Aswath Krishnan

I enjoyed all three of them this week :) Cooking is remarkably more efficient when done in bulk. Cooking for 6 people or for a week isn’t that much harder than cooking for 2 or for a single meal. This is because the bulk of cooking involves “fixed cost” activities - researching the recipe, buying ingredients, combining them, and cleaning up - that don’t vary much with quantity.  Cooking and eating are essential, universal, and time-consuming. So I’m a fan of companies and inventions that leverage this efficiency of “cooking in bulk” but also preserve the affordability, freshness, and satisfaction of homemade food. Typically they achieve this by doing 80% of the cooking and leaving the last 20% to the consumer. Packaged foods and food delivered from restaurants are too close to 100% and have the downsides of being too expensive, unhealthy, or stale.  Tea bags are perfect. 

Every few weeks, I stumble upon yet another think piece warning against starting B2C software businesses. The argument often boils down to this: B2C is a financial black hole—a worse gamble than a lottery ticket. Even Y Combinator, the quintessential startup breeding ground, seems to have shifted its focus toward B2B, a trend that many see as a reflection of market realities. But let’s pause here. Doesn’t this advice feel... odd? Take a look around your home. Most of what you own—your clothes, gadgets, kitchenware, and maybe even that Peloton collecting dust—are B2C products. Your credit card bill? It’s dominated by B2C expenses: groceries, subscriptions, travel, and entertainment. If consumers are spending so much, why is B2C suddenly considered an entrepreneurial minefield? Let’s unpack this. The Real Scope of B2C Success First, the anti-B2C sentiment overwhelmingly targets software startups , not physical products or services. And even within software, it tends to exclude "hybr...

The CEO of Coinbase shared this advice to pre-PM fit startup founders and it really resonated:  https://twitter.com/StartupArchive_/status/1738905209093468459 Low certainty pursuits and decisions, like your life purpose or philosophy, career or startup idea to pursue, who’d be an ideal life partner, where would you like to live, etc. are often the most impactful and the most challenging aspects of our lives.  They are unique in the sense you don’t have enough information to make a rational choice. The options and their outcomes are unknowns. So we can get stuck in analysis-paralysis trying to figure them out intellectually. But that doesn’t solve the core problem - the lack of information and certainty. The way to get more information is to act - go explore, ask around, and try things out. Keep an open mind, your cycles fast and, learn from them.  The best way to see through the fog is to take a few steps forward into the unknown. 

  I applied for a grant this year and the granters shared that 90% of the applications were submitted just 2 days before the deadline!  This isn't uncommon. The majority of people are deadline-driven. We do a chore whenever it's urgent and absolutely necessary (unless it's a recurring habit or routine). This is why creating urgency and setting a deadline is key for your own personal endeavors and when you expect others to do something. But our brains aren't that easy to trick. They know when a deadline is fake. So you need to make it as real and consequential as possible.  This is why retailers have limited-time offers and sales - to force a buying decision or miss out on a great offer. This is why it's important to set a target response date whether you are fundraising or hiring someone. This is why you are more likely to succeed if you sign up for half marathons or business targets.  Deadlines convert something that's only important to something urgent and imp...

A recent survey showed that more than half of Americans hate their jobs. Probably another 30% feel pretty neutral about them. r/antiwork is one of the largest communities in Reddit and growing. So many people are looking to retire early (or FIRE). The common complaints against work are the lack of a decent pay and benefits, potential for growth, work-life balance, meaning, respect, etc. Many people also justifiably think they can’t have a good life like their parents did despite working a job. There’s a pent up negativity against evil and heartless corporates and middle managers that treat workers as expendable resources.  Maybe work was always seen as a necessary evil, but it seems like the relationship has become more negative in the last few decades. It feels like the capitalistic machinery has taken a wrong turn. Perhaps attitudes have also changed to want more leisure and comfort for less work, thanks to the unrealistic lifestyles popularized on the internet and the Cambrian e...

Dobby, the lovable elf in Harry Potter, is often filled with so much self-loathing that it’s hard to watch. You want to hug him and reassure him that he’s okay and he’s loved. It’s even harder because Dobby isn’t just a fictional character in a made-up magical world. Dobby is very real - we all have one within us.  Our inner Dobby is often our meanest boss, negligent carer, and harshest critic. Inner Dobby is often upset or unhappy with us. Inner Dobby never thinks we are good enough. Inner Dobby never thinks we deserve a break.  I want to hug mine and everyone else’s inner Dobby, and reassure them with this short poem - 

The popular wisdom is to learn from failures.  And I agree, you should. We are going to make a number of mistakes, especially if we pursue unpaved paths and risky ventures. Without bold risks and mistakes, we as humanity will not stand where we are. So being open to risk, mistakes and learning from them is crucial. Mistakes are also humbling - they force us to take a pause and reflect, whereas success can breed ego and complacency. But I’d posit there’s more learning in successes. Take a founder who has attempted 4 failed businesses vs a founder who has 1 successful business. Who do you think has more valuable knowledge? I’d argue that the second founder knows at least one way to succeed and can replicate that. But the first founder can avoid a few ways to fail they have learned and has probably built up resilience to failures, but they are still left with hundreds of other ways to fail. They still don’t know a single path to success. There’s a tongue in cheek wisdom - “Most happy ...

If you think the Buddha is a religious leader and Buddhism is a religion, you are somewhat mistaken.  Buddha was the first prolific DIY psychologist. He spent years observing his own mind, experimenting, and coming up with astute observations and techniques to alleviate suffering and increase joy.  According to the Buddha, the root of all unhappiness is just one thing - "tanha". You can think of it as the quick grabby feeling that arises when we just can't accept a situation and when there’s disharmony between reality and our (mostly subconscious) selves. It manifests in many forms - fear, craving, anger, desire, worry, etc.  I think of tanha as “mental clenching" arising from “knots” or sore spots. Similar to muscular knots or kinks in a hose, they prevent the natural flow of movement and life. Almost every person in the world is knotting and clenching thousands of times every day in different ways. Reducing the knotting may be the most powerful lever to improve our...

A few years ago, two different friends of mine started startups with nearly the same idea - a coaching/mentorship marketplace for professionals. They had similar backgrounds and teams. Their products also were functionally identical. One friend has shuttered the business, and the other seems to be growing strong. How did that happen? The friend who's still in the game was heavily focused on building a social following and community. She did multiple LinkedIn posts a week, attended events, met people 1:1, and hosted events. Eventually, she developed a community of over 50,000 professionals. She knew the community was the heart of the business and started with a community-first approach. She was also good at it and enjoyed doing it. The other friend was simply focused on building the software product. He was also more introverted and didn't enjoy posting publicly or organizing communities.  A lot of tech founders make the critical mistake of assuming that building a startup means...

I have used this product called Mudwtr for a few months.  Mudwtr is a powdered mix of supplements like Lion’s mane, Reishi, Turmeric, etc. Most people have probably not heard of these or are convinced about their benefits. But Mudwtr didn’t position their product as a wellness supplement or nootropic. That’d appeal to an enthusiastic but very small market of body and mind hackers.  Instead, they did something brilliant. They mixed masala chai (tea) with it and positioned it as a coffee alternative. They started talking about how this is better than a coffee, instead of trying to sell people on wellness benefits of taking dried mushroom supplements.  It’s much more familiar and easier to understand. It’s an easier purchase decision to try a different coffee vs taking a mushroom supplement. It fits into their current lifestyle. 75% of the world drinks coffee - so suddenly their target market is 100x! Nearly the same product, but with much more effective positioning.  L...

This paragraph from Ayn Rand's "Philosophy - who needs it?" speech and especially the remark on the nature of the subconscious resonated with me. "A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown." The subconscious mind is quick, intuitive, and emotional. The conscious mind is deliberate, logical, rational, and unemotiona...

This is a trick question. Most of you would say no; definitely not even the smartest chimp. Then I’d say - aha! relative to the scope and complexity of the universe, humans aren’t that much smarter than chimps. So humans can’t decipher the universe either!  It's a humbling and eventually comforting thought. We pride ourselves on being the most intelligent species on Earth, yet when it comes to the scale of the universe's mysteries, are we that much more enlightened than our chimp cousins?

I have long been interested in the mind. Why wouldn’t everyone be?! Everything we perceive as life is through the mind. So much so that you can even hypothesize that the entire universe is conjured within the mind, rather than the other way around.  The mind remains a mystery to us. But luckily, we don’t need to fully understand how something works to be able to operate it sufficiently well. Anyone who drives a car, browses the internet, uses a microwave, or relies on gravity to stay put would agree. We have discovered several techniques to alter this black box of mind to be more pleasant and effective.  This is my semi-organized brain dump of some of those across 3 broad realms - 

I still remember the phone call 14 years later, so it clearly meant a lot to me. In my final year of college in Singapore, I was selected to interview with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) . BCG Singapore was known to be extremely selective - interviewing only a handful of people every year and hiring maybe 1 or 2. So the pressure was on and I spent every ounce of my energy in the next 1-2 weeks preparing for the interview. I also bought and borrowed some nice clothes and got a haircut to look presentable. The interview day arrived. I was nervous but as prepared as I could be. I did okay, but I knew I hadn't really nailed it. A couple of days later, I got a phone call. It was one of the partners who had interviewed me. He shared the bad news quickly - I didn't receive the job offer. He also explained that he was the dissenting partner, so he was calling to explain his decision. He talked through the case study (it was about a small airport trying to grow profitable), highlighted t...

It's been a few weeks since I published my first book - The 5-Step Job Search . I feel happy about the milestone and how the book has been received. But I have to admit that I also feel conflicted about writing a book on the topic of job searching. I was confident it was needed and would be helpful - that isn't the problem. I feel conflicted because it's a band-aid to succeed in an inherently broken system that I have come to despise, despite being reasonably good at it. I'd much rather prefer if we can fix the system. I'd much rather prefer if we made the system perfectly meritocratic so that everyone can just focus on being good at their jobs and be magically placed in the right job for them, rather than spending even an ounce of energy in learning to be good at this bizarre skill of job searching.

"Be healthy" is a misleading and unhelpful slogan and goal.  Most young or middle-aged people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s enjoy "good enough" health. So being healthy isn't a very inspiring or urgent call to action. It's a low bar that they have already hit.   The health issues start in their 50s and beyond.  Fitness, as measured by strength, speed, flexibility, or endurance, is a much better goal because most people would agree they aren't fit enough and fitness is actually a leading indicator of long-term health.

In poker, there’s a concept called selective aggression to maximize your winnings - be conservative when you have an okay hand but get aggressive whenever you have a good one.  A few years back, I got a good hand in my career. I was doing really well in the job and had also developed a good rhythm and reputation. I was also getting paid over 3X what I had ever made before, with a path to more raises and promotions.  But instead of doubling down, I decided to roll the die again and take up another opportunity that seemed interesting. Turns out I didn’t roll sixes this time.  The lesson is that life is always going to be a game of chance. When you hit a winner, double down. Explore and extract.  This is true for business as well. It’s extremely hard to find a Product-Marlet fit, but when you do, go all-in and extract as much as possible, rather than exploring another P-M fit. This is also true in investing, relationships, hobbies, or habits. 

I published my first book last week, and I’m very happy about the milestone and how it’s been received so far.  The process has made me more familiar with the Amazon Kindle bookstore. I’m suddenly aware there are tons of books published and many of them seem quite promising. But despite that most never really take off in a big way.  This has made me realize that the secret to success isn’t doing just one hard thing. Writing a book is hard! It takes a ton of motivation, resilience, domain knowledge, writing skills, and creativity. But clearly, just doing that one hard thing isn’t enough.  But if you combine that one hard thing with another hard thing, you dramatically increase your chances. If you do a tour promoting your book, run a marketing campaign, or if you have already earned a reputation in your domain, your book suddenly rises above all others.  The reason is simple - there are 7 billion people in the world and we have a pretty efficient market. For any singl...

I have been splitting my time between a part-time PM role and starting my own company. In both, I realized breakthroughs and progress happen because of one main underlying character trait.  Obsession.  Obsession about the domain.  Obsession about the customer and problem.  Obsession about the goals and strategy.  Obsession about the current product and business.  Obsession about execution details.  Obsession about delivery. Obsession about feedback and results. Obsession about learning and improving.  Obsession with the craft of PM and product development. When you are obsessed, there's a constant thread in your brain that's always obsessing about all these factors. You are also constantly researching, learning, tinkering, discussing, ideating, and iterating.  Obsession, when combined with curiosity, knowledge, intellect, and collaboration , leads to clarity, evolution of ideas, elegant simplifications, breakthroughs, and getting all the deta...

We can all agree that it would kinda suck to exist alone in the universe. Adversity with friends is better than success or comfort alone.  Hear it from Shaq: “I live in a 30 thousand square foot house by myself. You don’t think I know I messed up?” I appreciate whatever transpired to get us to this moment in reality because it brought us together, with each other, capable of problem-solving, empathy, kindness, togetherness, play, and love.  We can make lives better for each other - less suffering, more enjoyable, and more meaningful. In fact, that may be the only way to do it.  The ego is often the root of most unhappiness. When we focus on just the I, just ourselves, we suffer. The I is a small, transient, fickle, greedy, and fearful illusion.  When we focus beyond us - our loved ones, our society, all of humanity, all of everything - we feel limitless and we thrive. Be it your personal life or your career/business, expand your focus beyond yourself. 

This Zinda Banda track from the new Bollywood blockbuster, "Jawan," has taken over my playlist recently. It's not just Anirudh's peppy music or Shah Rukh Khan's swag.  What truly speaks to me is the lyrical essence of the song, which has crystallized a powerful epiphany I've had in recent months. A realization that serves as a clarion call whenever I find myself teetering on the edge of self-doubt or an important decision in my startup or life journey. *** Banda Ho To Zinda Ho! If you're alive, truly live! Banda Zinda Ho To Zinda Nazar Haana Zaroori Hai! To be alive, it’s necessary to have a lively vision.  A few months ago, I took the plunge into entrepreneurship, leaving behind the relative stability of a 9-to-5 job. It was a leap of faith into a realm filled with uncertainties and risks. Entrepreneurs, you'll get me when I say the looming specter of failure has often kept me awake at night, pondering whether it's time to pack it up and return to...

This talk by Bill Gurley, a popular venture capitalist, is a master class in both the subject of regulatory capture and presentation. It's so well-crafted and powerful - the story-telling, the flow, the energy and intonation, the slides, the creative title and close, the eye-opening lived experiences and insider insights, the authenticity, and the truth to power and corruption.  It drives home that America is the land of capitalists. If you are a large business, there's probably no better place in the world. Conversely, if you are in America, consider starting a business or owning equity to thrive. Capitalists are the kings here.  Compare it to Europe, where capital gains taxes are high, and employees and consumers have strong protections and social services. Or to India, where politicians, cricketers, and movie stars are the kings. Or to China, where the CCP is the only monarch.  Most companies need to do some objective good for their customers to rise and survive, so th...

I woke up excited today because I had shared my new app on Reddit, and I was eager to check if it had taken off.  I have been waking up excited on many days over the last few months for similar reasons. I'd have taken a long shot the previous day - launched a new product, shared a blog or social media post, sent an email to an influential person, applied for an exciting job, etc. Long shots (or moon shots) have small odds of turning into something really big, exciting, and life-changing.  Extraordinary successes are almost always a result of taking long shots and asymmetric bets. Sam Altman in his blog on  How to be Successful , writes "I always choose a next project that, if successful, will make the rest of my career look like a footnote."   Most people, most of the time, are on a very linear path, with no possibility of a big win or exponential take-off. They don't buy any lottery tickets and they don't win any big prizes.  When you keep buying lottery t...

In a recent team meeting, someone announced we wouldn't be able to meet a project deadline and we'll have to move it to later. Not wanting to be pushy or unreasonable, I accepted and updated the date. But another colleague interjected and held the bar. He pointed out that we had slipped a few times already and rallied the team to figure out options to meet the date.  Oftentimes, we avoid hard things  and uncomfortable conversations, and try to be "naively nice". This leads to a slippery slope that snowballs into low accountability, performance, quality, outcomes, morale, and pent-up frustration. I say naively nice because ultimately this turns out to be not very nice to the team, stakeholders, managers, business, and customers.  The nicer way is to set clear and reasonable expectations, hold and raise the bar, provide direct and timely feedback, identify and fix the problems, and work together compassionately and collaboratively to make it happen.  Notes:  1. Am...

There is now plenty of great advice, thought leadership, frameworks, newsletters, podcasts, and courses for being a good product manager (this blog included).  Maybe even too much.  My simple advice that supersedes everything else is this: First, make $100 on the internet on your own.  My first job out of college was as a consultant for startups in an incubator in Ghana. While I could give helpful technical advice on how to build their products, I felt like an imposter when advising on the business or approach. I was a new grad who had never started a business on my own, so who the heck was I to share my business advice?! 

  I was watching this interview with Rich Barton, one of the few people in the world who has created multiple successful businesses across industries - Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor.* He recalls the story of how Zestimate (home price estimate) was created.  One of the investors, Bill Gurly, asked him a powerful question before they launched Zillow - what would you do if you had no ad budget?  Good questions can be life and business changing. And in this case, it turned out to be.  Rich and his team ended up creating Zestimate and market reports, which generated a lot of interest and organic traffic. Constraints breed creativity. Sometimes, imagination can solve problems better than money can.  Coincidentally, I watched another video on the same week where Linkedin's CBO shared how the other end of the spectrum - thinking without any constraints - leads to more creative solutions as well.  I'd square both these points into this one piece of advice: If you a...

Growing up in the middle class in India, the first 20 years of my life were somewhat consumed in the pursuit of academic, career, and financial success to secure a comfortable life. But now that I'm comfortable and have checked off those boxes, the same scarcity and survival mindset is unhelpful.  This quote really drove it home for me.  “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” – Tim O’Reilly Gasoline and money are really important when you are low. But they are hardly important if you have enough. The same can be said about other pursuits like fame. Get what you need, so you can finally enjoy the life you want.

The world always has a lot more skeptics than innovators. *** Skeptics question any change. While blindly accepting the status quo and all its flaws.  They are limited by their own fears, lack of vision, beliefs, and capabilities. They choose the easy path of nay-saying and changing nothing.  Innovators question the status quo.  They see a better way. They are eager to invent and try new things. They are bold, creative, capable, and action-oriented. They are choosing the hard path of solving problems and creating change. *** Every innovator is met with skeptics who try to douse their spirit. If you are trying to be an innovator, surround yourself with other innovators who energize you and help you figure out a way.  Notes:  1. Yes, there are thoughtful skeptics and clueless or evil innovators. 

A friend of mine was baffled that he wasn't getting promoted. He was getting his work done and coming up with good ideas. But people who were less capable seemed to be progressing faster.  "It's just stupid politics and unfairness", he grumbled. When the world doesn't seem to operate according to our expectations, guess where the problem is? Yeah, you got it...the expectations. When your model of the situation, and therefore your expectations, doesn't capture some key variables or dimensions, the course of events will baffle and frustrate you. In my friend's case, his model of the world derived from school where studying hard and doing well on your tests gets you good grades. But in the corporate world, it isn't that one-dimensional or clear-cut. Collaboration, enthusiasm, likability, influence, working on the right things, producing and demonstrating results, etc. matter in both promotions and impact. When things don't go as expected, instead of b...

 The secret to innovation... ...is to tackle a very specific problem. Obsessively, deeply, and excellently.  Given the vastness of human knowledge already, there probably isn't much low-hanging fruit of discovery in most areas (the circle isn't uniform as depicted, so it may be lower in some areas than others). So innovation needs depth.  Specific innovations and deep understandings of specific problems can possibly evolve into broad truths or innovations. But you are less likely to go deep and innovate if you are starting off broad.  Notes 1. There's a valid counterargument that broad knowledge across domains can help spark innovation through a general understanding of the world and by translating ideas from one domain to another. I have a center in the middle to represent a broad understanding. It's possible that 2 or 3 areas of focus might be better than 1, but I doubt 10 areas of focus (is that even focus?) is better than 1.  2. This was inspired by listenin...

I just finished the 23-mile, 5000-foot Enchantments hike in a single day.  Not going to lie - it kicked my ass, especially the relentless climb up Aasgard Pass .  But boy oh boy, it was beautiful to walk by pristine Alpine lakes. Even more significant and long-lasting was the exhilaration of being able to do something so difficult after being non-athletic and flatfooted most of my life. And that made me think... 🕊 The ability to do and enjoy hard things sets you free.   When I was deciding whether to do the hike, one of my friends jokingly said, "Worst case is you will be miserable!" The default human nature is to pursue the path of least resistance and immediate gratification to the local maxima. When you pursue comfort and stability, life has a way of slapping you back into harsh reality. Because stability is an illusion. Life is entropic and always changing.  On the other hand, if you aren't deterred by hard things - things that are high risk and hard to figure ...

I have fancied starting a business for a very long time.   Finally after getting my green card, building a financial safety net, learning by working at other businesses, and being inspired by the recent breakthroughs in AI, I took the plunge recently!  I'm sharing some reflections from my first few months.  Fair warning: all of these may change over time as I experience more and grow wiser.  1. Businesses are incredibly hard This is repeated often, but we still often underestimate or forget it as we are constantly inundated with victorious stories of very, very few survivors.  Finding and sustaining the right partners, ideas, customers, business models, teams, and investors is a long and tough journey. By default, your business is dead. You have to will it into existence and life every day with perseverance, smarts, support, and luck. There are many ups and downs, and tricky and hard decisions along the way.  I now empathize and understand why founders...

Find some quiet and relaxed setting to think through these questions.  1. What would you advise a friend? We are more clear-headed when we step back from the situation.  2. What feels more exciting and fulfilling? What would you do if you weren't afraid and if others won't know?  Fear and norms often hold us back.  3. What kind of life and lifestyle do you want?  What option ranks higher in your rubric? Having a structured approach with top factors and coarse ratings for each path+factor lets us be more objective and increases confidence in the decision.  4. What is the best-case scenario, most probable scenario, and worst-case scenario? Can you protect the downside? Outcomes are usually non-deterministic, so think in possibilities and probabilities.  5. Is this a one-way door or a two-way door? Most decisions are reversible. Spend more time and focus on those that aren't.  6. What are the 2nd and 3rd order effects? What happens after this decisio...

I distinctly remember this anecdote from Stephen Covey that I read many years ago.  At a workshop, a troubled participant approached him and confided that he and his wife weren't in love anymore. He desperately needed help to save his marriage.  Stephen Covey's advice was simple:  "Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love, the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her." Covey's reframe is powerful. He changed love from something that just happens to people to something they can deliberately do.  I think the same advice applies to the universal goal and challenge of enjoying life. If you want your life to be more enjoyable, you must enjoy life.  Enjoy is a verb. It's a choice, a mindset, and a way of living, thinking, and acting.  In fact, the word enjoy originates from the French word "enjoier", which means "to give joy" or "to take delight in". It is a s...

Even the most ardent free-willers will have to confront the origins of their will at some point.  Have you ever wondered what shapes your mind and behaviors? The influences that nudge us towards success or failure, happiness or despair? What makes our life unfold in the way it does? Let me share a mysterious experience from my high school years that puzzled me for a long time and only started making sense to me years later. MAX  When I was in grade 10, I went to a large book fair with my family. Like all events in India, it was bustling with people and energy. In the midst of the chaos, my family and I were drawn towards the stage that was particularly abuzz. The stage banner displayed the name ‘MAX’, short for 'Madras Academy for Excellence'. A group of people, who were national memory record-holders no less, were captivating the audience with their ability to quickly memorize long lists of words or facts and answer any questions about them. I was impressed and intrigued beca...

As Product Managers or entrepreneurs, we often have multiple good ideas and an exciting vision. That's necessary but not sufficient.  It's easy to come up with a large collection of many capabilities and features that can together make a product compelling to users and produce business impact. But that isn't practical.  Most individuals, startups, or teams within larger companies get defunded or lose steam before they can do everything they envision if they don't produce results along the way. The complexity of more also confuses users and overwhelms teams.  A startup founder wisely told me, "Startups don't starve...they drown." What's really important is identifying and prioritizing the minimal set of ideas or bets that are going to have the largest impact, and then distilling them to their core essence . The 20% of work that'll produce 80% of the results. You need to have the conviction and discipline to say no to everything else. Only if you do ...

Traditional software simply executes explicit instructions provided by Human Intelligence. This blog is powered by software. And like most software we use, it functions based on explicit instructions. When you are on a blog post, the code explicitly specifies to deliver content from a CMS or database that's tied to the blog post and then styles it as per explicit HTML and CSS-based instructions. When you are on the home page, the code explicitly asks to display the list of 50 recent blog posts from the database.  This software is really useful as it can execute more precisely, quickly, cheaply, and on a larger scale than humans. But it is also simply doing what the human developer explicitly instructed it to do.  Enter - Software powered by Artificial Intelligence. Human instructions not needed.  Let's take this ChatGPT Plugins demo.  ChatGPT is able to:  Create a meal plan Generate a visual of the meal Shop for the ingredients Tweet about it.  No explicit ...

🤯 1)  I had my first "Aha! moment" with #ChatGPT / #LLMs in November 2022, just around when ChatGPT was released.I had asked ChatGPT to draft the annual strategy for the company I was working at, without providing any additional context. I had only used ChatGPT to answer basic questions or generate poetry and didn't expect much in response to something more complex. But the answer that ChatGPT produced in a few seconds resembled what the exec team had drafted, in content, reasoning, and priority. A few more prompts and minutes later, ChatGPT also had answers for how to present the plan, organize the team, mitigate risks, and execute the plan. ChatGPT was able to replicate a lot of the strategic work of the highest-paid and most experienced people at the company in a fraction of time and cost! 🤯 2)  I experienced my second Aha! moment when I restarted programming last month after a hiatus. After some trial and error, I'm now able to get ChatGPT to now generate 75%-...

We have been talking about the progress of GPT (or ChatGPT) across versions 1 through 4. We measure them by the number of parameters, test scores, capability, range, accuracy, modalities, plugins, etc. We celebrate and are excited about the progress of every version. There are so many memes now hyping up what GPT-5 would be.  It just struck me that humans, as individuals and as a collective system, are also a form of intelligence. And humans have also been upgrading versions. We are on Human2023 right now. Wouldn't it be fascinating to similarly explore and celebrate the progress of humans and speculate about the future? Thanks to a technology developed by Human2022/23, it is now possible to generate a sweeping narrative that transcends the boundaries of time and space with a single prompt. Read on to take a step back, traverse the epochs of human evolution, celebrate the milestones of our past, and gaze with wonderment at the horizon of possibilities that awaits us.  ***...

I just watched Air, a fun and inspiring movie about how Nike, then an underdog in the shoe industry, managed to sign Michael Jordan, a rookie at that time. The movie starts with Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon) opposing his colleagues' decision to go with the low-risk and low-reward move of signing three average basketball players. Teams and companies operate a lot based on group discussions and consensus. Those don't usually lead to brilliance or extraordinary outcomes - they converge on average, which is why most companies slowly wither and die as they grow. But Sonny doesn't care for the consensus. His deep passion and expertise in basketball make him realize that Michael Jordan is going to be a superstar before most people did. He aims higher and dreams of signing Jordan, defying his bosses and other business restrictions. He makes bold moves, breaks rules, and risks his entire career to make it happen.  As this impossible idea starts to take shape and seem more pos...

Those who control the pipes of information, control the world.  It's a notion I have heard and generally agreed with. Humans are powerful agents in the world. Humans use information to act and human minds can be easily programmed by information. For instance, the "Stop the Steal" movement in the 2020 US Presidential Election, where disinformation led to a significant number of people believing the election was rigged. Controlling information is, in essence, controlling people. But it wasn't until a recent personal experience that the true impact of this control hit me. I was excited to launch a new business and decided to run some ads on Meta/Facebook. Imagine my surprise when, less than an hour after submitting my ad, it was flagged for a policy violation. I suspect an automated risk check program had detected some inexplicable issue and also penalized me for being a new ad publisher with a new page. Although the violation seemed thematically relevant to my ad, it wa...