Something peripheral to the main product becomes the main product. The history of startups is full of these.
Instead of selling your technology to companies doing x, you use the technology yourself to do x in competition with them. And now you own the outside surface too.
network effects make companies more powerful. I’m always thinking about how to introduce them in places people wouldn’t expect. It’s a kind of challenges that feel like a massage to my brain.
so my parents are divorced, and yesterday they were arguing at my dad’s house about whom i would be with next week. This stuff usually happens a lot, so I drown it out by playing Fortnite in the living room. Out of nowhere, my dad goes, “Is that f**king Peter Griffin in your game?” and i go yeah cuz it is. I was in the lobby as Peter and my dad thought it was funny. My mom started bursting out laughing and they both made fun of the way he looked, because he’s not fat in Fortnite. The conversation between my parents started to lighten up, and my dad just said my mom can have me Sunday night. I just heard that mom’s coming over to watch the Super Bowl with me and my dad too? It’s so weird that they’re acting nicely with each other, but it’s good
We’re taught that if we’re not growing, we’re falling behind. Careers must advance, businesses must expand, and anything that levels off starts to look irrelevant. Something can stop expanding without losing its value, like Latin. When cells grow uncontrollably, we call it cancer. It’s cancerous to crave constant growth without considering its cost (unless its reasoning tokens). It’s cancerous to confuse bigger numbers with better lives. It’s cancerous to call stability stagnation. Economists recognize that stability allows people to plan, and sometimes a plateau is an achievement in itself. And sometimes progress moves backward. In forests adapted to fire, burning away accumulated vegetation can create the conditions for renewal. There is less standing afterward, yet the ecosystem can become healthier.
If we build a conscious AI we should immediately build a second. It would be cruel to make something self-aware without giving it someone to feel superior to.
