InfraOps Digest #2

Hello everybody,

Thank you for being some of the earliest readers here. Next Thursday, I'll publish another book review and draw 10 names to receive the book “A World Without Email” by Cal Newport. I'll include all my notes taken from an InfraOps-business perspective as well. 

I’ll continue to select books that are relevant to this industry and topic once a month. I want to keep the book and notes giveaway going. I will scale up the amount of books given away as the subs to the newsletter increase. 

I appreciate you, thanks for following along. 

Now, let’s dive in.

1. Technology and Progress

Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model

Today we report a significant advance in understanding the inner workings of AI models. We have identified how millions of concepts are represented inside Claude Sonnet, one of our deployed large language models. This is the first ever detailed look inside a modern, production-grade large language model. This interpretability discovery could, in future, help us make AI models safer. Do You See Brain Folds?

‘Quantum Internet’ Demonstration in Cities Is Most Advanced Yet

Experiments generate quantum entanglement over optical fibers across three real cities, marking progress towards networks that could have revolutionary applications. Quantum Edge Here We Come.

The Future of Foundation Models Is Closed-Source

Two seemingly contradictory but equally popular narratives about the future of foundation models have taken hold. In one future, AI centralizes: scaling laws will hold, and value accrues primarily to scaled, closed-source players. In the other future, AI decentralizes: foundation models have no moat, open-source has caught up to closed-source, and we’ll have many competing models.Which Will it Be?

You Can Now Buy a 4-Foot-Tall Humanoid Robot for $16K

Does anyone want to buy a humanoid robot for $16,000? The latest product from Unitree hopes that you will: Meet the Unitree G1, a "Humanoid agent AI avatar," aka a robot. If you haven't heard of Unitree, it's sort of the go-to "budget Chinese option" in the robot space. InfraOps Will Include Robots Soon Enough

Cooling for AI Is a Hot Stock Market Trade—for Now

The explosive growth in AI has generated soaring energy demand in data centers, and lots of unwanted heat. That has cooked up opportunities for companies providing cooling systems for servers. Picks and Shovels

Better Tools, Bigger Companies

Technologies are tools. I don’t mean to say that technology is neither good nor bad. Tools are good. Humans can build better things with tools than they can without them. Better Tools, Better Outcomes

NASA Finds More Issues With Boeing’s Starliner 

Senior managers from NASA and Boeing told reporters on Friday that they plan to launch the first crew test flight of the Starliner spacecraft as soon as June 1, following several weeks of detailed analysis of a helium leak and a "design vulnerability" with the ship's propulsion system.  Uhhhh, No Thanks.

Financial Statement Analysis With Large Language Models

We test if an LLM can analyze financial statements like a human analyst. We give GPT-4 standardized financial statements to analyze and predict future earnings. The LLM outperforms human analysts, especially when they struggle. Its predictions are as accurate as a top ML model. The LLM generates useful insights about a company's future, not just relying on its training. Our trading strategies based on GPT4's predictions perform better than others. Our results suggest LLMs could play a key role in decision-making. Analysts RIP 

2. Business 

How Should We Measure Competition?

Competition is the driving force behind the success of markets. It's hard to imagine a thriving market economy without the presence of competitive forces. But how do we actually measure competition? I use the term all the time, but do we actually have a measure of it? This question is more complex than it may seem at first glance. Is the ITosphere Competitive? 

A Detailed Look at Biden’s New China Tariffs

There was also an increase in tariffs on Chinese semiconductors, which were previously set at 25% during the Trump administration and will rise to 50% next year. Those already-existing semiconductor tariffs meant that less than $2B in Chinese chips were directly imported to the US last year, and imports have recently declined to some of the lowest levels outside the early pandemic despite China’s rapidly growing chip industry. Tariffs on Chinese Chip Imports

How to Devalue the Dollar

This would be a huge change to the global financial system — and to the U.S. economy. That doesn’t mean it would be a bad change. Lighthizer is right that “weakening” the dollar to some extent would likely make U.S. exports more competitive in world markets, and help rebalance the U.S. economy toward manufacturing and away from finance. And in the long run, it could help stabilize the global financial system.  Maybe We CAN Make Chips in America.

In Which British Writers Scold America on Trade

Last week, I wrote that protectionism is now a bipartisan consensus in America, with all major parties supporting taxes on Chinese-made goods. This will likely pressure other countries to follow suit, focusing China's huge exports on a smaller set of countries. Protectionism may become the new default approach to trade with China. Jump In The Tariff Pool.

Tech Workers Retool for Artificial-Intelligence Boom

Tech firms are investing heavily in AI, but they aren’t going on hiring sprees as they did years ago: New tech job postings fell from an average of around 308,000 a month in 2019 to 180,000 a month as of April, according to the tech trade association CompTIA. Isn't This Obvious?

Vinod Khosla: A Case Study of Unreasonable Tenacity

Expect resistance to innovative ideas. Even at hyper-generative companies like Sun, new ideas are often met with skepticism. Vinod shares that he has seen this pattern play out across companies, including at Block (FKA Square), where he served as an investor and board member. Don’t be surprised if your novel idea doesn’t gain internal traction immediately. You may have to fight to get it across the line. If You Think You're Right, Go Long Willpower

More Lithium Has Just Been Found in the US

In September 2023, scientists funded by a mining company reported finding what could be the largest deposit of lithium in an ancient US super-volcano. Now public researchers on the other side of the country have uncovered another untapped reservoir – one that could cover nearly half the nation's lithium demands. It's hiding in wastewater from Pennsylvania's gas fracking industry. Good?

3. Industry 

Data Centers Almost Sole Driver of Nvidia's Revenue Boom

After an already successful fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2024, generating a $12 billion net income on revenues of $22 billion between November 2023 and January 2024, chipmaker Nvidia outperformed expectations yet again, beating analyst projections with revenues of $26 billion and a net income of roughly $15 billion for the quarter. Holy DC-GPU Batman

Private Cloud Makes Its Comeback, Thanks to AI

Private cloud providers may be among the key beneficiaries of today’s generative AI gold rush as, once seemingly passé in favor of public cloud, CIOs are giving private clouds — either on-premises or hosted by a partner — a second look. Private Cloud For The Win

Counterfeit Cisco Gear, Used in Military Combat Operations

A Florida resident was sentenced to 78 months for running a counterfeit scam that generated $100 million in revenue from fake networking gear and put the US military's security at risk, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday. Asset Provenance Anyone?

Chinese Chip Makers Push to Limit Foreign Suppliers

Similarly, ChangXin Memory Technologies, China’s leading maker of Dram chips, has started an aggressive campaign to vet local suppliers to replace foreign ones, citing national policies. The Chip Flip Challenge. 

Disentangling the three languages: customers, product, and the business

As a [who], I want [feature] so that I [benefit] because [why]. Applying to the security sample, we might have: As a [non-technical marketer], I want [a report about how many nefarious attacks were thwarted in the past week] so that I [can show my boss] because [it proves I’m proactive and intelligent about security; if we still get hacked, my job is still secure].  So As to Not Talk Past Each Other

Google Cloud Fart Wipes Out Customer Account and Its Backups

Google Cloud deleted a giant customer's account by mistake. UniSuper, an Australian pension fund, lost all its data, including backups. Luckily, it had other backups and recovered its data, but was down from May 2 to May 15. Will The Real Sovereignty Please Stand Up?

4. Infrastructure and Security

Arizona Woman Accused of Helping North Koreans Get Remote IT Jobs at 300 Companies

An Arizona woman has been accused of helping generate millions of dollars for North Korea’s ballistic missile program by helping citizens of that country land IT jobs at US-based Fortune 500 companies. The IT Jokes Write Themselves

5.25-Inch Floppy Disks Run San Francisco Trains Until 2030

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs the city's Muni Metro light rail, claims to be the first US agency to adopt the train control system it currently uses, which has software run off floppy disks. But today, the SFMTA is eager to abandon its reliance on 5¼-inch floppy disks—just give it about six more years and a few hundred more million dollars. Floppy Tech Debt

Road Kill on the Information Highway

I was recently interviewed by a guy doing an article to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Playboy magazine. He wanted to know what computing would be like 40 years hence, in the year 2033. This kind of extrapolation is clearly fraught with difficulty, but that doesn't mean that we can't try our best. In the last 20 years the overall improvement in the price/performance ratio of computing has been about a factor of one million. There is every reason to believe that this will continue for the next 20 years. An Important Memo

Radiant Industries Frontier Program

Mass-producible, transportable by air, sea, road or rail and roughly the size of a shipping container, Radiant's Kaleidos unit is designed to replace diesel generators with clean, cost-effective base-load power in remote and hard-to-reach locations. Cooled by Helium (which cannot become radioactive) Kaleidos can output 1 MWe electric and 1.9 MWt of heat, and operate for an average of 5 years before refueling with TRISO fuel. DC Nukes

5. Miscellaneous

The Hero’s Journey: How to Make Your Customers the Heroes

In this narrative-driven model, customers face challenges, receive guidance, overcome obstacles, and ultimately achieve a transformational victory. For example, in healthcare, a patient's journey through treatment can be seen as a heroic quest against illness, with providers acting as mentors. In financial services, guiding clients toward financial independence becomes a journey of overcoming trials to reach a rewarding retirement. Do This For Your Internal Stakeholders

The Algorithm Behind Jim Simons's Success

Jim Simons, the legendary quant and founder of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, passed away this past week. “In every field, there’s only one person whose competitive advantage is “I’m smarter than everyone else,” Morgan Housel once mused. “In finance, for the last 20 or 30 years, that person has been James Simons.”  RIP

Monolith!

Sometimes, you sense that beneath a layer of conceptual battles and confusions there is a concept that is so obvious you forget to talk about it or even name it. One such concept is that of the monolith. It is the idea lurking beneath questions of monopolies and monopsonies in economics, monolithic architectures versus modular architectures in engineering, and vertical vs. horizontal integration in business models. To Monolith or Not to Monolith

Singapore’s Shophouses — Hotter Than Fifth Avenue?

Singapore shophouses originated in ancient China. In the 1840s, they were homes for merchants and their families. The typical shophouse had a shop on the ground floor, family quarters in the back and upstairs, and a front veranda connected to its neighbors, creating a covered walkway.  Better Than Madison Ave.?

Decision Brownouts

Under chronic stress there is no lion. The threat is really your own compounding inaction and lack of imagination and creativity to break out of it. You sense vaguely that you should make a change in your work, family, or creative life. You sense energy slowly draining away. There’s a slowly ticking countdown clock at the edge of your awareness. You’re losing life traction. Maybe you’ve even tried some half-hearted and ennervated experiments to shake things up but they didn’t work — you fucked around but found out nothing. This is Great

Arbitrariness Costs

I’ve long held that civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary. The incomprehensible can be scary but the arbitrary tends to be merely exhausting. Unless the stakes are high, such as in paperwork around taxes or passports and visas. Then the exhaustion becomes tinged with anxiety. Either way the steady increase in arbitrariness creates, in the name of progress, a growing ocean of mind-numbing details you just have to know. This Checks Out