Chapter 2: Build useful things. Save the world.

I have been very fortunate to work with some of the most brilliant, kind, and hardworking people on the planet. I want to thank everyone who believed in me, worked alongside me, and supported me over the last 10 years and to everyone working with me or supporting me as I begin this next chapter.?

Some people may have already seen the Forbes article, but this post will serve as my own formal announcement of what I am doing next and why. The “why” part is a bit long, so feel free to skip to the bottom for the “what.”

My mission for the next chapter: I want to maximize my potential to positively impact both the people I care about and humanity as a whole. My objectives in semi-mathematical terms are to maximize prosperity and minimize suffering for all people everywhere in the world over the next 100 years. While this may seem overly ambitious or even grandiose, those who have worked with me and/or know me personally will recognize this to be genuine, honest, and self aware.

How I plan to do this: In short, I will build and help other builders build. I will invest my time, energy, and capital in carefully chosen opportunities that align with my skills, passions, and values. Of course, positively impacting humanity on a large scale can’t be done alone, so I also base my decisions on the availability of highly capable and motivated business partners for each project I take on. Last but not least, I’ll rely heavily on my beliefs about the history, current state, and future trajectory of humans and machines (see below) .?

Some relevant key beliefs:

1. An incomprehensible amount of human suffering has taken place over the last 5,000 years. History is a great teacher if we are willing to study it, but during times of relative peace and prosperity, people tend to forget the painful lessons we’ve learned and take things like peace for granted. This is likely a major reason that history repeats itself. We watch (seemingly helplessly) as the perpetual rise and fall of different nations and civilizations ultimately drive massive amounts of human suffering.??
2. Humanity is currently faced with unprecedented threats, challenges, and inequalities. The biggest threats are the non-obvious ones that won’t be addressed until it is already too late. On the bright side, there are also unprecedented opportunities for humanity (if it survives the threats).?
3. Both the US government and global organizations are neither capable nor motivated enough to deal with the biggest threats to humanity or act on the biggest opportunities. This has been made abundantly clear by the disastrous response to COVID we have all witnessed. Two administrations, both political parties, and the various non-political but siloed government agencies have made it clear to the entire world that they are incapable of working together and putting the interests of the people ahead of their own interests. I dedicated myself to working with the US government on COVID from April 2020 until March 2021 and even moved to Washington DC. My team and I helped drive faster and more equitable vaccine trials with NIH, made vital data from the nation's hospitals accurate and visible to HHS, and worked with HHS, CDC, FDA, and NIH on various testing initiatives (especially rapid antigen tests). I can’t deny that there were isolated wins against COVID that were extremely impressive, and I believe that the work my team did had a significant impact and saved lives. However, by all objective measures, the COVID response in its entirety was a complete and utter failure. While there are many individuals and agencies in the US Government who have good intentions and are doing heroic work, the government as a whole is neither capable nor incentivized to solve a problem like this because of toxic divisiveness, dogmatic thinking, and the relentless prioritization of party politics, inter-agency politics, and personal grudges (ahead of the interests of our citizens and the people of the world). In case people are wondering, there does exist a way to stop COVID and future pandemics without sacrificing freedom or privacy. This makes all the above even more frustrating.??????
4. Thus far AI has done more harm than good to humanity by a ratio of at least 1000 to 1. We only need to look at a few of the social/content platforms to validate this. We are only just beginning to understand the harmful effects of these highly addictive productivity-killing “AI for bad” services on individuals, businesses, politics, government, and society as a whole. The scariest part is that much of the harm was done before the companies who built the technology and the people using the product even knew it was happening.?
5. Masayoshi Son’s vision for AI over the next 25 years is mostly correct. Technology and companies more impactful than anything the world has ever seen by at least 1 order of magnitude will be created, 10’s of trillions in market cap will be generated, and whoever controls data and AI will rule the world.?
6. Private sector companies powered by AI and powering AI will be the main factor in determining the fate of humanity. This follows from beliefs 1-5. With great power comes great responsibility. These companies need to have a healthy fear of the potential for unintended “AI for bad” and a relentless drive to use AI for good. Most importantly, these companies must protect humanity from bad actors leveraging AI as well as from AI itself.?

My plan: Over the coming decades, I’ll be building, incubating, and investing in the most impactful tech companies in and around Artificial Intelligence. These companies will need powerful cash-generating engines to drive the creation of “sufficiently advanced technology,” world class customer experiences, and market capturing growth. For all the companies I am involved in, I will do everything in my power to steer them away from using “AI for bad” aka “AI for $ at the expense of the people.” I will strive to create life-changing experiences and outcomes for employees, unmatched returns for investors, and a measurable positive impact on our customers. As the world changes and I continue to learn, I’ll be frequently refining my strategies and objective functions for maximizing prosperity and minimizing suffering for all of humanity.

And finally, here are the main ventures I am currently focused on:

Neo Cybernetica, a machine-centric deep tech company founded by myself and Dmytro Zahanych, has raised a $30M seed round led by NEA. neocybernetica.com

hOS, a human-centric applied AI company founded by myself, Natalie Hogan, Nate McKenzie, Andrey Oleksiuk, and Nick Bundzinski, has raised a $12.8M seed round led by NEA. hosinc.co

Cortical Ventures, an AI-focused venture capital firm founded by myself and Igor Taber, has launched with an inaugural $50M early stage fund.? cortical.vc

Again, I want to thank everyone who believed in me, worked alongside me, and supported me. My past success and continued ambition is thanks to you.?