humblespace

One key to effective negotiation is to have multiple options and be OK with it not working out. Even if you really need the thing, it’s never your only choice: reframe and create alternative options until you have multiple outcomes you’re ok with. (See BATNA.)

Luck isn’t a constant, it increases with surface area: be in the right places, have lots of conversations, put yourself out there, ask for what you want and be optimistic and positive. See #52.

The most valuable feedback usually hurts a lot.

If you want to think originally and differently, seek uncorrelated inputs. Read minor works, older things, obscure journals.

Move to where the action is. Agglomeration effects are powerful.

Status is fake and transient. Just focus on substance and doing valuable work. Talk about it in public. Beware the inner ring fallacy.

Ask dumb questions. The people who matter won’t judge you for it, and you’ll learn things as a result. (See: How To Understand Things)

Don’t over-index on trends. Just figure out your first-principles view of what’s actually important for the world, and go from there.

There is some wisdom in “fake it till you make it”.

Don’t “slow down” as you get older, speed up. Lean into changes, be curious about new things. Most people seem to go the other way.

Be specific.

Understand power laws. Outlier math rules all.

Stop asking for approval and permission from others. School and work trains people to have this mindset. Instead, figure out what you want to do, and plant the “this is happening” flag. People will come along for the ride.

Werner Herzog to Errol Morris: “when it comes to filmmaking, money isn’t important, the intensity of your wishes and faith alone are the deciding factors.”

Don’t network, make friends. Writing online is great for bringing interesting people your way. Having a wide network of friends really makes a difference to the opportunities you get and how easy it is to launch your projects.

Figure out what gives you new ideas, and make sure you incorporate that into your routine. For me this is talking to people, tweeting, writing in my notebook, long conversations with friends (especially late night or while walking). For other people this is showering, baths, long walks, runs, etc. Make sure you “harvest” these ideas too, i.e. write them down somewhere so they don’t get lost.

When writing, separate the “creator” and the “editor”. The “creator” just writes, and doesn’t worry about quality; the goal is words on the page. Later, you can be the “editor” and shape it into something good.

Be honest about whether something is learning or entertainment. Real learning is extremely hard and effortful. (Podcasts, Atlantic articles, pop science books, anything that’s a bit too digestible is more “entertainment” than real learning).

Any given “bet” you take is likely to fail. Success is making lots of “bets” and trying as hard as possible at each of them. P(success) is higher the more bets you take & the better your execution per bet. (This is also why fast cycle time is so important). Ravin first articulated this to me.

Think in writing. Write Google Docs, scrawl in notebooks. This extends working memory arbitrarily and allows your thoughts to compound on each other. (”The difference between a Turing machine and a finite state machine is the tape.”)

Once in awhile, put away all concepts you read about online and reason “up” from the base of your experience and what you’ve seen and done. (e.g. What were some of the best decisions you made? The worst? Why? Can you apply those lessons now? etc.)

80% utilitarian, 15% deontologist, 5% virtue ethics.

Most intelligent people want status, prestige, wealth and the like -- even the ones who claim not to. “Genius” is a distinct category to intelligence and geniuses are motivated by entirely different things and are socially strange (and often selfish) people. Ayn Rand is a bad writer but is one of the very few people who grokked this and made it explicit.

Scrolling and reading too much drowns out your inner voice.

Be very suspicious of a priori arguments on empirical matters (e.g. “AI will certainly kill everyone”), they’re usually wrong no matter how convincing. Reality is endlessly surprising. (Cf. Knightian uncertainty.)

There’s a lot of alpha in being willing to do “menial” work (take notes, send out agendas, order pizza, manually inspect raw data, whatever). Beware over-delegation and being too far from the details.