574: China's 1.2 Million GPU Hole, DeepSeek R2, Meta CFO Susan Li, Bret Taylor, OpenAI o3, Google AlphaGenome, White Mirror, and James Cameron's Bet on Himself

"this one is unique and made with love"

A scholar is not someone who provides the right answers, but someone who asks the right questions.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss

📖✍️🎧📲 I’m very excited about this one 😃

Infinite Books’ new book is now available, and it was a real honor to be involved in its publication.

It’s called White Mirror 🪞 and it’s a page-turning sci-fi anthology of thirty-one stories featuring Lucilius — ‘an inventor, explorer, and Renaissance man of the next frontier’ — having adventures in a futuristic world that is refreshingly not dystopian or depressing (I know, what a concept these days!).

I’d describe it as fun and often mind-bending!

It’s tight, there’s no filler. Bite-sized gourmet story snacks, which is welcome in this world of 800-page tomes that most people never finish.

To give the reader as much as possible, my friend Tinkered Thinking, the author, has created a pretty incredible bundle of goodies for those who want it early AND signed AND in every physical and digital format AND with bonus art and content.

The book itself is a beautiful physical artifact, with silver foil, embossing, French flaps, and artwork by TT sprinkled throughout.

We’re tired of generic books that all look the same — this one is unique and made with love 💙

Here it is in my hand. I was trying to show the silver foil reflections, but it’s hard on a static photo.

This bundle is limited to 100 copies. As I’m writing this, there are only 79 76 72 47 28 15 7 3 0 left, and it went on sale mere hours ago. tick-tock-tick-tock… ⏳

With this special edition early-pre-order, you get:

• A signed edition of White Mirror ✍️

• A special comic-book adaptation of a White Mirror story 🔥

• A signed and numbered museum-quality art print (with that line I love from the book: “The universe isn’t just very old, remember, it’s also very young.”) 🌌

• The audiobook (DRM-free, narrated by the author — he did a great job!) 🎧

• The eBook edition (DRM-free, which is easier to search, highlight, etc) 📲

• Ships immediately (a month before the general release!) 📫

• Early access to the embedded puzzle 🧩🕵️

• A velvety Infinite Books bookmark (only the best!)

And while the physical parts of the bundle will ship on July 2nd, you get immediate access to the ebook and audiobook.

🪞→ You can get your copy here ← 🛒 [Update: Now sold out! Thank you. The non-limited editions are now available.]

Remember, only 100 will ever be sold, and the number of remaining copies is going down by the minute.

👨‍🍳🍳🥩🚫💧 This one will be “duh” if you already do it and revelatory if you don’t:

One of the biggest quality-of-life technique upgrades when it comes to frying meat in a skillet is patting it dry with a paper towel before seasoning and cooking.

It’s so simple, yet the difference it makes is kind of amazing.

By my eyeballing it, I’d say it reduces grease splatter by at least 80% and makes the whole experience much more pleasant.

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🏦 💰 Business & Investing 💳 💴

🗣️📊 Meta CFO Susan Li’s First Podcast, Free Cash Flow Hats, etc 🧢💵

Everyone has a podcast now… even John Collison ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But this one’s good.

I’d love to hear Susan Li do an extended conversation with Joe Walker or Dwarkesh Patel. I’m sure she has lots of interesting stories.

I also enjoyed John’s conversation with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.

🇺🇸 Average and median 401(k) value by age cohort in the U.S. 🪙→💵→💰

The median gives a better idea of what the typical person has, of course.

It’s the old line: If Jeff Bezos walks into a bar, the average net worth of everyone inside skyrockets, but the median reveals why everyone still lines up for $1.50 hot dogs at Costco. 🌭

🇨🇳🤖 R2: DeepSeek’s Next Big Model & China’s 1.2 Million GPU Hole 👮‍♀️📦

Will DeepSeek once again dominate the world’s news cycles for a week or two, or will this time be different because of a growing compute crunch in China?