Beyond the AI Hype with Jason Strimpel

In this episode of The Hedgineer Podcast, host Michael Watson sits down with Jason Strimpel, founder of PyQuant News, long-time Pythonista, and AI enthusiast.

They dive deep into the practical and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence in both asset management and daily life. They break down how the agentic loop works with the Anthropic Agent SDK, the components of good evaluation frameworks, and even how to talk to your kids about AI 

Key topics covered in this episode:

• Drugs, Sex, and AI: Jason shares his thoughts for new parents: the three things you now need to talk to your kids about are drugs, sex, and AI. Michael and Jason then discuss the difficulty of explaining the difference between humans and AI-powered avatars or toys to children.

• The "Agentic Loop": The discussion breaks down the simplicity and power of the agentic loop, identifying it as the "core substrate" of modern agentic frameworks. This framework allows a language model to loop, use tools, and determine when to exit to solve complex problems.

• "Evals are the Product": Michael and Jason iterate on the concept that a robust set of evaluations is the real product. If you can use evals to demonstrate that an agent has harnessed intelligence to solve a specific problem space, you "own that problem".

• AI vs. Python's Rise: They draw parallels between the current AI boom and the rise of Python in the early 2010s. Both technologies were initially met with skepticism for being "black box" interpreted systems, yet they unlocked massive productivity boosts.

• Capital Allocation and Moats: The conversation tackles the modern challenge of allocating capital and defending a "software moat" when new AI tools and infrastructure are being commoditized by hyperscalers at an incredible speed.

• The PyQuant News Story: Jason shares the origin story of his popular PyQuant newsletter, which started as a personal WordPress site for bookmarking research papers and grew into a major resource for the quantitative finance community.

Hosted by Michael Watson, The Hedgineer Podcast dives into AI technology and data in the hedge fund, asset management, and prop trading space.

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