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tonymarks

132 karma · joined July 26, 2012

https://tonymarks.com https://hotlinesports.com Former founder of Sapien.ai (sold assets/domain)
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tonymarks··on Show HN: TimeZone GPT – Foolproof timezone conversion
I've also had employees mess up EDT vs EST when setting up meetings internationally via emails. This is cool!
tonymarks··on Show HN: I built the most over-engineered Deal With It emoji generator
on a desktop you can click the glasses to resize them
tonymarks··on Ask HN: What have you built with LLMs?
We've been training custom LLMs using indices pulled from domains. For example, we demo'd the NFL with a Chicago Bears custom Chatgpt site search. We trained it using over 900 pages from their site, and then used reinforced human training to really polish it up. https://sapien.ai
tonymarks··on Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?
Founded sapien.ai in 2016 - evolved from web chatbots and voice search SDKs, to custom LLMs and generative ai search, etc. Brought in a co-founder and did the Sand Hill Road Shuffle, met with A16z, Benchmark, Sequoia, Accel, (and a whole bunch of smaller ones), plus made it to the final interview at YC. But then A16Z passed, and so everyone else did too, and then my co-founder quit because of the stress of raising capital - and also because crypto was going through a hype cycle (ICOs). So I went back to bootstrapping and have been profitable ever since. I have been fortunate to work with global brands such as the Olympics, NBA, NFL, Home Depot, Virgin Atlantic, and more.
tonymarks··on Show HN: Micro Investment for Solo Founders
Neat idea. Just curious, why do you ask for a founders age in the very first air table form? Seems like an easy way for investors to skip past guys or gals who are over a certain age.
tonymarks··on Larry Page Revealed as Another Billionaire with Secret Residency in New Zealand
oh, thanks!
tonymarks··on Google Sued Under Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act
We have a large client/customer in Illinois who has decided against using our voice sdk in their iOS/Android app because of the fear of getting sued for BIPA violation. It's not that they think we're creating voice prints without consent, it's just that their legal team has warned them that if they get sued, it could be very costly to defend. We even changed our privacy policy to note that "biometrics" are not obtained, and even went to on-device speech recognition apis provided by Google and Apple.
tonymarks··on HomePod
I've had a Google Max for a couple months. It sounds great (bass is insane) and plays well with Spotify, not to mention the available actions, home controls, etc. I do have an iMac, iPhone, MacBook, etc., but I can't see myself buying a HomePod. I'm just not sure what the value is (over Max) especially when I prefer Spotify to Apple Music. I've noticed a lot of reviews and tweets avoiding the comparison of Max to HomePod - seems most are comparing HomePod to Echos and Homes.
tonymarks··on Ask HN: Resources to learn blockchain and smart contracts?
Preethi Kasireddy has done a pretty good job with her blog: https://www.hashhack.it
tonymarks··on A Brief History of Chat Services [pdf]
Don't see FireChat on here, any reason why?
tonymarks··on How I Taught A Web Designer to Sell $10k+ Projects
This really reminded me of an older post, "Never say wordpress when selling a web design project". And, that's because it's the same author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5570679
tonymarks··on Hacker News: Best
Nice idea.
tonymarks··on Tim Ferriss Needs A Startup To Invest In
I find it interesting he states "No enterprise software".
tonymarks··on Show HN: Meet your cardboard buddy.
Yep. I agree. Folks seem caught up on "face images", but you may want to consider gaining licensing rights to work with professional and collegiate sports. Dropping a New York Yankees pin-striped-uni on a foldable.me would sell pretty well as an add-on price. (And you wouldn't have to give up quality control) Good luck!
tonymarks··on Show HN: Meet your cardboard buddy.
Great work guys. Liked the video(s), the instructions are clear, you also set expectations well for shipping, etc. Plus, building your audience (and funding) through a kickstarter campaign is brilliant. I wouldn't worry about the "photo" style characters yet; scale first, excel at customer service, and then if needed, release a 2.0 foldable.me.
tonymarks··on "It has YouTube, but unfortunately no flash"- Mossberg- iPhone 2007.
Whoops! (maybe it just felt like the interview was that long ago) -thanks