Ex-Meta ML leader: tail models like Grok 4.5 handle 90%+ of everyday queries
jquinonero · x · 2026-08-16
Veteran ML leader Joaquin Quiñonero (formerly head of applied ML at Meta) shared his experience learning to prune an apricot tree with Grok 4.5 — succinct and to the point. His takeaway: the hardest use cases still need the strongest frontier models, but 90%+ of everyday questions are fine with tail models. We're in an era of constant Pareto optimization across cost, performance and latency, with many great options to choose from.
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