Paul Graham

Jessica: What's new?

Me: OpenAI just released a new version that's much better. And people hadn't even stopped talking about the previous version yet.

Jessica: Are you scared about AI?

Me: A little. At the very least, it's going to change everything.

One of my tests of the magnitude of a change is: How does it change what advice I'd give my kids? And when I try to answer that question, it's scary how little I can predict. The best I can do is tell them to surf this wave rather than be crushed by it.

One possible qualitative change: The rate of change in AI could be too fast for governments to react to. Usually they wait till the last moment to deal with a problem. With AI, I can easily imagine them acting at what they think is the last moment, when in fact it has passed.

AI vs EU, for example. Who wins? I can imagine them acting quickly to create regulations that shoot themselves in the foot, and I can imagine them getting the right answer, but too late. But it's hard to imagine them getting things right quickly.

Though this seems obvious in retrospect, adding bicycles to Paris doesn't turn it into Amsterdam. You still have the aggressive chaos of Parisian traffic, but now it's silent and could be coming from any direction.

I'm not saying it was a mistake for Paris to become more bicycle-centric. It's probably good for the city, and its people. But it does feel significantly more dangerous to walk there.

It's easier to see how fashion and convention (about e.g. how to smile) make everyone look the same if you turn pictures upside down. https://t.co/eqp5vsISNV

I think the reason is that we're so sensitive to differences between people's faces (since we need to be able to identify them) that this ordinarily dominates our perception of group photos. If we invert the photo, it's turned off, so we see the similarity.

When you're doing a deal with a large organization, find out if the people you're negotiating with actually have final say. Usually they don't, and that means the deal you've agreed upon can be, and often is, killed at the last minute by higher ups.

Here's a simpler version that works just as well in practice: when making a deal with a large organization, no matter what they say, assume the deal will be cancelled at the last moment.

This doesn't just mean "don't get your hopes up." It also has practical consequences. It means you should actively pursue other alternatives in parallel.

Though they may be composed of upstanding individuals, the structure of large organizations causes them to behave in ways that would be evil, if they were an individual person. So remember, whenever you're dealing with a large organization, you're also dealing with an evil one.

Since 10 yo's current career plans are field biology and fiction, on the drive to school I suggested he try combining them by inventing some fictional creatures. Agreeing that nothing could be more logical, he immediately set to work.

Hence the striped butter lizard, which exudes a toxic grease and is striped to warn predators; the arctic butter lizard, an invasive species accidentally brought north by Vikings; and the false butter lizard, which mimics the striped butter lizard to scare predators.

The first step to starting a startup has nothing to do with "entrepreneurship." It's to develop deep technical expertise of some sort, so that you look at the world with informed eyes.

What sort of technical expertise should you develop? Whatever you find most interesting. Don't try to second guess your own curiosity. It's smarter than your conscious mind.

And err on the side of having a broad definition of technical expertise. It doesn't just mean math and science and engineering. Though those are always good bets.

Changes in the colors of objects since 1800, from pictures of 7000 objects in the collections of UK science museums. https://t.co/DvVQrw3pcw

I was talking to some people familiar with Russia and the war in Ukraine, and they pointed out something I hadn't considered. Putin couldn't pull out even if he wanted to, because it would make him look so weak at home that he'd probably be ousted in a coup.

Since he can't hope to make advances, the best thing for him would be stasis. Gradually losing a long war of attrition doesn't sound like something anyone would want, but it might be his best option personally.

Amusing pattern I've noticed among great portraitists: they often paint their subjects to look like themselves.

Allan Ramsay, who had an underbite, often gives his sitters one. https://t.co/sqFzUXLqUH

Peter Lely, who had heavy lidded eyes and not much in the way of cheekbones gives the same look to his sitters. https://t.co/qlOlaLWrEW

Van Dyck, who had a pointy nose, did not minimize his sitters'. https://t.co/FC5idCcyfe

This ranking of universities looks roughly correct. The big mistake in the article is the claim that the higher ranked universities are better at "producing" founders.
https://t.co/mad4l20LMV

In fact the recipe for having the most founders is simply to be (a) a great science and engineering school (b) in a place with lots of startups. The latter accounts for the difference between e.g. Stanford and CMU, not something Stanford does to prepare founders.

This has practical implications. It shows that there are a lot of students at schools like CMU who could start successful startups, but don't.

So if you're a CMU (or Cambridge or Johns Hopkins or University of Chicago) undergrad unsure whether to take that job at Google or start your own startup, start the startup, because the you who went to Stanford will.

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