Jessica - if you are reading the comments, I have to say - Founders at Work changed my career trajectory. I read it fresh out of college in 2008. I told a buddy to read it and it also changed his trajectory.
Guess what, after years of meandering (YC, Series A, big tech) I still come back to the moment I first discovered your book.
Also, please tell PG, I knew about your book before I knew what YC was :-)
Other comments already mentioned multiple services (from OpenAI to Cleanspeak). I want to provide a high level clarification from experience.
Moderation is a vast topic - there are different services that focus on different areas: such as, text, images, CSAM, etc. Traditionally you treat each problem area differently.
Within each area, you, as an operator, need to define the level of sensitivity for the category of offense (policies).
Some policies seem more clear cut (eg image: porn) while others seem more difficult to define precisely (eg text: bullying or child grooming).
In my experience, text moderation is more complex and presents a lot of risks.
There are different approaches for text moderation.
Keyword based matching services like Cleanspeak, TwoHat, etc. are baseline level useful but limiting because assessing a keyword requires context. A word can be miscategorized and results in false positive or false negative with this approach, which may impact your operation at scale; or UX if a platform requires more of a real-time experience.
LLM is theoretically well suited for taking context into account for text moderation; however they are also pricier and may require furthering fine tuning or self-hosting for cost savings.
CSAM as a problem area presents the highest risks though may be more clear cut. There are dedicated image services and regulatory bodies that focus on this area (for automating reporting to local law enforcement).
Finally, EU (DSA) also requires social media companies adhere to self report on moderation actions. EU also requires companies to provide pathways for users to own and delete their data (GDPR).
Edit: FIXED typos; ADDED a note on CSAM and DSA & GDPR
Case in point, under Case Study > Reconnaissance > OSINT, these two paragraphs follow one another - same content but different wording.
> The first step in any hardware hacking project is research. I started by Googling the router model number, "ASUS RT-N12 D1", and came across an article about a similar model, the ASUS RT-N12+ B1. The article mentioned that the device had an open UART interface allowing unauthenticated root access. However, it provided no exact details on how to exploit this or where the UART interface might be located. Could my router model have the same vulnerability?
> In the first step I googled the model number for my router "ASUS RT N12 D1" and I came accross this article. It shows that a similar model the "ASUS RT N12+ B1" appears to have an open UART interface, which gives unauthenticated root access. It does not show how to exacltly abuse this or any details where to find the UART interface. Let's see if our router model may have the same vulnerability!
For people who are bad with computers, I think passkeys could work ok in scenario where somebody has just one device, they never upgrade it, never lose it, never break it, never accidentally click on "log out" in their passkey provider's account.
What’s your observations on non-big pharma - ie small late stage clinical trials startup with a single drug. Would they not vastly benefit from joining a standard protocol?
I can't speak in that space too deeply as we only worked with the largest pharmas.
But in general, the smaller the entity, the harder it is to operate competitively because of the burden of documentation and quality (in this case regarding all of the processes, controls, and SOPs) required for submission for regulatory approval.
Where a lot of smaller biotechs would benefit is more open tools and more standards based interfaces/interchanges. But like health insurance and income taxes, this is a space with a lot of entrenched interests that are extracting rent. A turnkey quality management system (QMS) could run in the 6 figures a year.
It feels like it should be easier and I'd be interested in building an open platform, but it's really difficult to sell into this space because of how conservative it is (in this case, meaning convincing the quality folks on the sponsor side). Even if I were to build a free and open source solution for QMS or regulatory document management or clinical document management (a lot of the burden is document management and records keeping), the chances of it being widely adopted is low without the right influencers and decisionmakers bought in -- but who would do that if they can extract rent?
I tried with two startups and learned the hard way that even with my connections, it was impossible to get biotechs -- even small, single compound biotechs -- to give the product a chance.
Veeva was able to "convert" the industry to cloud because they first started on the marketing side with the Veeva CRM product. It was really the product that broke the barrier for cloud SaaS in the industry. Then off of that, they were able to sell Veeva eTMF. Prior to that, our customers would actually want to walk to our data centers and see the serial numbers on our hardware matched our documented records....
> Initially, I was shocked at how slowly everything moved! I was used to working really quickly when producing and engineering albums. Suddenly it was like the brakes were on and often it was difficult to get the momentum going. Eventually, I adapted to the Floyd pace. One of the great things about working with this band is that you are allowed time to be creative, to pursue an idea even if it takes some time. The Floyd had a production deal to make their records and the record label never heard anything until it was done. The record was made purely and only by the people in the studio.
The creative freedom without commercial intervention - this is very cool. I can almost hear it in The Wall - how grand and elongated the songs are.
Sorry, I don't see the irony. Anyway, having ''The'' as an honourific for band names was commonplace in the UK prior to the '70s, even if the band's name had not been stylized with "The".
Again, for people of a certain age or generation it was commonplace to prepend it. I find it endearing in a nostalgic way. I can infer from that person's use of it that he is of that age or generation.
Ever see someone mention "The Donald"? It's the same thing.
It's when something or someone gets so recognizable that they can be referred to in a singular sense. There are lots of instances of this throughout pop culture.
In the context of the interview, it's someone who was part of the "Floyd-verse" (this word is a mashup of Floyd and Universe, another common affectation). Pink Floyd was a remarkably famous band, and they still are. Someone that was part of the "Floyd-verse" naturally would have felt the band as all encompassing. It wasn't just a band, it was tour after tour, hit song after hit song, millions and millions of fans - and getting caught up in that made "Pink Floyd" seem far bigger than the sum of its parts. Calling that phenomenon "The Floyd" is actually very succinct, and portrays how large a cultural phenomenon Pink Floyd was and still is, 60 years later.
I have to wonder why you can't/won't understand this.
I got around to building v3 of the Airtable GTD tracker / dashboard template to share. Feel free to make a copy and get started; link in blog post.
Airtable syncs with my Google Calendar, and I’ve configured it to send me a daily digest. It’s typically in my inbox by 5:30AM Pacific Time, so I get to see what I have due that day.
I have a separate - not fully implemented - section for more semi-random aliases, but it revolves around our tendency to use default settings and commonly used tools for generating them. Thus far the only thing I was able to show with it is that it is not uncommon, but no clear proxy for age.. so seems like a dead end.
Guess what, after years of meandering (YC, Series A, big tech) I still come back to the moment I first discovered your book.
Also, please tell PG, I knew about your book before I knew what YC was :-)