Particle & The AI News Landscape particle.news

Yeah, that's, that's what's great about AI is you can let some computer do the algorithm for you. But that brings up an interesting thought I was having. So you mentioned that, you know, a lot of times we get our news from sources from the algorithm, right? And the algorithm will kind of like shoehorn the news that we start to click on or whatever. So like, for example, if I'm watching YouTube and I start picking specific videos it'll start to go down a rabbit hole and get even narrower and narrower where it tries to like give me what it thinks that I want. When you made a particle, was it something that you wanted to allow people like if they if they do want kind of one-sided news they can have it or was it something more intentional of like let's try to get rid of that? Yeah, and I think that that's a really good question. And just for some background for, you know, folks here who who who were meeting me for the first time, I spent over a decade at Twitter working on various parts of Twitter now X. It was Twitter when I was there. You know, thinking about how we connect people to the stuff that they care about and how those algorithms work. And of course, saw firsthand like what it means to have an algorithm look at your behavior and kind of take you into some of those directions that you're talking about. So we've made some deliberate decisions with particle on how we think about the algorithm that we present to you. And in particular, you can choose the topics you want to see and you can fine tune or like you can tune those topics to be very very specific and granular or you can go broad and say, you know, you're interested in in things that are much higher level politics, entertainment, whatever. But we don't let you choose the new sources that you see. So it's pretty difficult to get into a into a bubble or an echo chamber where you're only getting one perspective. We'll always show you all of the perspectives that we have for any given story. And that I think will help a lot so that you don't just continuously see one-sided news. And that goes for both sides, right? Like we don't want you to get stuck in a left echo chamber or a right echo chamber. We want to make sure that you're aware of all the perspectives. Yeah, I think that's actually a pretty elegant solution because it just seems like, for example, I watch a lot of, um, how do you put it like this particular movie is bad. That seems to be like a general topic in my YouTube where I start going down that hill. And that seems to always go into this like right echo chamber at some point where it's just like it's bad because women are bad. They're taking over. I'm like, no, this is not I want to hear people shit on Game of Thrones because the ending made me so mad. It's been like eight years or something. I'm still mad about it. So like I will watch any Game of Thrones ending sucks. But like it just seems to always tail toward this kind of like narrative that I'm like, that's I don't think I don't drive with that narrative. It's not exactly seems to be this like kind of echo chamber narrative. And there's a lot of people giving that narrative. So yeah, I think it'd be nice to like if I just like, can I see all the Game of Thrones is bad stuff but like very perceptive. I just want to just you know, take in all the Game of Thrones is bad content that I can. Yeah, yeah. Um, this reminds me of like, um, there was a stand-up comedy by Ronnie Cheng. I don't know if you do like on the show and stuff. He has this quote that's like really funny where he's like, you know, guys just go to YouTube to try to figure out how to, you know, use the right posture for their for their curls and, you know, they just want to like get buff or whatever. And two weeks later, they're storming the Capitol. Um, it's I mean, I've not delivered it the way he did, but it's it's pretty funny. No, it's true. Like you go, you try to become an expert in something or learn more about something on some of these algorithms. The next thing you know, it's like, you're in weirdo land and you're like, yeah, but I can see that. Fringe is at the internet. Yeah, because I like, I can see that in kind of the reverse where like I listen to podcasts about video games because I like video games and like, it just seems like the video game podcast is like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and by the way, Black Lives Matter bubble is really important. Like what? Like, like, that's important to some people, like, cool, whatever, but like, I want to hear about video games. What video games are cool. And I want to get into this, like, fucking, like, every random thing is this, uh, the, the culture war. I'm like, I don't care. I want to play a video game. I want to see if that's good. I want to see if I should waste my money on that, uh, and it not be as much for waste of money. Yeah, like if you go too deep on anything on YouTube, you start to get into brainwashing territory. And it's just, it's really weird. It's really weird. Yeah, it's terrifying, actually. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's, that's a little bit of, of everything. Um, but what was, what was like your, like, what made you decide you wanted to start this company? Like, did you have like a, a founding moment where you're like, trying to find some information you're like, oh, this is bad. And inspiration came or was it kind of a longer, longer thing? You know, it's interesting, because I had, um, I had left, uh, Twitter, uh, now acts at the end of 2021 after, you know, over a decade there. And I thought at the time, I'm like, okay, I'm kind of done with like, social and news and, and, and that while I was Twitter, while I was at Twitter, I worked, I worked on core Twitter, but I also worked on Vine and Periscope and, you know, actually this product basis that we're on right now is built on, you know, Periscope stuff that I, that I had worked on. And, uh, I didn't think I was going to kind of go back and I left Twitter and I was like, you know, the company is good, um, you know, did, did, you know, put my time in there and I'm, I'm ready to kind of move on to do something else. But, um, kind of a few things happened at the same time. One was, um, uh, Elon had taken over the company. And so, there was this like, question for me of like, okay, well, you know, what, what's the direction of Twitter now and like, you know, where is it going to go? And another thing was that ChatGPT had just come out. And it felt to me like there was an opportunity now, um, to try some new things and maybe do some things that I'd like, you know, maybe always wanted to do while I was at Twitter, but never really had the opportunity to do. Um, and so my co-founder, Marcel and I, um, and a few other people actually, we spent a bunch of time brainstorming around kind of around that time. And one of the things that, um, became like obvious that AI could help with was the idea of like summarizing the news. Um, when, when we had, um, you know, when we were thinking about some of the challenges that, that Twitter and other social media platforms have, oftentimes you end up in these conversations, or you read these conversations, where people are just talking past each other, right? And it's like, they're entrenched in their views, they're talking past each other, and no amount of like, did you even read the article, um, is going to help make that conversation more productive. And we thought, well, what if it could, what if it could just be easier to read the article? What if it could just be easier to like kind of catch up on like what the other side, um, of that conversation might be, um, might be referring to, um, you know, like just really lower the barrier and make it less work. And then also start to have a conversation based on a shared set of facts. And that's really what the particle summary tries to, um, get at. It's not trying to tell you like what to think or how to think. All of that comes in in other layers. There's like quotes and then, you know, you can tap into the articles, you can, you can kind of go deeper and, and get more information. You can see links to tweets and Instagrams and whatever. But the summary itself tries to be a reflection of like, okay, based on everyone who has reported on this, like what are the agreed upon facts here? And like, let's start there. And maybe that can help, um, kind of the, the baseline of a conversation. Um, so that's kind of where that all began. Um, and it kind of evolved into into the op that it is today. I see. Is this the first time you've founded a company or, uh, done that kind of thing? It is the first time. Um, I've had like some startup experience, you know, working on smaller teams like Periscope and Vine. And I worked at a small startup, uh, in, uh, in the early like 2013, 2014 period, uh, called secret. I don't know if any of you remember that. But it was like an annulled source in the work. But is it what kind of secret sounds salacious? Is it was it like, uh, you can, you can message someone that you're like, that you like them and then they can figure out who it is type thing or, um, it was like, it was like anonymous. It was like kind of like whisper or Yammer or like blind, you know, where it's like an anonymous social network. But, um, it was, you, you uploaded your contact list so you could tell if the post was from someone you knew but you didn't know who it was. Or you could tell if it was like from a friend or a friend. It was like, one of those apps that just kind of like exploded and died within the course of a month or whatever. It was a lot of fun. Um, but, uh, yeah, I've had a lot of like that startup experience but never um, founded a company until now. I see. What, uh, I guess like what's, what's been your founder life experience or not like how, what do you think of it right now? And is it, you know, I've, my, I'm imagining just from making Dogecoin as a accidental founder and dealing with all of that that there's times that can be completely overwhelming or there's a lot of things you have to do that you don't expect that you have to do or, or stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, you probably had like just an insane journey. Um, but, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of roller coaster. Um, and I think a lot of people say that it's a lot of roller coaster up and down. Um, you know, highs and lows. But we've got a really great team. And so it just, um, uh, it makes everything like, you know, fun. We're having fun while we're doing this and we think we're working on something that we all believe in. So that really helps kind of motivate and keep us going. Um, and I think, you know, working with people that you like is like, uh, a really important, it's like, it's really important. Life is too short to work with people they don't like. Um, so, you know, we've got it, we've got an awesome team and, um, they're, uh, they're all really, really talented. So that makes, um, that makes some of the challenges of being a founder kind of a lot easier. Yeah, that's good to hear. I think I've worked in, like large companies and smaller companies and then very small company. And I think the, the smallest companies were the most fun in some ways because you, you were extremely directly involved in whether your company lives or dies. It's like, uh, if I don't shift this, it's probably not good. It kind of actually comes to this. So it was also like, yeah, our pressure is real. Our pressure is super real. But it, I don't know. It's like, uh, I remember, uh, we had kind of a late crew in one of the stars that was on and those basically all became my closest friends because they're until like 2 a.m. on so many days. But, you know, you can't actually straight work until 2 a.m. So it's kind of like, it's not like college almost. He's like hanging out still and doing papers, uh, equivalent. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. I don't have the, uh, uh, the like physical, elemental fortitude to like pull on it or the way I didn't call it anymore. Yeah, I don't know, like, I don't know how I did anything like, like, I don't, what I don't, what I really don't understand, this is completely the side, but we're really don't understand is like, I ate like complete garbage growing up. Like, I just say, like, my mom would buy, like, birching for the week and then put like seven cheeseburgers on the fridge because they were like 39 cents or whatever. And then like, you know, by day five, six, I'm eating like six day old McDonald's and birching cheeseburgers that were been in the fridge, like, it just in the paper. And I'd like, lived. Yeah. I don't understand, like, our bodies are a miracle. But nowadays, I'm like, like, oh, I need to eat this low-fod map diet. If I don't eat, if I eat too much onions, I get a stomachache, me, me, me, I'm like, oh my god, I'm so pathetic. Yeah. No, totally. I, you know, I, I love ramen and I definitely had a lot of ramen growing up. And I definitely don't eat as much of it now, but I can't say no to an instant ramen if someone's making one. But I was like looking up, you know, really with Chatchy Pt. I feel like Chatchy Pt has made like a big difference in my like, is this healthy? You know, I just like kind of like ask it all the time. And it's basically like every single ingredient in instant ramen is like terrible. Yeah. It's so, so, so did my, my friend. I remember one of my buddies. This is in middle school. So I used to hang air in the mornings. My mom went to work and she would drop me off on the way to work his place. And then we would walk to work after that, or walk to school after that. But we had like two hours to like, full around. And like in that time, we drank his dad always made coffee. So we like drank the leftover coffee with like a ton of, it was like this cream creamer or cinnamon hazelnut. We just like make it like super sugar, whatever. And we'd eat so much of the like March and Instant Noodles stuff. The one that you just put in the microwave. Yeah. And so we'd eat like, you know, a couple of those and then a bunch of coffee in the morning. And then I remember one day, he told me he went to like a doctor as a, you know, seventh grader. And they told him his like blood pressure was really, really high. Oh my god. Your blood pressure is like incredibly high. It's like, maybe it's the four cup noodles. It's like, now it's just like, yeah, you think, but the idea that, you know, we could get that sick from, you know, junk food every morning was like, you know, so this, this is when parents aren't around and the kids are just left to their own devices. We don't make the best decisions. Yep. Do you have like any advice then for if someone has an, has an idea and is interested and just wants to take a chance to start in the company or starting the company of their dreams? Sure. Is that, are you asking for a friend?