Aditya Soni

This is the best work of mine yet. Plus, this is going to be the standardized template for upcoming future modules. The aim is simple: to create a hyper-niche segment of kids who will lead innovation in the future of aerospace and unmanned flight. And to make maths less scary.

@themintcupcake @akanksha7196 yes, thats true.

@electricdrago10 @akanksha7196 Agree. Their strict scrutiny of documentation leads to rejection. Even a slightest doubt on cover letters or ties to India leads to rejection. Whereas the same applied to another country gets validated.

honestly applying for a schengen visa is a humiliation ritual

@themintcupcake @akanksha7196 Well, I recently received an Austrian visa and it was smooth. Maybe it's due to strong invitation letter but it was quite smooth and fast.

@akanksha7196 Try applying to Austria. You will question your whole existence.

@brettcalhounn Just did that a few days ago. The faces made by the jury declared the pitch result at that instant. What followed was an intense debate on whether this was viable or not. I think I won the debate but shot my chances at the grant 😂. Yet, I loved every bit of it.

Most founders pitch their market size. The best ones pitch a market that doesn't yet exist - AND explain why they're the ones to create it. Big difference.

That’s true. Today I was pitching for a grant, and the entire Q&A time was spent debating whether to aim for the future and create a moat by investing time, or just launch and make money by keeping the product simple. They say they want innovation, and yet they’re not ready to accept the time it takes.

Pretty much all my successful, pure idea-stage investments only happened when I said to myself: “I am willing to look stupid, lose money and even be laughed at if this doesn’t work out, but I still want to back this founder”. I’ve tried this for 10+ yrs. I’ve often looked stupid or naive or over-optimistic in hindsight. It’s hard. Still learning. But this is the only reason and the only way to do venture IMHO. Most of the ones where I followed FOMO (only clear in hindsight) lost money, and very rarely became the winners that everyone initially thought they would be. It was probably some need for validation from others that affected that decision. The day venture investing went from a cottage craft to an “asset class” with hot deal-chasing and consensus-seeking, much of the joy (and alpha) was lost…

@Tancrededib Making intelligence for future autonomous UAVs by teaching them human asymmetric thinking.

Flying 40 founders to SF this summer. Everything covered. 2 months. $250k for the best teams. Convince me in one sentence.

It’s so easy to give up on ambitious goals and tough targets. It’s so damn easy, and it requires real effort to stay, fight, and not downgrade your goals or play it safe. I think this is one of the biggest and most underrated things in life. You can make your life easy at any point, but only a few keep increasing the difficulty and keep going after the toughest goals. That’s what makes people a winner.

Our new mantra, "Humans are not better than AI at calculation, but they are often better at discovering strategy under chaos. Our job is to turn that human advantage into trainable intelligence."

@griswold Yes..that's why I'm focusing on the aerospace theme only for now. Need to be extremely focused or even it won't work. I learned the hard way.

@electricdrago10 Putting two really hard things together is... way harder.

To the talented people of Fortnite: PIVOT TO EDUCATION!! Your skills and experience are uniquely suited to the next decade in education. Help wanted. Most educators talk about motivation like it's dark matter and believe that software can't teach anything, but you know better. Many of the challenges in rethinking and scaling a better education system will be familiar to game industry veterans. The metrics of education are crude compared to big games, but the average player retention is 12 years, by law, so you'll have time to iterate. Not many people have crossed over from games to education (or vice versa) to see it, but these are complementary fields that need to dance together more. I am here to start the music. The games industry has decades of expertise in encoding motivation, mastery, and progression in software with uncompromising standards. The most experienced people in the world at doing this ship missions, not lessons. Education games suck (almost by design), but looking at education as "a game design problem" is the path to something impactful. To that end, I believe it'll be far better to redirect game makers toward educational outcomes than to get educators to make games. Fortunately, you’ll be working with the same players you already know from Fortnite! It’s just a different part of their day, but they’re the same kids. You can also focus on just a subset if you want: K-5, middle school, high school, teens, gifted kids, struggling kids, [every Breakfast Club archetype] kids, college, workforce development, training, trade schools, extracurriculars, enrichment, upskilling, reskilling, unschooling, in school, out of school, homeschool, etc. It’s a vast space when you define education broadly — many times larger than Fortnite. Maybe you think this layoff signals your moment to work on something else in the world. Well, great news for you! That other thing is undoubtedly downstream of fixing education, so you can work on it at a higher level indirectly by fixing education. That's why I pivoted. I remember seeing Fortnite for the first time in an upstairs demo room at E3 2014. It was a very different game then! My company (an Epic contractor) built the first Fortnite website to handle player registrations for the Alpha. Beyond that bit of trivia, I was mostly just a fan of the game... your work. As you think about what’s next, I invite all “game industry refugees” to consider fixing education for the next decade instead of fighting for the last AAA microtransaction or taking a side quest into crypto (the portfolio killer). Take a tour of duty working on one of the most consequential problems in the world. I'm not saying this because I'm hiring for a new kind of studio (I am)... I'm saying it because I want my kids and all kids to inherit an amazing future, and it cannot be built with the education system we have now. You are part of the solution, even if most people working in education don't realize it yet. Do you want to sell player skins for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?

We ran 200,000 aerial combat simulations. The aim was to test my thesis of humanity's Coup d'œil (the ability to instantly understand a complex situation and act decisively without full analysis), or in simple words, asymmetric thinking. Can we defeat AI in strategy-making and outcomes when the situation is against us in every way? Can humans beat AI when everything is screaming defeat? Well, to test this, we ran 200,000 aerial combat simulations. The scenario was simple: a. 3 vs 4 UCAV dogfight b. Same rules, same opponent c. Only difference was the strategies (GPT vs human) And surprisingly, we got these results: a. GPT: 38.14% win rate b. Human: 40.64% win rate c. → +2.5% edge (statistically significant) AI optimised for distance, safety, and perfect timing. Humans created chaos: split forces, phased attacks, and took risks. Key differences: a. 40% fewer missiles used b. ~2× higher hit efficiency c. Multi-angle attacks AI didn’t anticipate AI played “not to lose.” Humans played “to win.” This was a very preliminary, base-level simulation, but we kept the maths loop tight. Of course, this will require much better rules and scenario design going forward. But what if we can train AI using human chaos, human unpredictability and asymmetry? The ability to think beyond constraints and turn defeat into victory. So I’m proposing something exceptional: Chaos-driven AI. Teaching AI to think like humans when all hell breaks loose, when defeat seems certain. Humans have historically mastered turning the tide with smaller forces against much larger ones. What if we can train AI to learn this art and become even better? The proposition is massive. With the right execution, we could move towards far more capable autonomous UAVs and UCAVs. More to come.

@klimbi123 good one dude

Working on a new map. Steep cliffs allow for many ambush possibilities. #videogames #screenshotsaturday

@CaptVenk Ignore. Don't waste your limited mental capacity on replying to them. Honestly, ignorance is really bliss.

What is the best way to deal with people writing useless replies to your posts? Do you reply, offensive, ignore, mute or block? I feel there is no point in replying to them.

@IamDaisy001 @Tancrededib Thanks

@electricdrago10 @Tancrededib Amazing tek

No startup. No cofounder. No traction. Just you. Investing $250k first checks in builders. 40 spots. 8 weeks. Bay Area. Flights, housing, food and visa support covered. What’s your edge?

@Tancrededib Yess. You can check it out here. (Pc only), owsterlabs.com/module/eagle-i…

@electricdrago10 this is cool !

@HamptonTeach @sleitnick Point but at least 10-20% will enjoy maths way more. The same concept can be applied on F1 racing, rocket launch etc.

@sleitnick Totally agree! But but for every student that is energized by that idea, there are likely 10 that either couldn’t care less about that application or are actively repulsed by that application. It’s a tough balance to achieve.

You can use the quadratic formula to make homing missiles properly lead and hit their target. I've used this in games for like a decade. I wish they'd use examples like that in math class. Give practical/fun examples. I hated math b/c it was too abstract. Gamedev made it fun.

@sleitnick That's one of my favourite methods too. Even I'm working on the same concept but with a more story focused approach. More like mission+maths implementation+outcome based on it. x.com/i/status/20301…

What am I building?? "eSports for education" An Online platform, where you can learn by competing against others. Simply, Understand the problem.Submit your solution. Use your knowledge and make better plan or strategy. Then go and winn!! Simple. Twist is.. it's for maths.

Well, it's hail Mary for me anyway. Current methods are not working for me. I need to find a different way to monetize the product. From now on, won't think twice before posting here. No more decision paralysis. Owster Labs won't die on my watch.