spicypunk

A founder I really respect told me I should visit more startup offices while I’m in SF – to better understand how each company defines its edge. I’ve always wondered: what’s the unique value proposition of smaller LLM startups like Perplexity when ChatGPT dominates the market by MAU?🤔 So I reached out to @dnlkwk @perplexity_ai and stopped by their downtown SF office. Here’s what I learned from our 40-minute conversation 👇 Perplexity’s bet is on accuracy and neutrality within smaller domains, rather than broad coverage. Instead of trying to answer everything for everyone – from emotional support to general work assistance (as ChatGPT does) – they aim to be the go-to platform when the stakes are high and precision matters. Think analysts, researchers, or decision-makers who can’t afford inaccuracy or bias. Their models are optimized for efficiency in analysis/research domains, requiring little context prompting (this is how I learned prompting to use ChatGPT more effectively back in the days – well, several months ago😅jeremyutley.com/blog/dont-keep…). This trend toward model specialization actually resonates with what @sama shared about his vision for AGI during his fireside chat at @theresidency.🔥 Daniel also shared how marketers and SEO firms have flooded Reddit with positive posts to boost product visibility. ChatGPT has recently reduced its reliance (through Google indexing parameter change) on Reddit citations to counter this kind of manipulation (x.com/theandreboso/s…). From the start, Perplexity has built its own independent search index, designed to resist SEO flooding and surface a broader range of perspectives. 🌐 I’m genuinely curious about OpenAI's approach to model's accuracy and neutrality while maintaining its generalist appeal – would love to hear others’ thoughts on this! 💭 And excited to see how Perplexity keeps doubling down on its unique value proposition! 🚀

@aDennisHan Bruh, I didn’t intend the above msg to be an alarm lol

@aDennisHan Aww come on!

he’s pretty overrated tbh

@LifeOfShandi Cold

6/6 and bonus: this was a carousel i created for insta, just dm me for the doc :)

the secret behind good cold emails(and getting a job at your dream startup) 1/6

@theandrewsiah Was this from last fall?

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

@jtsilver23 if you're going to verci demo tmr (~5pm), I ll see u there:)

@bethgenewang ye!

may as well @usebettercanvas

@andruyeung congrats Andrew! remembering "you can poke life"

I've been dreaming of the day I could share this: My green card just arrived in the mail! For six years, I tried to prove that I belonged here – anxious about losing my job, getting deported, not being able to travel freely. Two years ago (to the horror of my parents), I left my stable job at Google to take a swing at something of my own, knowing that failure didn't just mean losing a job, but losing my ability to live in America. I spent the last few years trying to hit the criteria that would deem me an "extraordinary alien" through the o1a/eb1 path. And it worked! Turns out throwing tech parties counts as extraordinary. Who knew? I'm forever grateful to those who helped me along the way. Much love to @iqramband @dens @lisawehden, and many more wonderful humans. Happy to finally call this place home.

hello from the Claude skills

@theandrewsiah @wh0sumit @iris_y_meng 🔥🔥🔥 Attestation

@wh0sumit @iris_y_meng is the most agentic person i’ve had the privilege of knowing

high-agency people are rare, and once you work with them, you can’t unsee the difference. a high-agency person doesn’t wait to be told what to do. they don’t wait for clarity, tools, permission, or a perfect plan. they step in, observe what’s broken, what’s missing, what’s needed and they start moving. even if they’re wrong at first, they move. momentum matters more than perfection. most people aren’t born this way. agency is something you build. it starts with taking responsibility for your own day. knowing what you’re working on, why you’re working on it, and whether it’s actually helping the team. it means replacing “i can’t because…” with “i’ll figure out how.” it means caring enough to close loops without being asked. for people who don’t have high agency yet, the fastest way to build is : > stop waiting for instructions > pick one problem and own it end to end > communicate progress, not excuses > treat the company’s problems like your own agency grows when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations and still choose to act. when we look for people to join our team, we don’t just look at skills. skills can be learned. agency is harder. we look for signals people who’ve built things on their own, taken responsibility without a title, figured things out when no one was guiding them. people who don’t disappear when things get messy. early teams don’t need passengers. they need people who can think, decide, and act. people who see problems and feel an internal responsibility to fix them. that’s what high agency looks like. you can teach tools. you can teach process. but agency? that comes from within.

@gofordylan @GSkrovina ll stay tuned🥺

@bethgenewang @GSkrovina Didn't set anything up, sorry

The world has changed. Anyone can ship products now. Best way to learn: 15 friends, everyone ships a live app by 5pm, everyone becomes each other's first users. By hour 4, the vibe-coders were teaching the senior devs. Here's what we built ↓

@gofordylan @GSkrovina is it happening this weekend?

@GSkrovina I'm down

@ejmejm1 how about taking the tram from midtown east to Roosevelt island? it has my favorite night views in the city and costs only 2.9 bucks

What should I do with one day in NYC?

Today I had a call with my high school friend and learned that her mom got a cancer w/o cure. I know her mom as a genuinely loving person. She doesn't know how long her mom will be with her. This summer, I heard back from a good friend from college and learned that she's been battling cancer for over a year. I used to get life calendar and with those empty space left unfilled, I blissfully living in the illusion that more than 2/3 of my life is "unspent". But the reality is, you never know what is your draw for life, left curve or right curve. Better to embrace your dreams now than to leave them to regrets. Memento Mori

@RokoMijic @VitalikButerin btw, I don't think EA is just intoxication, but mindless EA could be, as with any ideology

@RokoMijic @VitalikButerin if people need opium to be motivated, is that real motivation? I think they're more intoxicated than motivated – that's how you get unethical "altruistic" people. can we have lucid dreaming? (btw, I don't think religion = opium, but EA ≈ opium)

We seriously need to build a right wing competitor to EA. It's so unbelievably cringe.

So this was what happened at my solo Christmas Twitch streaming 🎅 30 mins in, there’re some viewer commenting my beautiful eyes … (bro, here’s Twitch 🙄) So I called up a college friend We digressed from life updates, breakups lessons, self-knowledge, to Latin/German/French language learning, the state of US economy, Realism, Hobbism, US-China, lobbies, limitations of democracy, cycles in history… There’s a ~10 min lag from Twitch comments to me addressing them Despite being a "high-latency" streamer, I had hella fun streaming! Merry Christmas Fam! 🎄✨

🎄 NYC Christmas Eve, solo but not lonely ✨ Chilling, chatting, and celebrating, come hang out with me Live here: twitch.tv/spicypunk_o

@jessekorzan @anything thanks for sharing Jesse! submitted:)

I don't recommend just anything, but @anything is just something I recommend. And not because it's a well-executed AI builder built by some very nice ppl. Because they dole out credits and fun and ca$h. Someone must have a rich uncle. Get that money: createanything.com/hackathon