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Chris Barber

I'm Chris. Some projects: co-authored this guest post for Epoch AI, interviewed Tyler Cowen, interviewed Jeremy Howard, compiled this career guide for software engineers, made this list of RL environment startups (Pavlov's List), wrote The Dynamo and The Language Model, interviewed Irrational Analysis, and did this thread of agent UI explorations.

Startups Chaos-to-Conscientiousness Phase Transitions (with Charlie Songhurst)
If exploring ideas: List of founders who explored in unique ways (with Charlie Songhurst)
If hiring: Mispriced Talent (with Charlie Songhurst)
If raising: Friend iteration method, helpful angels, AI lab angels, funds
Startup lists: unique explorations, hiring REs/MLEs, more REs/MLEs, robotics, more robotics, computer use, AI trading, vertical agents, neolabs, more neolabs, AI enterprise, other interesting startups to join, AI search, agent infra (more, security, adjacent), world models, cc for investing, prosumer AI / leverage, agent os / cc adjacent, cheaper/faster tokens
People lists: people to follow, researchers to follow, origin stories from frontier labs, people working on Claude Code, people working on computer use
Professional agent explorations and notes
Claude Code features quiz
Know your current bottleneck: 1) First 3 customers? 2) Sold 3+ but not yet 3+ super obsessed post-sale? 3) Got 3+ obsessed but not consistent? 4) Consistently happy customers but no consistent way to get more?
AI Markets Interviews: AI supply chain (bubbleboi, Irrational Analysis, Midnight Capital), SaaS (Unemployed Capital Allocator)
Data: Pavlov's List, RL environments FAQ (Epoch AI), Sean Cai on how to sell data to labs, robotics data startup list
I sometimes introduce researchers and founders to data providers, for example: "The intros were helpful, thanks! We talked to most of them and I was impressed by most of them." - John Schulman (cofounder, OpenAI and Thinking Machines), shared with permission
AGI Prep AGI Prep overview
SWE/CS career guide: AI researchers and economists on career strategies
Expert interviews: superhuman reasoning (Gwern+), Jeremy Howard, Tyler Cowen, AI's impact on jobs (Daniel Rock)
Getting good at AI: positioning for opportunities, using AI well, beginner guide to building websites with AI [video]
Condensed AI-era career advice
On diffusion: The Dynamo and The Language Model
Complementarity, elastic demand, difficult sample collection
Experimentation helps discover complements
Factors predicting AI substitution
Career advice for AI researchers
Emotions Help others process big emotions: Resonance
Make decisions you'll feel glad about: Peaceful Preferences
Walkability Live near friends movement guide
Development regulation wishlist
Stanford The movie method for getting into Stanford
Stanford admissions resources
Interviews AI markets: 🎧bubbleboi, Irrational Analysis, 🎥Midnight Capital (compute), 🎥Sean Cai (data), Unemployed Capital Allocator (AI vs SaaS)
Startups: 🎥Kevin Hartz (A-Star, Eventbrite), Jonas Sandbrink (bio credentialing), Christina Cacioppo (Vanta), advice for founders building AI health products
Future of AI & AGI prep: Tyler Cowen, Jeremy Howard, Tamay Besiroglu, Jaime Sevilla, Daniel Rock, Flo Crivello, Eric Jang (part 1, part 2), Ivan Vendrov, Finbarr Timbers, superhuman reasoning roundup, jobs after AI roundup, SWE careers given AGI roundup, society adapting to AI roundup
Life: post-exit founder on spending to maximize happiness, 🎧communal living on shared land, 🎥Edge Esmeralda's AI matchmaking agents (Timour Kosters)

I enjoy giving feedback on fundraising decks, and launch announcements (eg for new benchmarks and new startups).

My most responsive contact method is Twitter DMs (@chrisbarber).

Email: [email protected]