Johanna

Giving everyone a set amount every year won’t create the highway systems, subway systems, nuclear power plants, hoover dams, space programs, water filtration systems, and more that we need as a society overall. In fact, if the total UBI system cost as a percent of tax receipts becomes too large, UBI may preclude these things from ever being built.... See more

All of these lines of evidence lead me to the same conclusion: constant growth rates in response to exponentially increasing inputs is the null hypothesis. If it wasn’t, we should be expecting 50% year-on-year GDP growth, easily-discovered-immortality, and the like.

“I will fail many times, and I will be really right once” is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.

Ideally, you want to pay people just enough they don’t stress about cash flow. Equity is harder, but a good rule for the first 20 hires seems to be about double what your investors suggest.

Why not? Suppose that half of past geniuses were tutored this way, and half weren’t. Even if every single genius who was tutored owed his genius entirely to the tutoring, the tutoring could only explain half of geniuses. That means that after the tutoring stopped, we would expect half as many geniuses. But Hoel is making a stronger claim: that... See more

Finally, to repeat one more time: productivity in the wrong direction isn’t worth anything at all. Think more about what to work on

However, this creates less wealth overall as work is no longer given to where it’s done most efficiently. This breaks the primary component of capitalism. The second solution is some sort of socialism, where the government introduces new laws and systems to redirect money to attempt to balance the system manually. This will help, but creates less... See more

One of the best ways to build a network is to develop a reputation for really taking care of the people who work with you. Be overly generous with sharing the upside; it will come back to you 10x. Also, learn how to evaluate what people are great at, and put them in those roles.

The guy is amazing and has done great work for me before. Why shouldn’t I show him that I appreciate it? So I emailed him one day and said “hey, I want to do this right and I want you to know I appreciate your work. I’m raising the contract to $6,000.” He didn’t ask for that, I just did it.