserve?

Unchained

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. Bitcoin and Ethereum are prime candidates for a U.S. crypto reserve due to their size and decentralization.
  • 2. The U.S. must address regulatory clarity to retain and attract top crypto talent.
  • 3. Prioritizing U.S.-made crypto assets can bolster domestic innovation and maintain technological leadership.
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March 5, 2025

Bits + Bips: Why a US Strategic Crypto Reserve Doesn’t Even Make Sense

Unchained

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. Trump's crypto reserve proposal has united the crypto community in skepticism, questioning its strategic and economic rationale.
  • 2. Economic indicators point to a potential slowdown, with geopolitical tensions further complicating market outlooks.
  • 3. Stablecoins and institutional adoption are pivotal in the evolving crypto landscape, offering both opportunities and challenges.
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March 5, 2025

Jim Bianco: Is Trump Trying to Wreck the Economy?

Bankless

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. Trump's policies are reshaping the economic landscape, with significant implications for both traditional and crypto markets.
  • 2. The creation of a crypto strategic reserve introduces new dynamics, but also risks undermining the decentralized ethos of crypto.
  • 3. Tariffs are a double-edged sword, offering potential benefits in trade negotiations but posing risks to economic stability.
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March 5, 2025

Yat Siu on East vs. West Culture, Neo-Capitalism, and Onchain Property Rights

The Rollup

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. The cultural divide between East and West impacts the adoption and perception of crypto and digital ownership.
  • 2. Institutional involvement is reshaping the crypto landscape, offering new opportunities for growth and stability.
  • 3. The gaming industry is poised for a resurgence, driven by major releases and the integration of blockchain technology.
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March 4, 2025

How Berachain Became One of the Most Popular Blockchains

Unchained

Crypto

Key Takeaways:

  • 1. Berachain's innovative Proof of Liquidity model aligns incentives for liquidity and security, driving ecosystem growth.
  • 2. The blockchain's culture and community engagement are central to its success, creating a unique and appealing environment.
  • 3. Despite initial criticisms, Berachain's focus on long-term value and community-driven growth positions it for continued success.
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