This Week I Learned - Week #4 2025
This Week I Learned -
* AI Agents - Google Whitepaper (42 pages, Sept 2024)
* AI Agents Course by Armand Ruiz
* "I also remember presenting at NeurIPS in 2008 our work on using GPUs to scale up training neural networks. (By the way, one measure of success in academia is when your work becomes sufficiently widely accepted that no one cites it anymore. I’m quite pleased the idea that GPUs should be used for AI — which was controversial back then — is now such a widely accepted “fact” that no one bothers to cite early papers that pushed for it. 😃)" - Andrew Ng
* Over the past two years, the CIA has developed a tool that allows analysts to talk to virtual versions of foreign presidents and PMs, who answer back. The chatbot is part of the spy agency’s drive to improve the tools available to CIA analysts and its officers in the field, and to better understand adversaries’ technical advances. - NYT
* The Damodaran Bot - Since almost everything that I have ever written or done is in the public domain, in my blog, YouTube videos and webpage, that effectively meant that my bot was better informed than I was about my own work, since its memory is perfect and mine is definitely not. If the Bot's valuations work really well, i.e., it values companies as well, or better, than the students in my class, that is about as strong a signal that I am facing obsolescence, that I can get. If the Bot's valuations work really badly, that would be a reflection that I have failed as a teacher, since the entire rationale for my postings and public valuations is to teach people how to do valuation." - Aswath Damodaran
* What can we do to make it more difficult to be outsourced by machines or replaced by AI?
* The combined market value of major tech companies (like Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet) often exceeds $10 trillion, but their annual revenues — and thus their direct contributions to the global economy — are closer to $5–$6 trillion.
* The new "Copy console" feature in Chrome Dev Tools can perform a one-click copy of all console messages. It is useful for pasting into LLMs / AI Code Editors for better fixes.
* Perplexity CEO Srinivas disagrees with Nilekani’s stance on AI model. In a post on X, he wrote - "Nandan Nilekani is awesome, and he's done far more for India than any of us can imagine through Infosys, UPI, etc. But he's wrong on pushing Indians to ignore model training skills and just focus on building on top of existing models. Essential to do both.
I feel like India fell into the same trap I did while running Perplexity. Thinking models are going to cost a shit ton of money to train. But India must show the world that it's capable of ISRO-like feet for AI. Elon Musk appreciated ISRO (not even Blue Origin) because he respects when people can get stuff done by not spending a lot. That's how he operates. I think that's possible for AI, given the recent achievements of DeepSeek. So, I hope India changes its stance from wanting to reuse models from open-source and instead trying to build muscle to train their models that are not just good for Indic languages but are globally competitive on all benchmarks. I'm not in a position to run a DeepSeek-like company for India, but I'm happy to help anyone obsessed enough to do it and open-source the models.
I am ready to invest a $1mm personally and 5 hours/week of my time into the most qualified group of people that can do this right now for making India great again in the context of AI. Consider this as a commitment that cannot be backtracked. The team has to be cracked and obsessed like DeepSeek team and has to open source the models with MIT license."
* With the Circle to Search feature in Pixel phones with AI, you can circle an image or text, even in a video. Google AI finds more info about the selected portion - right from the app that you're in. The Magic Editor can suggest the best crop and reframe your photo. It even expands your image to get more of the scene.
* The Pixel 8a is priced at Rs 49,999, whereas the Pixel 9 Fold is available for Rs 172,999. Samsung's premium model, the S25 Ultra (512GB), powered by Galaxy AI, is priced at Rs 141,999.
* India contributes 14% of the total immigrant population with degrees. The way in which US attracts and nurtures the brightest persons from across the world, is key to its productivity outperformance.
* The Global News Industrial Complex whose market size is $300 billion annually is a collection of news networks, media companies, and digital publishers that generate revenue through advertising, subscriptions, and click-driven content. This structure can incentivise sensationalism, polarised reporting, and “outrage media,” feeding the public a constant stream of conflict and controversy rather than balanced information. The pursuit of clicks and advertising dollars can also drive sensationalism and misinformation, harming public trust and discourse. In the US, CNN, NYT, Bloomberg and other outlets often shape global narratives. - ToI
* Crisisonomics refers to an economic model where revenue grows from crises or systemic challenges, ensuring their persistence
* Intel was founded by Gordon Moore, Robert Noy, and Arthur Rock in 1968, and its computer chips have played a significant role in the technological revolution.
* Walgreens, established in Chicago in 1901, became one of America's largest pharmacy chains following its merger with Alliance Boots in 2014.
* Starbucks began as a coffee bean wholesaler in Pike Place Market in Seattle in 197. It was transformed into a coffee shop chain by Howard Schultz. He guided the company from a single storefront in Seattle to an ubiquitous presence across America. He served CEO from 1986, retired from the position in 2000, returned from 2008 to 2017 to restore the company after the financial crisis, and again from 2022 to 202, as an interim CEO to bridge the gap between the retirement of Kevin Johnson in 2022 and the of Laxman Narasimhan in 2023.
* Trader Joe's is an American grocery store chain headquartered in Monrovia, California, with 597 locations across the US. The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe (1930 – 2020) in Pasadena, California. Realizing early on that he could not compete and win by playing the same game his bigger competitors were playing; he decided to build a store for educated people of somewhat modest means. He led the chain to success and sold it in 1979 to German billionaire Theo Albrecht, co-founder of the Aldi supermarket chain. During the twenty-six years he was there at Trader Joe's, sales grew at a compound rate of 19% per year. Becoming Trader Joe is a book he wrote to help entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs.
Coulombe noted two trends in the US that informed the merchandising of his new store concept: one, the number of college-educated people was rising steadily, partly due to the G.I. Bill, and two, with new jumbo jets due to premiere in 1970, international travel would be accelerating as well. Trader Joe's locations are mostly in well-off neighborhoods. When deciding where to open locations, the chain typically looks for areas where the median household income is over $100,000. Trader Joe's has faced opposition for contributing to gentrification. Between 1997 and 2014, Zillow found that homes grow more rapidly in value if they are closer to a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, with such homes consistently being worth more than the mean U.S. home. New items are introduced every week, so Trader Joe's may remove current items to make room for new products on its shelves. Trader Joe's said that in 2021, approximately 99.5% of all products were sold in stores, donated to food recovery partners, or composted. Trader Joe's sells many items under its own private labels, at a significant discount to name-brand equivalents, and requires its name-brand suppliers not to publicize this business relationship. By selling almost all of its products under its own labels, Trader Joe's "skips the middle man" and buys directly from both local and international vendors. While a typical grocery store may carry 50,000 items, Trader Joe's stocks about 4,000 items, 80% of which bear one of its brand names. The company has been accused of promoting "a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes". The petition itself has been criticized on social media for promoting cancel culture. The retailer has been characterized as "notoriously secretive".
* In 2025, we will find ourselves in a U3 world — uncertain, unpredictable, and unorthodox. The key is to embrace this uncertainty rather than resist it. This reset represents a significant contrast in our era: a world teeming with opportunities yet shadowed by lingering ambiguity - Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group
* "If you're in a bar and everybody in that bar has an income of $18,000 a year, and Bill Gates walks in to ask for directions, what happens to the average income in the bar? Well, it goes from $18,000 to, you know, $35 billion or something like that. And then you ask, all right, well why don't the people in the bar feel richer? Well, because none of their incomes has changed at all." - Charles Whelan, Professor of Economics at University of Chicago and author of The Naked Economist.
* With the backlog for green cards stretching to over a century now, birthright citizenship was a safety net for many expectant couples, especially Indians working in the US. Following President Donald Trump’s January 20 proclamation about termination of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, there is a rush for preterm babies to beat birthright citizenship deadline. - Times of India
* "When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get stronger. The more that you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible—like speaking a foreign language or doing algebra—seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain." - Mindset, Dr Carol Dweck
* Hindustan Unilever has announced the acquisition of a 90 percent stake in skincare startup Minimalist for Rs 2,955 crore.
* A serial thief with at least 12 heists under his belt used Instagram to find sari companies' addresses and then scope out targets in Surat. Before turning to theft in 2016, the thief had worked in sari units. He knew that from the 5th to the 10th the month, the units would have cash on hand to pay worker salaries. So, he would strike during those days to maximize his loot.
* "I discovered that true communication is about more than merely physically conveying a message. It is about getting the message heard and respected." - Martin Pistorius
* "The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." - Oscar Wilde
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