Dear readers,
For the final Nightcrawler edition of 2023, I wanted to revisit some of the most popular essays and podcasts shared here over the past year.
It’s been pleasure to write this newsletter for the last two years. Thanks to all of you for reading and following along.
Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you (in your inbox, at least) next year!
To a healthy and prosperous 2024,
Eric
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Exploring the implications of “transformative” AI – via Max Roser
“Transformative AI is not defined by any specific capabilities, but by the real-world impact that the AI would have. To qualify as transformative, researchers think of it as AI that is ‘powerful enough to bring us into a new, qualitatively different future.’ In humanity’s history, there have been two cases of such major transformations, the agricultural and the industrial revolutions. Transformative AI becoming a reality would be an event on that scale. Like the arrival of agriculture 10,000 years ago, or the transition from hand-to-machine manufacturing, it would be an event that would change the world for billions of people around the globe and for the entire trajectory of humanity’s future.”
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On Leonardo Da Vinci’s obsessions and curiosities – via Ben Wilson
“Da Vinci is widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time, if not the greatest artist of all time. He was a shockingly insightful amateur scientist… He made observations about physics, biology, engineering, and material sciences that would take centuries to replicate. He was also a tinkerer, an amateur inventor who came up with a number of useful inventions, and laid the groundwork for even more. Steve Jobs said of Da Vinci, he saw beauty in both art and engineering. And his ability to combine them was what made him a genius.”
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Two types of knowledge: expiring and permanent – via Morgan Housel
“I read newspapers and books every day. I can not recall one thing I read in a newspaper from, say, 2011. But I can tell you details about a few great books I read in 2011 and how they changed how I think. I’ll remember them forever. I’ll keep reading newspapers. But if I read more books I’d probably develop better filters and frameworks that would help me make better sense of the news. Asking how long you’ll care about the information you read pushes you to focus on permanent things and care little about temporary things – a great mindset for long-term thinking.”
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AI and the Jevons paradox – via Benedict Evans
“It also tends to mean that you change what you do. To begin with, we make the new tool fit the old way of working, but over time, we change how we work to fit the tool. When CC Baxter’s company bought a mainframe, they began by automating the way they already did things, but over time, new ways to run the business became possible. So, all of this is to say that by default, we should expect LLMs to destroy, displace, create, accelerate and multiply jobs just as SAP, Excel, Mainframes or typewriters did. It’s just more automation. The machine lets a person do 10x the work, but you need the person.”
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Principles of an asymmetric life – via Graham Weaver
“I learned that, yes, it is possible to reduce one’s downside, but it is not possible to eliminate it. The better strategy is to seek opportunities where the possibility of gains wildly outweighs what you can lose, which is typically capped at 1x your investment. Further, there are criteria, which, when you stack them on top of each other, don’t stack linearly; they become logarithmic — or asymmetric. For example, if you have an incredible management team who builds a great team to support them, moves at a fast pace, operates in a large industry, can redeploy large amounts of capital at high returns, and is willing to do so over a long time – then you’re not playing for a 1.5x or 2.0x outcome, you could be playing for a 10x, 20x, or even 100x outcome.”
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The road to self-renewal – via John Gardner
“But we have to bet on people, and I place my bets more often on high motivation than on any other quality except judgment. There is not perfection of techniques that will substitute for the lift of spirit and heightened performance that comes from strong motivation. The world is moved by highly motivated people, by enthusiasts, by men and women who want something very much or believe very much. I’m not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, ‘Be interested.’ Everyone wants to be interesting but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out.”
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How to be an outlier – via Paul Graham
“For example, to do something exceptionally well, you have to be interested in it. Mere diligence is not enough. So in a world with superlinear returns, it’s even more valuable to know what you’re interested in, and to find ways to work on it. It will also be important to choose work that suits your circumstances… Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. These look smooth from a distance, but up close they’re full of gaps. Notice and explore such gaps, and if you’re lucky one will expand into a whole new field. Take as much risk as you can afford; if you’re not failing occasionally you’re probably being too conservative. Seek out the best colleagues. Develop good taste and learn from the best examples. Be honest, especially with yourself. Exercise and eat and sleep well and avoid the more dangerous drugs. When in doubt, follow your curiosity. It never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.”
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Life lessons from a Wall Street legend – via Byron Wien
“Concentrate on finding a big idea that will make an impact on the people you want to influence. The Ten Surprises, which I started doing in 1986, has been a defining product. People all over the world are aware of it and identify me with it. What they seem to like about it is that I put myself at risk by going on record with these events, which I believe are probable and hold myself accountable at year-end. If you want to be successful and live a long, stimulating life, keep yourself at risk intellectually all the time.”
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Foundation models – via Gavin Baker
“This isn’t a ‘Game of Kings.’ This is a ‘Game of Emperors.’ Amazon trying to enter the game via Anthropic which is a ‘Crown Prince’ at best right now. Google invested in Anthropic primarily to help TPU ecosystem – Amazon likely needs both the LLM engineering talent (no great internal LLM yet) and to help Trainium ecosystem. Bedrock good strategy though and P5 is the best H100 instance. Apple is nowhere which is a risk to them – their only potential friend is Grok/Tesla with some shot of Microsoft/OpenAI via a search deal for Bing. Meta could’ve been a friend, but whoops – ATT sure was fun but a few years later turned out to have been irrelevant and only increased the competitive advantages of the largest apps like Meta. Exact opposite of what Apple wanted to accomplish Possible that if Gemini leads to a dramatically superior assistant vs. Siri then Android starts really gaining share.”
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The “ingredients” of all great investment ideas – via Alix Pasquet
“The investment business is tough. There are people out there staying up at night scheming of ways to take you down. They’re waiting for you guys to come because they know you’re not going to have the experience, and they’re going to want to compete against you. So be ready for this. I used to be a professional gambler. I wasn’t a very good one, but I made a lot of money. And the reason is I picked my spots. I competed against rich people that had big egos that did not know how to gamble as well as I did. That’s how you make money. You’re looking for the same thing in capital markets.”
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The creative, compounding power of focus – via Kevin Ashton
“Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes. Saying ‘no’ has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined… The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.”
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Simple techniques to improve your learning – via Shane Parrish
“The greatest enemy of learning is what you think you know. When you think you know something, learning something new means you might have to change your mind, so it’s easy to think there’s no room for new ideas. But not wanting to change your mind will keep you stuck in the same place. Overcoming our egos can be one of the big challenges of learning. Therefore, being willing to admit when you’re wrong and adjust your thinking is the thing that will help you learn the most. The first step to learning is recognizing your ignorance and deciding to do something about it.”
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“When you’re out in the woods, you see ecosystems. You see systems everywhere…. As I’ve sat in the woods and observed wildlife, it has occurred to me that there are animals that resemble business models. [For example,] we have a lot of coyotes on our property. Coyotes are successful because they have a great ‘business model’: they only attack when they have an enormous, overwhelming advantage. They are wired to have a margin of safety.”
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The emperor is naked – via Tom Morgan
“The internet has gifted us a unique mechanism for global coordination, for revolutionary cultural phase changes. And the last three years have show that these can propagate through the system almost instantaneously. But revolutions aren’t always positive. The primary flaw of many of these viral social movements so far is that they have too often focused on making distinctions, drawing divisions and ostracising our shadows. You can’t believe we’re all connected, precisely as you try to cancel someone.”
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