Overview
Today’s feed splits into three threads. First, who gets hired and why, from Ivy League debates to tax tactics and Thiel-era strategy notes. Second, autonomy and hardware reality, with Tesla’s safety claims, Robovan hype, and a practical chat on keeping cameras clear. Third, creation at scale, as AI tools reshape video and app prototyping while chips and payments grind forward in the background. A lighter note from Bieber reminds us why people still gather offline.
The big picture
Hiring beyond the Ivy League
Lloyd Blankfein argues the best students at state schools can match the best at Harvard, crediting grit and barriers overcome, and points to Goldman leaders who came from non-Ivies. Critics fire back that Goldman leaned hard into elite pipelines for years, which is part of why this debate still burns. A 2018 BCG study adds fuel, linking mixed-education teams with a 19% lift in innovation revenue.
Tesla says FSD could save 32,000 lives a year
Tesla’s latest safety note claims Full Self-Driving, if used by everyone in supervised mode, would cut fatalities by most of the current total. The video montage shows hazard avoidance across fog, rain, night and busy junctions. Independent analyses counter that Tesla’s fatal crash rate by miles driven is still high among brands and that assumptions in the model may overstate the gains.
Robovan keeps the robotaxi dream alive
Clips of Tesla’s steerless Robovan resurface, pitched as a low-cost shuttle that could also become an autonomous RV. Enthusiasm is high, as are questions about how it will handle real roads, weather and regulation.
How to keep cameras clear in snow and rain
A simple idea - spinning protective lenses - sparks debate on keeping Tesla’s vision-only system clean in harsh weather. Alternatives floated include air jets and heating, with the usual trade-offs around reliability, image quality and maintenance.
Chips: Intel’s Fab 52 and the ASML core
Intel’s Arizona tour shows EUV-heavy kit like ASML’s TWINSCAN NXE:3800E as it targets 18A volume. With more than 100 fabs under way worldwide, tool makers in the US and Europe keep the leverage while Asia builds capacity.
Google’s “Learn Your Way” and the study bump
Google Research shows a tool that turns PDFs into five learning formats - from interactive text to mind maps and quizzes - and reports a retention lift in a small teen study. Uploads are still on a waitlist, though teachers will be watching the results closely.
Peter Thiel’s monopoly playbook revisited
A tidy thread revives “Competition is for Losers”, stressing narrower starts, 10x improvements and stacking moats like network effects. Still a clear lens for founders deciding where to focus next year.
Year-end tax moves for founders
Ankur Nagpal’s 20,000-word guide pushes actions with a 31 December deadline, from HSA limits to giving and Section 179 deductions. It reads like a checklist for people who left this to the last week.
Pay a mate in the chat you already use
Apple’s TikTok ad plays out a muddled group text that ends with an Apple Cash request, paid in Messages. The joke lands, the service remains US-only, and the replies remind Apple of that gap.
Motion control for everyone
Invideo’s Kling 2.6 demo maps human dance moves onto a character like Vecna with frame-accurate timing. It is a glimpse of what indie creators can do from a laptop, and what post-production will need to verify.
Swipe, and each scroll loads a new game
A prototype built with Rork shows a TikTok-style stream where each card is a mini-game. It is clever, sticky and raises the usual question - is this real utility or just more noise the stores will have to filter.
A tiny weather world in a cube
A transparent Rive widget turns rain and sun into a miniature scene, with smooth transitions and neat details. It is the kind of playful UI that can make a routine glance at the forecast a small delight.
Watch the call stack breathe
A crisp animation shows a program’s stack growing and shrinking with function calls on x86, useful for students wrestling with frames, %rsp and %rbp. It also reminds you why stack limits exist.
Where to reach decision-makers
A Musk clip does the rounds claiming X is the place to reach leaders and policy-makers. Love or loathe it, the density of people who can say yes is part of the draw.
A Boxing Day mood lift
Justin Bieber posts a flash mob at Times Square subway - strangers sharing a routine, commuters stopping to film, winter coats moving in sync. A small proof that public space still has magic.
Why it matters
Signals over pedigree: Hiring discourse is moving from school names to proof of skill and resilience. If firms broaden funnels, they may pick up underpriced talent and fresh perspectives - the BCG figure hints at the upside.
Autonomy’s promise meets physics: Safety claims will be judged against the messy edge cases where sensors get dirty and roads get weird. The hardware housekeeping is not glamorous, yet it is often the gatekeeper for software gains.
Capex and concentration: Intel’s EUV showcase underlines a long cycle. ASML and a small set of tool makers hold scarce chokepoints, which means geopolitical and export risks will keep surfacing.
Learning and making, faster: From Google’s study to consumer-grade motion control and app generators, creation keeps speeding up. The bar to publish drops while the bar for trust, taste and curation rises.
Platforms still matter: If X is where decision-makers lurk, that reshapes where campaigns start and how ideas travel. Meanwhile, payments in chat show the pull of native experiences - even as regional limits frustrate users.
Do not forget the human bit: A subway dance after Christmas cuts through the noise. Technology surrounds it, but the moment that sticks is people moving together.
