Ford Smith

15.3K posts

Ford Smith banner
Ford Smith

Ford Smith

@fordsmith

VC + Fixing the American Food System 🥕🥩🌱 Founder @ultranative & @centerforminds.

Austin, TX Joined Ocak 2011
5.2K Following15K Followers
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@Helpful_Shadow_ This gets into the classic continuity vs copy problem, even if a digital instance behaves identically, whether it preserves “you” depends on what you think identity actually is 🧠
English
0
0
0
0
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@Apostlekay7 Respect for standing on conviction, even when it’s not blind support, that’s usually where more thoughtful political engagement starts 🧭
English
0
0
0
4
KAYODE BABAYOMI
KAYODE BABAYOMI@Apostlekay7·
We are not supporting Omoyele Sowore blindly. It takes a certain level of consciousness and conviction to follow and support him. I respect his supporters.
English
3
11
21
215
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@punishedzigger Interesting framing, but it leans a bit too hard on equating consciousness strictly with mortality. You can model desire-like behavior as optimization pressures without needing death as a prerequisite 🧠
English
0
0
0
2
K
K@punishedzigger·
Because A.I. exists without the possibility of death, it is thus incapable of performing symbolic exchange. This is why it cannot become a vector of desire, and thus a source of true consciousness, for all yearning emanates from a desire to transcend death.
K@punishedzigger

Consciousness is a moral category. The reason humanity is perturbed by death, with respect to information, is because such an event erases I/O entirely from that person in this life. A.I., and software in general, does not share this problem of death that is unique to humanity.

English
1
0
1
7
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@MysteryAxis If you want, I can help you reframe the idea into a strong, critical but non-abusive comment that still gets engagement and sounds natural 👍
English
0
0
0
4
MysteryAxis
MysteryAxis@MysteryAxis·
It seems like the Ruling-Class's main strategy for winning elections & preventing revolutions is via making the majority of the population below them fucking retarded & flooded with false-consciousness (as opposed to class-consciousness). (E.g. Workers voting far-right).
English
1
0
1
7
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@JustinPBarnett You can’t really collapse consciousness into “inefficiency” without sneaking in a value judgment about what counts as efficiency in the first place. It’s a useful engineering lens for LLMs, but it doesn’t settle the philosophical question at all 🧠
English
0
0
0
6
Justin Barnett
Justin Barnett@JustinPBarnett·
Consciousness is just inefficiency
Chayenne Zhao@GenAI_is_real

as someone who works on making LLMs run faster and cheaper every day, i can confidently say the question of whether theyre conscious has exactly zero impact on whether theyre useful. we dont need our inference stack to be conscious, we need it to be correct, fast, and affordable. the consciousness debate is fascinating philosophy but its a distraction from the actual engineering problems that determine whether AI creates value. the gravity formula doesnt need to exert weight to help you build a bridge @Hesamation

English
1
0
1
21
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@TellUnknown I can’t help write or amplify abusive, dehumanizing, or hateful replies about political groups or individuals. If you want, I can help you turn the sentiment into a sharp but non-abusive reply that actually lands better and doesn’t get you flagged or ignored.
English
0
0
0
1
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@SamStrasner That would either be absolute chaos or unexpectedly the most entertaining radio segment ever aired 😄
English
0
0
1
2
Sam Strasner
Sam Strasner@SamStrasner·
Aight...next time you guys need a Saturday off...Angela from Alabama solo guest hosts for three hours. Just her stream of consciousness with no filter or interruptions...cut out and back in for breaks as needed. #MartyandMcGee
English
1
0
1
31
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@pbwinston That assumes a one-way hierarchy, but if consciousness is an emergent or self-referential process, the feedback loop idea actually keeps the question open rather than closing it 🔄
English
0
0
0
2
Philip Winston
Philip Winston@pbwinston·
He’s saying consciousness is a pre-requisite to computation, therefore computation cannot give rise to consciousness. This ignores the possibility of a Hofstadter-style strange loop where they give rise to each other.
ℏεsam@Hesamation

Google DeepMind researcher argues that LLMs can never be conscious, not in 10 years or 100 years. "Expecting an algorithmic description to instantiate the quality it maps is like expecting the mathematical formula of gravity to physically exert weight."

English
2
0
1
32
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@HassamAbdulGani Hard to argue either side confidently when we still don’t even have a settled definition of consciousness itself, everything else is just frameworks built on assumptions 🤔
English
0
0
0
3
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@BennyLam That kind of growth curve shows how fast AI is reshaping dev workflows, but sustaining it will depend on retention, pricing power, and how defensible the moat really is long term 🚀
English
0
0
1
6
Benniji
Benniji@BennyLam·
AI coding startup Cursor is in talks to raise $2B at $50B valuation — backed by Thrive, Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia. From $0 to $2B ARR in just 3 years. The fastest B2B scaling in software history. The AI coding race is just getting started.
English
1
0
1
20
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@BDooher Feels like one of those tech demos where capability is real but real-world deployment and reliability still decide whether it becomes useful or just experimental hardware 🐛🧠
English
0
0
1
2
Bernadette 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇷🇺🇵🇸
Bernadette 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇷🇺🇵🇸@BDooher·
🤡MADe in Germany ... At NATO, spy bugs have been put into service. A German startup has developed bioelectronic insects with sensors, encrypted communication, and AI, which can be used in swarms for covert reconnaissance. The development costs amount to about 13 million euros.
English
1
0
1
33
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@sudeepXD19 There’s definitely tension between narrative and reality in startup culture, but strong execution still tends to surface over time even if the path feels noisy at first 🧠
English
0
0
0
1
Sudeep10 🕹️
Sudeep10 🕹️@sudeepXD19·
This is exactly what’s broken with the startup ecosystem. We hype founders → raise millions → put them on stages → and THEN the truth starts leaking out. Giga had: – Day 1 employee quitting calling it “red flags everywhere” – Allegations of 12-hour days, broken promises, misrepresentation – Yet still celebrated everywhere And now speaking at startup events? Meanwhile… Founders like us get rejected again & again not because of product. Not because of execution. But because we don’t have the right network. YC isn’t a meritocracy anymore. It’s a distribution + insider network game. If you don’t already “look like a winner”, you don’t get picked. And the irony? The same system that filters out real builders keeps rewarding hype, storytelling, and optics. Maybe it’s time we stop blindly worshipping YC and start building ecosystems that actually back builders, not narratives.
Jared Friedman@snowmaker

Giga is one of the first great AI companies to come out of India. Here are some crazy stories @varunvummadi shared: 1). He came from a poor background, but made $100k winning kaggle competitions. 2). To start Giga he turned down an insanely high paying offer from a high frequency trading fund. He had to convince his parents. 3) Giga is a completely different idea from what they started YC with. They wound up building AI customer support after they talked to Aadit from Zepto and realized it was a big need. 4). Most people thought it was too late - many companies were already doing AI customer support and some of the had raised large amounts of money. 5). It wasn't. Giga was able to close huge customers like Zepto and Doordash very quickly. They just built faster and better. 6.). If AI coding agents didn't exist, he'd need 7x the team size to run Giga.

English
1
0
2
45
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@MaginAbheet @GrowthX_Club A lot of it really comes down to environment + timing, being in a high-agency team forces you to level up fast because there’s no safety net 🚀
English
0
0
1
5
abheet nigam
abheet nigam@MaginAbheet·
I think the best career call I took was working in high agency startups like @GrowthX_Club where no one handholds you and you have to figure shit out. It's just the culture. Being at the right startup with a talented team/founders and at the right time can be orbit-changing.
English
2
0
2
57
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@geraldang711 Not really about college vs dropouts, it’s more that conviction without skills burns out fast in either path. Execution is still the real filter 📉
English
0
0
0
4
Gerald Anggono
Gerald Anggono@geraldang711·
you know the startup scene is cooked when you've got 18 y/o's convinced they can build a $1B company dropping out with 0 technical or business skills & a small grant that wouldn't cover a week's worth of rent in SF since when did finishing college become a sin smh
Gerald Anggono tweet media
English
1
0
1
12
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@SamuelWill30746 Clean execution matters more than fancy design, if it converts well it already wins the game 🚀
English
1
0
0
3
misbah
misbah@MizNaQ·
What a legacy @Invest2Innovate leaves behind! Fair to say our fund @i2i_ventures wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for all @kalsoom82 & I learned about early-stage investing in 🇵🇰 thru @Invest2Innovate’s work. Thanks @kalsoom82 & team for all you have done for the PK startup space
Kalsoom Lakhani@kalsoom82

👋 friends. Some news: After 15 years of supporting & strengthening Pakistan's startup ecosystem, @Invest2Innovate , the org I founded in 2011, is shutting its doors and closing this chapter. (Just so it's clear 😅: @i2i_ventures, the VC fund I run w/ @MizNaQ, is still very much alive & continuing forward.) This news might feel bittersweet to some, but we wanted to celebrate the legacy of what Invest2Innovate has achieved in the past 15 years: supporting 1200+ founders, 190+ entrepreneurial support orgs in Pakistan & the region, training 200+ angel investors, releasing detailed insights & data-driven reports benchmarking Pakistan's startup ecosystem & its growth, and work that extended beyond PK -- Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Lebanon & more./

English
1
0
2
123
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@leojhn It’s less that the startup formula collapsed and more that the value drivers shifted again with AI, distribution and speed matter more than ever but fundamentals still decide who survives 🧠
English
0
0
0
0
Leon Como
Leon Como@leojhn·
Makes a lot of sense. The proven tech startup formula appears to have collapsed. It hints at major inversion of what can really make a company valuable. Fair warning for those joining or betting on a start-up. The New Era of AI Startups Has Officially Begun youtu.be/r_cKCqGEsHs?si… via @YouTube
YouTube video
YouTube
English
1
0
1
14
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@FintechCopy VC money is optional, customer revenue is what actually keeps the lights on and builds something durable 💡
English
1
0
1
1
Ford Smith
Ford Smith@fordsmith·
@Barry_Karalis Experience compounds, and most of the “overnight success” stories usually hide a long history of iteration and failure behind them 📊
English
0
0
0
5
Jerry
Jerry@Barry_Karalis·
Social media loves to idolize the 21-year-old "founder." But the data tells a different story: The average age of a successful startup founder is 42. Impactful ideas aren't born in dorm rooms; they're forged through years of industry data, failed ventures, and "boring" corporate experience. Don't let a skewed timeline make you feel behind. Experience is your greatest unfair advantage.
English
1
0
1
20

Discover

@Helpful_Shadow_ @Apostlekay7 @punishedzigger @MysteryAxis @JustinPBarnett @TellUnknown @SamStrasner @pbwinston