He was a smartass, but also very blunt - unsparingly.
I did not encourage him to, this was just during a weekly 1:1 where I was sharing with him how I’ve been coping with the amount of workload and chaos happening among the team/myself.
He was wanting to empathize me that it’s not normal to have to do that to be functional at work, acknowledging how rough things were at the time.
I kept doing it, but fell out of practice. Also left and no longer work there, due to stress and poor support. Shocker.
I was so stressed at work a few years ago. Burnt out. Exhausted. I started meditating. Shared with my manager that I started, and it’s been helping me process all the chaos at work.
He told me that wasn’t normal, and I shouldn’t have to meditate just to function at work :’)
I was getting heat for proposing companies do this if they truly care about their mission.
Even if nothing comes of it, it’s a healthy consideration to anyone operating in the US to really think about their goals and what best sets them up for success.
Many other parts of the world do not operate under the same capitalistic mindset that American companies are forced into by pressure of the systems they are beholden to.
The elephant in the room is that the US AI firms should not be as valuable as they are. They should not require the sort of capital they are seeking, the amount of employees, the amount of offices and resources..but they are so steeped in investor interests - why stop being fed?
Many Americans want AI to fail. The US gov wants to control AI. The AI companies are running out of things to do, and are shipping product after product after product to keep the perceived productivity narrative alive.
At this rate I would not be surprised to see an OAI/Anthropic merger just to throw everything AI the US has to offer to the global markets.
You wrongly assumed I implied these firms relocate to China. We are all aware of how China operates and controls its assets.
AI has long existed in many countries around the world without this type of behavior from the government. Deepmind in the UK, Mistral in France, DeepL in Germany - the governments don’t seem to be forcing employees to get their deploys approved by a government official.
My argument is that the US gov does not like that these companies have too much influence which they do not feel they can mandate. It’s slowing the entire country down at a very critical sink or swim inflection point in this tech.
The UK is a lot more compassionate about people’s wishes, it’s not nearly as bureaucratic and polarizing “democracy” as the US. Laws in the UK are passed quickly, and feedback is always considered. Whether you agree or not on the regulation is another discussion.
In all seriousness, I can’t believe the AI firms are abiding by this peacefully. If I truly loved my company, and I felt we were on the bleeding edge of incredible, life changing products, why would I allow my company to be set up for failure by remaining somewhere that clearly wants control over the sovereignty.
The US gov sees these AI companies as bartering power, not as innovation. Wouldn’t you as a parent always want what’s best for your child, not for yourself?
It also feels like they can’t just relocate out of the country, as the administration will surely sanction anyone from business within the country again. These firms are so over inflated with evaluations and opex, they’ve dug themselves into a corner.
This is not to say regulation does not exist in any other country, but it’s clear now after what’s happening at Anthropic + OAI that the US gov has taken these companies hostage.
This is only further playing into the hands of open source and the outside models; the US gov is going to be to blame for when they all lose the race to low cost/free.
I have a few friends who have gone into VC either starting their own or an existing. Hearing about some of the companies they are invested in makes me realize that half of these show HN posts are legit multi billion companies already with 2-5 person teams. As you’ve said, low to zero profit, and seemingly no corner on the market.
It’s like coin collecting, without the currency part - just hoping someone one day sees it, and wants to put them on their coin on their shelf. I can’t make sense of it, maybe that’s the point. I miss when VCs cared about helping people change the world, better or worse (ideally better).
The legislation has been in the works for years now (not fully approved just yet). It’s why many US banks all are trying to get around issuers any way possible now.
I am admittedly having trouble finding where I’ve seen it brought up, but some online forums I lurk on for finance have had stories of people being denied from using specifically Visa Infinite branded credit cards. There’s also been stories of businesses not accepting Chase cards flat out, which I assume is to also curb the higher costs they incur from the premium Chase cards.
Europe has long had laws in place that have hard caps set at 0.3% and 0.2% respectively for credit or debit cards. The US has been milking this with uncapped 3.0%+ fees, which is why the credit cards there drive so much profit - at the expense of every business owner.
I guess we all get to continue trusting GAM (https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM) with an entire companies most precious data, instead of, I don’t know…Google?
California still S-tier for protecting its land and people.