Johanna

The right question to ask isn’t: Can we afford a basic income? The right question is: What’s the optimal level of basic income for our economy? How much basic income can our economy handle without causing inflation or other problems? To what extent will various taxes and other economic policies increase or decrease that amount?

A startup that prematurely targets a growth goal often ends up making a nebulous product that some users sort of like and papering over this with ‘growth hacking’. That sort of works—at least, it will fool investors for awhile until they start digging into retention numbers—but eventually the music stops.

Basically, this boils down to “use your personal networks more”. By at least a 10x margin, the best candidate sources I’ve ever seen are friends and friends of friends.

If it’s true that science is becoming harder, why is that the case?Suppose we think of science—the exploration of nature—as similar to the exploration of a new continent. In the early days, little is known. Explorers set out and discover major new features with ease. But gradually they fill in knowledge of the new continent. To make significant... See more

academia has a lot of problems and it could work much better. However, these problems are not as catastrophic as an outside perspective would suggest. My (contrarian, I guess) intuition is that scientific progress in biology is not slowing down. Specific parts of academia that seem to be problematic: rigid, punishing for deviation, career... See more

Now that drugs are illegal, only a small percentage of the population really has reliable access to them — the rich and powerful. This is a problem because drugs only seem to unlock a great creative potential in a small number of people. (...) Not everyone needs drugs to have great breakthroughs. “I do not do drugs,” said Salvador Dalí, “I am... See more

If you don't hire originals, you run the risk of people disagreeing but not voicing their dissent. You want people who choose to follow because they genuinely believe in ideas, not because they’re afraid to be punished if they don’t. For startups, there's so much pivoting that’s required that if you have a bunch of sheep, you’re in bad shape.