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- 🎓 AI Is Outpacing PhD Degrees
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts
Skip the Ph.D., says Google’s AI pioneer. Jad Tarifi, who built Google’s first generative AI team, warns that chasing a doctorate to ride the AI wave is a losing bet. By the time you finish the degree the tech will have already changed. Let’s dive in!
In today’s insights:
AI Is Outpacing PhD Degrees
AI bubble fears rise
Albania bets on AI to clean up politics
Read time: 5 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
AI DEGREES
🎓 AI Is Outpacing PhD Degrees
Source: SouthWestJournal
Evolving AI: Google's Jad Tarifi says a Ph.D. won't help you cash in on AI hype.
Key Points:
Jad Tarifi warns a Ph.D. takes too long for today's AI pace.
Skills in empathy and taste may matter more than technical depth.
Passion-driven work will outlast AI-driven automation.
Details:
Jad Tarifi, who founded Google’s first generative AI team, says pursuing a Ph.D. to profit from the AI boom is a mistake. By the time students finish, the tech may have already shifted. He argues degrees that drag on, like law and medicine, risk becoming outdated. Instead, Tarifi urges people to build social skills, empathy, and emotional awareness, as AI work increasingly demands adaptability and human insight.
Why It Matters:
A few stars are landing eye‑watering deals, but most teams hire for people who can put a model to work in a real workflow. If you want an edge this quarter, pick a narrow domain like clinical scribing, ad ops or biotech lab work, build a small‑model tool with retrieval, track outcomes, and let users break it. Add the bits AI can’t fake: clear writing, empathy, and product taste. A tight portfolio of shipped projects, real metrics, and a couple of paying users beats a fresh line on a CV.
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SAM ALTMAN
🫧 AI bubble fears rise
Source: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images
Evolving AI: Sam Altman warns that AI may be in a bubble despite strong demand.
Key Points:
Altman compares AI enthusiasm to the dot-com bubble.
Experts warn valuations may already exceed the 1990s internet boom.
OpenAI eyes $20B revenue but remains unprofitable.
Details:
Sam Altman says AI investors may be getting overexcited, even as OpenAI prepares a $6B stock sale at a $500B valuation. Critics argue valuations of top tech firms are now higher than during the dot-com bubble. Some analysts believe AI’s long-term fundamentals are strong, but pockets of speculation risk creating instability. Altman added that AGI feels less relevant as a term and noted OpenAI may spend trillions on future data centers.
Why It Matters:
The bigger picture here is that money is pouring into AI at a pace that feels a lot like the dot-com boom. The danger isn’t that AI disappears, but that too much cash is backing shaky ideas without real business models. For companies, the smart move is to focus on AI that delivers efficiency now, like cutting logistics costs or automating support, rather than betting on hype that could vanish overnight.
Prima Minister of Albania, Edi Rama. Source: Oliver Matthys / EPA
Evolving AI: Albania wants to fight corruption with AI and speed up joining the EU.
Key Points:
Prime Minister Rama floated the idea of an AI-run ministry to cut nepotism.
AI is already used for procurement checks, tax analysis and monitoring illegal construction.
Albania hopes AI will help it finish EU accession paperwork by 2027.
Details:
Albania is experimenting with AI to tackle corruption, digitize public services and fast-track EU membership. The government is using AI to track procurement, monitor beaches and construction sites, and issue speeding fines. Rama even suggested an AI-led ministry. Partnering with OpenAI’s Mira Murati, Albania is using AI to process EU laws, aiming to complete accession paperwork faster than Croatia.
Why It Matters:
Short term, this is a live test of AI doing high‑impact government work: comparing EU laws at machine speed, flagging risky tenders, and auto‑issuing speeding fines that land on your phone. If Albania turns these pilots into audited workflows with public dashboards, other small states chasing Brussels will copy it. The catch is who writes the code and who audits it. Get that wrong and you don’t clean house, you encode it.
Learn from this investor’s $100m mistake
In 2010, a Grammy-winning artist passed on investing $200K in an emerging real estate disruptor. That stake could be worth $100+ million today.
One year later, another real estate disruptor, Zillow, went public. This time, everyday investors had regrets, missing pre-IPO gains.
Now, a new real estate innovator, Pacaso – founded by a former Zillow exec – is disrupting a $1.3T market. And unlike the others, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.
Pacaso’s co-ownership model has generated $1B+ in luxury home sales and service fees, earned $110M+ in gross profits to date, and received backing from the same VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.
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👀 Click on the image you think is real
QUICK HITS
😬 This CEO laid off nearly 80% of his staff because they refused to adopt AI fast enough. 2 years later, he says he’d do it again.
📉 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing.
🚀 Oracle Deploys OpenAI GPT-5 Across Database / Cloud Applications Portfolio.
🍃 The environmental consequences of big tech’s push to ease regulations for AI.
📃 Google Gemini can now read your Docs aloud.
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