Weekly: Soham Parekh, PrivateGPT & AIndependence

Jun 27 - Jul 4 2025

Thanks to AI, we have more content and newsletters than ever before, but not necessarily more time or space. You’re busy.

So I’m going to summarize this week’s AI-related news in a leaner format: 5 news, 3 tools, and 1 key insight (using my own 5:3:1 rule).

Premium and GSD Lab members will have an additional section behind the paywall at the end of this newsletter.

Let’s go!

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📰 5 News

privateGPT

First heard about this story on LinkedIn. You may not have heard about it yet. But guy solved issue around protecting private info in OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Published solution on GitHub. Got a bunch of attention and stars. Investors reached out to invest. No team, no pitch, no marketing. Shows what happens when expertise, audience, and timing align. Check out their chat directly.

Soham Parekh

If you read about Roy Lee from Cluely here, you’ll know the story of how “cheating” is going in the AI space. Soham is the next meme sensation. Highly competent dev from India schools all Silicon Valley tech companies — aces interviews, collects cheques, repeats across multiple startups. He did just enough to prove competency, but then made excuses around timelines (because he’d be working on multiple startup problems simultaneously). Unsustainable, but he made more money than most of the VC-backed startups he was hired at. True modern arbitrage for the modern remote worker.

Convex announces Planetscale partnership

Convex is a database provider, but optimized or AI. It’s my personal favorite over more popular choices like Supabase or Firebase. Why? Way smoother database synchronization for AI needs. And they keep getting better. The Planetscale partnership signals confidence in Convex, giving Convex users faster, more reliable, and scalable apps. Convex is one to watch.

Cloudflare declares war on AI scrapers

Recently, Cloudflare declared “AIndependence”, by offering the ability for websites to block AI crawlers/scrapers from accessing data on your site(s) for training. Big deal. Another signal to watch, as companies start building “self-defense” against AI automatons.

India seeks AI independence

By building its own models and infrastructure, reducing reliance on foreign tech. I’ve written about this before, but as people realize that AI comes with inherent bias based on both who provided the base code, and even the content it’s “trained on”, more regions are going to want to go “sovereign.” I was even in a hackathon over the weekend to help build a “sovereign AI” for the nation of Bhutan — we called it DrukGPT.

🧰 3 Tools

• Dia — absolutely loving this browser. Has replaced my daily Chrome habits already (naturally). Worth checking out.

• Claude Code — the CLI (Command Line Interface) every developer is raving about currently in the AI space.

• Stack Map — this one isn’t your typical tool, but a lo-fi one (template). Helps you get started mapping your own tools and finding out what “stack” is fighting for attention in your cognitive space.

🔮 1 Insight

Based on the above news and things I’ve been building in the AI space, I can see an increased interest the pursuit of autonomy — from individuals and nations alike, using AI to reclaim control, privacy, and creative power. For business owners and professionals, this means you can leverage the latest AI tools and strategies to safeguard sensitive information (e.g. private AI), optimize operations (e.g. consciousstack.com), and carve out a unique edge in a rapidly shifting digital landscape.