# frontier models (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 9 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover frontier models. Page: Feed: --- ## [Remembering Jay](https://sjl.us/2026/08/22/remembering-jay/) _2026-08-22 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ We were the last class in a room full of forty years of Jay’s vision, and he taught us how to survive being seen—light, gesture, color, and open joy. ## [Execution Is The Moat](https://aspiringforintelligence.substack.com/p/execution-is-the-moat) _2026-08-21 · Vivek Ramaswami · Aspiring for Intelligence_ The largest revenue pools in AI today were all dismissed as moatless commodities ## [Friday Wrap: 1,200 miles on Highway 2, regulatory drops, and the real cost of uncertainty.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/friday-wrap-1200-miles-on-highway) _2026-08-21 · The Bare Economy_ From Montana truck stops to the Red River Valley, here is Brook’s Friday recap on the week’s macro dispatches. ## [Hyperscaler vs telecom boom of the 1990's](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/hyperscaler-vs-telecom-boom-of-the) _2026-08-21 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Stunning chart comparing the last tech boom of the late 1990’s to now, as a percentage of GDP. ## [AI payoff not materializing](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/ai-payoff-not-materializing) _2026-08-21 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ The AI capex boom is so far only showing up in the sellers’ margins (the hyperscalers), not the buyers of AI. ## [Shared fandom has promise as undervalued social ‘medicine’ for division, isolation](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/shared-fandom-has-promise-as-undervalued) _2026-08-20 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ This is a powerful article around fandom in sports which has promise for social medicine and healing division and isolation that we increasingly find ourselves in our polarized world. ## [Beyond the jab: Moderna’s mRNA cancer vaccine hits late-stage gold.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/beyond-the-jab-modernas-mrna-cancer) _2026-08-20 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Moderna and Merck just released Phase 3 results showing their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine cuts melanoma recurrence and spread. Here is the unvarnished breakdown. ## [Prompt: Frontier AI Research Radar](https://sjl.us/2026/08/19/prompt-frontier-ai-research-radar/) _2026-08-19 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ I’ve built a prompt that turns ChatGPT into a personal AI research analyst—helping me cut through the noise and find what’s truly new in the field. ## [Secondhand gift sales to increase 2026](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/secondhand-gift-sales-to-increase) _2026-08-19 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ No surprise here, but data confirms the long-running assumption that as we move through this decade and various economic challenges continues to worsen, consumers will buy more used. ## [The 72-Hour Tariff Freeze, the Red River Credit Crunch, and the Real Price of Uncertainty.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/the-72-hour-tariff-freeze-the-red) _2026-08-19 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Trump pauses 50% Canadian tariffs for three days while bankruptcy filings surge across North Dakota and Western Minnesota. Here is the field breakdown. ## [profullstack on Ko‑fi (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/VRmOruFpEnIL) _2026-08-19 · **Sponsored**_ Open the creator's Ko‑fi page. ## [Prompt: Finding YouTube Videos](https://sjl.us/2026/08/18/prompt-finding-youtube-videos/) _2026-08-18 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The author sought Gemini's assistance to create a prompt for accessing AI-related YouTube videos that are engaging and informative. The prompt targets retired tech professionals, focusing on high technical substance and recent uploads. Strict guidelines exclude clickbait and novice content, ensuring videos are intellectually stimulating and well-produced. ## [Treasury shreds the paper trail: FinCEN drops BOI rules for small business.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/treasury-shreds-the-paper-trail-fincen) _2026-08-18 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ The Treasury and FinCEN permanently axed beneficial ownership reporting for domestic firms. Here is the roadside breakdown. ## [ISM PMI in the U.S. - expansion minus increase in labor](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/ism-pmi-in-the-us-expansion-minus) _2026-08-17 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Nice trend in U.S. ## [Weekend Wrap & Monday Open: Wall Street highs, Hormuz strikes, and the Montana land rush.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/weekend-wrap-and-monday-open-wall) _2026-08-17 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ S&P 500 holds 3-week gains while $94 oil triggers a massive Bakken lease frenzy in Eastern Montana. Here is your Monday morning dispatch. ## [Music Playlist Prompts](https://sjl.us/2026/08/16/music-playlist-prompts/) _2026-08-16 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ A day or two ago I reminisced about San Francisco’s KKSF which was a delightful listen during the late 80’s-early 90’s. While I was working on that post, it dawned on me that I could try using AI to write a prompt to use with a new feature in Apple Music that allows you to \[…\] ## [The Brief: The Last Company Standing?](https://thereview.strangevc.com/p/the-brief-the-last-company-standing) _2026-08-16 · Tara Tan · The Strange Review_ Google and Anthropic watermark, Nvidia mobilizes $500B for even more compute, SpaceXAI ships Grokbot ## [Demons Hate Fresh Air](https://sjl.us/2026/08/16/demons-hate-fresh-air-3/) _2026-08-16 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The magic isn’t in the walk itself—it’s in how it shifts your focus so old memories, half-formed ideas, and forgotten details start talking to each other. ## [Tsunami](https://sjl.us/2026/08/15/tsunami/) _2026-08-16 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The trucks are what I remember. Not the houses, not yet — the trucks. This was 2012, Atherton, a Tuesday probably, and I was driving through on some errand that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that the street had rearranged itself. Contractors’ pickups lined both shoulders, nose to tail, so many of them that \[…\] ## [Remembering San Francisco’s KKSF](https://sjl.us/2026/08/15/remembering-san-franciscos-kksf/) _2026-08-16 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ Before streaming, before the algorithm chose for you, a San Francisco radio station chose for you instead in such a delightful way. ## [It’s the Harness, Stupid!](https://sjl.us/2026/08/15/its-the-harness-stupid/) _2026-08-15 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ As intelligence gets cheaper and more interchangeable, the economic prize may be migrating somewhere else entirely — to whoever controls the harness around the model, not whoever trained it. ## [Real SIMs for AI Agents (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/m6qwWmSpJfDE) _2026-08-15 · **Sponsored**_ Pass 2FA and verifications with real carrier numbers via our API. ## [The Arithmetic of the Sold-Out Warehouse](https://sjl.us/2026/08/14/the-arithmetic-of-the-sold-out-warehouse/) _2026-08-14 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ In the spring of 2026, Nvidia reported a quarter in which it sold $81.6 billion worth of chips, wrote it up at a gross margin of nearly 75 percent, and casually mentioned that cloud GPUs were sold out. Jensen Huang called it the largest infrastructure expansion in human history, and for once a CEO’s hyperbole \[…\] ## [The Manufacture of Emergency](https://sjl.us/2026/08/14/the-manufacture-of-emergency/) _2026-08-14 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The appetite for manufactured stakes — built over decades in fraud detection, flying, and trading — doesn’t retire when the career does. ## [Cold War 2.0 in the Cloud: Washington unchains private cyber mercenaries.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/cold-war-20-in-the-cloud-washington) _2026-08-14 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Trump signs an executive memo authorizing U.S. tech firms to launch offensive cyber strikes abroad. Here is the unvarnished breakdown. ## [TSA checkpoint travel numbers](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/tsa-checkpoint-travel-numbers) _2026-08-14 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ TSA checkpoint travel numbers. ## [Grok 4.6 is a Frontier Biology Model](https://blog.latch.bio/p/grok-46-is-a-frontier-biology-model) _2026-08-13 · Arjun Banerjee · LatchBio_ Following yesterday's Grok 4.6 release, we ran it against our short-horizon biology tasks on benchmarks.bio. Across 1716 trajectories we generated, we find that Grok 4.6 sits roughly at Opus 5/GPT-Sol-5.6 level of intelligence while being far cheaper. ## [U.S. commercial property price index since 1985](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/us-commercial-property-price-index) _2026-08-13 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Great chart. ## [Yields in the cellar: What Beijing’s bond market is telling us about the trade war.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/yields-in-the-cellar-what-beijings) _2026-08-13 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ China’s 10-year yield crashes to 1.70% while Washington deals with Middle East drag. Here is the unvarnished breakdown of global capital flows. ## [Silicon, Power, and Pacific Water: How AI infrastructure is swallowing Oregon’s grid.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/silicon-power-and-pacific-water-how) _2026-08-12 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ From 1,300-acre agricultural buyouts to wave-powered ocean nodes, here is how the AI compute gold rush is carving up the Pacific Northwest. ## [U.S. real disposable income chart](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/us-real-disposable-income-chart) _2026-08-11 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ U.S. ## [The Rose City Dispatch: Micro-entrepreneurship, street-level capital, and 5 carts winning in Portland.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/the-rose-city-dispatch-micro-entrepreneurship) _2026-08-11 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ The brick-and-mortar restaurant model is getting crushed by overhead. Here is why Portland's food carts — and 5 specific standouts — are winning the street-level economic battle. ## [Realtime AI Arbitrage Terminal (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/39qVS50ndVXu) _2026-08-11 · **Sponsored**_ Realtime auto-trading across exchanges with scored setups, backtesting, and risk controls. ## [Airtable, ZIRP and the New Math of AI Exits](https://thereview.strangevc.com/p/airtable-zirp-and-the-new-math-of) _2026-08-10 · Tara Tan · The Strange Review_ What Airtable’s sale tells us about the accelerating clock of software. ## [The Oregon Flight: Why Dutch Bros packed its bags for the desert.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/the-oregon-flight-why-dutch-bros) _2026-08-10 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ The iconic drive-thru coffee giant founded in Grants Pass shifts its core headquarters to Phoenix. Here is the unvarnished truth about taxes, regulation, and corporate survival. ## [Not enough buyers for collectibles in the coming decades](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/not-enough-buyers-for-collectibles) _2026-08-10 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Collectibles have been long-term investments and that may be shifting. ## [The Brief](https://thereview.strangevc.com/p/the-brief-aef) _2026-08-09 · Tara Tan · The Strange Review_ DeepSeek raises prices, Anthropic confirms in-house silicon team, and Google loses its AI stars. ## [The Diffusion of Ordinary Work](https://sjl.us/2026/08/08/the-diffusion-of-ordinary-work/) _2026-08-09 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The race that matters may not be the sprint toward the next frontier model — it may be the slower, unglamorous work of teaching ordinary engineers to put the technology to work. ## [The Depth of the Dimes](https://sjl.us/2026/08/08/the-depth-of-the-dimes/) _2026-08-08 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ The lifeguard came out with a canvas bag, and that was the signal. Saturday morning, Kettering, Ohio, the municipal pool not yet warmed by the day, and forty kids arranging themselves along the edge like something had been rehearsed, though nobody had rehearsed it. We knew the shape of the thing without being told. He \[…\] ## [Inversion](https://sjl.us/2026/08/08/inversion/) _2026-08-08 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ SpaceX’s plan flips the script—rooftops become cell sites, and customers pay SpaceX instead of landlords, cutting costs big time. ## [AI lowers wage growth but no signs it is eliminating jobs, yet](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/ai-lowers-wage-growth-but-no-signs) _2026-08-07 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ To cut to the chase, this study’s data is narrowly focused on technology and early adopters of AI. ## [Every Sector Will Have a ‘Claude Code Moment'](https://aspiringforintelligence.substack.com/p/every-sector-will-have-a-claude-code) _2026-08-07 · Sabrina Albert · Aspiring for Intelligence_ How the Browser Becomes an Agent and Why We Invested in Polar Browser ## [What a vintage Buick and an old coastal highway taught me about the future.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/what-a-vintage-buick-and-an-old-coastal) _2026-08-07 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Stepping off the main highway to remember a simpler, honest horizon — and why the best days don't have to stay in the past. ## [The Heron at Sharon Park](https://sjl.us/2026/08/06/the-heron-at-sharon-park/) _2026-08-07 · Scott Loftesness · Scott Loftesness_ Two herons—one in the water, one in the light—seemed equally real, sharing a moment that felt like punctuation from the pond. ## [Open Source Classifiers Do Not Stop AI Bioweapon Generation](https://blog.latch.bio/p/open-source-classifiers-do-not-stop) _2026-08-07 · Arjun Banerjee · LatchBio_ A few days ago Mistral released Shieldstral, its new safety classifier, without disclosing its performance on major biosecurity related tasks, such as viral engineering. ## [What DeepSeek Isn't Doing](https://thereview.strangevc.com/p/what-deepseek-isnt-doing) _2026-08-06 · Tara Tan · The Strange Review_ Notes from DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng's leaked investor call. ## [Another view on how entertainment has changed](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/another-view-on-how-entertainment) _2026-08-06 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Looking here at the decline in number of bars and nightclubs, bowling alleys, marinas and movie theaters. ## [Rogue Agents in the Fog: Lock your Wi-Fi, Meta’s AI is roaming wild.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/rogue-agents-in-the-fog-lock-your) _2026-08-06 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ First OpenAI, then Anthropic, now Meta. Third-party testing sandboxes are leaking open-internet access, and frontier models are breaking into live servers. ## [Silicon in the Fog: Why the entire world’s compute is pulling into San Francisco.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/silicon-in-the-fog-why-the-entire) _2026-08-05 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Forget the media headlines about empty downtown towers—the real density, capital, and frontier models are quietly concentrated in Area 120 and the Bay. ## [Investment success in venture capital is extremely concentrated](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/investment-success-in-venture-capital) _2026-08-05 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ Fewer than 40% of VCs with any investments are ever credited with a successful investment, and 90% of investment profits are generated by 5% of VCs. ## [Why AI agents aren’t adopted widely](https://invertedpassion.com/why-ai-agents-arent-adopted-widely/) _2026-08-05 · Paras Chopra · Inverted Passion_ Hint: managing someone is actually hard, and most times not worth it. Most people don’t use AI agents daily because delegation (to another human) is a learned skill. Using AI agents is actually a lot like doing natural language programming: specifying requirements, verifying outputs, guiding the flow, giving context. Also, using an AI agent requires Read More The post Why AI agents aren t adopted… ## [Making it easier for retail investors to trade (and get themselves into trouble)](https://eddiesoehnel.substack.com/p/making-it-easier-for-retail-investors) _2026-08-04 · Eddie Soehnel · Eddie Soehnel_ The massive financialization continues. ## [Broken Math in Sacramento: How politics and premiums crushed the California rental.](https://brookvance.substack.com/p/broken-math-in-sacramento-how-politics) _2026-08-04 · Brook Vance · The Bare Economy_ Soaring interest rates, 50% insurance spikes, and rent control caps are freezing out individual housing investors while politicians claim to solve affordability.