“Firehose” doesn’t begin to describe the volume of AI news. Announcements, research papers, policy proposals, quick takes on the latest developments – these are all first thoughts, and there are far too many to keep up with.

My name is Steve Newman. I’m chairman and president of the Golden Gate Institute for AI, where we’re working to bring AI’s toughest questions into focus. I’m joined in this effort by my partners at Golden Gate: CEO Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, and Director of Events Rachel Weinberg.

At Second Thoughts, our goal is to synthesize and summarize what you need to know about AI, making the important ideas accessible to a broad audience without dumbing them down. When there’s a new development, we won’t be the first to write about it. Our role is to synthesize the myriad takes that inevitably emerge, and present a coherent picture, finding the common threads and identifying fundamental questions that underlie disagreements. In other words, our job is to help you make sense of the tumult.

About Steve

My biggest claim to fame is having co-founded Writely, the startup that became Google Docs. While at Google I was tech lead on Google's first cross-regional transactional database and led the effort to unify file management across Google Apps. I then founded Scalyr (acquired by SentinelOne in 2021 and now powering SentinelOne's data platform). I’ve also started half a dozen other companies along the way… with varying degrees of success. Somehow I keep meeting people who remember Spectre, a 3-D multiplayer tank battle game (strongly inspired by Atari’s classic Battlezone) I wrote in 1990 with my frequent collaborator Sam Schillace.

I also write Climateer, a newsletter about climate change (mostly on hiatus nowadays).

You can reach me at amistrongeryet@substack.com.