Ancestors, AI, and Ambition

This week's 3-in-3 bridges our ancestral past, AI's cutting-edge, and the drive behind passion projects.

Thing 1 - Countless Ancestors, One You

For you to be born, many things had to go just right.
Let's go 11 generations back and see how many people you descended from...

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great-grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1,024 eighth great-grandparents
2,048 ninth great-grandparents

Sum that up and that's 4,094 people since the 1750s who had to find each other and live through all their struggles and sweet times for you to exist.

Imagine standing in front of all of them and doing a "Thank you" speech 🤯

Thing 2 - Game-changing approach to AI chips and other AI news

Groq introduced a game-changing approach to AI chips.

Simplified design
Minimalist, high-throughput ASIC-like hardware, tailored for machine learning

Performance-driven compiler
Custom compiler optimizes for parallel processing

Streamlined efficiency
Emphasizes essential operations, boosting throughput and reducing complexity

Co-design
Hardware and compiler developed in tandem, optimized for inference

Other AI news

• Stable Diffusion 3 is in the early preview
• Google released an open-source LLM model Gemma
• NVIDIA founded GEAR (Generalist Embodied Agent Research) - to build "Generally Capable Agents in Many Worlds, Virtual and Real"

Thing 3 - Fuel for the Fire: The Power of Passion Projects

As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen.

But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity everything requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.

- John Collison

If you need extra motivation to start that passion project - go for it!

Cheers, Zvonimir