It’s been 3.5 years since I moved to Silicon Valley. The journey in the VC space in most crowded area in the world has been teaching me countless “hard things” from just surviving here and capturing opportunities while handling stability financially and juggling multiple projects at the same time. People call a person like me “first generation” who moves here to build up a new life in the U.S. If you ask me, my home country where I came from is Japan which is a wonderful place to grow up and live. Moving out from the comfort zone required me to downgrade many things such as housing, safety, job opportunities, recognition of education level, background or language barriers; almost resetting all of stuff I’ve built in my life. If you met me 10 years ago, my language capabilities were limited. My experiences was almost none. I came from a humble family, small town in Japan. My parents invested all for me while they were saving the most to spend everything for education for me and my siblings. Furthermore, my dream at the time was to be an English teacher who is like my father and to get married to a boyfriend who will work at public city hall in my hometown. Then what happened after 10 years? It’s totally different landscape. I never majored in business, but I somehow ended up working for a startup from the U.S. Why? It’s because my curiosity didn’t fit in a traditional big corporation where people kept asking me why I didn’t pick to be a sales assistant. Well, I just liked to be outgoing and speak with external clients and partners. I never ever imagined to be working in office to do admin tasks and get paid less just because of my gender. Although I have to say, the new graduate training at Japanese corps taught me a lot from business manners to mindset. They take things seriously to train new people just like a family which is very unique aspect compared to other countries as you almost don’t need any experience as long as you have motivation to learn. When I tried to change my job for the first time, I thought about moving to San Francisco. But then, I didn’t want to downgrade the level of work. I mean I could work at Japanese restaurants, but in a reality, the cost of living is quite high. Also, I really wanted to earn some experience to be competitive enough even among the local so that hiring reason doesn’t need to be associated with only my expertise just because I’m Japanese. Although this means, the path I choose would be much harder. In Japan, the startup I worked for eventually became unicorn in the U.S. I was fortunate to meet many US startup founders and some VCs based in the U.S. even while I was working in Tokyo. I was the third member of the team in Japan. Gladly the company is still alive @noom After that, a person from a company reached out to me on Linkedin, looking for a person to found the team in Japan. At the time I thought the message is scam and didn’t care too much about it. I replied back to the message just in case, and briefly looked up the company. This is back in early 2017. I started helping them, and got asked to be a part of team. Although they didn’t have any corporate structure in Japan, so this is how I became a self employed. Apparently the company ranked as the best company to work in Canada in that year, and it made me feel good to work for a Canadian company after you saw how US society behaved when Trump was elected for the first time. That company I started working was @Shopify. In the U.S. contexts, it was probably more known, but in Japan back in 2017? None. Nobody knew. My friends disagreed the idea to change job or started asking me for concert tickets since they thought I was working for @Spotify. I mean close enough. Their logos are green, and founded in the same year. I don’t know how many times I corrected the company name every time my clients called me Spotify. Throughout the years I was working for Shopify, we moved to different offices four times in Tokyo.

Remember this photo. ←2008: Elon Musk, on the brink of bankruptcy →2026: The world’s richest man, through SpaceX’s IPO The next time you think “maybe I should just quit” — look at this. In 2008, he had almost nothing left. Tesla was dying. Three SpaceX rockets had exploded back to back. His marriage was over. The money was gone. And he kept going. 18 years later, that same company created 4,400 millionaires in a single day. Welders. Technicians. Cafeteria staff. One person who refused to quit changed the lives of thousands who also refused to quit. Staying in the game was the strategy.

1日で4,400人の億万長者が誕生した。そのうち400人は、資産が150億円を超える。彼らは投資家ではなく、SpaceXの従業員だ。溶接工、技術者、カフェテリアのスタッフも含まれている。なぜなら20年にわたって、給与を上げる代わりにあらゆる職位の従業員に株式を付与し続けてきたからだ。 メキシコから移民の社員の一人は、2015年に時給28ドルの契約社員として溶接の仕事に就いた。当時はSpaceXが何の会社かも知らなかった。会社は彼に150万円程の株式を付与し、給与天引きでの株式購入も認めた。その持ち株は今約1.4億円の価値になった。 またある一人は両親からGEのような安定した仕事に就くよう勧める中、彼はまだまだ当時はベンチャー企業だったSpaceXを選び、12年間勤め続け、10万株以上を積み上げた。上場価格135ドルで計算するとざっと2億円を超える。37歳で半引退状態。本人もまったく現実感がないとの事。 上場前にも100人以上の従業員が密かに集まり、総額7,500億円に及ぶグループ向けの資産管理契約を交渉でまとめた。それもそのはず、誰もそれまで資産管理の専門家を必要としたことがなかったから。 ソフトウェアのIPOは30年にわたって億万長者を生み出してきた。しかし今回が初めて、その富が「工場の現場」に届いたIPOとなったのだ。イーロンマスクの革命はまだまだ続く。 x.com/heyshrutimishra/status…

Elon Musk cried when people laughed about what he was building back in 2012. Now look at what he stands today. It’s beyond words.

OpenAIの今後について、日本語要約はこちら↓ —— “【全人類のためのAI——OpenAI、第3フェーズへ】 1920年代、電気が農村に届いたとき、人々の日常は一変した。夜の光、冷蔵庫、ラジオ——技術は一部の人のものではなく、やがてすべての人のものになった。20世紀末には平均寿命が20年以上延び、実質収入は約3倍に。今、AIが同じ転換点にある。 OpenAIが掲げる3つの目標： 🔬 AIが自らAI研究を行う時代へ 2028年までに、研究の大部分をAIシステムが研究者と共に担う。アライメント（人間との価値整合）という難題を解くために、AIと人間が共に反復・進化する。 📈 経済成長の恩恵を広く分配する 科学・生産性・経済を加速させながら、その果実が一部ではなくすべての人に届くように。 🌍 地球上の全員に「個人AGI」を 人類史上最も変革的な技術を、すべての人が自分のやり方で使えるように。 「完全自動化は目標ではない。AIは人間の判断を代替するのではなく、人が自分の目標を追求する力になるべきだ」 「権力の集中は脆弱性を生む。広く分かち合われた権力こそが、社会を強靭で自由なものにする」 少数の企業や国がAIの能力と恩恵を独占する未来は、良い未来ではない。多くの人・企業・コミュニティ・国々が共に構築し、共に恩恵を受ける未来を。 この変革は、すべての人のものであるべきだ。” 📝 by @sama & Jakub Pachocki #AI #OpenAI #AGI #人工知能 #テクノロジー #未来

TLDR; “For All of Humanity — OpenAI Enters Phase 3 In the 1920s, when electricity reached rural towns, daily life transformed forever. Light at night, refrigeration, radio — technology that began as a privilege eventually became available to everyone. By the end of the 20th century, average lifespans had grown by 20 years and real incomes nearly tripled. AI is now at that same inflection point. OpenAI’s three core goals: 🔬 AI that researches AI By 2028, a significant fraction of research will be conducted by AI systems working alongside human researchers. To solve alignment — one of the hardest problems in the field — AI and humans must iterate and evolve together. 📈 Accelerate the economy, share the gains broadly Drive progress in science, productivity, and economic growth — while ensuring the benefits reach everyone, not just a few. 🌍 A personal AGI for every person on Earth One of humanity’s most transformative technologies should be accessible to everyone, on their own terms. “Automating everything is not the future we want. AI should help people pursue their goals — not replace human judgment about what matters.” “Concentrated power creates fragility. Widely shared power makes societies more resilient, adaptable, and free.” A future where a small number of institutions control most of the capability and most of the upside is not a good future. It should be one where many people, companies, communities, and countries can build, benefit, and hold power. This transformation should belong to everyone.” 📝 by @sama & Jakub Pachocki #AI #OpenAI #AGI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #Future

I shrunk myself down to action figure size and can now interact with and explore the tiny world on my living room coffee table. Wait until 7 seconds in 👀🛋️

Life-changers in many industries; images to 3D

These three principles; Renderer, Planner and Simulator

The first Fannie Mae-backed home mortgage secured by $BTC just closed, with Coinbase announcing that a Michigan couple used Bitcoin as collateral for their down payment. Working with lender Better, Coinbase’s product lets buyers avoid liquidating their crypto - instead placing a second lien on the home. For instance, $250K in $BTC can secure a $100K down payment, with no liquidation risk from price swings. Initially supporting $USDC as well, the service is set to roll out nationwide, bridging legacy housing finance and crypto wealth while letting holders bypass capital gains taxes.

Wow, a Japanese company just invented this metal which can extend with this such flexibility. Any idea utilize this technology?

Companies capture value. Networks distribute it. For years, crypto builders had to fit network-shaped systems into company-shaped rules. CLARITY changes that.

Mira Murati says human-AI collaboration needs models that can listen while they think: "The types of models that we work with today, they're very turn-based. You talk, they talk, then they go off and think." "While they're thinking, it's almost like they're deaf and blind. They cannot perceive anything else about what's going on." "By contrast, our interactions with each other are very rich. There is a lot of information in our interactions when we are silent, when we're thinking, when we're interrupting one another." "Interaction models are able to capture all of this nuance. They're not turn-based. They're more like time-based interaction, where they're continuously taking in audio, text, video, and continuously providing output." "This enables you to catch things like interruptions and simultaneous speech, and really create a rich, high bandwidth interaction between humans and machines." @miramurati at Bloomberg Tech live with @emilychangtv

True wealth can be only measured in the meaning, values and the impact of building great products. User obsession. Building something not just merely liked but loved by users. It never be materialistic wealth from appearance.

a16z first location out of the U.S. will be Japan🇯🇵

Join the AI hackathon on a yacht⛵️