Take
AI labs' fear isn't just marketing: they're stuck in a prisoner's dilemma
The cynical view, which Shaan attributes to the All-In crowd, is that Anthropic's safety warnings are marketing and a push for regulatory capture that would kill cheaper open-source rivals. Shaan's own view is that the labs are genuinely scared but stuck: whoever slows down to be responsible loses.
“This is my personal opinion, which is I think these people are genuinely scared. I think they're in this prisoner's dilemma where if they slow down, like if they take the responsible path, they lose as a company. So it's like, I want to be responsible, but everybody around me I view as being irresponsible. Therefore, I'm being forced to be irresponsible.”
Framework
Get to the frontier: the edge looks smooth until you're standing on it
Shaan explains Paul Graham's "How to Do Great Work": from the center of a field the frontier looks smooth, but up close it is jagged and full of gaps, and the entrepreneur's job is to fill one. His example is OpenRouter, a model router that came from noticing AI bills were exploding because every task was sent to the most expensive model.
“And when you're in the center of mass, the edge of the circle looks smooth. It just seems like, seems like people got it all figured out. That the people that are out there, the companies that are out there, Seem to be doing their thing. The world has a nice, nice circular shape to it. It's one smooth line. But when you get closer, you realize it's actually quite jagged and there's lots of gaps that are in that frontier.”
Steal thisGo deep enough in one domain to reach its edge, then build whatever fills a gap you can only see from there.