Johanna

@johannaeinsiedler

Notoriously Curious, Data Science Nerd & Entrepreneurship Advocate Author of CuratedCuriosity - a bi-weekly newsletter with hand picked recommendations for your information diet

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Write code, talk to users, and build the company (hire the best people you can find, get the culture right, fundraise, close sales, etc.) Most other things that founders do are a waste of time.

Sam Altman • Startup Advice

Jargon hides our lack of understanding. When forced to write out an idea from start to finish in simple language, you discover where you struggle … where it doesn’t quite make sense … where you get frustrated … where you don’t really understand as well as you thought. Only by identifying gaps in your knowledge can you fill them.

Farnam Street • The Feynman Technique: Master the Art of Learning

I think that the perception of stagnation in science – and in biology specifically – is basically fake news, driven by technological hedonic treadmill and nostalgia. We rapidly adapt to technological advances – however big they are – and we always idealize the past – however terrible it was.

Alexey Guzey • How Life Sciences Actually Work: Findings of a Year-Long Investigation - Alexey Guzey

Things that reduce the odds of long-term success: + Saying yes to too many things. + Making excuses. + Staying up late. + Eating poorly. + Checking email first thing in the AM. + Working more to fix being busy. + Buying things you... See more

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High Performance Lifestyle and

Certain features of the modern academic system, like underpaid PhDs, interminably long postdocs, endless grant-writing drudgery, and clueless funders have lowered productivity. The 1930s academic system was indeed 25x more effective at getting researchers to actually do good research.

Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex) • Is Science Slowing Down?

There is no evidence that sleep was universally segmented, and there is also little evidence that segmented sleep is better. A 2021 meta-analysis of studies on biphasic sleep schedules found that segmented-sleeping subjects actually reported “lower sleep quality … and spent more time in lighter stages of sleep.” One reasonable takeaway is that... See more

Derek Thompson • Can Medieval Sleeping Habits Fix America’s Insomnia?

Is the Controlled Substances Act really responsible for the general decline since 1970? We’re not sure, but what is clear is that drugs are foundational technologies, like the motor, combustion engine, semiconductor, or the concept of an experiment. New drugs lead to scientific revolutions. Some of those drugs, like coffee, continue to fuel fields... See more

Slime Mold Time Mold • Higher than the Shoulders of Giants; Or, a Scientist’s History of Drugs

Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia

Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex)slatestarcodex.com

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Take a problem, say analyzing a business’s profits (as in consulting). Break it down into logically exhaustive possibilities , e.g. “revenue” and “costs”. Break down each branch further into its component parts, e.g. revenue becomes price * quantity. Follow this process recursively, each time breaking the tree down into components.

Now you have a