Google's Woke Images, Apple's Car & Pre-Seed in Seattle

Google’s Woke Images

I hesitate using the word woke. It is over used by anti-woke people so much so that the new woke are the anti-woke gangs that just can’t shut up about how everything is woke. From All-In pod to Bill Maher the anti-woke people are equally unbearable.

So when Google’s latest AI model Gemini 1.5 was deemed as woke, I was skeptical as usual.

But after looking at examples it’s quite clear that Google’s Gemini has some problems. It is clear that their AI went woke now. But the real problem is how it makes Google’s Gemini look more inaccurate and another cut in the already bleeding Google AI narrative. It undermined the incredible capabilities Gemini has showed in analyzing and writing code. It undermined the $1M context length that Gemini opened up. The niche use case overtook all the good parts of Gemini.

As a Google engineering admirer its frustrating to see them fumble the ball over and over again.

Why did Apple shutdown its car initiative?

First, why did Apple go after the electric car as its next big thing? Apple is $2T+ company with a yearly revenue of $380B+. For a company of that size they cannot afford to pursue niche industries, so they have to look for opportunities where they can generate revenues in 10s of billions at least. So it seemed like pursuing automobile was an obvious choice. Auto mobile industry is a trillion dollar industry so going after it as you see a shift towards EVs and when the traditional players were struggling on adapting to Tesla made complete sense.

So then what changed? Why is Apple rethinking the car project?

My not so unique theory is that the macro changes they recently are seeing is a big factor. The world is realizing that EV transition is not going to be as faster as people thought. This realization came now because the interest rate increase has slowed down new car purchases. This is not the only reason but this is the big one.

Should they cancel their car initiative? I think not. I think Apple can create a luxury car market that the world has never seen before. Tesla cut costs drastically recently putting itself in a weird marketing position. Apple has the brand power to create a car category that is as aspirational as Ferrari. So cancelling the car initiative I think is a long term strategy mistake.

What’s happening in Pre-seed investing?

I spoke to Peter Mueller of Breakwater vc about pre-seed investing, how to think about it and what is missing in Seattle's pre-seed ecosystem. Peter used to run SeaChange fund previously and recently launched a pre-seed fund called Breakwater vc with William Finney. Check out my wonderful conversation with Peter here.

Don’t forget to check out my 100 Days of AI series here on my blog or here on Hackernoon.

Stay Above Average.

Nataraj