I m growing a small SaaS. And cloud costs are starting to hurt. I keep hearing about founders stacking $100-300k in Google Cloud credits, but all the advice feels vague or locked behind big-name accelerators.
Where did you actually get credits?
Any creative hacks or things to avoid?
If you ve cracked this, I d love to hear what worked.
And if you re still figuring it out too, just drop a comment. If I ve gathered some useful stuff, I'll be happy to share.
Google Research just made the hardest skills to measure, actually measurable.
Vantage is a Google Research experiment that uses GenAI to assess future-ready skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. AI avatars simulate real scenarios, score your performance, and deliver a personal Skill Map.
The problem: Critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity matter most but are nearly impossible to assess at scale.
The solution: Vantage uses an Executive LLM to simulate real team scenarios, surface skill evidence, and score performance at human-expert level.
What stands out:
🧠 AI simulated team: Work through missions like debates, pitches, and experiments with AI avatars.
🎯 Executive LLM: Introduces dynamic challenges like conflict and constraints mid-conversation.
📊 AI Evaluator: Scores using expert-level rubrics with human-like agreement.
🗺️ Personal Skill Map: Visual scores with precise qualitative feedback.
🔬 Validated by New York University: AI scoring matches human experts across 188 testers.
📐 Aligned with OECD and World Economic Forum frameworks.
🎓 Built for classrooms: Designed as a skills layer alongside existing curricula.
Skills assessed:
- Collaboration: Conflict resolution and project management.
- Creative Thinking: Generating, building, and evaluating ideas.
- Critical Thinking: Interpreting, analyzing, and judging information.
Different because it’s not a test, but an adaptive conversation that reveals real capability.
P.S. I hunt the latest and greatest launches in tech, SaaS and AI, follow to be notified → @rohanrecommends
@rohanrecommends For B2B/tech roles like product launches or client pitches, how does Vantage simulate those high-stakes moments; like defending a pivot to skeptical stakeholders or resolving cross-timezone conflicts? Does the AI throw curveballs based on your actual responses?
Interesting idea! How do you ensure the AI-simulated scenarios stay relevant as tech stacks and best practices evolve? I remember one painful incident where outdated training led to a junior engineer deploying a container with root privileges to production.
Stella AI
This would be a great brainstorming partner!