I agree with this. The output you get from an LLM is only as good as the context you provide.
The term context engineering has recently started to gain traction as a better alternative to prompt engineering. I like it. I think this one may have sticking power.
…Who now thinks it is smart to bet the continent’s security on the whim of thousands of Michiganders, Pennsylvanians and Wisconsinites every fourth November?
Canada, Trump and the new world order https://t.co/AZfyf71Idb via @ft
— Michael Ignatieff (@M_Ignatieff) January 18, 2025
Best thing I’ve read about the vision for American foreign policy in 2025. Create a big, beautiful buffer zone paid for and defended by vassals, controlled by American overwatch and for the benefit of oligarchs in Rome. A generational project, not unlike the original Bretton Woods institutions after WW2.
America’s price is rising and it’s going to keep going up for a while.
Adam Neumann spotted a big funding bubble, and found the most efficient way to exploit it, by taking an existing asset that he could buy at a real estate multiple funded by equity he raised at a startup multiple. This drew money away from better companies in a sense, but the money it was going after probably would have ended up in some other business with similarly bad returns on capital. What WeWork accomplished was to speed up this process and make it more visible—someone who ruthlessly exploits a poorly-justified bubble is basically an efficient markets accelerationist who is heightening the contradictions and pushing the system towards its inevitable collapse as a side effect of their effort to get rich quick at the expense of others.
From “Financial Markets aren’t Closed Systems” in Capital Gains by Byrne Hobart.
Finally someone is doing something about the artificial Sykes Picot borders between Canada and America
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) January 7, 2025
The New York Times Magazine ran a breathless story on the “rebirth” of Detroit. In part, the story was told through the eyes of Dan Gilbert, the CEO of mortgage machine Quicken Loans. Memorable quote:
One of Gilbert’s new downtown properties is an iconic Kahn creation from 1959 called Chase Tower, previously the National Bank of Detroit Building, which spans a full city block. Now nicknamed the Qube, the building houses hundreds of Quicken loan officers who sit or stand at small desks, working their phones. Employees are encouraged to write on the walls, which also display the latest tallied results in competitions between internal sales teams. Stenciled on the walls as well are the Quicken credos, 19 bits of pithy wisdom the company calls its “Isms.” (“The inches we need are everywhere around us.” “Numbers and money follow; they do not lead.”) Above the workers hover decorative, spacecraft-like orbs, in peach and pink and aquamarine, matching the colors of the cabinetry and carpeting. The overall atmosphere resembles “The Wolf of Wall Street” as art-directed by Dr. Seuss.
I can’t help but think that the Times, yet again, missed the point.
Detroit, once the beating heart of American industrial supremacy, is now reduced to flogging mortgages at overextended American consumers.
If that’s not a metaphor for the decline of the U.S. as an economic power, and the fall of the blue-collar middle class, I’m not sure what is.
There’s a raging debate on the twitters about whether it makes sense to build for Android vs iOS first. The real answer is that it depends on the problem you’re solving and the user’s context. But most of the time, neither is correct. Most startups should be be building for the web.
Prejudiced atlas of Europe, Serbian perspective.
Privacy, Trust and Identity are now at the forefront for all consumers, and have wide-ranging impact on technology and media businesses. From tech companies, expect lobbying actions, new tools, new policies and more personal control to rebuild users’ confidence, and from the policy world expect more guidelines around use of personal data and stricter repercussions for violations of user trust.
The Best “Sleeper Ideas” For Trends, Stocks, And Private Companies To Watch In 2014 – Forbes
Eric Jackson’s roundup of Sleeper picks includes this nugget from Michael Wolff (which of course I agree with), as well as a few thoughts from yours truly.
(via gregcohn)