Responsibility Over Freedom: How Netflix's Culture Has Changed (8 minute read)
While Netflix doesn't release a lot of its numbers to the outside world, the streaming giant has long been aggressively transparent internally. Netflix trusts its employees to act in the best interest of the company. Employees are encouraged to speak about what's going well and what's not on a regular basis. Netflix has a culture of trying to systematically think about what generates long-term excellence. Many more details about Netflix's internal culture are available in the article.
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Apple is first company charged with violating EU's DMA rules (2 minute read)
The European Commission has opened an investigation into Apple's support for alternative iOS marketplaces in Europe. The investigation is focused on Apple's Core Technology Fee, the multistep process required for users to install third-party marketplaces, and Apple's eligibility requirements for developers. Regulators say that Apple's App Store 'steering' policies violate the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple is the first company to be charged under the DMA rules - it can respond to the European Conformation's preliminary assessment ahead of its final ruling before March 2025. Apple could be fined up to 10% of its annual global revenue for infringement.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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World first epilepsy device fitted in UK boy's skull (5 minute read)
A boy in the UK received a neurostimulator device in his skull to control seizures. The device has reduced his daytime seizures by 80%. The patient has a treatment-resistant form of epilepsy that sometimes causes him to suffer hundreds of seizures every day. He suffers a range of seizures, some of which require emergency medication to resuscitate him. The device, which can be recharged wirelessly, emits a constant pulse of current that aims to block or disrupt abnormal signals. While the device is not a cure, it has improved the patient's life significantly.
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Singapore doubles down on lab-grown meat as Silicon Valley backs off (5 minute read)
Singapore is the only country where cultivated meat can be purchased in shops. The country aims to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030. Its approval of cultivated meat has attracted companies from all over the world to develop alternative proteins. Its regulatory structure makes it the perfect spot for companies to further the technology and help drive down costs.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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Optimizing AI Inference at Character.AI (4 minute read)
Making a future where large language models enhance daily life, provide business productivity and entertainment, and help people with everything requires highly efficient inference. Character.AI designs its model architecture, inference stack, and product from the ground up to enable unique opportunities to optimize inference to be more efficient, cost-effective, and scalable. The company serves more than 20,000 inference queries per second. It is able to sustainably serve models at this scale because it has developed a number of key innovations across its serving stack. This blog post shares some of the techniques and optimizations Character.AI has developed.
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What are some custom tools you've built/seen internally that has helped your team succeed in automation? (4 minute read)
This page contains several anecdotes from developers on custom tools they either built or witnessed internally that helped teams succeed in automation. The examples include a test execution tool that performed 230 tests in 3 hours, a script that writes hundreds of tests for a single service then extracts all the variables and displays their data types and formats, a visual regression tool, and a notification system. Links to communities where people discuss software testing and automation are available.
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The Future of Streaming (28 minute read)
Stocks of legacy media companies are at a fraction of their former highs, while shares of their disruptors are close to record highs. Netflix commands the leading territory right now and is essentially in a position of dictating policy. Streaming services need at least 200 million subscribers, possibly more, before becoming competitive and profitable. The cost of attracting and keeping those millions of customers isn't cheap - Netflix will spend about $17 billion this year on programming. Almost no other competitor will be able to match that spending level, except maybe Amazon.
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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Being an Underdog, AI Safety, and Economic Inequality (13 minute read)
Anthropic is a startup devoted to studying cutting-edge AI systems and developing new safety methods. It is a leading competitor to OpenAI with powerful tools for use by both the public and businesses. Anthropic recently released the latest version of its Claude chatbot. Claude 3.5 Sonnet sets new industry standards on reasoning, coding, and some types of math. This article contains an interview with Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei where he discusses the company's status as an underdog, yet-unreleased AI capabilities, Anthropic's culture, AI safety, open-sourced models, Big Tech vs startups in AI, funding, and more.
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Local, first, forever (6 minute read)
Local first software prefers to keep data local but still uses an internet connection occasionally to do other functions like sync with other users, fetch data, and back up.
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