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Axel Coustere
Co-Founder at HUBX
Professional Background
Axel Coustere is a highly accomplished professional renowned for his extensive experience in the finance and management sectors. With a career spanning over two decades, Axel has built an impressive resume that showcases his expertise in investment banking, entrepreneurship, and corporate strategy. He currently serves as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cherrytree Partners, a position that allows him to leverage his considerable expertise in providing strategic consulting and investment management services to clients. Prior to this role, Axel held several significant positions in leading financial institutions, including Managing Director at Hausbanc Ltd and Director at Full Circle Initiatives. His career commenced as an analyst, where he worked for prestigious firms such as Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Wasserstein Perella, and Hawkpoint, gaining valuable insights that would shape his future endeavors.
Education and Achievements
Axel Coustere’s educational journey laid the foundation for his remarkable career in business and finance. He pursued a Master of Science degree at Ecole Des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, one of Europe’s most prestigious institutions, known for developing future leaders in the business landscape. He also earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he cultivated a profound understanding of management principles complemented by sociological insights. This unique combination of education has empowered Axel to approach business challenges holistically, considering both financial metrics and social dynamics.
Notable Skills
Throughout his career, Axel has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities and strategic thinking abilities. His tenure at top-tier financial institutions has equipped him with a deep understanding of financial markets, investment strategies, and risk management. As a result, he has not only acquired robust analytical skills but has also developed a keen entrepreneurial spirit that encourages innovation and growth. This has enabled him to successfully co-found The Hub Exchange, a platform aimed at fostering collaboration and connections among various stakeholders in the financial sector.
Axel’s commitment to professional development and ability to stay ahead of industry trends have been pivotal in driving the success of his ventures, displaying his capacity to adapt in a constantly evolving business environment.
Achievements
Axel Coustere has achieved numerous milestones during his illustrious career. His roles within significant financial organizations have not only contributed to their success but have also provided him with a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw from. As Managing Director at Hausbanc Ltd, Axel was instrumental in optimizing investment strategies and enhancing client relationships. His strategic vision also played a critical role in his leadership at Full Circle Initiatives, where he led initiatives aimed at creating sustainable business practices. Notably, his analytical work at Goldman Sachs and Barclays Investment Bank involved crucial decision-making processes that helped shape major financial transactions. Axel’s reputable positions and successful entrepreneurial ventures reflect his enduring commitment to excellence in the business and finance industries.
Highlights
CHATGPT MOVIE London premiere is cancelled after complaints about using AI to script “The Last Screenwriter” ✨📽🎬
"Swiss director Peter Luisi employed the generative artificial intelligence chatbot to write the film and gave the AI the screenwriting credit.
Aptly enough for a script composed by an AI, “The Last Screenwriter” is about a famous screenwriter dealing with an AI scriptwriter named “ChatGPT 4.0,” outperforming him and somehow understanding humanity better than the actual human.
Luisi produced the screenplay through a series of prompts to ChatGPT, starting by asking it to “write a plot to a feature-length film where a screenwriter realizes he is less good than artificial intelligence in writing.”
He followed up with the AI by asking it to compose outlines and scenes, as well as name the movie’s characters. With some editing, the script was complete."
“As the screenwriter of 'The Last Screenwriter,' I am excited to bring this thought-provoking story to life on the page,” ChatGPT is quoted as stating.
“At its core, the film explores the intersection between technology and human creativity, and asks the question: can machines truly replace the human experience when it comes to art and storytelling?”
"The feedback we received over the last 24hrs once we advertised the film has highlighted the strong concern held by many of our audience on the use of AI in place of a writer which speaks to a wider issue within the industry,” the Prince Charles wrote in its statement."
Should we expect more pushback by the public, or for AI to gradually permeate Hollywood and music regardless?
#ai #movie #chatgpt #script #llm #genai
AI DIMINISHING RETURNS or Moore's Law coming into effect? We hear both sides of this debate, making it tricky for businesses to know whether to wait or to invest further into AI now. Who should we believe? 📈✨📉
In this recent interview, Databricks CTO Matei Zaharia sums up some of the challenges that he sees with LLMs:
“Whenever you double your training costs, you increase quality by only around 1% or something like that.”
“Beyond the scaling law itself, there’s also the fact that we kind of put in all the data on the internet in these models already,” he added.
“Even if you repeat it and add more data, maybe you can modify it and create variants of it. However, it’s not clear if it would be that much more informative.”
Depending on how an organization is positioned, we see divergent views. Microsoft and OpenAI tend to be more bullish:
👉 Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott focuses on compute: “We are nowhere near the point of diminishing marginal returns on how powerful we can make AI models as we increase the scale of compute,” he said.
👉 OpenAI's Sam Altman promises continued progress: “We can say with a high degree of scientific certainty that GPT 5 is going to be a lot smarter than GPT 4. GPT 6 is going to be a lot smarter than GPT 5. And we are not near the top of this curve.”
For what it's worth, I don't like the term "smarter" in this context, but I'll take it as meaning "performant" and "more reliable" in more scenarios.
When some people refer to "quality", they often imply benchmarking results. These tests are of limited value, since they can be gamed with more fine-tuning and training.
As we focus on more edge cases, it becomes less viable economically to solve for all scenarios. Along with hyped up user expectations, this is one of the pitfalls of the quest for AGI with LLMs.
Performance without competence or understanding can only take us so far.
We know that LLMs come with structural limitations that make them unreliable for some applications. We understand that synthetic data has its uses but can introduce unwanted noise in the process.
Intuitively, investing billions into training brute force LLMs raises questions when it comes to ROI and monetization - setting aside the impact on energy costs or debates about copyright and privacy.
From mult-step (or compound) systems to “objective-driven AI” architecture, we're seeing plenty of initiatives to improve results.
In this context, it makes sense to focus away from LLMs for some (many?) applications.
Is it time to go back to the drawing board or to double down on LLMs?
How will AI economics stack up if we continue down the current path?
What if part of the answer lies in better organizing data and smaller models, rather than throwing faster chips and more resources at LLMs?
#ai #llm #roi #mooreslaw #returns #compute
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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