Aspiring Renaissance Man. Polytropic. Philosophy & physiology.
Mount Vesuvius
Joined January 2020
- Tweets7.3K
- Following858
- Followers8.5K
- Likes60K
The bad news is my health has deteriorated significantly this year as I've worked (and stressed) more than I ever have before.
The good news is I just bought a house.
I bet lots of Real Men™ mocking these guys would be perfectly fine if they were instead listening to Lounge Jazz™, Smoking Cigars™ & Drinking Cold Beer™... when in fact both scenarios are essentially the same. I feel for them. One cannot LARP oneself out of the FagWorld.
The epitome of this is eugenics btw.
Okay. I’ll take the bait.
I went to work for Peter in 2013 with opposite politics.
He sat me down right at the beginning.
PETER: “I don’t want the (Thiel) Foundation to do good that the market can do. That is the job of the market. Likewise, I don’t want to do the good work that is seen as good. That work can be done by people richer, weaker and more needy of approval than we are. I want us to do only the work that is *deeply* good but somehow confused for being evil, because that is the work of the courageous and the strong. We strive to be both and that is where a small foundation can make the greatest positive difference. Go look for such good and let’s do that. But remember. Good has TWO different antonyms. What is “bad work”? It could be seen as shoddy work. Or it could be seen as evil work. And we can’t do shoddy work. Why? Because evil that isn’t competent never gets to be evil. It’s just pathetic. So we have to be exceptionally competent at the good work which we do to make sure it is always confused for evil.”
I thought it totally logical. So that’s the argument. And that’s classic Peter.
This is an old idea of his. And now you know.
Yago | Impero retweeted
One year in the making: semantic search engine.
6,258 documents. 202,826 passages. 490 interviews with audio synced to the timestamp. 481 books. 2,650 Haidut posts. 356 email Q&As.
Hybrid keyword + semantic + Ask.
Filter to Ray’s own words. Click a hit, play that second.
Not saying I agree with him. I love AI and think we should move forward faster. Still, I understand his POV in that regard and have experienced its sort of alienating consequences myself. For us mere humans, "effort is the algorithm".
IIRC he fears the way AI solves maths problems sacrifices the kind of serendipitous (often collaborative) insight that strengthens and moves the field forward. Kind of like snapping your fingers and being jacked but still not knowing how to exercise properly.
"It's Mexican Coke. It's really good."
>ChatGPeaty confirmed
This is Sam Altman at 25 years old, pitching Loopt to a person in a diner
It’s strange to watch now because he runs one of the most influential companies in the world
The app was a location-sharing app but nobody thinks about it when they think of Sam
It got me wondering how many founders are probably in their Loopt era rn?
The company they’re working on may not be the one they become known for
It might just be the company that teaches them how to sell, hire, raise money, and keep going long enough to find "it"
But at the time, it looks like a kid trying to explain a weird location app to a stranger over lunch