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Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

geohot.github.io

11–20 of 496 posts

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#11

People keep rediscovering the Bhagavad Gita in new ways https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/2/47/

> You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

I have a hard time interpreting that as what geohotz is saying. If anything it seems to promote rent seekers by telling you - stick to your lane and don't complain. I.e. the caste system

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#14
post #10

Even if your goal is to go out and create value for others, your contribution is proportional to what everyone else can offer. If others with AI will deliver that value cheaper, or if what I am good at can be easily automated, it's getting harder and harder to deliver more value than I consume.

Is it? If "others with AI" deliver what you consume, it should also make it easier to deliver more than you consume because what you consume becomes cheaper.

Maybe a part of the anxiety is the realization that much if what was delivered by well-paid people before AI is actually not something the very same people want to consume?

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#15
post #7

> The trick is not to play zero sum games. This is what I have been saying the whole time. Go create value for others and don’t worry about the returns. This strategy is highly effective but it's also difficult to tolerate as an ordinary advanced ape. Watching others play less noble games and obtain easier wins can be discouraging over time. I have found that the less you care about money the easier it is to acquire.…

I care less about receiving the money and more about the implications people have regarding money.

For example, when I'd joined a company I did not get any travel expenses. They expected me to pay the 200 euros a month myself. I'd suggested it and they shrugged it off. The company is now firing people and others are leaving.

The current company just has a default rate of money you get per km. They don't need to, but they know people want this and will ask about it.

Its a small example but it gives you a view of how a company operates

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#16
To refer back to the trite business book section - making something new is a Blue Ocean Strategy approach. Fighting for existing market share is a bloodied Red Ocean approach that Thiel called “competition is for losers”. So both benevolent and be greedy approaches recommend the same. Make a new puddle for everyone to swim in and you can focus on empathy instead of defense.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#17

Can anyone explain the rent seeker paragraph? Which companies are playing 0 sum game and which are not? Are all big players not rent seekers?

Do you think e.g. the AI/LLM boom is all rent seeking? Do you think there's no positive value for the world on the recently announced e.g. MacBook Neo and that it's purely a monopolistic activity? Those are 2 clear recent examples of big players making massive benefits for the world, and I'm okay if they get X% of that value as company valuation.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#18
Two things.

> If you don’t use this new stupid AI thing you will fall behind. If you haven’t totally updated your workflow you are worth 0.

When I see this on any social platform, that is a sign that a VC / investor already invested or likely over-invested in said product and is manipulating emotions to shill their portfolio companies.

This is a tired tactic repeated and recycled tens of thousands of times over and over again and the first sense is to ignore them.

> That said, if you have a job where you create complexity for others, you will be found out. The days of rent seekers are coming to an end. But not because there will be no more rent seeking, it’s because rent seeking is a 0 sum game and you will lose at it to bigger players.

This is why many here are realizing the uncomfortable truth about why complexity over simplicity was celebrated. Of course job security.

But it turns out that the low hanging fruit at those companies that added close to no value LLMs were enough to achieve "AGI" internally; (meaning layoffs in this case).

The jobs of knowledge workers will still be there, but the big money just went into data centers (and not overpaying for more knowledge workers).

The truth is in the middle.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#19
post #14
post #10

Even if your goal is to go out and create value for others, your contribution is proportional to what everyone else can offer. If others with AI will deliver that value cheaper, or if what I am good at can be easily automated, it's getting harder and harder to deliver more value than I consume.

Is it? If "others with AI" deliver what you consume, it should also make it easier to deliver more than you consume because what you consume becomes cheaper. Maybe a part of the anxiety is the realization that much if what was delivered by well-paid people before AI is actually not something the very same people want to consume?

Problem is that "others with AI" aren't producing what I consume, i.e food, heat, clothing, housing and health care.

They're just producing what I produce, i.e software.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#20

Can anyone explain the rent seeker paragraph? Which companies are playing 0 sum game and which are not? Are all big players not rent seekers?

Do you think e.g. the AI/LLM boom is all rent seeking? Do you think there's no positive value for the world on the recently announced e.g. MacBook Neo and that it's purely a monopolistic activity? Those are 2 clear recent examples of big players making massive benefits for the world, and I'm okay if they get X% of that value as company valuation.

Wait what's a new laptop doing to push the needle exactly? Genuinely curious
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