OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Within two months, its
site was being visited by more than 100 million
visitors.


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TLDR

TOGETHER WITH [Tana] [4]

TLDR 2025-01-06

TANA: AI-POWERED NOTESÄDO REAL WORK BY TALKING (SPONSOR) [4]

Every notetaking app promises to double your productivity - and after
a week, you're back to Apple Notes. Tana's radically different
approach [4] is built to delegate your busywork to AI.

¨ Complete tasks with voice memos [4]: write that blog post,
retro, or strategy on your daily walk/commute.

¨ Use custom feeds to get the information you need without having
to search.

¨ Tailor views, feeds, AI note-takers, and commands to fit your
workflows.

_"Tana is insane." Ä_ Ali Abdaal, best selling author of
_Feel-Good Productivity_

¨ EXCLUSIVE FOR TLDR: Skip the 150,000 waitlist and try Tana now
[4]

¨

BIG TECH & STARTUPS

TESLA CYBERTRUCK SALES ARE DISASTROUS (3 MINUTE READ) [5]

Cybertruck sales are stalling a year into production. While Tesla
claimed to have over 1 million reservations for the vehicle, it had
lowered its reservation deposit to just $100 and the production
version of the truck was more expensive and had less range than what
Tesla originally announced. The company delivered around 40,000
Cybertrucks before opening orders beyond the reservation program. It's estimated that Tesla delivered between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks in
Q4.

SAM ALTMAN ON CHATGPT'S FIRST TWO YEARS, ELON MUSK, AND AI UNDER
TRUMP (39 MINUTE READ) [6]

OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Within two months, its
site was being visited by more than 100 million visitors. The startup
hasn't been the same since. This article contains an interview with
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman. Altman explains his infamous four-day firing,
how he runs OpenAI, his plans for the Trump-Musk presidency, and his
relentless pursuit of artificial general intelligence.

¨

SCIENCE & FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY

THIS YEAR, RISC-V LAPTOPS REALLY ARRIVE (4 MINUTE READ) [7]

Framework plans to release a laptop that can support a RISC-V
mainboard in 2025. RISC-V is an open-source instruction set
architecture (a set of valid instructions programs can execute on a
processor) that provides a viable alternative to x86 and Arm. It is
open source, making it easy to customize hardware. While current
RISC-V chips perform well behind x86 and Arm-powered alternatives,
performance will be much better in the coming year.

SPACEX ANNOUNCES SLATE OF UPGRADES FOR ITS NEXT STARSHIP LAUNCH (3
MINUTE READ) [8]

SpaceX has made special improvements for its seventh Starship test
flight, which may be on January 10. The test will attempt Starship's
first payload deployment test, multiple reentry experiments geared
towards ship catch and reuse, and the launch and return of the Super
Heavy booster. The booster will splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico if
the catching systems aren't healthy during the launch. The booster
will slow down from supersonic speeds upon return, which will result
in sonic booms around the catch area.

¨

PROGRAMMING, DESIGN & DATA SCIENCE

CAN LLMS WRITE BETTER CODE IF YOU KEEP ASKING THEM TO "WRITE BETTER
CODE"? (22 MINUTE READ) [9]

There was a trend a while ago where people kept asking AI image
generators to make something 'more X', which interestingly resulted in
the images eventually becoming something cosmic. This article looks at
whether this concept could apply to large language model-generated
code - whether asking an LLM to 'make code better' can result in
improvements. It appears that asking an LLM to 'write code better'
results in better code compared to direct prompting (at least with
Claude 3.5 Sonnet). LLMs can produce interesting ideas and tool
suggestions even if the output can't be used as is.

PROJECT QUARANTINE (10 MINUTE READ) [10]

Malware on PyPI is a persistent problem. PyPI recently added the
ability to quarantine projects. Administrators are able to mark
projects as potentially harmful, which prevents it from being easily
installed by users. This post discusses how the feature was
implemented and upcoming improvements.

¨

MISCELLANEOUS

EXPLORING A STABLECOIN BANK (8 MINUTE READ) [11]

A stablecoin network could drop payment fees to essentially zero.
Merchants attempting to avoid credit card processing fees is not a new
concept, but the problem is in getting customers to switch their
payment methods. It is possible to shift customer behavior under the
right conditions. The potential market for cheaper, faster, and more
efficient payment methods is clearly strong - this article discusses
how a brand-new stablecoin bank could be used to align incentives to
get everyone on board.

INSIDE THE WILD FALL AND LAST-MINUTE REVIVAL OF BENCH, THE VC-BACKED ACCOUNTING STARTUP THAT IMPLODED OVER THE HOLIDAYS (8 MINUTE READ)
[12]

Bench, an accounting and tax startup based in Canada, suddenly shut
down on December 27 after 13 years of operation. The company's
hundreds of staff were laid off immediately without any severance or
notice. Some of its staff claim that the company's struggles were due
to a push to embrace AI and other automation tools in recent years. Overreliance on automation tools, sometimes at the expense of human
workers, caused delays, which made some customers leave. Bench was
saved by an unlikely acquistion by Employer.com, who extended a large
number of job offers to former Bench staff.

¨

QUICK LINKS

REFLECTIONS (10 MINUTE READ) [13]

Thoughts from Sam Altman about how OpenAI's journey has gone so far
and some of the things he's learned along the way.

MICROSOFT EXPECTS TO SPEND $80 BILLION ON AI-ENABLED DATA CENTERS IN
FISCAL 2025 (2 MINUTE READ) [14]

Over half of the spending will take place in the US.

THE DAY I TAUGHT AI TO READ CODE LIKE A SENIOR DEVELOPER (4 MINUTE
READ) [15]

The key isn't better code generation, it's better code understanding.


CAN SCIENCE BE BOTH OPEN AND SECURE? NATIONS GRAPPLE WITH TIGHTENING
RESEARCH SECURITY AS CHINA'S DOMINANCE GROWS (6 MINUTE READ) [16]

The US and China signed a bilateral science and technology agreement
on December 13 that limits the topics allowed to be jointly studied,
closes opportunities for collaboration, and introduces a new dispute
resolution mechanism.

SAMSUNG AND GOOGLE'S ALTERNATIVE TO DOLBY ATMOS MAY BE THE MOST
EXCITING AUDIO PRODUCT AT CES 2025 (2 MINUTE READ) [17]

Samsung and Google are officially rolling out Eclipse Audio, a three-dimensional audio format, on Samsung's 2025 lineup of Crystal
UHD, Neo QLED 8K TVs, and soundbars.

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Thanks for reading,
Dan Ni & Stephen Flanders

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[4] https://tana.inc/tldr-early-access?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tldr_newsletter&utm_content=primary_jan
[5] https://electrek.co/2025/01/02/tesla-cybertruck-sales-are-disastrous/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[6] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-sam-altman-interview/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczNjEzMjE3OCwiZXhwIjoxNzM2NzM2OTc4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUE1ZR0FUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFQTExNDNDNTM4NEE0RUY5QTg5RjJEN0IxMTg2MzcwOSJ9.AxnZ8mZEzuuWIZD_IgfdbApBlhfGVh-OSFhySrbbTV8&utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[7] https://spectrum.ieee.org/risc-v-laptops?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[8] https://links.tldrnewsletter.com/iwOBEb
[9] https://minimaxir.com/2025/01/write-better-code/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter [10] https://blog.pypi.org/posts/2024-12-30-quarantine/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[11] https://x.com/bridge__harris/status/1875245405673238796?s=12&utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[12] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/03/inside-the-wild-fall-and-last-minute-revival-of-bench-the-vc-backed-accounting-startup-that-imploded-over-the-holidays/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[13] https://blog.samaltman.com/reflections?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[14] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/03/microsoft-expects-to-spend-80-billion-on-ai-data-centers-in-fy-2025.html?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[15] https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-senior-developer?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[16] https://theconversation.com/can-science-be-both-open-and-secure-nations-grapple-with-tightening-research-security-as-chinas-dominance-grows-244112?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
[17] https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/home-entertainment/samsung-and-googles-alternative-to-dolby-atmos-may-be-the-most-exciting-audio-product-at-ces-2025/?utm_source=tldrnewsletter
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