You’re right that GMs are much faster ideating, I point this out later in the essay. But they also spend longer on falsification, even in absolute terms.
Do you have an example of a "drawing" of a theorem, in this context? (I've seen these for fairly trivial theorems but not for more complex ones, so I'm curious.)
As someone who very much relates to the GP’s anecdote, I might suggest determinants as a good example.
As an undergraduate studying maths, I encountered a standard theorem in one of my first courses, which says that about 947 different conditions are equivalent to a matrix having a determinant of zero. I dutifully memorised these. I also dutifully memorised the algorithm for how to calculate a determinant. I might even have remembered some verbatim proofs of some of the equivalences.
However, I developed absolutely no intuition about what a determinant is. I had book knowledge, but no insight. It was a long time ago now, but I’m fairly sure that when I graduated I still did not truly understand even this very basic (by undergraduate standards) subject. I think it was probably a few years later, when I came across some of the same theory but in a much more practical context at work, that most of the connections in that equivalence theorem first “clicked”.
Meanwhile, here is what a gifted presenter with the right illustrations can do in about ten minutes:
The 2,000 or so substantially identical comments below that video are very telling.
Given the understanding you’d get with that quality of presentation, the equivalences I mentioned above would have been obvious and constructing the proofs from first principles would have been straightforward.
In the process of learning about a family of algorithms in machine learning I also gained some physical intuition of determinants (same diagram as 3Blue1Brown, but applied in a different context of "squashing and stretching" probability mass): https://blog.evjang.com/2018/01/nf1.html
Ahh I did a bit of googling but couldn't find anything nice — sorry! Most of the time, the complex stuff is broken down into smaller "lemmas" with their own manageable proofs, and then the proof of the whole theorem will be something like "Follows from Lemma 2.1, Lemma 2.2, and a basic application of Theorem 1.4"
I'm like the worst person on earth to be giving anyone else advice about that!! Do you have any idea how much time I waste obsessively reading the news, or worrying about people saying mean things about me on social media, rather than doing research or anything else useful for the world? I suppose my advice would be: don't do what I do. As my former PhD adviser, Umesh Vazirani, likes to tell people, "concentrate on the high-order bits."
> how much time I waste obsessively reading the news
This is oddly comforting. As Tim Ferris said in Tools of Titans, every successful person is dysfunctional in some way. I guess the trick is to work around your own personal deficiensies, and that's something everyone must figure out on their own.
>> "That item, in May 2011, was one of the last posts Mr. Szabo made before he went on a lengthy hiatus to work, he said later, on a new concept he called temporal programming."
Anyone know what 'temporal programming' refers to? Sounds intriguing.
This is an incredibly smart observation, and not made often enough:
"Often the smarter people are more prone to trendy, fashionable thinking because they can pick up on things, they can pick up on cues more easily, and so they’re even more trapped by it than people of average ability"
I get it, soup isn't sexy. Doesn't mean its not a good investment. Personally, I don't claim to have a preference for one or the other. Investment is more about risk profile than blind speculation.
Clorox is also paying a 2.7% dividend. Campbell is 2.8%. Would be reasonable to bump those five year annual returns up to perhaps ~13% and ~7.5% (let's assume the dividend was lower five years ago).
Depends on the valuation. If much of the upside is already baked into Snapchat then there's a lot of downside risk (hence the downside protection that these institutional investors are demanding). I wouldn't touch Snapchat at that valuation with anything more than spec funds. I certainly wouldn't view equity comp as valuable.
On the other hand, I personally think the chances that Snapchat (or its technology) will be acquired down the road are a lot higher than either Campbell or Chlorox.
I'm guessing you think that because you didn't experience the dotcom era first hand. Companies that have raised huge sums of money can go under. It's not happened recently but when it does it'll be horrible to watch. I'm not suggesting that we're in a bubble either - the fact is that companies die for a bewildering variety of reasons, and it is inevitable that one or more of the unicorns will die eventually.
Well, Clorox was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1957 and then divested. Campbell Soup in the UK was acquired in 2008. So acquisition odds are higher than you'd think.
You may think that food companies are boring, but there are a lot more acquisitions, spinoffs, and mergers of food companies than you'd think. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ConAgra_brands and consider that there are multiple acquisitions behind most of these. Kraft has gone through too many mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers to even try to explain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods
Anyway, my point is that it's not just the computer industry where acquisitions are happening for billions of dollars.
Great post & it's totally true that company culture mirrors that of founders. I think this works through 3 mechanisms:
(1) Employees tend to ape founders, so whatever founders care about & value (in their actions) tends to filter down.
(2) Getting aspects of culture to stick (e.g. transparency) is hard, and requires real commitment from founders. So whatever sticks will tend to be whatever founders care enough to really push through.
(3) Founders tend to hire people who are 'like them', so a critical mass of employees end up being very similar to the founders.
I guess it comes down to how far you're willing to push. If you do move to the Valley (as YC partners frequently advise you to), then you probably could get a meeting with Peter Thiel if you really tried. I mean if someone figuratively held a gun to your head and told you to, you probably could.
I agree with the general point, though - you need a certain amount of baseline opportunity to be able to do this stuff. That is a problem that needs fixing.
No, i couldn't. Not until I had dozens and dozens of meetings with other entrepreneurs, then other infestors, create relationships, trust. I would need to spend all my current cash just to pay my expenses on the valley for the time to pull that out. And not working nearly enough to justify it.
I mean, these asvice "work really hard" sounds like bs to me. As a lot of people who fails don't work hard. As luck isn't necessary and people who work hard enough inevitably get lucky.
I work hard and smart as I can. But I still know the odds are against me. Stories about how all my toughest troubles were solved by a legendary VC trusting me isn't much you can learn from.
I decided 7 years ago, despite not knowing anyone in Silicon Valley, to just quit school and move there. Got the first startup job that I could, which happened to be at Slide (founded by Max). I hate networking and generally avoid the whole social tech scene -- so I just worked hard, delivered results and got attention that way. My point is, by working hard AND smart, you can create your own opportunities, e.g. having access to investors when you really need them, etc. It takes time and commitment but it's certainly possible.
Read up on the concept of a "luck surface area". You can start building it now no matter where you are.
If you're the type of person who say, "I will just quit" you might not be the type of person that a VC wants to fund.
I've heard it said (might have been from a Stanford ETL talk) that you should do a startup because when you wake up in the morning you absolutely can't do anything else. If I was a VC I would want to fund people with that level passion.
Access to capital or a VC is just a roadblock. Detour around it or take another road.
Well, i don't believe in "types of people". The Homejoy founder said she would have to quit if didnt get the money at that time. She would be of a different type then?
Yeah, that part of Paul's talk was amazing. He said most people thought Gmail was a mistake, so he explicitly set a goal to make 100 users really happy, and just went round asking them "What exactly can I make this product do to make you happy?" Then he'd just pick things off the list and do them.
Expanding on the idea of 'redefining success', I love how he explained that if the answer to the "What can I do to make you happy?" question was too complex to implement, he'd just keep asking different people until he found problems that were relatively easy to solve.
You’re right that GMs are much faster ideating, I point this out later in the essay. But they also spend longer on falsification, even in absolute terms.