SVRGN Weekly Digest #28 💫
eu/acc 🇪🇺 -> eu/vacation 😎
This week, we’re disconnecting to enjoy time with our friends and family and pursue our interests outside of work.
💼 Portfolio Jobs Board
While the team at Inflection might be out this week, the companies in our portfolio are still actively recruiting:
🚀 Companies
ExoLabs - distributed local LLMs
Source: X
Founders: Mohamed Baioumy, Alex Cheema
Why it’s cool:
Exo unifies consumer-grade devices (even iPhones) over a peer-to-peer network into a virtual GPU, allowing users to run large AI models, even the 405B Llama 3.1 model which competes against OpenAI, without expensive hardware. Maybe the GPUs we have at home are all we need?
📚 Summer Reading
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
Authors: Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili
Why it’s cool:
"Life on the Edge" explores how quantum mechanics may be the missing ingredient in understanding the origins and mysteries of life. The authors reveal how this cutting-edge field of quantum biology could revolutionize our comprehension of phenomena like bird migration, gene replication, and even the very essence of life itself.
Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
Authors: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
Why it’s cool:
A renowned art forger recounts his experiences creating convincing fake masterpieces that have hung in prestigious collections worldwide. The memoir offers an insider's perspective on the art world's vulnerabilities and the complex interplay between artistic skill, deception, and the market for fine art.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
Author: David Epstein
Why it’s cool:
In "Range," David Epstein challenges the popular notion that early specialization is the key to success, instead arguing that generalists often excel in complex and unpredictable fields. Through examining top performers across various domains, Epstein makes a compelling case for cultivating diverse experiences and broad thinking, suggesting that this approach leads to greater creativity, adaptability, and success in our increasingly complex world.
Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
Author: Ed Conway
The book excites us as it offers a unique perspective on the history, present and future of human civilization through the lens of 6 resources and their various manufacturing processes: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. Our ability to build cities, semiconductors, grow and conserve food, create tools and machines, electrify our lives and store energy are built upon them. Some of their darker sides like environmental concerns and climate impact are balanced against their contributions to improve living conditions and save billions of lives. By shedding a spot light on dirty mines and secretive industrial era monopolies we have been reminded to not take modern technology for granted. Their foundations are fragile.
👩🏻🔬 Exploration
Cables.gl - Visual Programing for Digital Artists
Creators: UNDEV
Why it’s cool:
I've always been fascinated by the intersection of art and technology, from lighting design for theater productions to writing Python scripts for "glitch" artwork (long before DALL-E or Midjourney). This vacation, I'm taking a break from building our internal tools at Inflection to dive deep into visual programming for digital art, specifically with the newly open-sourced Cables framework.