Blake Miller

JUST IN: The Enhanced Games are set to debut this weekend in Las Vegas, with athletes allowed to use steroids, testosterone, HGH, & other banned substances.

Cloudflare CEO Prince on how AI changes who gets laid off first: Two weeks ago I laid off more than 20% of my workforce. I didn’t do it because Cloudflare is struggling. We posted record revenue growth, have strong free cash flow and are adding an unprecedented number of customers around the world. I did it because business is changing, and to win the future, Cloudflare needs to change with it. We haven’t found another example in U.S. business history of a public company growing at more than 30% that laid off more than 20% of its workforce. Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year. This is a story about artificial intelligence, but executives and commentators are misunderstanding how it will disrupt business and who will be affected. AI isn’t coming for builders or sellers, but it is coming for measurers. Tireless, independent, efficient and available, AI systems can now measure an organization with a level of objective detail and precision that was previously impossible even for the best employees. For Cloudflare, internal audit previously picked a handful of business risk areas to scrutinize each quarter. Now we’re moving to a system in which every business risk is audited continuously. We’re closing our books faster. We’re making fewer mistakes and catching the ones we do more reliably. And, as CEO, I’ve never had better tools to measure exactly how the business is performing, including identifying our rising stars. The vast majority of those we laid off last week were measurers. We cut middle managers across the organization because AI allows us to have more direct reports per manager while still measuring and mentoring our teams effectively. We consolidated our operations functions into a single group that can support teams across the business, using AI to gain specific expertise when needed. We significantly reduced our marketing team, which, like in most companies, was teeming with measurers. Across our finance team, we found opportunities to consolidate and automate. We received almost a million applicants for 1,111 paid internships this summer. The interns we hired are extremely qualified and AI-native. They’re all builders or sellers, and we expect that the majority will get full-time offers.

SpaceX just announced a manned Mars flyby mission. They should also be the first to do a Venus flyby mission given it’s a shorter trip. A manned Venus flyby was planned under Apollo in the 1970s.

Enhanced Games athlete in photo is James “The Missile” Magnussen. Australian swimmer with an Olympic silver medal. Said he’d “juice to the gills” if offered $1m to break 50m freestyle record of 20.88. Enhanced Games agreed. This vid of him is most viewed on its YouTube channel and top comment is incredible: “you can see his back from his front”. Absolute tank. 6’6 and will weigh ~250lbs for the swim. For the inaugural Enhanced Games this weekend, Magnussen will also wear a full-body polyurethane super swimming suit that was banned after 2008 Beijing Olympics (he’s been training and doping at a facility in LV).

Fun Fact: LA has many oil derricks hidden in plain sight! "Built in 1967, what looks like a windowless beige office building along Pico in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood hides 52 oil and gas wells owned by Sentinel Peak Resources. A derrick on tracks moves from well head to well head within the roofless structure"