Ali Altaf

@gorkem @tbpn 👑

Going on @tbpn shortly!

@henrythe9ths AI guide

There's a shocking fact about AI that nobody tells you: You can catch up to the public AI research frontier in just 2 weeks. Yes, really. I've built a $150M annual revenue startup over the last 8 years and If I were to start a company today, I’d drop everything and go all-in on AI. But like many busy software builders, I felt lost—overwhelmed by the noisy, crowded and fast-moving modern AI landscape. And I wasn’t alone. So I spent my entire holiday diving deep into AI research—reading 30+ papers, watching hours of lectures, analyzing trends, and catching up to the research frontier. ✨ Here’s what I learned: - You don’t need months (or years) to catch up. - You don’t need a PhD or decades of ML experience. - You need fewer than 20 papers and 2 weeks to understand the major breakthroughs shaping AI today. It's because the technology is extremely nascent and most techniques that came before are no longer relevant: - ChatGPT is barely 2 years old and Transformers are only 7 years old. - Most game-changing discoveries happened within the last 4 years, driven by a few breakthrough ideas, scaling laws, and efficient matrix multiplication. The biggest secret? Many groundbreaking AI papers with thousands of citations are surprisingly simple and applied, like adding "let's think step by step" to the prompt, or simply asking the LLM over and over again to improve its answer (Self-Refine). I realized there are tons of founders and builders in the same boat—wanting to dive deeper into AI but unsure where to start. I've created an essential AI Guide that helped me catch up, in just 2 weeks, to the frontier of public AI research to figure out where the next opportunities and gaps were: - Curated list of only the most important papers - Simple explanations of key concepts - Clear pathway to understanding the frontier of modern AI It’s perfect for: - Founders expanding into AI - Builders wanting to innovate at the frontier of AI - Investors looking to separate the signal from the noise 👇 Want the full guide? - Like and Share this post - Comment "AI Guide" - I'll send you the complete guide (ps, I’m also teaming up with @VishalVasishth, co-founder of @obviousvc with @ev (focused on large-scale societal impact companies like Twitter, Medium, Beyond Meat), to host a small meetup to discuss what's working and needs to be solved in the AI stack in SF. Message me if you're interested)

@MarkLutter @MarkLutter you should speak to @mohaknahta @travelwithatlys

Frequent travel in the global south has made me realize the lost productivity gains from inefficient visas. While it is important to reform immigration in the US and EU for high skilled migrants, a complimentary option is to simplify visas across the global south

@selinayfilizp 👋

SF friends! 🌁 After moving here 7 mos ago, living in 8 diff neighborhoods and making 400+ Google contributions seen by half a million people, I’m FINALLY curating a newsletter sharing my best spots in SF. Comment if you want to be added or tag any friends that should be!

Incredible story and awesome campaign by @travelwithatlys

@ShahryarBachani @venture4pk Congrats to IVC!!

🌟Extremely exciting life update 🌟: 1/ For 2+ years, I’ve been helping build🇵🇰's startup ecosystem by creating @venture4pk , a fellowship helping talent break into tech to become the founders of tomorrow; and supporting existing founders build capacity through skilled talent🛠🚀

@PowerHourCoach @jenny_colgate Be sure to prep some questions

@jenny_colgate Joining JC! ⭐️💯

T-60! Come hang with us

@MubarizSiddiqui When are you launching your substack???

1/ One of the most important things for startup founders is to get their cap table right early on. It could make or break your startup. What is a cap table? Why is it important? What all goes wrong in Pakistani startups? How should you think about getting it right? 🧵 below:

@sarthakgh @mikalkhoso @ShahryarBachani @aatif_awan @kalsoom82

Who is investing in fintech in Pakistan?

@omarzkk @MacroPakistani Amazing

@MacroPakistani @_alialtaf

(1/2) Good News: Almost USD 500 million deposited in #RoshanDigitalAccounts since launch in September 2020 The pace of deposits in #StateBankofPakistan's newly introduced Roshan Digital Accounts has been picking up.

It has been an awesome experience working for the past year on @pin_angels and I'm excited for the year ahead!

1 of 21/ Thread: What does it look like on the inside of an AngelList syndicate? In 2020, PinAngels, a syndicate of current and former Pinterest employees, invested in ~15 companies. It was our first year in operation. Here's our 2020 retrospective:

@jmj Cc @mohaknahta

Us: Launching on @HackerNews today. Also us: Oh no, other developers are gonna see my work. news.ycombinator.com/news

@parkerhendo @azeem

Thanks for interviewing me! Great chatting about angel investing

@anmolm_ @Khatabook incredibly excited for what @ravishnaresh is building!

TIL Pinterest's Alumni Syndicate invested in @Khatabook 🤯🤯🤯

Founders: Reach out to @_alialtaf if you're a startup founder looking to get support for Pinterest angel investors!

Reach out if you want to work with @JeffChang30, @catleecatlee, @jpark683, @ffumarola, me and 200+ other ex/current Pinterest employees!

@JeffChang30 😭

Some personal news: yesterday was my last day at Pinterest. It's been an unforgettable 6 years growing Pinterest, experiencing an IPO, and making so many great friends along the way. Super thankful and excited for Pinterest's future!