GPT-4 surpasses all sane definitions of “Artificial General Intelligence.” AI (without the “G”) is a fancy way of saying machine learning - finding patterns within giant datasets in order to solve a single problem. E.g. analyzing billions of interstate driving miles to build Autopilot, billions of
It’s pouring rain. I take the Bart to Fidi. Everybody on the train is wearing a mask. As we roll to a stop at Embarcadero, the train loses power. We wait “for the generator to come on so we can open the doors.” Finally outside, I pass 10 people
Technology is a concentrating force. It always has been. Everybody sewed their own clothes until we built textile factories. It used to take one farmer to feed four people. Now each farmer feeds 130 people. Home Depot killed thousands of local hardware stores. Opendoor is replacing legions of Kel
“I wanted Uber Eats because it was raining. But didn’t end up ordering because it was raining.” - Recent text from a friend Paying for somebody to deliver burgers and fries usually feels fine. They could decline the gig if the price isn’t fair. But when you’re
I follow @shl on Twitter, but not @gumroad; @elonmusk, but not @Tesla; @sm, but not @Winnie. I pointed this out to Sahil. He said, “funny because I write both accounts :)”1 Personality is the force majeure of the internet. When I used to travel, I’d skim through the USA
Medium was beautiful when it first launched. The WYSIWYG editor blew my mind. Ads didn’t cover the first three paragraphs. It’s where all the cool kids published. Reading an article on Medium felt like getting an email from an @gmail.com address in 2004. “This person must know
Back when there were rumors of Google building an operating system, I thought “Lol.” Then I watched then-PM Sundar Pichai announce Chrome OS. My heart raced. It was perfect. I got my email through Gmail, I wrote documents on Docs, I listened to Pandora, I viewed photos on TheFacebook. Why
Last Monday, I wrote down a bunch of potential blog topics: Deleting Twitter off my phone. How meritocracy is like free will: better to believe it isn’t an illusion. Taking noon-2pm off each day. Remote culture. Perception of time. The cult of Ayn Rand. “I want to know where
@mmcgrana: Patio11’s Law: The software economy is bigger than you think, even when you take into account Patio11’s Law.1 A few years ago, I woke up in Sunriver, OR, and went to make coffee. The house had one of those bed-and-breakfast-type coffee trays. Drip machine. A stack
I was tricked into thinking I had tons of grit as a student. I worked hard in school. I put in long hours. I stayed up all night reading and preparing for debate topics, doing homework, writing essays. It was easy for me to burn the midnight oil. I enjoy
Per Square’s new COVID-19 policy, Elizabeth is working from home today. She’ll likely be working from home for about a month. I did this for over 5 years. I don’t miss it. It’s nice to eat leftovers out of the fridge and it’s nice avoiding
After our 5am flight landed in Salt Lake City this morning, we headed into Industrious downtown for the wifi and coffee. An array of just-add-water Milk Labs oatmeal cups were spread out on the counter. The almond flavor is my favorite. I decided to grab an extra cup for tomorrow
I got into an email exchange with TP from Shit I Didn’t Know about declining interest rates. I’ve recently been thinking about this chart of declining interest rates over time: Chart by Paul Schmelzing at the Bank Of England 1. Why is it consistently declining? Probably a combination
Vulnerability is my favorite quality.1 I struggle to be vulnerable. I’ll catch myself journaling as if my great-great-grandson is deriving the meaning of life from my words, writing in a way so as to appear “strong” and “clear-minded.” How laughable. Why is it that I struggle to write
When I was 13, my family went to California. We walked along a beach near Mendocino. I’d never seen black sand before. I wanted to bring some home. So I got a ziplock bag from my mom, scooped some sand into it, and put it in my backpack. When
The day Christopher Hitchens died, his longtime editor and friend at the Vanity Fair posted an In Memoriam. “He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for company, for great writing, and, above all, for conversation.” That sentence nails it. I don’t care for cigarettes or
The day Christopher Hitchens died, his longtime editor and friend at the Vanity Fair posted an In Memoriam. “He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for company, for great writing, and, above all, for conversation.” That sentence nails it. I don’t care for cigarettes or
When searching for our apartment, I met three different property managers. One was driving an Audi, the other two were driving BMW’s. We need Fred Schwed to write a sequel to Where Are The Customer’s Yachts? All economic gains seem to be flowing to landlords. Ridiculously favorable tax
Lyndon Johnson nearly killed himself running for his first Congressional seat when he was 28 years old. He found out he won the seat from his hospital bed where he was being treated for liver failure stemming from his sleepless nights and frantic rallies where he tried to meet everybody
One of Bezos’ lines is “it’s day 1.” How is the third most valuable company in the world, with over 50% of all e-commerce traffic servicing over half of all product searches, still “in the early days”? Early adopters think “it’s too late” (imagine Bill Gates reading the
Munger: “Don’t expect too much of human nature. I have a rule for politicians — it’s a stoic rule. I always reflect that they are never so bad you don’t live to want them back.” He describes the scene in California when he first arrived LA: lawyers, insurance
I used to associate a “click” sound with clicking links on the web. I remember sitting in the MBHS library, in one of those dorm-room-like wooden lean-back chairs, in front of a Dell machine running Windows. We’d be playing Wikipedia races, clicking blue link to blue link to blue
This morning I was walking down Divisadero. “I’ve battled crashing servers in that Starbucks,” I thought to myself. There are lots of places where I’ve frantically tapped my keyboard, cursing myself, wondering why I’m such a bad developer: * The upstairs bedroom of a shared Airbnb in Boise
8 years ago I wrote a blog post on Jirnil, (a little Medium-esque app I’d built while interning for the FCC) titled: “Google Search Is Dead”. RageChill had been getting popular. To track usage and commentary, I’d type in “ragechill” into Chrome and hit enter. I got the
The streak of my water+pushups+walking morning routine is addicting. When the streak is alive, it’s like walking downhill. But the moment I miss a day, it’s easy to think that I have to run uphill in order to make up for the lost time. Sometimes I
This morning, walking up Sansome, I was in the middle of a pack of people. Some popping out of BART, some waiting for their robot-poured lattes, others walking briskly - with jackets, backpacks, earpods. Despite the omnidirectional traffic, crowded sidewalks, filled streets and morning vendors, des
“When a supernova explodes, the blast wave creates high-energy particles that scatter in every direction; scientists believe there is a minute chance that one of the errant particles known, as a cosmic ray, can hit a computer chip on Earth, flipping a 0 to a 1.” James Somers in The
My Uber driver Jacky picked me up at 4:06 AM this morning. I landed in Denver at 8:30 AM mountain time. I didn’t get my full 8 hours of beauty rest last night. With each passing year, it seems sleep deficits affect me more and more. But
Globalization has caused the “giant sucking sound” of jobs Perot predicted. The cause may be equal parts cheap labor and automation. But the effects are obvious: 1. the decline of the industrial Midwest, 2. the amount of carbon emissions resulting from globalization, and 3. the failure of the CCP to
“Remember, remember, the 5th of November.” I know they used to hang traitors in England. But high school history didn’t cover the official punishment for treason: “Hanged, Drawn and Quartered.” Wikipedia has an article on how attitudes in England shifted away from such barbaric punishments. TLDR: c
Tyler and I were sitting in a diner in Nashville. He took a sip of his coffee and said, “language is consciousness. If we don’t have the words to describe something, we can’t experience it.” Being good semi-erudites, we commented how French people use big and impressive words
Last month, outside of JFK, Elizabeth commented, “No smoking sign… but it smells like smoke.” You know how you know a lawn might have poop on it? When there’s a “No dogs allowed” sign.
There were a lot of peaks over the past year.1 But the highest peak, metaphorically and physically, was Bald Mountain in Ketchum. Last year, as Elizabeth was traveling through Asia and New Zealand, I decided this was my chance to spend a winter in a ski town. I found
@naval put together a list of 10 simple truths tweeted by others, which I found interesting. 1. if the news are fake imagine history @AmuseChimp 2. Human life is gradually turning from a struggle against suffering into a struggle against pleasure. @G_S_Bhogal 3. If you don’t want
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
2016, from Industrious 2018, from Industrious
This morning, I woke up at 5:30am to pack my Osprey Farpoint1 and brush my teeth. I then rode with Scott about 5 minutes down the road to the ride share carpark. A couple minutes later, Jonathan rolled up and we swapped Hondas. It was pitch black outside, and
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
When I got off the train and walked into the main terminal at Ogilvie Center, there was an Amazon Go right at the corner. I had to try it. So I hopped on their free wifi, downloaded the Amazon Go app, scanned my barcode, walked in. The app would tell
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
Both can get your attention.
In an Atlantic profile of Sam Altman, he is quoted as saying, “Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that YC is hugely important to that growth.” I agree with the premise. But I
I find it hard to focus on computer scripts when I’m sweating through my t-shirt. While it doesn’t get mentioned in Guns Germs and Steel, I wonder how much an impact the heat has on progress. It’s certainly harder to focus and harder to think (for me,
This morning after breakfast, Elizabeth and I rode our Scoopy down to Echo beach. I dropped her off for her surf lesson, then took the bike a few hundred meters up the road to The Slow, a beautifully architected cafe. I worked and read A Philosophy Of Software Design. The
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
From The Gene: In a famous story, a medieval cosmologist is asked what holds the earth up. “Turtles,” he says. “And what holds up the turtles?” he is asked. “More turtles.” “And those turtles?” “You don’t understand.” The cosmologist stamps his foot. “It’s turtles all the way.” When
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
I woke up at 5am this morning to fly from Atlanta to Chicago. The next time I’ll sleep in a bed is two and a half days from now - Sunday night. Andy and I took a Lyft to the airport. I’m flying ATL to MDW, where I’
[NOTE May 2020] My view of Bitcoin specifically has shifted considerably since this post. I do think the demand curve slopes downward for non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies, though. Some people think of Bitcoin as a Giffen Good.1 The more expensive it becomes, the more in demand it becomes. Sort of like
Instagram might be the downfall of “status”. Anybody can upload airbrushed selfies. Anybody can post pictures from the gym or from the new breakfast spot or from a stage at Lollapalooza. If you can edit pictures and photoshop your life and make Everything Look Amazing and blah blah blah, then
Sam Harris asked Yuval Noah Harari about how he is able as a professor of history to draw on biology and chemistry and sociology while writing Sapiens. “I’m interested in questions, and questions don’t have boundaries,” he said. It’s simple and it’s obvious. We use problems
Last week, I left Industrious and walked out onto Peachtree St. There were four Limes sitting on the sidewalk. I opened up the app, scanned a scooter, and started riding down the street. The trip took me from Midtown to the core of Atlanta. I was surrounded by tall buildings
“He needs to get off Twitter.” “Why doesn’t he hire someone to watch what he says?” “He shouldn’t have taken a puff on Joe Rogan’s podcast.” I’ve long believed Elon Musk has taken the Donald Trump approach to Twitter. Tesla is constantly in the news. Sometimes
Moving slowly is a feature, not a bug. Things often go sideways when humans take things that should take a long time, and package them into condensed dosages. * Clash Of Clans instead of chess. * Fireball shots instead of martinis. * Soul Cycle instead of a Saturday morning bike ride. * Instag
Last week, Sarah Silverman and Howard Stern were discussing Steve Martin’s brilliant wit.1 Sarah proceeded to share a story about Steve. One year, she helped to host an AFI honors ceremony. After the awards show, she went to an afterparty at Steve’s house. The idea was to
I landed in San Francisco this morning. It was chilly outside. After spending 5 weeks in 100-degree weather, I needed a sweater. As I walked to Uniqlo, I passed this sign. It’s 7,830 miles back to where I came from, back to where Elizabeth started her SE Asia
The current US-based opinion of Facebook is that it’s on the decline. The narrative seems to be that 1) less people are using it; and 2) the people who do use it are using it less. Traveling, though, has convinced me that Facebook is stronger than ever. When I
Near the end of this yellow brick road and tucked to the left is the Hangover Hostel. When you walk up, there are a few chairs on the patio. Mr. Singh was sitting in one of them. “Elizabeth?” He asked before we could say Hello. “Yes!” “Welcome.” He made copies
📍 Koh Phi Phi, Thailand Not Pictured: * 38°C Real Feel temperature * Intermittent internet * Calvin Harris blasting in the background * Instant coffee * Three employees sanding down wooden tables off to the right
This is an Airtel 4G hotspot1. It takes cell service and turns it into WiFi. This particular device is only compatible with the Airtel network in India. But everyone in Laos uses it to connect their phones to the internet. We bought one from a street electronics vendor in Luang
Every traveler that comes to Pai ends up extending their visit. People come here and decide they never want to leave. An Australian we met back in Laos decided she was going to move to Pai for 6 months starting in 2019. It’s easy to see why. It’s
One of the most fun aspects of our trip has been meeting people from other countries around the world. Last night, Elizabeth went out with a group of friends she’d made. Some Dutch, some Brits, some Canadians. Some people from Brazil and Italy. This morning, we went to breakfast
Renting a motorbike has been an amazing way to see the country and travel with different groups of people. For $17, we’ve had a motorbike for three days (including gas!). We’ve overcome our fear following the stitches. We biked over to the White Buddha temple overlooking Pai with
“It’s all in the angle,” they say.
Yesterday, we met Lo at the Wat Chedi Luang monk chat table. Every day after school, from ~2pm-6pm, Lo talks to tourists. He does it to practice his English. The tourists do it to learn more about Buddhism and life as a monk. He was able to hold a conversation
We were sharing a beer with other backpackers last night at the hostel next door. I noticed us saying, “We did Luang Namtha and Luang Prabang and blah blah,” and then they would say, “Oh I’ve done Laos, and we did Siem Reap in Cambodia.” As if staying in
Chokepoints cause a concentration of qualities. For example, in both Britain and Denmark, birds have been under attack by asphalt. Meanwhile, birdfeeders have become popular in Britain but they have not caught on in Denmark. As a result, the beaks of British birds have become 1-2mm longer than Dutc
From Luang Namtha in Northern Laos, it takes a full day to reach Nalan. It’s an ethnic minority village in the middle of the Nam Ha National Park. 180 people live in the village. They are rice farmers. There is no internet, no cell service, and no electricity except
1. A simple mapping app where people who have lived in a city can quickly add hotel recommendations, local restaurants, things to do, and easily mark them as day activities, night activities, touristy, local, etc. You could then browse the app by choosing somebody you trust, and viewing their map.
Elizabeth and I were watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War as we weaved our way through the backcountry of Laos. In 1973, Henry Kissinger negotiated the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, a peace treaty meant to end the war in SE Asia. But
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
We were eating dinner at Viman in Vang Vieng. The owner is a German-born Thai expat living in Vang Vieng, Laos. He was explaining how the woman who cooked our food had to pay the government every month a “Province Tax.” Since she was born in Vientiane, but now lived
By 2020, the Laos government has promised to bring electricity to all of its citizens. Based on the quality of the roads, it’s hard to believe they’ll pull it off. It took me and Elizabeth 12 hours to go about 120km from Vang Vieng to Nong Kiaw. 1.
This is what the main highway between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng looks like. Part of it is paved. Part of it is gravel. Part is mud. The potholes don’t discriminate between any of the three. The infrastructure seems to be the biggest difference between Laos and Cambodia thus
A rest area halfway up Pha Ngeun. From the top of Pha Ngeun, outside of Vang Vieng. Biking after our hike. Our dune buggy adventure to the lagoons. Blue Lagoon 3.
At the top of the main temple in Luang Prabang.
Charlie Munger gave a talk at USC in 1994 about worldly wisdom. In it, he takes a contrarian (at least contrarian among the elite) view of Wal-mart: You can say, “Is this a nice way to behave?” Well, capitalism is a pretty brutal place. But I personally think that the
This is the bed where Elizabeth got three stitches put in her right hand. This bed’s in the Luang Prabang Regional Hospital ER. When we woke up earlier that morning, we decided to go to the Kuang Si waterfall, just outside of Luang Prabang. It’s supposed to be
The best leaders are direct. They trim conjunctions and four-syllable words from their sentences. Conversely, those fluent in corporate-speak are so concerned with saying everything that they end up saying nothing. I saw both of these snippets from different press releases within the last 24 hours
Fred Wilson has written a blog post every single day since 2003.1 That’s at least 5,000 posts. Without skipping a beat. Doing stuff (n) < Doing stuff well (2n) < Doing stuff well, consistently (2n)^2 1. AVC↩
Cambodia is the most impressive country I can remember traveling to. Just one and a half generations ago, the Cambodian people were suffering under the regressive communist government of Pol Pot. Within four years, Pol Pot’s regime systematically murdered nearly 3 million people. “Better to kill an
Markets are efficient thanks to the people who think they aren’t efficient. It’s a paradox. This simple tension is true in a lot of different domains. When we think we’re providing a bad customer experience at Bottle, we start sending emails at 2am and start setting up
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
We should treat laws passed by Congress the way we treat pills prescribed by doctors. Each bill should come with a section of potential side effects. “This regulation may cause…” What goes on the law’s warning label should also be debated, pros and cons included. Lawmakers can attach their
“One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going
I’ve written before about how enthusiasm is my favorite quality in others. It’s what pulls me closer to people. Here, a student describes Richard Feynman’s enthusiasm: I remember when I was his student how it was when you walked into one of his lectures. He would be
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Here are two surprising facts: the number of people who have moved across state lines is down 51% since the mid-20th century; the number of business owners under the age of 30 is down 65% since the 1980’s.1 Watch the news and you’d get a different impression.
My first levain sourdough loaf. It’s the hybrid Pan de Campagne from from Ken Forkish’s book Flour Water Salt Yeast. I started fermenting the sourdough culture on June 20th. I mixed the first dough on June 25th. That dough went into the oven in the morning of June
Seinfeld, on life. This is my favorite story about show business. Glenn Miller’s orchestra, they were doing some gig somewhere, they can’t land where they’re supposed to land because it’s winter, a snowy night. So they have to land in this field and walk to the
“My son, my loyal and affectionate boy, some day it may be yours to know the pain, the unreasonable pain that comes over a man to know that between him and his boy, and his boy’s friends, an unseen but unassailable barrier has arisen, erected by no human agency;
What does it mean? Where did it come from? Why have we all adopted it as a conversational tic?
Elizabeth texted me last week, “I’m sad we don’t have much more time here, there are so many things I want to do.” A major benefit of leaving a city is it forces you to do the things you’ve been putting off until “some other day.” When
When I read the news, I accept everything as it’s written as fact. I soak up geopolitics and stock analysis, questioning nothing until I encounter an article about Net Neutrality. And then I shake my head, because the article is egregiously wrong. The article will lack nuance or, worse,
“This is going to be really painful, and in the end, it’s not going to work.” 1 -Every user everywhere when they sign up for a new service. 1. Paul Graham’s words from an interview.↩
I am fascinated by Steven Pinker’s example of how humans remember things1. Our brain can hold only about six bits of information in our working memory at once. M D P H D R S V P C E O I H O P How many of those letters
“It never gets easier, you just get faster.” There is something inspirational in knowing that Greg LeMond also sweats his face off when he bikes for an hour. The main difference between me and him is that when he bikes for an hour, he can ride the length of an
John Ousterhout is a Computer Science professor at Stanford. I didn’t go to Stanford. I have never met Professor Ousterhout. But I love his quote. It highlights the importance of persistence. Imagine a basic graph with an x-axis and a y-axis. The y-axis represents how much you know. The
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
Thoughts, stories and ideas.