Erik Blachford

2.9K posts

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Erik Blachford

Erik Blachford

@erikbl

Independent investor, ex-Expedia CMO/CEO, current boards Zillow, Busbud, dcbel, available on https://t.co/NQawBRJFsg

San Francisco Katılım Şubat 2009
675 Takip Edilen2.5K Takipçiler
Henry Shi
Henry Shi@henrythe9ths·
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)
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Rich Barton
Rich Barton@Rich_Barton·
Spencer had the really hard job of getting us public, which he did masterfully.  I captained through the Covid storm.  And we're both excited for @zillow 's next chapter under Jeremy's leadership.  Zillow has huge opportunity in front of it and is gaining momentum.  Thanks, Spencer, and congrats, Jeremy.
Spencer Rascoff@spencerrascoff

Congratulations @jwacksman on becoming CEO of @ZillowGroup $ZG 🎉 An excellent choice. Excited to watch him grow @zillow through its next chapter, and to root for his success. 👏

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Rich Barton
Rich Barton@Rich_Barton·
Proud and excited to pass the baton to Jeremy Wacksman, @ZillowGroup’s new CEO. I will move to co-chair the board with my co-founder, Lloyd Frink, and will remain engaged to support Jeremy and the Zillow team. Even though Zillow is approaching 20 years of “age,” the adventure and the opportunity ahead of the company has only just begun. Jeremy’s a 15-year veteran of Zillow and has led most of the company for the last 3 years as COO. Here’s why he’s the right CEO for Zillow now: zlw.re/4cfesfD
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The Question Lotus
The Question Lotus@DylanWa68690046·
The year is 2045. The first astronauts have landed on Mars. They find a cave with a human skeleton. And 4 words are written on the wall. What are the four words
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@joshelman The missing link? Amazon buys one of the three credit rating agencies. Now we’re talking…
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Josh Elman
Josh Elman@joshelman·
@erikbl Starting / self insuring may be an interesting bet for them. Agree it doesn’t feel great to have one place know so much about you
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@joshelman And why stop at health insurance? I’m not some conspiracy guy as you know. Just seems like strategically where you head if you want the richest possible 360 data view of the public.
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@AnnieJacobsen FADE IN School district Head of Security BOB COYOAS, at his desk, watches a video of a robotic dog firing a machine gun, smiles, and picks up his phone. BOB Carl? Yeah, we aren’t going to need to give guns to the teachers after all. (Scary is right)
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@Jason Biden because if Trump moves back in to the White House, he’ll become the tenant who just won’t leave…
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@jason
@jason@Jason·
If faced with Biden v Trump again in 2024 who will you vote for? Hit reply and explain your thinking
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
Manchin’s a Republican in Dem clothing, so it’s really a 51/49 Republican majority Senate, even if on paper it’s Democrat led. And the GOP is just running out the clock. Easier to make sense of the current mess from that POV. For me, anyway. Biden & Co never had a prayer.
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@Jason No Limits because longevity is about to explode (only for those with money obv, bec it’s the USA) - but how about an annual test of cognition, executive function etc to avoid situations like the current Feinstein problem?
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@jason
@jason@Jason·
What should the age limit be for running for President of the United States? 🇺🇸 [ Hit reply and explain your thinking ]
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
Webb telescope has me wondering - what if the point is to be the first civilization to solve the Big Bang problem - Earth as one contestant in an Escape Room competition - political idiocy, gas prices etc don’t matter at all - useless clues in the room - science is the cavalry 🤷‍♂️
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@jason
@jason@Jason·
Delight your investors in 5 words
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
Damn, maybe I should have taken that macro Econ class in college
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Erik Blachford
Erik Blachford@erikbl·
@todgoldberg I just asked my dog and he said that whoever asks a question like that can give him a call and he’ll set things straight
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