Mark Xu
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Articles by Mark Xu
Toward More Efficient AI: Leading Flapping Airplanes’ $1B Series A
Ben, Asher, and Aidan live by the idea that just because something has always been done one way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. They started Flapping Airplanes with a belief that AI could be orders of magnitude more efficient, and a broader conviction that for this technology to reach its full, world-changing potential, someone would have to question the assumptions behind it and rebuild from first principles.
AI That Owns Business Outcomes: Our Investment in Hone
A year ago, a friend introduced us to Moritz Stephan as one of the most impressive all-around talents at Cognition. As we got to know him better, we could see why Moritz was so beloved in the company. In particular, we were struck by his integrity and technical depth, and by his ability to hold seemingly contradictory traits: truth-seeking yet imaginative, adventurous yet commercially minded, impatient yet fully committed once he decides on a path.
Robotic partial nephrectomy is inching toward the gold standard for small renal masses-a narrative review.
Management of small renal masses has changed significantly since the concept of radical nephrectomy for kidney cancer was described in 1969. As improved imaging allowed the early detection of small renal masses, minimally invasive partial nephrectomies became the standard treatment to preserves kidney function. The DaVinci robotic platform allowed many of these surgeries to be performed robotically, with the aid of new technologies that refine dissection.
Materials Acceleration Platform for Electrochemistry: a Platform for Autonomous Electrochemistry
Abstract Corrosion testing is slow, labor-intensive, and sensitive to operator technique, limiting the generation of large, high-quality datasets for data-driven materials discovery. The Materials Acceleration Platform for Electrochemistry (MAP-E) is an autonomous, high-throughput system, capable of performing parallel electrochemical experiments.
WatchCharts October 2025 Watch Market Update : What happened in September 2025? - Quill & Pad
Mark Xu is the Head of Growth & Marketing at WatchCharts.com, which has kindly allowed us to share their monthly Market Updates. ———————————————— The WatchCharts Overall Market Index gained +0.6% in September 2025, continuing its gradual recovery trend. Patek Philippe led the way with a +2.3% increase, while Rolex edged up +0.2%. Over the past six months, Patek Philippe and Rolex have risen +5.7% and +2.0%, respectively.
Depression and anxiety are associated with increased complications after penile prosthesis surgery: a retrospective cohort study - International Journal of Impotence Research
Abstract Depression and anxiety are often comorbid with erectile dysfunction and are linked to worse surgical outcomes. We aimed to determine if depression/anxiety increased complication rates in inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) surgery. All IPP cases by a single surgeon at our institution from 2020–2022 were reviewed. Data was collected on demographics, medical/psychiatric history, intraoperative details, and post-operative outcomes.
Eve Legal - Revolutionizing Plaintiff Law
Every year, law firms process millions of complex legal documents, handling everything from personal injury to employment disputes and civil rights violations. Attorneys and their staff spend countless hours reviewing records, drafting demands, preparing discovery responses, and managing case documentation — time that could be better spent advocating for their clients.
Estimating Tail Risk in Neural Networks — LessWrong
Machine learning systems are typically trained to maximize average-case performance. However, this method of training can fail to meaningfully control the probability of tail events that might cause significant harm. For instance, while an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant may be generally safe, it would be catastrophic if it ever suggested an action that resulted in unnecessary large-scale harm.
[2409.03077] Backdoor defense, learnability and obfuscation
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
The Future of Observability
Over the last ten years, Grafana Labs has emerged as a pivotal player in the observability space, transforming how organizations monitor and analyze their data. The company has become the de facto platform for enterprises seeking robust, flexible, and open-source observability solutions.
Running Microsoft SQL Server on VMware vSAN Express Storage Architecture with Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series
Executive Summary Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most widely adopted business critical database solutions on the virtualized platform that requires the infrastructure layer with consistent performance, high availability, and simplified management.
Can China's EV market thrive without subsidies?
2 China is still providing support for electric vehicles, but the policies are shifting from carrot to stick, writes Gao Baiyu for China Dialogue The electric vehicle (EV) sector in China, as elsewhere, has benefitted from government support in its early phase as an up-and-coming green industry. The government has been subsidising producers of EVs for public transport, taxis and the consumer market since 2009.
ARC is hiring theoretical researchers
The Alignment Research Center’s Theory team is starting a new hiring round for researchers with a theoretical background. Please apply here. What is ARC’s Theory team? The Alignment Research Center (ARC) is a non-profit whose mission is to align future machine learning systems with human interests.
Agile Software Requirements Engineering Challenges-Solutions-A Conceptual Framework from Systematic Literature Review
Abstract : Agile software requirements engineering processes enable quick responses to reflect changes in the client’s software requirements. However, there are challenges associated with agile requirements engineering processes, which hinder fast, sustainable software development. Research addressing the challenges with available solutions is patchy, diverse and inclusive.
How big is China's e-sports market and what opportunities are there for UK companies?
With a value of over £17 billion and companies like Tencent and NetEase leading the way, China’s e-sports market is ripe with opportunities for British businesses – from technology companies to consumer brands and beyond. Jack Forsdike finds out more It is no secret that China’s games industry is colossal, but there’s also a specific market within the games industry that is becoming too big to be ignored: e-sports.
The New Era of Disaster Recovery
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when applications were simple, and they ran in your data center just down the hallway. There were few moving parts and far fewer malicious actors attempting to hijack your data. It could also take you days or even weeks to restore your systems from an outage. A lot has changed since then, with organizations adopting multi-cloud environments and facing the challenge of protecting them from the same – only more advanced— threats.
Announcing Availability of VMware Cloud Flex Storage
Customer Challenge 2020-2030 is the decade of data. The amount of data is growing exponentially (175 zetabytes by 2025), and the variety of data applications is also growing exponentially. At the heart of all these modern data applications is a storage foundation. Each data application has different access patterns and expectations (cost, SLAs, etc.) from the underlying storage system.
How to do theoretical research, a personal perspective — LessWrong
This seems wrong to me in some important ways (at least as general theoretical research advice). Like, some of the advice you give seems to anti-predict important scientific advances. Generally, unguided exploration is seldom that useful. Following this advice, for instance, would suggest that Darwin not go on the Beagle, i.e., not spend five years exploring the globe (basically just for fun) as a naturalist.
Dell ObjectScale on VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu
Dell Technologies has engineered a software-defined, enterprise-class, high performance containerized architecture object storage in the VMware Tanzu platform called Objectscale. Dell ObjectScale VMware and Dell Technologies have worked together to provide a framework for cloud-native object storage in vSphere using the vSAN Data Persistence platform: Dell ObjectScale on VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu.
Running Microsoft SQL Server Big Data Clusters in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid on VMware Cloud on AWS – Part II
In Part I, we have already discussed running SQL Server Big Data Cluster that is managed by Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKGm) on VMware Cloud on AWS. In this blog post, we’ll continue exploring how to run SQL BDC in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service (TKGs) that is managed by Workload Management (WCP) on VMware Cloud on AWS (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid with VMware Cloud on AWS).
Running Microsoft SQL Server Big Data Clusters in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid on VMware Cloud on AWS
Despite Microsoft’s earlier announcement of SQL Server Big Data Clusters (BDC) retirement in 2025, we continue receiving customers’ interests in running SQL BDC on our VMware Tanzu Platform.
Call For Distillers — LessWrong
Many technical alignment researchers are bad-to-mediocre at writing up their ideas and results in a form intelligible to other people. And even for those who are reasonably good at it, writing up a good intuitive explanation still takes a lot of work, and that work lengthens the turn-time on publishing new results.
Announcing Preview of VMware Cloud Flex Storage
Today, we are announcing the preview of VMware Cloud Flex Storage, a new disaggregated cloud storage and data management service that is fully managed by VMware. Customer Challenge Digital transformation has accelerated not only the growth of data but also the diversity of data types and storage requirements. To match the rapid pace of data expansion and heterogeneity, businesses today require more flexible, scalable, simple, and cost-effective ways to store and manage their data.
Hyperconverged Infrastructure Systems Powered by VMware vSAN Lead Market (IDC)
We are excited to announce once again, Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) systems powered by VMware vSAN lead the overall market for Q3 of 2021, according to the IDC Quarterly Worldwide Converged Systems Tracker. The tracker reported that systems running HCI powered by VMware vSAN accounted for a 41.5% share of the market, higher than the following four HCI software vendors combined.
Biology-Inspired AGI Timelines: The Trick That Never Works — LessWrong
- 1988 - Hans Moravec: Behold my book Mind Children. Within, I project that, in 2010 or thereabouts, we shall achieve strong AI. I am not calling it "Artificial General Intelligence" because this term will not be coined for another 15 years or so. Eliezer (who is not actually on the record as saying this, because the real Eliezer is, in this scenario, 8 years old; this version of Eliezer has all the meta-heuristics of Eliezer from 2021, but none of that Eliezer's anachronistic knowledge): Really?
vSAN Quick Questions
Ready to further your technical vSAN knowledge? With our new vSAN Quick Questions YouTube series led by John Nicholson and Pete Koehler of VMware, there has never been a better time to achieve a deeper understanding of vSAN storage virtualization! For 100 days, the vSAN team will share a new Quick Questions video daily on our Twitter channel. That’s right, every day! These insightful videos range from 1.5-5 minutes in length, so they’re perfect little bits of wisdom you can soak up at any time.
Grab Your Bag & Journey to the Future of IT Infrastructure
STUDENT AGENCY Holding, a Czech travel company, encourages others to explore the world. They specialize in various services, including bus and railway operations, flight and vacation planning, and language studies and work abroad organizing. However, STUDENT AGENCY’s clunky and cumbersome IT infrastructure was holding them back from reaching their full potential. This is where VMware vSAN enters the adventure and allowed STUDENT AGENCY to soar.
Announcing vSAN 7 Update 3
With more than 30,000 customers and over 80% of the Global 2000, vSAN continues to innovate. We’re excited to announce vSAN 7 Update 3, which delivers flexible, resilient and future-ready infrastructure. vSAN provides a common operating model for edge, cloud or core data center operations. We have enhanced the platform’s durability, simplified operations and visibility, and extended developer-ready infrastructure.
Prepare for the Future with Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Prepare for the Future with Hyperconverged Infrastructure In their latest Voice of the Enterprise report, 451 Research highlights HCI adopters are embracing hybrid cloud, Kubernetes and edge deployments. As organizations look for secure infrastructure that is simple to manage and future ready, they are increasingly adopting HCI. HCI continues to grow in the core data center for both large (>1,000 employees) and small (<1,000 employees) organizations.
Introducing the Concept of a Federated Storage Platform
The Drive Towards Cloud This blog showcases VMware’s vision for the future of data, data management and storage. There is no commitment or obligation that the features detailed below will become generally available. The drive of the IT industry towards cloud is making headlines almost daily, with most analysts focusing on public cloud providers.
The VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Quiz
Class is in session! The complete VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Quiz is officially here. Test your knowledge below and if you need a little help, check out our cheat sheet. Once you complete the quiz, you will be sent a special participation certificate via Twitter direct message, to show off on your social channels! Want to learn more about VMware vSAN HCI Mesh? Check out these resources: VMware vSAN 7 HCI Mesh in vSAN Update 2 VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Tech Note VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Demo
VMworld 2021 vSAN Tech+ Pass Giveaway
The most wonderful time of year is here – VMworld! With over 800 sessions and eight learning tracks, VMworld 2021 is THE premier multi-cloud event. To enhance your VMworld 2021 experience, we’re giving away two Tech+ Passes to VMworld 2021 registrants – you heard that right! Two lucky winners will receive a VMworld Tech+ Pass for FREE! So, how do you win?
#StorageMinute, vSAN File Services - Backups using Snapshots
Welcome back to the #StorageMinute series where we deliver pertinent information on all things storage in bite-sized content. In this episode, we are diving into vSAN File Services, more specifically, backups using snapshots with PowerCLI. You know what they say, data is your best asset! And as the amount of unstructured data continues to accrue, management and protection is of the utmost importance for your organization.
VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Quiz Q & A
Prep for the VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Quiz with us – right here! The VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Quiz is an interactive quiz taking place from September 7 – September 21, 2021 on vSAN’s Twitter channel! Join the fun as we post a vSAN Mesh-related question daily leading up to the big quiz on September 20 and September 21. What’s the big vSAN HCI Mesh quiz you ask?
vSAN Everywhere, Stretched Clusters & More
Summer 2021 saw a lot of great, new content on Cloud Platform Tech Zone including features on how vSAN is leveraged across industries, insights on stretched clusters, data management and more! Get a recap of this past season’s can’t miss Tech Zone resources below.
Microsoft SQL Server Big Data Clusters on Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
VMware Tanzu, a family of products and services for modernizing applications and infrastructure, enables our customers to deliver better software to production continuously. VMware Tanzu helps build cloud native apps, refactor existing apps and allow customers to run and manage Kubernetes across multiple clouds, teams, and clusters. Today we are announcing the joint solution efforts of running Microsoft SQL Server Big Data Clusters on VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
Maximizing Service Resilience with vSAN Powered HCI
For telecommunications companies like Serbian public utility organization JKP Informatika, stable and efficient IT operations, ransomware protection, and the ability to evolve with the quickly changing landscape are imperative. Established 40 years ago, JKP Informatika Novi Sad provides telecommunications, utility, and household billing services.
Precognition - LessWrong
It’s almost impossible to predict the future. But it’s also unnecessary, because most people are living in the past. All you have to do is see the present before everyone else does. To be less pithy, but more clear: Most people are slow to notice and accept change. If you can just be faster than most people at seeing what’s going on, updating your model of the world, and reacting accordingly, it’s almost as good as seeing the future.
The Top Three Applications Moving to HCI
The Top Three Applications Moving to HCI Applications running on hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) are more diverse than ever, as more organizations select HCI as their production infrastructure for mission-critical workloads. VMware is pleased to announce the results of a recently completed customer survey of over 600 organizations currently deploying an HCI solution globally. The changing landscape is breathtaking.
Opinions on Interpretable Machine Learning and 70 Summaries of Recent Papers
Peter Hase UNC Chapel Hill Owen Shen UC San Diego With thanks to Robert Kirk and Mohit Bansal for helpful feedback on this post. Model interpretability was a bullet point in Concrete Problems in AI Safety (2016). Since then, interpretability has come to comprise entire research directions in technical safety agendas (2020); model transparency appears throughout An overview of 11 proposals for building safe advanced AI (2020); and explainable AI has a Twitter hashtag, #XAI.
Performance Monitoring Enhancements in vSAN 7 Update 2
Performance Monitoring Enhancements in vSAN 7 Update 2 Time-based performance metrics found in vCenter Server can be one of the most effective ways to monitor and troubleshoot the performance of discrete VMs, and the vSAN cluster providing the resources. These metrics give important insight and context in a way that is quantifiable and consistent.
Strong Evidence is Common — LessWrong
I really like this post! I have a concerned intuition around 'sure, the first example in this post seems legit, but I don't think this should actually update anything in my worldview, for the real-life situations where I actively think about Bayes Rule + epistemics'. And I definitely don't agree with your example about top 1% traders. My attempt to put this into words: 1. Strong evidence is rarely independent.
Open Problems with Myopia
Thanks to Noa Nabeshima for helpful discussion and comments. Certain types of myopic agents represent a possible way to construct safe AGI. We call agents with a time discount rate of zero time-limited myopic, a particular instance of the broader class of myopic agents. A prototypical example is a time-limited myopic imitative agent. In theory, such an agent has some desirable safety properties because a human would only take safe actions (although any imperfect imitation would be unsafe).
vSphere with Tanzu Supports SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters
Since the release of vSphere 7 Update 1c (Dec 17th, 2020), vSphere with Tanzu now supports configurable node storage for Tanzu Kubernetes clusters to mount additional storage volume to the worker nodes. This feature allows vSphere with Tanzu to fully support containerized applications that require a large amount of image size during deployment, for example, SQL Server 2019 big data clusters (BDC). What is SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters?
Great minds might not think alike — LessWrong
[Previously known as "Alike minds think great"] I. It is famously the case that almost everyone thinks they’re above average. Derek Sivers writes: Ninety-four percent of professors say they are better-than-average teachers. Ninety percent of students think they are more intelligent than the average student. Ninety-three percent of drivers say they are safer-than-average drivers. Interesting. Intuitively this seems to suggest that people are prone to vastly overestimate their competence.
The First Sample Gives the Most Information — LessWrong
More precisely, the first sample gives the most information about the mean. Learning one person's income tells you a lot about incomes in general, even though incomes are heavy-tailed. Imagine you had no prior knowledge of how wealthy people are on Earth, or even how to think about the concept of "wealth." For you, the meaning of the term is as inscrutable as the term "flargibargh." You might sample a very poor person, and think everybody's living in poverty.
Introducing VMware vSAN HCI Mesh
VMware vSAN HCI Mesh The Scale out architecture of VMware vSAN enables powerful non-disruptive scale-up or scale-out capabilities. You can non-disruptively expand capacity and performance by adding hosts to a cluster (scale-out) or just grow capacity by adding disks to a host (scale-up). As application workloads organically grow, this enables performance to be right sized at each expansion interval. Over time the ratio of storage and compute can be right sized through vSAN.
VMware vSAN Reduces Complexity, Cost & Improves Performance
Given a rapidly-evolving technology landscape, ever-present cybersecurity risks and underperforming, overly-complex legacy systems, many organizations are turning to VMware Cloud Foundation powered by VMware vSAN to simplify and automate operations. It allows the IT department to deliver high-performing network infrastructure day in, day out. Such was the case at Xavier University of Louisiana, a HBCU serving 3,000 students and specializing in the STEM fields.
Baking is Not a Ritual — LessWrong
I started baking about 2 years ago. Since I became a frequent supplier of baked goods in the office, a lot of people have come to me for baking advice. I’ve noticed a trend of comments about baking that all share a common root cause. See if you can spot the common failure mode that led to these very-paraphrased comments: “Baking is too precise for me. I want to bake without following recipes exactly, but I feel like I can’t improvise.” “I tried making this.
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