Curious Loop

“What should I do?”   Many people ask me this question: aspiring entrepreneurs looking for advice on how to start a business, friends who don’t know how to proceed with a love interest or a career choice, employees asking how to best make a decision at our company, and even my own mother

I’ve been a graduate student in physics for almost three years, but I only recently figured out why. I had to tackle a simple question do so: Why does this matter? I realized that I’d never forced myself to answer this honestly. As Paul Graham has pointed out, these systematic gaps in conversation should raise suspicion — they often indicate when you’re wrong about something important. I was wrong in thinking that my work mattered to me, and I avoided asking myself this question because I knew the answer would be painful.

It is not down in any map; true places never are. — Ishmael, Moby Dick I am fond of the mouse. Everywhere beset by larger powers, he succeeds with a wisdom of his own. He prospers by careful study of the world, and his profit is the knowledge overlooked by the bigger creatures. Humans may have built the house, but it is the mouse who knows all its passages. There is forever an unknown world within the known, forever more to uncover, and here is a creature dedicated to finding the cracks in reality. We would do well to learn from him, to cultivate

I turned 30 last week and a friend asked me if I'd figured out any life advice in the past decade worth passing on.  I'm somewhat hesitant to publish this because I think these lists usually seem...

For the past year, I've been compiling a list of inspirational speeches. See my list of 20+ famous speeches and their transcripts here.

Wish I had the guts and gumption to master this selfish skill early in life.

Lecture Transcript: http://www.tech.genius.com/Peter-thiel-lecture-5-business-strategy-and-monopoly-theory-annotated Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal and Palantir, discusses business strategy and monopoly theory in "Competition is For Losers". See the slides and readings at http://www.startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05 Discuss this lecture: http://www.startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/64034 Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:50 - Outline 00:00:57 - Capturing value 00:01:57 - Big piece of a small pie 00:03:37 - Perfect competition 00:04:31 - Monopoly 00:05:33 - Lies people tell 00:05:36 - Differences underestimated 00:06:59 - Narratives 00:07:54 - British food in Palo Alto 00:08:40 - Do the intersections make money? 00:08:45 - Blockbuster movie 00:09:29 - Is the intersection valuable? 00:09:35 - Startup version 00:10:11 - The search market 00:11:00 - The advertising market 00:11:29 - The technology market 00:12:36 - Evidence of narrow markets 00:13:28 - How to build a monopoly 00:13:39 - The right size 00:14:36 - Start small and expand 00:17:05 - Start big and shrink 00:18:40 - Last mover advantage 00:18:45 - Characteristics of monopoly 00:27:10 - Value of the future 00:27:55 - History of innovation 00:28:28 - Technological innovation 00:30:16 - Capturing value 00:31:59 - Success cases 00:37:03 - Psychology of competition 00:38:14 - Mimetic preferences 00:38:33 - Competition as validation 00:42:22 - Q&A 00:42:26 - Q1 00:43:01 - Q2 00:43:38 - Q3 00:44:34 - Q4 00:46:40 - Q5 00:47:55 - Q6

How to Start a Startup is a series of video lectures, initially given at Stanford in Fall 2014. Lecture Transcript: http://www.tech.genius.com/Paul-graham-lecture-3-counterintuitive-parts-of-startups-and-how-to-have-ideas-annotated Paul Graham delivers an informative (and highly amusing) talk, addressing counterintuitive parts of startups, in Lecture 3 of How to Start a Startup. See the readings at http://www.startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec03 Discuss this lecture: http://www.startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/64032

I ask a lot of people about their life plans. At least half of them tell me that they have no idea where to move and are just coasting along, not sure what to do next. Therefore, this post. What to work on? Y Combinator’s Requests for Startups Also see Jay Zaveri’s World’s Hardest Problems (via Gary Basin) José Luis Ricón’s (Artir) Technology some people are excited about Church Lab’s list of projects and of their implications (via Adam Marblestone) Also see …

It’s not a straightforward path, but there are countless ways in

My journey to finding love using science and data. Part 1 – how to own online dating.

Reddit discussion with 100 comments here. Summary: in this post I explain why you should start a blog (to help others and to help yourself), what to write about, and how to start it. I hope to persuade you that you should start a blog even if you feel that you have nothing to say and even if almost nobody will read it. What to write about I looked over all of my writing and determined that it all originated from one of the following: I repeatedly gave the same advice to my friends Why You …

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(Content warning: self-harm, parts of this post may be actively counterproductive for readers with certain mental illnesses or idiosyncrasies.) …

"No! Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try." —Yoda …

Making friends is hard. In college, you can befriend someone just for the sake of being friends. After college, relationships suddenly become transactional. You need a reason to meet someone. They, in turn, constantly evaluate what you can bring to the table.

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Instead of asking “Is university good?”, ask “Do I have something more compelling to do?”. Instead of “Should I do a PhD?”, ask “Where can I find the best environment to grow as a researcher?”.

Viewing time as space.

Answer (1 of 35): In "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" he talks about a conference he attended in Rochester and how Lee had tried to explain something to him and he felt it was too complicated for him to understand so he didn't even try to read the paper Lee had given him. He was staying at his...

Like developing perfect pitch, becoming a Grand Master of Memory, and winning a chess game against the World Champion

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more on Randy, visit: http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture Learn how to support the Randy Pausch Memorial Bridge, visit: http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/images/extras/emails/pausch/pausch_bridge.html