WeekWise XX
#20 WW: Neuralink's Telepathy demo, Surgeons transplant a pig kidney into a human patient, and how the US has become a total petroleum net exporter.
Hey! 👋
I'm Adolfo Güell, and every week, I spend countless hours selecting curated content—whether it's posts, news, or podcasts—centered around my passions: technology, macroeconomics, innovation, and more. This newsletter is my way of sharing the top-notch content I've come across.
I hope this weekly newsletter introduces you to exciting new content and talented creators.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to contact me at adolfoguelldmz@gmail.com.
My top picks 🔝
Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain chip company, has released a video of its first patient using its brain to play chess with a computer [Neuralink on X]. The patient is paralyzed from the shoulders down and used to require assistance to operate devices. Thanks to its new implant, he can now use the mouse and cursor independently.
Following up on this advancement, Elon Musk has stated: “Long-term, it is possible to shunt the signals from the brain motor cortex past the damaged part of the spine to enable people to walk again and use their arms normally”.
Neuralink has also released that they are working on another product called Blindsight, that plans to recover or restore vision.
A team of US surgeons have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living patient for the first time [theSun]. This milestone marks a significant advancement in modern medicine, as the primary bottleneck in organ transplants is not the technology, but rather the availability of organs. With this breakthrough, researchers envision a future where a potentially limitless supply of organs becomes feasible.
The US became a total petroleum net exporter in 2020. Several graphs:
The 2.5x production increase since 2008.
The evolution of imports by source:
It’s clear that the US is becoming energetically independent, and reduce its dependence from the OPEC and the Persian Gulf.
Credits: Oil and petroleum products explained [U.S. Energy Information Administration]
Spotify has revealed the audience of the top podcasters in the platform [Bloomberg]. Joe Rogan is definitely the most followed podcaster worldwide, with 14.5M subscribers. That means nearly 3x the second podcast, TED Talks Daily.
As I stated in several posts, I believe we are at the beginning of a content revolution that is redefining how audiences consume content (and from whom!).
The Thiel Foundation, a foundation owned by the founder of PayPal Peter Thiel, Announced Next Thiel Fellow Class. The Thiel Fellowship provides funding and mentorship to 20 exceptional young entrepreneurs, enabling them to pursue innovative projects instead of attending college. They receive $100,000 in funding and access to a network of tech entrepreneurs.
This foundation has previously funded fellows that have built companies like Figma, Ethereum or Loom. This year, they’ve selected fellows such as Walden Yan, the founder of Cognition AI.
Some other reads I enjoyed…
[VIDEO] All you need to know about Nvidia Blackwell in 5 mins [The AI Investor on X]
SUMMARY OF FED DECISION (3/20/24) [The Kobeissi Letter on X]
Andrew Chen on competition in "The Cold Start Problem" [JJ Velaz on X]
I’m excited to announce that today I’m joining Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI [Mustafa Suleyman on X]
[VIDEO] Conversation with Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral AI [Elad Gil on X]
Decoding compensation: Stock Options vs Phantom Shares in the Spanish startup ecosystem [Kfund]
U.S. Sues Apple, Accusing It of Maintaining an iPhone Monopoly [NY Times]
🇪🇸 A first assessment of the labor reform [Florentino Felgueroso & Marcel Jansen]
Ep5. Stock Comp, AI Cold War, Valuations for LLM [BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley]
🚀 Quick News by Volv
Read the top news from this week by Volv, 9 second news for high performing individuals: