⌚It's That Time Again! AI Everywhere, Black Tech Influence & 2025 Plans
Your favorite (tech) hustlers are back in the building!
Good people!
Did you miss us? Be honest—y’all missed us!
We know, we know. It’s been almost two months since we last checked in. But, no worries! We’re back in the building, and we’ve been holding it down and kicking off the year strong, family!
Among one of the biggest updates is that we’re officially in Season 4 of #TheTechHustle podcast! Aye! When you add that to the speaking engagements we already have under our belts for the year, the guys and I have been busy!
There’s a lot to share, and of course, we’re starting with the number one topic we’ll be covering this year: AI.
After that, we’ll go over the talks and podcasts we have in the works, our plans for 2025, and the significance of Black History Month (BHM) and its influence on tech and innovation. Finally, we’ll bring it home with nuggets and recommendations from Raymond and the hottest headlines in tech from DHustle.
If this is your first time here: WELCOME. If you’ve been down with us for a while: WELCOME BACK.
Let’s get to it!
Everything’s Ripe for AI Innovation
👨🏾💻:DISCLAIMER: We talked about AI a lot in 2024, but I’m ramping up the conversation this year! We’re about to find out just how accessible and ubiquitous AI has become, and then use that knowledge to level up in our projects and roles. Y’all ready?!
AI isn’t going anywhere, peeps! I mean, the truth is the truth, and last I checked, the innovation and investments behind artificial intelligence are only getting bigger.
💰$500 Billion toward The Stargate Project
You read that right: billion with a ‘B.’
The U.S. clearly isn’t taking any chances on being left behind in this AI game.
At the end of January, it was announced that the American government will invest an astronomical $500 billion into what’s being called The Stargate Project. The Project—which will focus on new AI infrastructure in the U.S. with investments coming from OpenAI and SoftBank—will be carried out over the course of four years and is expected to open up almost 100,000 tech jobs.
Needless to say, there’s an innovative battle taking place, and the U.S. wants a spot at the front of the field. If this doesn’t open your eyes to how serious and permanent AI is becoming, I don’t know what will!
It’ll be best to keep our ears to the streets during times like these as a ton of opportunities will likely come to the forefront. Trust me when I say companies will need (not want) the tech skills we have.
TECH DREAMS: We’re still at it in the #TTH Skool Community! Join 280+ of your peers as we navigate this tech thing, build community, and secure our spots at the table. We up next!
🦾Operator by OpenAI
OpenAI recently released a new tool called Operator, and I have just two words to describe it: game changer.
If you caught Episode 51 of the #TTH podcast, you might recall me talking about AI agents and how they’re becoming the new norm, allowing us to delegate work and enabling AI to operate in sort of a co-worker capacity.
As it stands, we can talk to our agents, give them commands, and they’ll perform research and provide us with information about whatever it is we need. Take Jules AI for example. Jules is the #TTH AI that I’m building out, and I talk to it like it’s a regular person; I give it instructions for what I need, tell it my experience and knowledge, and give it general access to the internet so that it can do some web searching then produce an output.
Okay, so that’s great, but ish just got 10x better. With Operator, your AI agent now has access to a web browser, which means it can execute on tasks. In other words, this agent will be able to interact with a web page (scroll; click; type) and then perform a task—independently.
Let’s say you’re looking to purchase tickets to a concert. Well, not only will it find the info for the ticket, with your permission, it can finalize the entire purchasing process.
And again I say: game changer.
Operator is currently available to ChatGPT Pro users. Hopefully, it will become available at the Plus level some time in the future. If not, we need to all be making plans to secure a Pro subscription because the utility of this thing could really help us get ahead in our tech roles.
🤖DeepSeek’s R1 vs. OpenAI’s o3-mini
There’s an obvious AI battle taking place between the U.S. 🇺🇸 and China 🇨🇳, with each wanting to be the top dog in this field.
These two AI models—DeepSeek’s R1 and OpenAI’s o3-mini—are both navigating new territory in the AI landscape. There’s a lot to be discussed for both as the competition is high and heavy. In some benchmarks, R1 outperforms 03-mini. But in others, the opposite is true. What’s most exciting, though, is that DeepSeek recently made an unprecedented move by open-sourcing its core AI technology. I’m eager to see what OpenAI’s response will be to this and the type of audacious thinking that will drive even more progress in this field in the coming months.
If you want to hear my thoughts on the brewing AI battle between China and the U.S., tune in to the #TTH podcast Episode 53.
Quick Reflect
So, what does all of this mean for techies like you and me? I can sum it up by saying that we’re officially in the industrial era of AI. For us, that means it’s time to pay attention, jump all in, and invest in and learn from AI as much as possible.
The advancements of AI will be catalysts for significant tech demand and growth, and therefore more (and better) opportunities for all of us to get to the next few levels.
🎤 #TTH Speaking Engagements
If there’s a stage and a mic, count me in! So far this year, I’ve already dropped gems at two speaking engagements:
FIU x CodePath Sessions: Imposter Syndrome & Overcoming Barriers in Tech
FIU x CodePath Mixer: Tech for Good: Building Mindset & Working Environments
Y’all know I’m always down for sharing my knowledge and inspiring the next generation of tech greatness, so opportunities like these are extremely rewarding.
In related news, I’ll be pulling up to the Black Wealth Summit 2025 in Miami Gardens on Saturday, March 1. While there, I’ll be hosting an exclusive podcast for the event.
If you’re able to make it out, the Summit is being held at the Lou Rawls Center for the Performing Arts at Florida Memorial University (FMU).
✊🏼✊🏽Black Excellence :: Tech Influence✊🏾✊🏿
We hope everyone had a great Black History Month.
As of the time of this writing, it’s the end of February, so you know we have to speak to black excellence in tech as it relates to the countless, incomparable contributions that have been made by people who look like me and you.
Hopefully you took some time to learn a thing or two about the intersection and history of black creatives and technology. Tech is a realm of pervasive black influence—much like music and the arts.
So, while it may be true that Black people are heavily underrepresented in this field, don’t let anyone convince you that the same goes for our influence. We’ve made and continue to make significant contributions.
Shoutout to the culture! ✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿Happy Black History Month, fam!
💡 Raymond’s Nuggets!
No such thing as a productive tech life without nuggets from our man Raymond!
Raymond Similien 🤷🏾♂️:
🔍Jobscan - ATS Resume Checker 🗎
We all know how stressful it can be to align our resume with different job descriptions. Well, now there’s a solution that will save you time and stress.
Jobscan allows you to upload your resume and a job description for the position you’re planning to apply to. It then scans your resume and tells you how you can optimize it so that there’s less of a chance of it being rejected by a recruiter’s applicant tracking system (ATS).
The service allows you to scan your resume against five (5) descriptions for free each month. Beyond that, there’s a $49.95 monthly option and $89.95 quarterly option.
✔️HighBrow - Learn Something New 📖
Each of us is a lifelong learner in one way or another. But, sometime, our personal and professional priorities make it hard to commit to learning a new skill, topic, etc.
Not anymore.
Highbrow is a microlearning service that helps you learn a new topic in ‘doses,’ so to speak. It works by delivering short, 5-minute lessons to your email each morning. So, you’d choose from one of 300 topics, and for 10 days straight, you’d spentd just a handful of minutes learning somthing new.
Highbrow offers a 30-day free trial. After that, it’s $10 per month.
🛠️Hackaday - Free Hacks Every Day ✅
If you’re the DIY type, you’ll love Hackaday.
Despite its slightly off-putting name, Hackaday provides valuable information on how to creatively use things in ways they were not originally intended to be used. The overarching goal is to help users build what they want so they don’t have to buy anything.
🍴StillTasty - Ultimate Shelf Life Guide 🥫
You know that eight-day-old loaf of bread on your counter? Yeah, it may not be good anymore.
But, in case you’re holding on to hope that it is, you can head over to the StillTasty website and find out for sure. StillTasty tells you how long the shelf life is for the foods you have in your pantry, fridge, freezer, etc. And the best part is that it provides this info for both store-bought and homemade foods.
📺Top Recommendations 🍿
This month, I have a few recommendations for your viewing enjoyment:
PODCAST: Nerd Soup
TV SHOW: On Call
TRAILER: The Fantastic Four: First Steps
TRAILER: Jurassic World Rebirth
📰 DHustle’s News & Current Events (February)
DHustle 💆🏽♂️:
🗞️YouTube ‘s Unskippable Ads
It’s being said that some YouTube viewers are reporting being locked into multi-hour ads that are every bit of unskippable.
Could this be a byproduct of a new strategy that Google might be using to fight against adblockers? We’re not sure about that part, but one thing is for sure: ain’t nobody watching no d**n three-hour ad!
🗞️Clone2Leak Attacks
If you’re a Git/GitHub user, it might be time to take a little more precaution when entering your credentials.
According to BleepingComputer.com, there’s a set of attacks that have been targeting authentication requests on GitHub Desktop and several other platforms:
A set of three distinct but related attacks, dubbed 'Clone2Leak,' can leak credentials by exploiting how Git and its credential helpers handle authentication requests.
The attack can compromise passwords and access tokens in GitHub Desktop, Git LFS, GitHub CLI/Codespaces, and the Git Credential Manager.
Do hackers have nothing better to do?
🗞️Elon’s Salute & Tesla’s Robotaxi
As a business owner, you have to put in extra work to make sure you’re properly representing your business. Otherwise, your poor choices could negatively impact business.
Obviously, Elon Musk didn’t get that memo.
Musk’s (Nazi-looking) salute at the inaguration in January left many to believe that it will affect Tesla’s Robotaxi business. We shall see…
🗞️Google Maps Update: Gulf of…America? - It’s official, the body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico is now listed as the Gulf of America on Google Maps.
🗞️Apple’s 18.3 Update - Just three weeks after the the 18.2 update? Apparently, 18.3 comes with crucial iPhone updates.
🗞️35 Years of the MX-5 - Congrats, Mazda!
🗞️DeepSeek Ban - The Australian government has taken steps to ban DeepSeek over concerns that it is a threat to national security.
🗞️Microsoft Crackdown - In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft will not allow unsupported hardware to run Windows 11. The only choice is for users to either buy a new PC or continue using Windows 10. Oh, and about Windows 10—it will fall out of support toward the end of this year.
🗞️Google Revoking Permissions - …from harmful Android apps, that is. This will be done automatically and is designed to prevent malicious Android apps from gaining access to your phone's storage, camera, and photos.
🗞️Hot Tub App - This is the first-ever p-word iPhone app that just arrived on European phones. We’ll leave y’all to do the research.
…Not Goodbye, Just See You Later… 👋🏾
And that’s a wrap! For now at least.
Hopefully there’s some info you found valuable in this newsletter. Take what resonates and use it to get you started on the next phase of your tech journey.
Best believe the momentum is still high, and the plan is to do twice as much in 2025 as we did last year. Y’all still rocking with us? Goooood. Let’s do what we do best!
Until next time! Peace…✌🏾
Special shoutout and thank you to our sponsor, Mar-velous Creations. Check her out for creative and custom handmade sweets and treats. Her service area spans from Palm Beach down to Miami-Dade.
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