Andrew Chen: “There is a reinvention of growth channels, but today’s most effective tactics are very different than what existed before. While we are unlikely to install new apps, we are willing to follow new creators, or share videos/links/photos. We spend a ton of time on social media, within video apps, and comms/collab products in the workplace. It’s partly why creators, short-form video, and shareable memes have become such important growth drivers for new startups today, even though sometimes the spikes are short and ephemeral. And within the workplace, why PLG and bottoms-up growth are often fueled as much from co-workers sharing content as much as observing content posted by AI influencers.”
Mint: “India’s ascent to a middle income-economy hinges on better education and continued focus on infrastructure creation, Asian Development Bank (ADB) chief economist Albert Park said, citing the successful experience of other developed economies. India should also commit to remain an open economy and review import tariffs that may be making inputs costlier for sectors where it has an advantage, Park said on the sidelines of ADB’s annual meeting in Tbilisi…Park said that if ADB were to do an economic diagnosis of the country, education would be among the priority areas where it should really improve the quality since becoming a middle-income country means moving up the technology ladder.”
FT: “Artificial intelligence companies that have spent billions of dollars building so-called large language models to power generative AI products are now banking on a new way to drive revenues: small language models. Apple, Microsoft, Meta and Google have all recently released new AI models with fewer “parameters” — the number of variables used to train an AI system and shape its output — but still with powerful capabilities. The moves are an effort by technology groups to encourage the adoption of AI by businesses who have concerns about the costs and computing power needed to run large language models, the type of technology underpinning popular chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.”
Deirdre McCloskey: “The price system doesn’t guarantee nirvana, heaven, perfection. But beware of making the imagined perfect the enemy of the actual pretty good. Money prices don’t value us ethically. But they have yielded a 3,000 percent increase in human material welfare since 1800. Not too shabby. Let’s keep it going.” [via CafeHayek]
WSJ: “More online calculators, wearable devices and medical tests are attempting to estimate your heart’s age. The companies and organizations behind the tools say that having insight into your heart health can prompt you to make lifestyle changes to help stave off cardiovascular disease down the road. It’s an extension of our newfound obsession with “biological age,” the concept that your body, or parts of it, can be physically aging faster or slower than your actual age. And that by knowing those ages, you can take control to live longer and healthier. As for the heart, scientists say the tools can be a helpful jumping-off point for conversations with doctors about habit changes or medications before heart disease sets in.”
Martin Wolf reviews “The Longevity Imperative”: “We need to rethink old age, as individuals and societies. We must not shuffle a huge proportion of our society into unproductive and unhealthy “old age”. We can and must do far better, both individually and socially. This is [the] “imperative”. Barring a disaster, there are going to be far more very old people: in 1990, there were only 95,000 people over 100 years old in the world. Today, there are over half a million, and rising.”
