Founder & CEO @myspotlightnews — paywall-free journalism built for college students. Publishers keep 70%. Making local news survive the next generation.
NYC/SF/Remote
Joined July 2014
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In the past week, Philadelphia was labeled one of the most unsafe cities in the country, while Pennsylvania was ranked among the worst states for jobs.
Yet when I raised concerns about the direction we’re heading and called for these issues to be taken seriously, the keyboard warriors came out in full force.
We should be able to acknowledge serious problems without treating every criticism as an attack. Wanting better for Philadelphia isn’t the same as being against it.
Most AI companies and labs desperately need a CRO: Chief Realist Officer.
Most people don’t want an AI agent booking their vacations, making their purchases, or managing every aspect of their lives.
The industry keeps confusing what’s technically possible with what people actually want.
Get outside the Silicon Valley bubble. Talk to ordinary people. Understand their problems. Build for reality, not demos.
Harsh reality: Philadelphia needs to stop romanticizing grit and start building for growth.
Support businesses. Invest in startups. Cut the red tape. Aggressively recruit and retain young talent.
Grit is part of Philly’s identity. It can’t be the entire economic strategy.
I also find terms like “tech bro” and the way “gentrification” gets thrown around incredibly lazy.
Wanting entrepreneurs, investment, better jobs, and thriving neighborhoods shouldn’t automatically be treated as something sinister.
Displacement and affordability are real issues. Let’s address them with actual solutions.
But turning every conversation about growth into an ideological fight accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Philadelphia needs more opportunity, not more labels.
Any local newspaper—or even national publication—that thinks it can survive long-term on a standalone website or app is delusional.
The future of news isn’t thousands of isolated destinations fighting for attention.
It’s aggregation, distribution, and personalization.
Readers follow relevance, not publishers.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
Neither party will touch SocSec & Medicare.
Both parties want to cut taxes for bottom 95% of earners.
Republicans want a 40% defense hike.
Democrats want aggressive social spending hikes.
Debt interest costs will exceed $1 trillion.
Huge deficits are a deliberate policy choice.
I had three conversations this week about how Philadelphia doesn’t have enough good jobs and why I should try to get more support from local leaders and open an office.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
"Our white collar job market is very barren... Taxes are the reason"
When someone rightfully brings up a point why Philadelphia doesn’t do this or why are we not spending on this the reason is almost always the same — the management team of the city.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
Some news: I’m no longer with @OnPattison due to restructuring.
Endless thanks to @AntSanPhilly, @TimKellySports and @Bobcooney1076, the best team EVER. I’ll miss working alongside them.
If you’ve followed my work, thank YOU! I’ve loved showcasing players’ personalities. (1/2)
Tamer Morsy retweeted
This is much more important to the vast majority of Americans - and how they inform themselves of the news - than anything having to do with Jimmy Kimmel.
Yet it won't receive 1/10th of the coverage.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
The City of Philadelphia needs to continue to help & support small businesses.
It is very difficult to operate a small business in Philly… each of the different departments don’t talk to each other…
This makes it even more challenging.
The goal is small business success.
The way AI will truly succeed is by building technology that complements humanity—not by replacing relationships or conversations with the people who matter most.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
Philadelphia has the most dangerous roads of any American city. As much as people may complain, the traffic cameras will continue until this ignominous status ends.
inquirer.com/opinion/adam-th…
Tamer Morsy retweeted
I don’t think people always know just how much Google is pro open source. And I mean look at all we’ve done with Gemma.
Very happy to support this on behalf of Google. We have long benefited from open source, are big contributors to open source and in fact have consistently made open weights models with Gemma available from @GoogleDeepMind @demishassabis . Onwards!
Tamer Morsy retweeted
Anthropic wouldn’t exist without Google open sourcing the transformers papers. Google could have filed for a patent and gained an AI monopoly. Anthropic trying to eliminate open source when it is built on open source is ironic and not in a fun way.
A strong and secure open ecosystem is important for the world to benefit from AI. We’ve always supported and contributed heavily to open source and science from Jax to Transformers to AlphaFold to Gemma open models which have now been downloaded 300M+ times. And the standards framework we’ve proposed supports responsible deployment of both open and proprietary models.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
It blows my mind that Northeastern is now a more selective school than Northwestern.
US college reputations have changed a ton in the last 15yrs.
— Vanderbilt / UChicago are now squarely elite: no different from MIT / Princeton in terms of SAT scores and selectivity.
— The SAT has been gamed into oblivion. You used to rest assured that a 1600 meant you were going somewhere awesome. Now, the top 25% of the 20 universities are 1570+, including NYU.
— Universities in big cities holistically see a huge rise: Boston (NE, BU), NYC (NYU), Chicago (UChicago), LA (USC).
The whole "college is dead" is a luxury belief. At the upper end at least, college is very much alive and it's getting fiercely more competitive.
If this continues, 15yrs later, most top 15 colleges will be <2% acceptance rate.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Only 22% of admitted students submitted SAT scores to Northeastern, significantly inflated its "average" SAT, while MIT and Harvard are test mandatory: uds.northeastern.edu/university-fac… . Northeastern also doesn't require additional essays vs most other schools, encouraging low effort, low quality applicants.
Tamer Morsy retweeted
Temple just set a first-year deposit record for the 2nd year in a row. 🎉🦉🍒
As of July 13, 6,682 students have deposited for the Class of 2030—the highest in Temple history.
Read more: bit.ly/4fLNUaM
