Meta fights Google & Tesla recalls Cybertrucks

In last week’s weekend issue, I covered the Compression vs Expansion mental model of Value Creation (and to those who replied: I enjoyed engaging with your questions / thoughts!)

If you missed it, here’s the link to Part 1.

Part 2: How to Increase Your Density of Value Creation

Is value absolute or relative? Well, yes and no. 😉 

I believe it lies less on the spectrum of absolutism vs relativism. And more along “facts-based” vs “narrative-based” dimensions.

Consider this: HOW you communicate and channel value is crucial to WHAT value you are seeking to generate. In other words you need both “facts” and “narrative” to achieve a high density of value creation and assignment.

Here are the 4 dimensions that constitute narrative-based value:
IEEE: Inspire, Educate, Engage, Entertain

a. Inspire: In a nutshell, to influence a shift in perspective, action or values.
b. Educate: Deliver concepts and insights that constitute knowledge
c. Engage: Form a connection and channel an interaction or conversation
d. Entertain: A narrower and light-hearted form of engagement - particularly indexing on memorability

For instance, one way to drive organisational value is to develop an asymmetric cost advantage (i.e. constraint compression, a facts-based dimension). However to do so without creating a sense of urgency, changing mindsets and upskilling key managers (i.e. engage, educate and maybe even inspire), the value creation density will be fairly low (i.e. you are more likely to fail)

The same can be applied to personal life: goals, relationships, networking etc. What can you do incrementally better across those 4 dimensions above? Consider reflecting on particular situations and rank on a scale of 0-5 across each of the IEEE dimensions. What could you have done better, and how will you amend your heuristic for future value creation?

I look forward to hearing from you (just reply to this email).

- Your Editor

Media Mentions 💬

A sneak peek into what we are currently absorbing (or absorbed by).

1. Marc Andreessen (notable investor, entrepreneur and intellectual heretic) interview on The Huberman Lab Podcast - YouTube (480K+ views)

   
   “If you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you think.”
   
   Marc offers insights (a few of which are considered contrarian) across several topics such as: Civilisational progress, Traits of Innovators, Elitism and Activism, Technological Leaps - and more

2. How to Start a Startup (a free Stanford course taught by Y-Combinator)
   [YC Library]
   
   I would recommend watching the videos on culture FIRST before touching on How to start, PMF and Fundraising. Not necessarily because culture is oh so important (it is), but because of how the insights shared extend well beyond startups, culture and people.
   
   Building Company Culture, Part 1 - Brain (cofounder of AirBnb)
   
   Building Company Culture, Part 2 - Ben (cofounder of Pinterest) & Patrick (cofounder of Stripe)
   
   You can apply these distilled concepts across a large surface area: e.g. team-building, navigating ambiguity, and influencing without authority.

News & Trends 📢

1. Tesla recalls all Cybertrucks with immediate effect: How it went down

   
   

2. Meta (Llama 3) Vs Google (Gemini 1.5) models: Who wins?

   

   Meta claims that its newer Llama 3 models beat Google’s Gemini 1.5 and Anthropic’s Claude 3 model. It also stated that its newer models - trained on two custom-built 24,000 GPU clusters - exhibit higher “steerability” and accuracy alongside lower bias.

   
   

3. NASA is sending a giant drone (codename: Dragonfly) to Saturn

   

   [Youtube]

4. The Bitcoin halving just happened - the fourth one in its 15-year history.
   Coindesk covers what this means and why hundreds of millions of investors globally believe the best is yet to come.

   
   

5. Alibaba and Lenovo join forces to build AI computers [Link]

   Lenovo is collaborating with Alibaba to create a range of AI products. Lenovo’s CEO says they are shifting from a focus on breakthroughs (i.e. higher performance) to practical consumer applications. These include AI computers - PCs where generative AI tasks can be run locally.

   
   

6. Intel unveils a neuromorphic computer that mimics the human brain [Live Science]

   

   An incredible breakthrough! Capable of a whopping 20 quadrillion operations per second, this “brain” comprises of 1.15 billion artificial neurons and 128 billion artificial synapses. Neuromorphic computing is still a nascent field - with far-reaching applications across LLMs, AI research and AGI.

7. [Techcrunch] After years of strong momentum, it looks like the AI sector is experiencing significant slowdown in new investments