7 emails this month
The email outlines how AI has fundamentally shifted the cybersecurity landscape, turning both offense and defense into machine‑speed operations. Key data points show that critical vulnerability disclosures from major software vendors have surged sixfold since spring, rising from under 100 per month to over 600, while the proportion of exploits used on or before disclosure day jumped from 23% in 2020 to 87% today, effectively killing the traditional Patch Tuesday window. This acceleration is attributed to AI models like OpenAI’s GPT‑6 Astra, which scored 100% on ExploitBench—producing working exploits for every known vulnerability—and was promptly labeled a ‘critical’ cyber risk by OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework. The same capability that enables attackers to craft zero‑day exploits also allows defenders to automatically find, fix, and verify patches, creating a temporary asymmetry: frontier labs restrict their most powerful models to trusted‑access programs for governments, major vendors, and critical infrastructure, leaving attackers with older, open‑weight models. This defender advantage is expected to last 12‑24 months before open models catch up. The recommended response is ‘co‑scaling’: deploying AI agents that mirror the collect‑analyze‑evaluate‑recommend workflow at machine speed, governed by a single clear objective metric (e.g., zero successful fraud events) to avoid alert overload. Agents must be treated as insider threats, requiring identity, least‑privilege access, and full audit logs. Long‑term, AI‑driven translation of legacy C/C++ code into memory‑safe languages like Rust can eliminate roughly 70% of vulnerabilities rooted in memory‑safety bugs, shrinking the attack surface by more than half and shifting the defender’s focus to identity, configuration, and human factors. The email concludes with a fork: organizations either continue with human‑speed patching and risk widening exposure, or they adopt AI co‑scaling, continuous red‑team testing, agent governance, and legacy‑code rewrite to stay ahead. For entrepreneurs, executives, investors, students, and parents, the call to action is to prioritize AI‑agent integration, memory‑safe migration, and foundational security hygiene as the new basis of resilience.
The email invites recipients to a two‑day event series centered on optimism, moonshot thinking, and the legacy of Star Trek. On Thursday, September 24, host Peter Diamandis will attend the Hollywood red‑carpet premiere of the Star Trek 60th‑Anniversary documentary, executive produced by William Shatner, followed by a fireside chat with Shatner about the series’ influence on technology, culture, and humanity’s future vision. The next day, September 25, Diamandis hosts Moonshots LIVE, a full‑day gathering of 1,500 founders, builders, and creatives billed as the ‘Oscars for Optimism.’ The event features two XPRIZE competitions: the Future Vision XPRIZE, where five finalist filmmakers present 3‑minute trailers depicting hopeful futures for humanity, and the Build with Gemini XPRIZE, a 90‑day hackathon in which teams develop profitable AI businesses solving real‑world problems, with finalists pitching for a $2 million prize pool. Throughout the day, attendees will hear from notable figures such as Palmer Luckey, Cathie Wood, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson, Astro Teller, Ben Lamm, and others, covering topics ranging from building personal moonshots and moonshot organizations to the agentic economy and AI investment strategies. The evening concludes with networking, music, food, and an unconference featuring sessions on designing XPRIZEs, organizational singularity, and AI‑focused investing. Attendance costs $1,495, which includes both nights, with 100 scholarship seats available at half price for entrepreneurs under 28. Diamandis emphasizes that possessing a moonshot—a bold, purpose‑driven north star—is essential to harness the amplifying power of emerging AGI/ASI technologies, turning potential noise into world‑changing impact. He promises participants will leave Thursday inspired by six decades of proof that hopeful visions shape reality, and Friday equipped with clarity, tools, and a community to act on their own moonshot.
Peter’s Substack post frames scientific progress as a recurring pattern: improved measurement tools produce observations that defy prevailing theories, leading to resistance before a paradigm shift. He reviews ten landmark cases—geocentrism, young‑Earth creationism, miasma theory, fixed species, absolute time, deterministic physics, a static universe, stationary continents, protein‑based heredity, and the rarity of planets—showing how each was overturned by new data (telescopes, rock strata, swan‑neck flasks, fossil records, relativistic corrections, quantum spectra, redshift observations, seafloor mapping, transforming‑principle experiments, and exoplanet detections). In each instance, the evidence preceded belief change, and the psychological cost of abandoning long‑held ideas was substantial.
He then connects this pattern to the present, highlighting emerging instruments—AlphaFold’s protein‑structure predictions, the Vera Rubin Observatory’s sky surveys, single‑cell sequencing, continuous molecular monitoring, and whole‑brain imaging—combined with AI’s ability to analyze massive datasets. These tools, he argues, will make previously unmeasurable phenomena accessible, setting the stage for the next wave of scientific revolutions. Peter speculates that entrenched beliefs about aging as inevitable, intelligence requiring a biological brain, and Earth being the sole abode of life are likely to fall within the next two decades.
Finally, he offers practical advice: entrepreneurs should build companies around novel measurements; executives should audit industry assumptions and specify falsifying data; investors should fund teams making the invisible visible; students should learn to read raw instrument outputs; parents should teach children that consensus is a claim, not a fact. The core message is to trust the instrument over the map, because history shows that defending outdated models rarely ends well.
The email, signed by Peter, introduces the Future Readiness Assessment, a free online tool designed to help individuals gauge how prepared they are for six major technological and societal shifts expected over the next decade. These shifts—AI and the creator economy, radical life extension, brain‑computer interfaces, the space economy, digital consciousness, and genetic optimization—each present a binary choice between two divergent futures. The assessment consists of 12 questions that take roughly three minutes to complete, after which users receive a personalized Future Readiness Profile. This profile includes an overall archetype, a detailed breakdown of responses for each of the six areas with tailored insights, and a downloadable PDF report summarizing the results. Peter emphasizes that most people sense accelerating change but lack a concrete map of how it will affect their career, health, wealth, and family; the tool aims to fill that gap by making the abstract shifts tangible and actionable. The email provides multiple direct links to the assessment, as well as shareable URLs for Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube, encouraging recipients to distribute the tool to teammates, colleagues, or anyone who might benefit. It also includes the sender’s contact information (PHD Ventures, 225 Santa Monica Blvd #900, Santa Monica, CA 90401) and standard email‑management links for updating subscription preferences or unsubscribing. Overall, the message positions the assessment as a quick, no‑cost way to gain personalized foresight into the forces that will shape personal and professional trajectories in the coming years.
The author begins by stating they have no personal experience with UAPs or non‑human intelligence (NHI) but finds the accumulating evidence too significant to ignore. They highlight a U.S. government preparedness plan disclosed at an August 31, 2026 Office of the Director of National Intelligence meeting, indicating the White House treats the possibility of NHI confirmation as significant enough to plan ahead. The piece then cites high‑ranking officials who have come forward—David Grusch’s congressional testimony about a multi‑decade crash‑retrieval program and recovered non‑human biologics, Luis Elizondo’s warnings about advanced UAP technologies, Senator Marco Rubio’s remarks on fearful insiders, and former President Trump’s claim of numerous briefings. Over 100 former military and government officers have reported UAP incidents, especially near nuclear weapons sites, with documented missile shutdowns. The consistency of experiencer reports worldwide—similar craft descriptions, being descriptions, encounter patterns, and neurological changes observed in brain scans by Garry Nolan—suggests a shared external stimulus rather than hallucination. The author notes a correlation between UAP activity and two pivotal eras: the nuclear age (post‑1945 surge in sightings, statistical links to nuclear tests) and the emerging ASI era (2020s), hypothesizing that NHI may monitor civilization‑altering technologies. Scientific attention is growing: Harvard’s Avi Loeb leads the Galileo Project, NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team recommends rigorous study, Stanford’s Nolan publishes neurological research, and the UAP Science Advisory Council advises the government. Preprint and journal papers estimate a mean expected year for catastrophic NHI disclosure around 2040 ±20 years. The author concludes with implications: scientists should study UAPs rigorously, policymakers should ensure civil society readiness, investors should watch affected industries, educators should teach evidence evaluation, and the curious should follow the data without needing to believe or disbelieve. The closing urges readers to look at the evidence and consider whether society is ready to take it seriously.
The email spotlights Mike Wandler, a third‑generation leader of L&H Industrial in Gillette, Wyoming, who dropped out of high school to run his family’s machine shop and later transformed the company into a heavy‑industry powerhouse that services the world’s largest mining shovels, draglines, and even NASA’s crawler‑transporter. After inheriting a culture plagued by 30% annual turnover, Mike instituted a mental‑fitness and resilience program that drove turnover down to 3% by 2012 and now to roughly 2%, saving the company an estimated $15 million per year in retention value. He credits much of this shift—and the company’s broader innovative mindset—to his 2018 entry into Abundance360, where he received strategic foresight from founder Peter Diamandis, appointed an AI czar (his son Gage), and fostered a grassroots AI culture in which over 50 employees build custom AI tools daily. Looking ahead, Mike is pursuing a bold new venture through Evercore Energy: owning microreactors to lease clean, reliable power to mining operations that need it most, betting that the free world must build this infrastructure as the technology scales. The email also highlights recent Abundance360 community activities, notably the Quick Connections program that pairs members for rapid, high‑impact conversations leading to collaborations, investments, and partnerships. It introduces three new members—a venture‑capital investor backing category‑defining tech, an AI innovator bridging Silicon Valley and Japan, and a software entrepreneur creating an AI personal assistant and digital twin—and closes with an invitation for leaders who have already achieved success to join the community to build significance, providing links to the Abundance360 website and social channels, as well as subscription management options.
The author challenges the prevailing narrative of an AI‑driven job apocalypse, citing multiple data sources to show that AI is creating more jobs than it displaces. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report projects 170 million new roles and 92 million displaced by 2030, a net gain of 78 million jobs. Stanford SIEPR research finds that firms adopting AI experienced a 10 % increase in employment two years later. LinkedIn reports a 69 % rise in users adding ‘founder’ to their profiles, reflecting a surge in entrepreneurship enabled by AI tools that lower startup costs. AI‑related job postings grew 3.5× between 2023 and 2025, and Cognizant estimates 93 % of U.S. jobs can be partially automated, unlocking $4.5 trillion in productivity. The Principal Financial Group survey of thousands of SMEs shows 52 % are increasing staff while only 12 % are cutting headcount, illustrating a virtuous cycle where AI‑boosted productivity fuels hiring. While acknowledging that certain routine roles—call‑center agents, data‑entry clerks, transcriptionists, entry‑level paralegals, basic copywriters—are at risk of being fully automated, the author stresses that these represent a subset of the labor market. The core insight is that AI displaces tasks, not entire occupations; it handles repetitive, boring components, freeing humans to focus on judgment, negotiation, trust‑building, and creativity. The real threat is a ‘skills apocalypse’ where workers who refuse to adopt AI fall behind peers who leverage it. The email advises employees to use AI daily to enhance performance, entrepreneurs to capitalize on the lowered barrier to starting a one‑person company, parents to teach AI fluency, investors to follow data‑driven trends rather than headlines, and policymakers to invest in retraining rather than impede AI adoption. Ultimately, the message is one of abundance: those who develop high agency and continuously learn to work with AI will thrive in the transforming economy.