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The (AI) SuperBowl Halftime Show
Renaissance Capitalist
February 14, 2025
TLDR: Sam Altman is the Drake of tech, and Elon is its Kendrick — resolute on turning ClosedAI to an OpenCoffin.
Most up-to-date version with 90% less typos at renaissancecapitalist.beehiiv.com.
Not Like Elon
Last week, Kendrick Lamar took the Super Bowl stage and had the crowd chanting lyrics that essentially labeled Drake as a pedophile.
Meanwhile, J. Cole (always the quiet operator) stayed out of that public meltdown, working on fresh material behind the scenes while securing his spot in the Big 3.
Flip that same storyline to the AI world, and suddenly everything looks familiar:
Elon Musk (our “Kendrick”) roams the White House, hops on X to disrupt everything as a certified boogeyman (especially in Detroit), and stifles OpenAI’s progress (lies?) with a takeover bid.
Sam Altman (our “Drake”) is offshore, manicuring his image at AI conferences and playing down Elon’s moves—just like Drake might be off in Melbourne acting unfazed while Kendrick stirs the pot back in the States.
Mark Zuckerberg (our “J. Cole”) keeps his head down, building massive new data centers, shepherding llamas through open fields, while letting the other two publicly duel.
But that’s just the halftime show.
The real AI Superbowl looks more like the Savannah, where there’s only room for five apex predators.
Chinese Whispers
There’s no secrets in AI.
Only around 3,000 researchers worldwide can truly push its frontiers, and their breakthroughs travel at the speed of a deepseeking missile.
One of those elite specimens once told me that “money is the data exhaust”, and that phrase is here to stay.
But to be an apex predator in AI, you need more than just a few deep minds.
Proprietary data was an edge, but becomes a necessity.
Compute is a necessity (and an edge).
The apex predators have line of sight to both.
Up next is The Big FiveTM
(And OpenAI isn’t one of them.)
Let me hear you say Oh Pee Ho,
Daniel
WHO IS THE RENAISSANCE CAPITALIST?
Part adventure capitalist, part librarian — Daniel Attia is a (venture) investor & builder who writes in the third person and backs founders reinventing reality through preemptive.
(portfolio below)
His lens comes from a random sprint through high finance, startups, tech & media, venture, hedge funds, and the arts.
He mastered capitalism's grammar at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs before being force fed its real-life principles as the first US hire at Payapps (acquired by Autodesk for ~$500M).
Daniel would later shape tech and market perspectives as founding Head of Research at Prof G Media, contributing to works like the NYT Bestseller "Adrift: America in 100 Charts."
His favorite capitalist pastime may be steering companies away from entropy toward rationalism (often mislabeled as "shareholder activism"), partnering with hedge funds, families, and shareholders who've grown weary of watching their capital fund executive delusions.
Today, he serves on the Foundation Council at the State Library of Victoria—the world's third busiest library—while moonlighting as consigliere to founders and CEOs at pivotal crossroads.
Daniel also serves as Special Advisor to VP Capital, a HK based hedge fund.
Daniel co-founded Pew Pew NYC, a non-profit art collective for the creatively curious
(which just unveiled Call me Lola in Mexico City, the first live-in art gallery hotel experience where 70% of art sales flow directly to artists!)
Select venture investments:
beehiiv (this very platform) – Because Tyler Denk always had Big Desk Energy
SymphonyOS – beehiiv for artists (Business Insider Top 13 Creator Startups to Watch, just like beehiiv. Led seed alongside Tyler too)
Harmonic Discovery – Precision pharmacology (JP Morgan Life Sciences Award winner)
Carry – Putting tax optimization on autopilot, built by Ankur Nagpal who turned his $250M exit lessons at 32 into your tax solution
Measured – Medicine minus middlemen led by dreamer and DREAMer immigrant Monji Dolon (seed with Initialized Capital)
True3d — Building livestreaming infrastructure for 3D by Meta livestreaming veteran Daniel Habib (still can’t believe we got an investor mention alongside YC founder Paul Graham)
EatBlueprint by Jeff Tang (now merged with Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint)
Atelier – Making manufacturing magnificent again (Co-led Series A with Macquarie Capital, confirmed by the AFR paywall preview)
