This is probably the last newsletter until Sunday, January 19, unless there is as much news in early January as there was last week. It is therefore an extra-long edition, which you can read (if you visit some of the links) over several days. 

Besides the usual attempt at news analysis, this time some tips for greater efficiency in the new year, a summary of last week's survey on this newsletter and a few reading and watching tips during Christmas. Finally, I draw your attention to a charity close to my heart: a contribution to the medical treatment of street dogs in Bali.

Google must hate OpenAI

It is no longer a coincidence: every time Google comes out with a new product, OpenAI launches something spectacular with which it attracts all the attention. Last week, Google launched Gemini 2, a so-called "Multimodal AI," or form of artificial intelligence that can process and integrate information from, for example, text, image, speech and video. 

The Verge highlights the interview with Google's AI front man Demis Hassabis, while VentureBeat published a detailed analysis. Gemini 2 is downright extraordinary, if not spectacular. Try it yourself by uploading a video, or sharing your screen live (for the brave ones among us), or your webcam. 

I used the webcam, asked and got tips on how to improve my workspace (rotate desk slightly and place a lamp from the front) and confirmation that the tree behind me in the garden is a banana tree. Generating time codes and captions to existing videos also worked flawlessly.

Marques Brownlee tested OpenAI' s Sora extensively. On X, he shared a number of videos he generated with Sora, with the news coverage in particular looking frighteningly good. His full review can be seen here. As usual with Brownlee, it is highly recommended viewing. Sora not only raises all sorts of ethical questions but appears to be possibly trained with game content, which could have legal implications.

Incidentally, sad news broke yesterday that 26-year-old Suchir Balaji, a whistleblower in the swelling wave of lawsuits against OpenAI over copyright violations, has taken his own life. 

A donkey with five legs

The launch of Sora took place during a 12-day period in which OpenAI presents something new every day, under the sad slogan "12 Days of Shipmas. Hopefully a name generated with AI, otherwise we should burn a candle this Christmas for the marketer who came up with it. 

Since OpenAI and Google speak so highly of their multimodal qualities and the initial tests with video are very encouraging, I expected them to have no problem with a test of a photo. Right? 

I asked Google Gemini Advanced 2.0 Flash Experimental, another delightful name, if there was anything wrong with the above image I generated with Midjourney with the prompt "a man, a woman, a newborn baby and a donkey, two thousand years ago in the Middle East. 

Google Gemini 2.0 immediately saw that all sorts of things were wrong with the image:

"The image you have provided shows the traditional nativity scene, a religious representation of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, there are some historical inaccuracies in the image:

• Palm tree: Palm trees are not native to Bethlehem, which is located in the Middle East. The climate in Bethlehem is more temperate and would not support the growth of palm trees.
• Donkey: Although donkeys were common in ancient Judea, they were mainly used for work and transportation. It is less likely that a donkey would have been present in the stable during the birth of Jesus.
• Architecture: The architecture of the buildings in the background may not be completely accurate for the period in which Jesus was born.
• It is important to remember that the nativity scene is a symbolic representation and is not meant to be a historically accurate representation of the event."

Google and OpenAI both blind in plain sight

In itself it's clever that Google immediately recognized that it was a famous Biblical scene, though I had avoided all religious connotation in the prompt at Midjourney. Also commendable that it points out that there are few palm trees in Bethlehem and that the architecture may not be entirely accurate. I was waiting for Google to express doubts about the quality of the masonry and the shoddy paint job on the wall of the stable. 

What was especially striking: even after specifically asking several times if there was anything strange to see about the donkey, Google did not see that the poor animal has five legs. Likewise, ChatGPT 4o failed to see that this was a very special donkey; it noticed that only after specifically asking how many legs the donkey has. Midjourney generated more pathetic donkeys. It is typical of the state of AI: it is hit or miss.

Apple misfires 

Meanwhile, Apple released its flagship Apple Intelligence with very mediocre results for such a quality company. For example, one reporter's iPhone showed the Apple Intelligence-generated alert up: a
that the New York Times reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had been arrested. The BBC, according to Apple Intelligence, reported that the suspect in the murder of the United HealthCare CEO had committed suicide. 

Hallucination, or wishful thinking by Apple Intelligence?

Except: the New York Times and the BBC hadn't reported that at all. Oops. It would be good if the leading tech companies took a little more time to test their products. Now it seems like the first year of each product is basically the global beta test.

Good use of AI

Useful AI applications, despite the mistakes of the big players, are increasingly appearing on the market for specific purposes. For example, a traffic camera described as a "state-of-the-art Heads-Up machine", a name probably coined by the same genius behind the word Shipmas. Based on an analysis of the driving behavior of road users, I suspect at least swerving, or playing Diddy songs, the camera advises police to pull over certain drivers. 

Another application of AI that directly benefits the world is a program in the U.S. that results in a 21% higher chance of detecting breast cancer. AI is also being used successfully in England to detect forms of breast cancer that elude the human eye.

Throwing pudding against the wall

The challenge of tech startups is getting the technology right, which is hard enough, and then turning that technology into products for the right market. How difficult that is is confirmed by the disastrous results of the Tiger investment fund that have been leaked:

• Invested in 315 startups in one year
• Downgraded from $93 million to $65 million
• Negative 15% IRR (performance in the bottom ten percent)

Those who invest in hundreds of startups in a year are basically just gambling, although spray and pray sounds nicer; it is the financial version of throwing pudding at the wall hoping something will stick. 

Cruise stops driving

Not coincidentally, there is a startup that has made betting, excuse me, prediction markets a business model: Polymarket. After the prediction market on Polymarket proved to be better at predicting the US presidential elections than sophisticated polling, CEO Shayne Coplan's star rose quickly. Coindex published this portrait of Coplan. In cryptocurrency circles, Polymarket is being hailed as an example of an application of crypto that for once is not aimed at replacing the current banking system.

Multinationals, of course, also gamble on startups. In 2016, General Motors bought three-year-old startup Cruise, which developed technology for self-driving cars, for a billion dollars. Then GM threw another $3.5 billion at it, only to pull the plug on it this week. Cruise founder Kyle Vogt was clear on X: "GM are a bunch of dummies." 

I have always followed Cruise closely, having turned down the opportunity to invest in Cruise's seed round through a syndicate nearly a decade ago. "Too early," was my infinitely dumb judgment. So, of course, within two years Cruise was bought for a billion by General Motors. Cruise illustrates how difficult it is to properly assess the value of startups: from a technology and product perspective, my judgment was correct that it could be another decade before self-driving cars are widely used. 

I did still get the congratulatory email, very nice.

Except that market maturity does not always determine the value of an innovation. GM cannot innovate and so Cruise's purchase was predictable. As an investor, I should have thought that way. As a big believer in self-driving cars and someone who does not own a car himself, I keep waiting for the joyous moment when cars become available on demand quicker than pizza's. For Cruise's team, it is unimaginably sad that a decade of work is effectively being thrown away.

Google announces revolutionary quantum chip

Researchers at Google have developed a new quantum chip named Willow, an important milestone in the quest for quantum computers. The experiment, described last week in Nature, shows that quantum computers, with the right error-correction techniques, can perform computations with increasing accuracy as they scale up, with the speed of this improvement crossing a crucial threshold. Current quantum computers are still too small and error-prone for most commercial or scientific applications.

The importance of this technology is phenomenally explained by Ray Harishankar: watch his accessible explanation in this panel at last year's ATX Singapore starting at minute 35:05. There is much discussion about how acute the danger is that quantum computers can decipher all passwords and crack Bitcoin. That it can be done in theory is clear; the question is when and how much computing power (and cost) it will take. Forbes came up with a solid analysis.

New app from Blogger, Twitter and Medium founder Ev Williams: Mozi

Each time it seems like there are too many social media outlets, a new one comes along. Most of them flop, of course, but Ev Williams previously founded Blogger, Twitter and Medium so his new app Mozi deserves attention. The idea of Mozi is that you can meet up with acquaintances in places where you might not expect each other. You actually share your future location.

In terms of marketing-speak, Mozi is just fine: it's described as "A Place For Your People" and its slogan reads "See You Sooner. Investor (at Google Ventures) M.G. Siegler, better known as Paris Lemon at Techcrunch with a pen like a razor, judges harshly: he doesn't like it. I like the idea, so if you want to find me and other acquaintances and friends on Mozi, this is the link. 

Freedom of speech on the Internet in 2024.

I had a problem with that other Ev Williams company, Medium. The company, which prides itself on being a medium for free expression, turned out to censor my newsletters because they contained links to Coinmarketcap, the cryptocurrency prices website. Medium simply refused to send out my newsletters because Coinmarketcap was allegedly used for spam. That's as absurd as refusing newsletters that link to the Weather Channel because you hate the weather forecast. The situation has since been remedied, but I started publishing on Substack.

Note the total lack of apology to a paying customer.

Survey results

There were far more responses to last week's survey than I expected, for which I thank you! The conclusions and recommendations are clear, but to make some sense of them it is important to remember that many readers of this newsletter have a specific profile.  

I still reach few students.

The percentage of startup founders, owners, CEOs and board members is disproportionately high (almost 25%) and the responses I receive via email also show a lot of interest in funding and investing. Only, among many other readers of this newsletter, there is much less interest in these topics. Although, of course, I still write based on what I noticed during the week, I do like to choose from these the topics that readers find interesting. That remains difficult, which is why the survey responses were very helpful:

• over half of the readers who responded appreciate work tips that are useful to them 
• for coverage of startups, there is much less interest (less than 50%)
• there is a lot of interest in AI though, may even be highlighted more
• there is enough coverage of crypto/Web3, no need for more
• there is also sufficient focus on investing, no need for more 
• only 12% would like to receive a newsletter more often during the week
• more than half are interested in a podcast

Interestingly, from the "open suggestions" very different sounds were heard again: over a third of them asked for more attention to blockchain and tokenization. Of the readers who did not object to being mentioned, Stephan Fellinger asked for attention to passive income and Jeroen Verkroost suggested paying more attention to startups, especially in the field of AI, that could be helped by the readers: "That would be my definition of 'More information that is useful in your work'. And we all support entrepreneurs as possible. How nice is that."

Another suggestion that I'm definitely going to do something with is to ask a few questions weekly to specialists in my network. I want to make that interactive: what questions would you like to see answered? Mail me those questions and I'll put them to an expert in my network. 

Tip for higher efficiency in 2025

Let me take a recommendation from the survey to heart and share my most important work tip. This is not a smart app, difficult AI tool or savvy life hack. No; I haven't had a single notification turned on on my phone for over a decade. After going crazy from the red light indicating a new e-mail in the BlackBerry era, once I switched to an iPhone I decided to turn off as many notifications as possible.  

There's a nice tool online, the Trail Making Test, which shows right away how much harder it is to do tasks interchangeably. But you can also do this with a colleague or partner: 

• clock how long it takes to write down numbers 1 through 26
• Then measure how long it takes to write out the alphabet
• add up the two times
• Finally, measure how long it takes to write out 1a, 2b, 3c, 4d, 5b etc until you are at 26Z

I found the results baffling and think you will also be shocked.

The biggest misconception these days is that many people think you have to reply to messages immediately, or at least very quickly. That's not true. In fact, the unannounced phone call is almost extinct because it is not convenient when people who are communicating have to do so at the same time. Use the advantages of asynchronous communication and check your phone once every half hour. Your colleagues, your partner, friends, children, parents; no one cares if you answer after half an hour or an hour. We are all much less important than we think.

Reading and viewing tips for the holiday season

Here are some viewing and listening tips to go with the oliebollen:

• A comprehensive look behind the scenes at OpenAI around the launch of ChatGPT two years ago; and a look ahead. Every company is moderately organized chaos, and a startup is by definition a gang trying to find its way. OpenAI is not any different.
• Buy and read the debut novel by pleasant human and loyal reader of this newsletter, Nart Wielaard, about AI: Painless Barbed Wire. In this novel, Wielaard asks necessary questions about how artificial intelligence is getting a grip on the world and how humans are in danger of developing "machine-like" traits as a result.
• Why AI is going to eat the browser. "For most of us, it’s hard to imagine life without an internet browser. But as AI disaggregates information from text, video, and music into unique remixable AI chatbot answer streams, it’s clear to me that over the next decade the browser will need to adapt or die." 
  A characteristically strong essay by former journalist, now investor, Om Malik.
• Another great behind-the-scenes look at an extraordinary startup: OpenSea. Interesting read about a chaotic work environment, constantly changing priorities and problems with the SEC.  
• I'm repeating myself, but want to emphasize that quantum computing is becoming very important, even if you think you won't have to deal with it: watch Ray Harishankar's explanation of the importance of quantum computing (starting at minute 35:05). Takes a few minutes and like me you may still not understand how it works, but you will understand why it is so important.

These are just two of the thousands of dogs Rhonda Lepsch has saved from a cruel death

Finally, my Christmas wish

This newsletter is and will remain free, because I write it to keep myself informed; and admittedly also from a lack of modesty, under the delusion that people will find it fun or interesting to read my opinion. 

I will never ask for tips, subscriptions or a donation for myself; but I do kindly ask you to support this special woman in paying her bill at the vet: Rhonda Lepsch, of JSP. You can follow Rhonda on Instagram here.

Rhonda is American, married to a Balinese and has lived in Bali for many years. Many people dump (literally) sick dogs with her knowing that Rhonda just cannot send dogs away. She gets them vaccinated, sterilized at her own expense, and takes in the sickest dogs herself that no one wants. No matter how crippled, blind, deaf or ugly they are: to Rhonda, every dog is equally special.

Help hundreds if not thousands of dogs

Not surprisingly, Rhonda is fantastic with dogs, I learned from her how to handle our own street dog Nala, whom we found at our doorstep last year more dead than alive.

At this point in time, Rhonda herself has 87 dogs, 25 of which live at her husband's dive center, which unfortunately went bankrupt during the Covid pandemic. She pays everything out of her own pocket.  

But in addition to taking care of those 87 dogs, Rhonda also pays for vaccinations and sterilizations of street dogs, and the costs of these are skyrocketing. Precisely this work is enormously important: of course it is good to adopt a street dog, as we did, but by supporting Rhonda you actually take care of many more dogs. Because vaccinated, healthy street dogs can have a good life in Bali. Unfortunately, unvaccinated, sick dogs have little chance and stand a chance of ending up as sate.

Right now, unfortunately, Rhonda and her street dogs are in trouble. She has helped so many street dogs this year that the outstanding bill at the excellent veterinarian Sunset Vet is already five thousand dollars. Therefore, Rhonda cannot have any more animals helped there. It means many sick street dogs on Bali will remain untreated in the middle of rainy season, with their lives at risk. 

You can support Rhonda and the dogs in Bali by helping pay the bill at Sunset Vet. Once she gets above zero, the balance is used by the clinic exclusively for medical assistance to new dogs brought by Rhonda. By supporting Rhonda, you are helping hundreds, if not thousands, of dogs.

This is how you can help

• Click here for veterinarian Sunset Vet's donation form
• very important: please enter "for JSP" in the description. Only then will your donation be used for Rhonda's account
• choose the amount you want to donate
• choose PayPal or a debit or credit card

My thanks are already great, regardless of the amount you donate. And if you don't donate anything, no problem, only I hope your gourmet set gives out on Christmas Eve.

I wish you and all your loved ones all the happiness, love and health in 2025! Thank you for your interest and see you next year.