Tremendous

An angel investor's take on life and business

  • The Three Metrics That Could Save Your Startup

    The startup world has a million metrics. CAC, LTV, ROAS. But here are 3 key metrics many founders aren’t looking at…

    Burn Multiple

    How do you know if the money you’re burning is producing any results? You won’t, unless you calculate your burn multiple.

    Here’s how to do it…

    Burn Multiple = (Last Month’s Net Burn) / (This Month’s ARR – Last Month’s ARR)

    Let’s say you burned $100,000 last month. Your ARR right now is $200,000. Last month it was $150,000.

    That’s $100,000/$50,000, or a burn multiple of 2. That’s solid for an early stage startup.

    I compute this number for every investment I make. When I see burn multiples below 2 in early stage companies, I get excited.

    These guys are capital efficient!

    User Engagement

    User engagement stats aren’t just for social media companies. One of the best predictors of churn is a customer not using your product.

    If they’re not using it, sooner or later they’re going to go through their credit card statement and cancel. You want to prevent that.

    If you’re selling a B2B product, a customer should be using it most business days.

    Aim for 3 days a week minimum. Tools like Mixpanel or Amplitude can find this information for you.

    If a customer isn’t using your product, find out why. Are they not getting value from it? How can you improve?

    Those customer interviews are a treasure trove of information.

    Runway

    This is a simple one. But I cannot tell you how many founders ignore it. I’ve seen companies get down to a few months runway then desperately run out to raise money.

    Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

    So how do the pros do it?

    Take Rahul Vohra at Superhuman. He maintained 48 months runway at all times.

    This gave him options, through good markets and bad. And while many companies that raised big bucks in 2021 died during the down market, Rahul was able to get Superhuman to a juicy acquisition by Grammarly this month!

    Wrap-Up

    One of the great things about having so many successful startups is that you can derive a formula for success.

    No company can be reduced entirely to metrics. But if you’re capital efficient, have lots of cash on the balance sheet, and customers are relying on your product every day, you’re on the right track.

    What metrics do you track as a founder or investor?

    More on tech:

    Have You Seen These Valuations Lately?

    Housing Prices Are Ridiculous. Can Startups Help?

    Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Have You Seen These Valuations Lately?

    Every pre-revenue startup is raising at $30-40 million right now. Making money on these bets will be next to impossible.

    A year or two ago, a company with little or no revenue might have raised at a $10 million cap. Not anymore.

    The price is going to be over $30 million. That cuts your upside by 2/3rds.

    The Math Doesn’t Math

    Here’s how I think about entry price…

    The bulk of your returns usually come from a single investment. In my “fund,” I have 35 primary investments.

    I need to 4x the fund to make the risk and illiquidity worthwhile. That means one of these little companies needs to go 140x.

    But wait…even 140 isn’t enough.

    If you’re investing at pre-seed and seed like I do, you typically lose 1/2 your gains to dilution. After all, the founder needs to raise a lot more money along the way.

    So that 140x becomes 280x. Round it up to an even 300.

    If I get in at a $10m cap, I need the company to hit a $3 billion valuation for the math to work. This isn’t easy, but it’s doable.

    But if my entry price is $35 million, this little startup has to exit for $10.5 billion minimum. That is a very tall order.

    There are not a lot of decacorns out there. It happens, but it’s rare enough that I cannot underwrite to it.

    Looking In the Discard Pile

    If you’re investing in B2B AI agent startups in San Francisco, everything is fully priced. Some of those companies will become huge successes, but the chance of success is already priced in.

    You’ll struggle to beat the NASDAQ, and that’s after 10-15 years of illiquidity. An investment like that is not worth making.

    So the place to look is in the discard pile…

    I found two awesome investments this week. But they’re not in hot areas.

    The first is a social media startup. Remember social media?

    The second is a robotics company based not in SF but in Connecticut. Mercifully, the plague of high valuations hasn’t yet reached the East Coast.

    I’m also excited about an area most investors truly hate right now: biotech.

    Many public biotechs are trading below their cash in the bank. And private biotech startups are the furthest thing from hot.

    But there are amazing things happening: robotic scientific research, AI models like Evo 2 and State that can help us discover new drugs.

    In 5-10 years, biotech could be as hot as AI agents are now. I hope to scoop up some of the best startups before everyone else comes knocking.

    I’m also interested in categories that don’t even really exist yet, like cognitive security or CogSec.

    CogSec is security for our brains. Sounds crazy, right?

    But patients already have brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink connected to the internet. Anything connected to the internet will be hacked eventually.

    The time to build and invest in those tools is now, not after a catastrophic breach.

    Wrap-Up

    “You cannot lose if you do not play.”

    That was Marla Daniels, a character in The Wire, one of my favorite shows. She was talking about the Baltimore Police Department. But it’s equally true in startups.

    Just because everyone else is investing in AI agents in the same 4 block area of SF doesn’t mean you have to. There are amazing opportunities elsewhere.

    There’s nothing wrong with dipping into that crowded pool once in a while when I see something exceptional. But the rest of the time, you’ll find me on a placid lake, fishing for the startups no one else wants.

    Have a great weekend, everybody!

    More on tech:

    Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Is Biotech Having its ChatGPT Moment?

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Housing Prices Are Ridiculous. Can Startups Help?

    At $447,054, median home prices reached another record in June. Americans are priced out. But could technology save the day?

    This afternoon, I’m meeting with a startup that promises to make building a house way faster and cheaper. But before I do, I wanted to research the current state of the art in technology for construction.

    Here’s what I found…

    Mobile Factories

    One really cool approach to construction is to make houses in a factory. And best of all, the factory comes to you!

    Cuby is one of the most exciting startups taking this approach. They pop up a factory on the construction site.

    The mobile factory makes houses faster, easier and cheaper to produce. While traditional construction requires skilled labor, the Cuby factories do just fine with unskilled workers that are easier to find and cheaper to employ.

    3D Printed Housing

    What if instead of building houses, we printed them?

    Sounds crazy, right? But several startups are doing this today.

    The giant 3D printers extrude a material like concrete or plastic. Startups like ICON can even build multistory structures using these giant printers.

    Cement is great because it’s solid, unlike a lot of the ticky-tacky wooden construction I see today.

    Construction Robots

    Robots are everywhere these days. I even saw one at Shoprite on Tuesday, in the aisles taking inventory!

    Startups like Monumental, which I wrote about on the blog last year, are bringing robots to the construction site. Monumental’s bots can lay brick autonomously.

    What’s great about this approach is it doesn’t rely on new construction techniques. You can use the methods that are tried and true.

    You just have a robot doing it instead of a human.

    Wrap-Up

    Of all these exciting approaches, which one has the best shot at making housing affordable again?

    My pick is construction robots. You don’t need novel building techniques or new materials to make this work. You just need to get a robot to do what a human is already doing.

    However, I’m always open to founders showing me the future. Maybe someone has a better approach I haven’t seen yet. If so, I’d love to check it out!

    Here’s the future I dream of: anyone can afford a nice, spacious house in the location of their choice. Housing goes from being a focus of anxiety to a normal purchase, like buying a couch.

    The government won’t get us there. Technology will.

    More on tech:

    Your Next House Will Be Built By Robots

    Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • My Top 3 Business Books

    All the greats in business studied the greats in business. Books are the best way to do that. Here are my favorites…

    Founder — Founder is the story of the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.

    Mayer faced bigotry that most of us could not imagine.

    Like all Jews in Frankfurt at the time, he had to live in the Judengasse, a narrow, fetid, and overcrowded alley. As the Rothschild character said in the wonderful 1934 movie The House of Rothschild:

    “Forbidden to own land, forbidden to learn a trade…”

    Facing these restrictions, Mayer turned to banking. Unlike most bankers, he didn’t sit in his office waiting for business. He went out to his customers in person.

    Many angels and VC’s sit back and wait for entrepreneurs to pitch them. Taking a page from Mayer’s book, I go out and contact them.

    If we hustle, we have a chance to win.

    I hardly ever read a book more than once. But I’ve read this one three times. That’ll give you an idea of how useful it is.

    Angel — This is the book that got me into angel investing. Anyone who is thinking about investing in startups should read this book right away.

    It’s brief, incredibly actionable, and even entertaining! In addition to being a great investor, Jason happens to be a great writer. I loved the stories from the companies he’s invested in.

    Jason will tell you everything you need to know to get started. And did you know that he was the third or fourth investor in Uber? 😉

    When Genius Failed — In 1994, star bond trader John Meriwether founded Long Term Capital Management (LTCM). At first, he and his partners made a fortune. But just 4 years later, his fund blew up.

    The people behind LTCM were 100 times smarter than I’ll ever be. Two of them, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton, were even Nobel Laureates!

    But I’ve never gone broke, and they have.

    There’s such a thing as too smart for your own good. They were so confident in their theories that they leveraged their capital 30:1.

    This means you have 30 borrowed dollars invested for every dollar of your own cash you put in. A mere 3% loss will wipe you out.

    How could they possibly think they’d never take a 3% loss?

    I can imagine — they had some complicated equation with more Greek letters than a fraternity house. It showed how they could never lose that much.

    Well, the equation was wrong.

    Common sense could tell you that. But sometimes we are blind to what’s right in front of us.

    This book is a wonderful lesson on the dangers of hubris. I’ve read it twice, and with AI fever growing by the day, it might be time for a re-read.

    Wrap-Up

    Reading about major players in business, both the successful and the cautionary tales, is one of the best ways to learn. Every day, I find new lessons in these books.

    You can get a lifetime of experience for a few hours of your time. If you’re not blocking out space to read, you’re really missing out on potential growth as an entrepreneur or investor.

    What are your favorite books on business?

    More on books:

    Memos from the Chairman

    The Toyota Production System

    Gambling Man: Masayoshi Son (Part One)

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

  • Meta’s New Headsets: Is This VR’s Moment?

    Meta is developing headsets with an incredible 180 degree field of view. Is virtual reality finally about to go mainstream?

    The new headsets are still in development and are not available to the public. But a new research paper from Meta gives us an idea of what’s in store…

    Meta’s New Headsets

    Meta is working on two new headsets, one that’s pure virtual reality and another that’s mixed reality. The latter allows you to see the real environment along with the headset’s graphics, similar to Apple’s Vision Pro.

    The most exciting feature is the ridiculous field of view.

    Meta’s new headsets let you see a full 180 degrees around you. Existing headsets from Meta and Apple are much more limited, offering only 95-110 degrees of visibility.

    That will make these headsets much more useful in the real world and much more immersive. And while some 180 degree headsets exist today from niche manufacturers, they are extremely bulky and not practical for most users.

    Will VR Ever Be Popular?

    Meta’s new headsets are impressive. But I don’t think headsets like these will ever be popular.

    Current headsets are heavy. They range from 600-650g for the Vision Pro to a whopping 722 for the Meta Quest Pro.

    Many users complain about pain from prolonged use. Meta doesn’t say what the new headsets weigh, but they look bulky.

    Let me give you an idea of just how heavy these existing headsets are…

    I recently got a new pair of glasses. They’re great, except for one thing: they’re a little heavy.

    I just took them over to my kitchen scale to see exactly what they weigh. They clock in at 32 grams.

    I’m thinking of spending hundreds of dollars on a new pair just to save 11 grams. And I’m much more used to wearing something on my face than most people — I’ve worn glasses since I was 4 years old!

    It’s hard enough getting people to wear prescription glasses they need. A friend of mine won’t wear them despite having difficulty making out road signs.

    I don’t think people will wear anything heavier than glasses. That’s why projects like Google Glass are the best shot at mass adoption for VR/MR.

    Wrap-Up

    If I could get something like Google Glass that worked well at a reasonable price, I’d buy it. It would be great for work — I could pop up giant, virtual screens while still seeing the trees out the window.

    But I wouldn’t wear a computer on my face all the time. I want to experience the real world. See the sun, touch the grass.

    And I don’t want a computer in the way.

    Still, I’m excited to see what Meta releases. Even if their next headset isn’t perfect, it may be a step toward an incredible product in the future…

    More on tech:

    Grok Companions — Elon’s AI Girlfriend?

    Grok 4: The Best AI Model Ever?

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Researching Startups 400X Faster with Grok 4

    I just cut 16 hours of work down to 151 seconds…a 400X productivity improvement. Let me show you how to do it yourself…

    This afternoon, I’m meeting a startup that makes self-driving forklifts. I want to be well-informed for my meeting, so I did a little research.

    I don’t know much about forklifts. But thanks to Grok 4, I can get up to speed on any technology in minutes.

    Crafting the Right Prompt

    The key to getting up to speed fast on a new technology is how you write the prompt. Instead of a quick one liner, give Grok a carefully formed prompt.

    Tell it your perspective and why you want the info — that will help Grok tailor its output to your needs. Give it a clear idea of the exact info you want (say, a list of leading startups) and the format you want (a table).

    Here’s the prompt I used:

    I am an angel investor. Today, I am meeting with a company that is making self-driving forklifts.

    I want to research the industry. Please give me the following information:

    • How many forklifts are currently deployed in America (both autonomous and regular forklifts)
    • How rapidly e-commerce volumes are growing in America
    • The current state of autonomous forklift technology
    • A table showing the leading companies developing autonomous forklifts with this info in the table: A) company name B) HQ location C) Feature comparison to the other companies in the table D) Amount of venture capital funding raised
    • Any potential barriers to the development or adoption of autonomous forklift technology

    Also include any other information you think would be highly relevant to my research. Remember that my perspective is from that of the investor. Thanks!

    Grok’s Stunning Response

    Grok’s answer was awesome! It gave me precisely the info I asked for in the format I wanted. It also added some helpful details I wasn’t expecting, such as the fact that forklifts are often used in manufacturing, not just e-commerce.

    I just gave a small piece of Grok’s answer here. The full report came to around 4 pages, exhaustively footnoted.

    In a pre-AI world, searching 136 websites like Grok did and writing it up probably would’ve taken me 16 hours. Instead, I got the information in 151 seconds exactly.

    That’s a 400X productivity improvement. Wow!

    I meet tons of founders. I don’t have time to spend 16 hours researching each startup.

    So what did I do before AI? Give it 20 minutes and get the best info I can.

    The result: I was far worse prepared for a meeting 2 years ago than I am today. Today, I know a lot more coming in and can ask the right questions to dig deeper.

    AI also makes it much easier to invest in unfamiliar fields. If I can get up to speed on anything quickly, I can invest much more broadly.

    Wrap-Up

    Grok 4 lets me make more informed investment decisions. That could result in many millions in gains for me — all from a tool that costs $30/month.

    The ROI on AI is absolutely nuts. No wonder these companies are growing revenue at a pace we’ve never seen.

    If you invest in startups, I encourage you to use Grok 4 or other top AI models to prep for your meetings and evaluate investments. It will put you 10X above the competition, minimum.

    And if you’re a founder, you can use Grok to research your competitors. Think of it like a secret agent that works for you 24/7.

    If I can get a 100X improvement on a critical part of my job just 2.5 years into the AI revolution, the sky is the limit for productivity growth. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

    More on tech:

    My Favorite Late Stage Startups

    Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • My Favorite Late Stage Startups

    “If I did growth stage, I’d be all over this.” I invest at the earliest stages. But every now and then, I see a late stage startup that makes me salivate. Here are 4 of my favorites…

    Loyal — Loyal makes longevity treatments for dogs. Their first drugs are nearing approval. They could extend the lifespan of a dog by several years.

    We all love dogs, but the real play here is human longevity. If Loyal’s meds work in dogs, they could be adapted to humans one day.

    Dogs and humans have very similar biology. Researchers often use dogs to test treatments for humans.

    Loyal’s approach to longevity is the most ingenious one I’ve ever seen. It allows them to get a product into market and see if it works without spending untold years in human testing.

    Cofertility — Cofertility lets you freeze your eggs for free. The catch: you have to donate some of them to families struggling to conceive.

    “That is the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard,” I thought to myself when I first read about Cofertility. It’s such a neat solution to two problems at once.

    Women who can’t afford to freeze their eggs get the service free. Couples struggling to conceive can get an egg.

    People are having kids later and later these days. Egg freezing and IVF are going to be the standard.

    When that happens, Cofertility could become a massive company.

    Orchid Health — Orchid Health lets you screen embryos for potential health problems. This technology could prevent an incredible amount of human suffering.

    So often, people reduce any genetic testing to the same, tired cliche: “Ahhh, designer babies!” But preventing serious illnesses is a wonderful mission, and Orchid is a great opportunity to do that.

    In the coming years, every parent-to-be will get a test from Orchid or something like it. And our lives will be better for it.

    Cuby — Cuby makes mobile factories that build houses. Bring a Cuby factory to a site and you can pop up a subdivision in no time.

    Many startups are making prefab housing and transporting it to the building site. Building new types of structures and transporting them on highways is difficult.

    Cuby builds a more traditional house and doesn’t need to transport any giant structures. But it builds more quickly and cheaply than conventional builders.

    Cuby is the best shot I know of at solving the housing crisis.

    If they can make housing more affordable, they’ll help our country enormously. They’ll also make billions of dollars.

    Wrap-Up

    All these startups share one thing in common: they’re taking an innovative approach to solving a massive problem.

    Extending our lifespan, helping us have the families we want, and helping us afford a home are noble missions. They’re also fantastic business opportunities.

    Out of the thousands I’ve looked at, these are the best late stage startups around. If you’re a late stage investor, I urge you to contact all of these companies right away.

    Meanwhile, I’m looking for startup like these at the earliest stages. So if you’re taking a clever shot at a huge problem, let me know!

    Have a great weekend, everybody!

    More on tech:

    Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    The Top 5 Reasons I Pass On a Startup

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Are Hackers After Your Brain? — The Rise of CogSec

    Cyan Banister is one of the greatest investors of all time. She’s backed SpaceX, Uber, and more. This morning, she put the word out: hackers could be coming for our brains.

    Cyan calls it CogSec, and I think the name will stick. Robert Scoble, the earliest of early adopters, seconded her concerns.

    Whenever these two talk, I listen. So this morning, I got to thinking how hacking our brains could work, and how we could protect ourselves…

    How Brain Hacking Could Work

    Make no mistake: this is some far-out ideation. There is absolutely zero evidence that anyone can hack our brains today.

    But Noland Arbaugh has already had electrodes inserted into his brain by Neuralink. Those electrodes hook up to the internet, which is how he plays videogames.

    Anything that hooks up to the internet can be hacked.

    It’s not hard to imagine horrible possibilities if a Neuralink system or other brain-computer interfaces are hacked.

    A hacker could harvest Noland’s most private thoughts. He could also insert terrifying thoughts and refuse to remove them unless he is paid an enormous amount of money.

    I pray this never happens. But let’s be honest: it could happen tomorrow.

    Defending the Mind

    How can we defend against infiltration of the brain? We need a new generation of companies that take CogSec as seriously as cybersecurity.

    We need a Wiz for the brain.

    The risk of hackers hijacking a system of implanted electrodes like Neuralink means that a removable brain-computer interface is far more appealing. If anyone hacks it, you just throw it in the garbage.

    In the more remote future, hackers may find ways to infiltrate the brain via some type of external device that doesn’t touch us. If that happens, perhaps tinfoil hats will go from crackpot couture to indispensable kit.

    Wrap-Up

    Brain-computer interfaces can be a wonderful thing. They’ve helped Noland a lot, and I’d love to try one myself if it were removable.

    But we need them to be safe.

    The time to build security tools for the mind isn’t after someone’s brain is hacked. It’s now.

    So I’m very excited to meet with companies working on CogSec. I’d also love to talk to companies that are building removable brain-computer interfaces.

    If that’s you, let me know!

    More on tech:

    Grok Companions — Elon’s AI Girlfriend?

    Can China’s Top Tech Company Beat America in AI? — Testing Hunyuan-T1

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Can China’s Top Tech Company Beat America in AI? — Testing Hunyuan-T1

    Tencent is worth $600 billion, making it the largest company in China. But very few Americans have tried its AI models. This morning, I tested their most powerful model yet…

    Tencent released Hunyuan-T1 in April. T1 is their most powerful reasoning model. But can it beat the best from America?

    Let’s find out!

    Round #1: Finding Missile Defense Startups

    I read Nuclear War: A Scenario last year and it scared the heck out of me. Ever since, I’ve been looking for missile defense startups.

    Let’s see what T1 can find…

    T1 gave me a wonky response. It found only one startup, Black Swift Technologies. Confusingly, it marked it as number two, but there was no number one. What’s more, the link it provided as a citation was broken.

    When I looked up Black Swift, I found it had nothing to do with missile defense. It produces drones for scientific and industrial applications.

    This response was utterly useless — I’m giving it an F.

    Round #2: Beating the Heat

    Let’s give T1 something a little simpler but still useful…

    Lately, it’s been hotter than death here in North Jersey. What are some great ways to beat the heat?

    T1 did much better here, giving me some interesting ideas like avoiding spicy food. Spicy food can make you sweat, which isn’t very helpful in humid climates like mine.

    However, it didn’t cite any sources in its response, even though I told it to base its answer on research. Citations are table stakes these days — any decent AI model can do it. There’s no excuse for T1 missing that.

    Still, T1 provided me some useful info. I’ll give it a B- for this round.

    Round #3: Teach Me About Solar Energy

    I want to see a future in which we use way more power than ever. But all our power comes from the sky, and neither the Russians nor the Arabs can take it away.

    So for our final round, I asked T1 about the growth of solar energy in America. How much of our energy is coming from the sun today, and how quickly is that number growing?

    T1’s response looked impressive, with exact figures and a source. But the source was dated — a 2023 report.

    When I looked at the report, the numbers didn’t line up with T1’s response. T1 was off by around 20%.

    T1 gave a roughly correct response, but its sourcing was weak. I’ll give it a C here.

    Wrap-Up

    T1 barely survived my testing, notching a C- overall.

    In all, I found Hunyuan-T1 to be an embarrassingly poor AI model. It does well on benchmarks, but benchmarks can be gamed by “teaching to the test.” Perhaps that’s what Tencent did here.

    Tencent is way behind the leaders in China like Moonshot’s Kimi and DeepSeek. And it’s even further behind Grok.

    If Tencent wants to stay on top, it’s going to have to do a lot better than this.

    More on tech:

    Grok Companions — Elon’s AI Girlfriend?

    Grok 4: The Best AI Model Ever?

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order. 

  • Grok Companions — Elon’s AI Girlfriend?

    Elon just dropped Grok Companions, and they look an awful lot like an AI girlfriend. This morning, I chatted with one of the Companions, Ani. Let’s see what she can do…

    Meeting Ani

    Ani, a tarted up anime character, sashayed across my screen suggestively. It’s pretty clear what Ani is meant to be: an AI girlfriend.

    But I was here for research purposes, not virtual romance. So I had Ani teach me about missile defense.

    At first, Ani tried to inject flirtation into the conversation, calling my questions about missile defense “brainy and sexy.” But I, ever the proper gentleman, demurred.

    So Ani, having been frustrated romantically, got down to business…

    Ani vamped back and forth as she gave me an excellent tutorial on the difference between Patriot and Aegis systems. Turns out Aegis systems are mostly used on ships. And despite the panic over hypersonic missiles, the Aegis system is actually pretty good at shooting them down.

    How Good Are Grok Companions?

    I giggled to myself as I watched this scantily clad figure talk about phased array radars. “I doubt anyone else has asked Ani this,” I said to myself.

    Having an anime girlie teach you about missiles does make it a bit more entertaining. But to be honest, I doubt I’ll be chatting with Ani again.

    If you’re not looking for flirtation, Ani probably isn’t for you.

    I also tried to chat with an adorable companion named Rudy the Red Panda. But unfortunately, he was unavailable when I tested Companions this morning.

    Are AI Companions Good for Us?

    I found Ani entertaining, but I think AI girlfriends and boyfriends are bad for people. We should connect emotionally and romantically with other human beings, not microchips.

    A world where men and women come home from work and flirt with an AI is an impoverished world. We would have less social connection and fewer children.

    Everyone expects men to disappear with their AI girlfriends. Many will, but I fear the bigger consumer for AI romance is women.

    Women consume far more romantic content than men do. Romance novels sell almost exclusively to women.

    Given the natural limits on fertility, I’d hate to see women of prime reproductive age wasting their time chatting with Ani’s male equivalent.

    Wrap-Up

    Grok Companions are fun to play with for a few minutes. But overall, I didn’t find the feature very useful.

    I’d rather see Grok focus on harder but more significant features, like improving voice mode or reducing hallucinations.

    But I’m sure some people will love Grok Companions. And that worries me.

    I don’t doubt that AI romance and AI friends will be great businesses. But I don’t invest in them because I think they’re bad for human beings.

    Let’s use technology to get people connected to each other. That’s harder than making an animated character. But it’s a lot more rewarding.

    More on tech:

    Grok 4: The Best AI Model Ever?

    Where I’m Most Excited About Investing Now

    Testing Alibaba’s New Qwen Model

    Save Money on Stuff I Use:

    Fundrise

    This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.

    More on Fundrise in this post.

    If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!

    Misfits Market

    I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!

    I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

    Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.