innovation culture

The West Coast quiet served its purpose. In isolation I developed theories about creativity and collaboration. But theories only get you so far on their own. At some point you have to go beyond putting ideas into the world and get to work manifesting them.

Americans as a whole will be frustrated and enraged if they understood just how much NEPA and other regulations are weaponized by progressives to block the government from getting anything done. Therefore the only battles the “power” faction can hope to win are internecine fights against the abundance faction. And so, a bit like the leftists with t... See more

But it's also true that right now is a great time to do something ambitious. Robin Hanson calls the present "the dreamtime", following a concept in Aboriginal myths: the time when the future world order and its values are still liquid, not yet set in stone.

The default outcome?

Let's grant the assumptions at the start of this post and the above analysis. Then, the post-labour-replacing-AI world involves:

• Money will be able to buy results in the real world better than ever.


• People's labour gives them less leverage than ever before.


• Achieving outlier success through your labour in most or all areas is now

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Free market logic describes how the laws of supply and demand incentivize providing the best goods at the lowest prices. But custom means economic decisions are made unthinkingly, outsourced to tradition, which might be political, ideological, or even aesthetic in origin. By law and in practice, the entire U.S. banking system has been fully guarant... See more

But the choice of a main programming language is the most important signaling behavior that a technology company can engage in. Tell me that you program in Java, and I believe you to be either serious or boring. In Ruby, and you are interested in building things quickly. In Clojure, and I think you are smart but wonder if you ship. In Python, and I... See more

One of the lessons that TMitTB has tried to get across to you, the big message that matters most to him, is that code is never done; after shipping the new platform (no longer a website, this is a platform), with all its interlocking components, he and his team will continue to work on it forever. There will always be new bugs, new features, new ne... See more

Data management is the problem that programming is supposed to solve. But of course now that we have computers everywhere, we keep generating more data, which requires more programming, and so forth. It’s a hell of a problem with no end in sight. This is why people in technology make so much money. Not only do they sell infinitely reproducible noth... See more

In my first week, diving into the Linear UI redesign, I realized how powerful this focused environment could be. Without the constant need to over-communicate or ‘prove’ productivity, I could pour all my energy into the craft itself. Over time, this environment has allowed me to work with a sense of calm and purpose, even when tackling high-stakes ... See more

Parc was "effectively non-profit" because of our agreement with Xerox, which also included the ability to publish our results in public writings (this was a constant battle with Xerox). In the end, all the technologies got out in useful ways. ARPA was non-profit, but had many commercial spin-offs, and this was regarded as "the way things should be"... See more