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Researchers and Founders

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Researchers and Founders

#41

Post by robocat »

Frost1x wrote: post #23

>Although there are always individual exceptions, on average it’s surprising to me how different the best people in these groups are (including in some qualities that I had assumed were present in great people everywhere, like very high levels of self-belief). This is an interesting quote. From my experience and personal perspectives, many of the best researchers and scientists doubt themselves, a lot, and are typica…

I love this quote from Jim Keller:

"I imagine 99% of your thought process is protecting your self-conception, and 98% of that is wrong."

Quote is at @1:23 (during the last half hour where the interview is mostly philosophical) of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA

Re: Researchers and Founders

#42

Post by abnercoimbre »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

On the blog I can't even properly query who the author is! Clicking on the Twitter button triggers a weird referral that requires me to login? I'm inclined to submit this as a dark pattern [0].

[0] https://www.darkpatterns.org/

Re: Researchers and Founders

#43

Post by vikramkr »

underdeserver wrote: post #32
vikramkr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the link you posted, there's a disclaimer that the author no longer endorses the post. Do you know why/is there an updated post from the author? I'm curious what changed in the author's thinking and what particularly they no longer agree with.

I just noticed that too. No idea. I also disagree with a lot of how the idea is presented in that text, but the idea itself - that if you get convinced of a basic point, you should extract the second, third, fourth and fifth order effect of that idea - is profound. It reminds me of a story of a startup that did cybersecurity for SCADA systems, for factories. They would connect to diagnostics APIs, do anomaly detectio…

I wondered if maybe he'd posted something else in the blog and I think I found it. Something about bad style, too few details, and something about contributing to bad norms?

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QePFiEKZ4R2KnxMkW/posts-i-re...

""Taking Ideas Seriously": Stylistically contemptible, skimpy on any useful details, contributes to norm of pressuring people into double binds that ultimately do more harm than good. I would prefer it if no one linked to or promoted "Taking Ideas Seriously"; superior alternatives include Anna Salamon's "Compartmentalization in epistemic and instrumental rationality", though I don't necessarily endorse that post either."

Re: Researchers and Founders

#44

Post by vikramkr »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

I think it's because they just launched a new moonshot venture fund? Though in that context I'd be more curious about what they find different between researchers and entrepreneurs since presumably, they want to turn a lot of the former into the latter. What'll they have to do to bridge the gap and make their venture firm a success?

Re: Researchers and Founders

#45

Post by hellofunk »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

I think it's common among many founders who became very successful for them to assume they have a special and deeper insight into how the universe works.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#46

Post by dbt00 »

vikramkr wrote: post #24
underdeserver wrote: post #4

I wonder what these differing qualities are, then. It sounds very generic, but I've found it to be true. If I spend time thinking about what's the best way forward, then just do it, relentlessly and persistently, and with a healthy disregard for cynicism and disbelief from others, I get a lot done. It also reminds me of the concept of "taking ideas seriously": https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Q8jyAdRYbieK8PtfT/taking-…

In the link you posted, there's a disclaimer that the author no longer endorses the post. Do you know why/is there an updated post from the author? I'm curious what changed in the author's thinking and what particularly they no longer agree with.

This appears to be his latest statement in that forum on that post.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QePFiEKZ4R2KnxMkW/posts-i-re...

Re: Researchers and Founders

#47

Post by vikramkr »

Frost1x wrote: post #23

>Although there are always individual exceptions, on average it’s surprising to me how different the best people in these groups are (including in some qualities that I had assumed were present in great people everywhere, like very high levels of self-belief). This is an interesting quote. From my experience and personal perspectives, many of the best researchers and scientists doubt themselves, a lot, and are typica…

I'll second that. In my anecdotal and limited experience, the outliers in successful entrepreneurship are the ones that project vulnerability/self-doubt, while the outliers in successful research are the ones that project a lack of self-doubt and create reality distortion fields around their work. The best of both seem to have self-confidence in their ability to succeed, and successful researchers seem confident that problems can be solved, and that they can solve them, but that seems to come with an embrace of uncertainty and an allowance for self doubt.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#48

Post by wyc »

I had to make the decision whether to start companies or pursue a career in research, and chose the former. I think I would've been happy with either. The thing I enjoy about both is that there are rarely closed-form solutions, as the problems are mostly open-ended in nature. This in turn has the potential to grant you absolute freedom to pursue what best matches your interests and values, even as they evolve. You just have to be okay with risk and uncertainty in the pursuit of what is interesting.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#49

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

liambuchanan wrote: post #27

People with the ability to "work hard" on "important problems" are not rare. People who have the privilege to do so are incredibly rare. It's disappointingly thoughtless not to acknowledge that in a post published on Juneteenth. If gatekeepers, like Sam, put a little more effort into acknowledging how they perpetuate systemic inequality, and trying to avoid it, they could have a huge impacts.

They are rare, friend. Most people havent grown up enough to be able to work on important problems, though they can be trained. Could you handle it, if you saw your best friend get struck by an explosive harpoon, fall into the ocean, drowning and bleeding to death in front of your very eyes? What about a mile long stretch of highway, almost a thousand charred bodies, dead or screaming in the middle of the night? How about watching an elderly woman waste away into nothing as her "caretakers" starve her to death? Can you really trust yourself to watch over millions of dollars for decades without stealing a little off the top? Are you ready for the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can occur when youre the only person who's willing or able to do the work?

I mean, youre always welcome to give it a shot if you think youre so good. I can guarantee though that the results will surprise you. Most people cant even handle raising a child, the most important work there is.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#50

Post by derekdahmer »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #42
bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

On the blog I can't even properly query who the author is! Clicking on the Twitter button triggers a weird referral that requires me to login? I'm inclined to submit this as a dark pattern [0]. [0] https://www.darkpatterns.org/

Sam’s name is the heading of the page, in the title and the domain name. The blog doesn’t have an about page.

Twitter is asking you to login because you clicked the “tweet” button to post a tweet linking the article and tweeting requires a twitter account.

Sam Altman is the former president of YC.

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