OpenAI's average stock-based compensation is about $1.5 million per
employee. The company's equity awards are inflating its heavy
operating losses
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TLDR
TLDR 2025-12-31
📱
BIG TECH & STARTUPS
OPENAI IS PAYING EMPLOYEES MORE THAN ANY MAJOR TECH STARTUP IN
HISTORY (3 MINUTE READ) [4]
OpenAI's average stock-based compensation for its roughly 4,000
employees is about $1.5 million per employee. The company's equity
awards, aimed at helping it keep its lead in the AI race, are
inflating its heavy operating losses and diluting existing
shareholders. OpenAI recently announced the discontinuation of a
policy that required employees to work at the company for at least six
months before their equity vests. This could lead to further
compensation increases.
SOFTBANK HAS FULLY FUNDED $40 BILLION INVESTMENT IN OPENAI (3 MINUTE
READ) [5]
Softbank sent over the final amount to complete its $40 billion
investment in OpenAI last week. The company's stake in OpenAI is now
around 11%. Softbank has been betting big on technology and AI
companies. It recently agreed to pay $4 billion for data center
investment firm DigitalBridge to strengthen its AI push.
🚀
SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY
TESLA SHARES EPIC 2025 RECAP VIDEO, CONFIRMS START OF CYBERCAB
PRODUCTION (2 MINUTE READ) [6]
Tesla has released a year-in-review video for 2025 that recaps major achievements for the company. The montage celebrated the company's
progress on EVs, energy, and Robotaxi development. It also confirmed
that the production of the Cybercab has started. The video can be
viewed in the article.
MEET A US START-UP TRYING TO BREAK CHINA'S RARE-EARTH MONOPOLY (10
MINUTE READ) [7]
There is too little money to be made in rare earth to be of much
interest to mining giants, so the challenge of reestablishing a
domestic industry in the US has fallen to small companies. Metal
prices have risen in recent months as China has restricted exports in
response to US tariffs. It will be difficult for local startups to
compete as China's grip on the industry is tight, and it is known to
sell rare-earth metals for less than it costs to produce them. The
biggest question is whether the US government will continue to
subsidize the domestic industry, and at what level.
💻
PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE
THE EFFICIENCY PARADOX: WHY MAKING SOFTWARE EASIER TO WRITE MEANS
WE'LL WRITE EXPONENTIALLY MORE (6 MINUTE READ) [8]
Efficiency improvements reveal latent demand that was previously
uneconomic to address. The pattern is consistent throughout history.
We are about to see an increase in knowledge work output of several
orders of magnitude. This will likely reveal that humanity has been
massively under-investing in knowledge work because it was too
expensive.
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN 2026 (5 MINUTE READ) [9]
The primary impact of AI tooling so far is that the marginal cost of
producing code has gone down significantly. However, producing code is
only part of the job, so the bottlenecks for engineering time will
shift elsewhere. The software engineering field seems poised to be
more mechanized, but more productive as a result. Most of the effects
of the mindset shift that has been accelerating for the last few
months have yet to be fully realized.
🎁
MISCELLANEOUS
2025 LETTER (72 MINUTE READ) [10]
Progress is a smooth trend that obscures jagged details. History is a
record of thousands of years of stasis before hundreds of years of
growth. There hasn't been any constant normal trend ever, so no one
should expect AI to be the same. Nothing is truly inevitable, but it
would be strange if progress stopped tomorrow.
FIVE TAKES TO END 2025 (7 MINUTE READ) [11]
A lot of the assumptions across the tech industry were seriously put
to the test this year. This post takes a look at some of the things
that happened to see what the future may bring. It covers OpenAI's
business, Google's dominance in AI, Alan Dye's role at Apple, software on-demand, and what Apple needs to do to win next year.
⚡
QUICK LINKS
WHEN THE LINE STOPS GOING UP (11 MINUTE READ) [12]
It's easy to make progress when you start doing something, but that
will plateau over time, and it can be hard to come to terms with the
change.
10 IDEAS FOR 2026 (3 MINUTE READ) [13]
10 ideas to consider in the coming year.
BALANCE OF POWER (25 MINUTE READ) [14]
As big business, big government, and big mob get stronger, they can
no longer avoid frequently interacting.
TECH STARTUPS ARE HANDING OUT FREE NICOTINE POUCHES TO BOOST
PRODUCTIVITY (7 MINUTE READ) [15]
Companies like Palantir are giving employees free nicotine products
through vending machines.
TWO YEARS AFTER LEAVING GOOGLE: THE TRUTH ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP (10
MINUTE READ) [16]
Entrepreneurship is hard, but it gives you a type of freedom that is
difficult to give up.
ADVICE FOR GENERALISTS WHO WANT TO JOIN STARTUPS (10 MINUTE READ)
[17]
Find a way to prove that you can identify useful work before you are
even hired by the company.
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Dan Ni [24] & Stephen Flanders [25]
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