Nat Friedman
Co-founder of Ximian and Xamarin; CEO of GitHub from 2018 to 2021; now an independent investor and funder of open technical projects, including the Vesuvius Challenge to read the Herculaneum Papyri.
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What they believe
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It is our right, and maybe our moral duty, to reshape the universe to our preferences
As human beings it is our right (maybe our moral duty) to reshape the universe to our preferences Technology, which is really knowledge, enables this
nat.orgSaid 4 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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2 October
10 September
4 September
From one piece Nat Friedman 9 beliefs · nat.org
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korrents.com
Where you get your dopamine predicts your behaviorTheir words
Where do you get your dopamine? The answer is predictive of your behavior Better to get your dopamine from improving your ideas than from having them validated
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korrents.com
Large engineering projects are more soluble in IQ than they appear, and many tech companies are overstaffedTheir words
Large-scale engineering projects are more soluble in IQ than they appear Many tech companies are 2-10x overstaffed
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korrents.com
Smaller teams are betterTheir words
Smaller teams are better Faster decisions, fewer meetings, more fun No need to chop up work for political reasons
+ 6 more
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Their words
The cultural prohibition on micromanagement is harmful Great individuals should be fully empowered to exercise their judgment
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Their words
We know less than we think The replication crisis is not an aberration Many of the things we believe are wrong We are often not even asking the right questions
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Their words
The efficient market hypothesis is a lie At best it is a very lossy heuristic The best things in life occur where EMH is wrong
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Their words
It's important to do things fast You learn more per unit time because you make contact with reality more frequently Going fast makes you focus on what's important; there's no time for bullshit
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Their words
You should probably work on raising the ceiling, not the floor Enthusiasm matters! It's much easier to work on things that are exciting to you
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Their words
As human beings it is our right (maybe our moral duty) to reshape the universe to our preferences Technology, which is really knowledge, enables this
16 July
3 July 2025
3 June 2025
5 May 2025
3 May 2025
1 May 2025
27 April 2025
23 April 2025
17 April 2025
9 April 2025
12 March 2025
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 9 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
It is our right, and maybe our moral duty, to reshape the universe to our preferences
As human beings it is our right (maybe our moral duty) to reshape the universe to our preferences Technology, which is really knowledge, enables this
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
You should work on raising the ceiling, not the floor
You should probably work on raising the ceiling, not the floor Enthusiasm matters! It's much easier to work on things that are exciting to you
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Doing things fast is important because you make contact with reality more often
It's important to do things fast You learn more per unit time because you make contact with reality more frequently Going fast makes you focus on what's important; there's no time for bullshit
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Show 6 more
The efficient market hypothesis is at best a very lossy heuristic
The efficient market hypothesis is a lie At best it is a very lossy heuristic The best things in life occur where EMH is wrong
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong
We know less than we think The replication crisis is not an aberration Many of the things we believe are wrong We are often not even asking the right questions
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
The cultural prohibition on micromanagement is harmful
The cultural prohibition on micromanagement is harmful Great individuals should be fully empowered to exercise their judgment
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Smaller teams are better
Smaller teams are better Faster decisions, fewer meetings, more fun No need to chop up work for political reasons
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Large engineering projects are more soluble in IQ than they appear, and many tech companies are overstaffed
Large-scale engineering projects are more soluble in IQ than they appear Many tech companies are 2-10x overstaffed
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Where you get your dopamine predicts your behavior
Where do you get your dopamine? The answer is predictive of your behavior Better to get your dopamine from improving your ideas than from having them validated
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Beliefs others hold too
Doing things fast is important because you make contact with reality more often 2 hold this
It's important to do things fast You learn more per unit time because you make contact with reality more frequently Going fast makes you focus on what's important; there's no time for bullshit
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
The replication crisis is not an aberration; many of the things we believe are wrong 2 hold this
We know less than we think The replication crisis is not an aberration Many of the things we believe are wrong We are often not even asking the right questions
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
Smaller teams are better 2 hold this
Smaller teams are better Faster decisions, fewer meetings, more fun No need to chop up work for political reasons
Nat Friedman Said 4 Sept 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
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Recommends rcmnd
Where they publish
Site nat.org His personal page — a running list of facts about him and things he believes.
A static personal page, not a blog: bullet lists of facts about his life and career, and a section of numbered beliefs, in his own first-person voice.
Link verified 10 Sept 2026.
x.com @natfriedman Short-form takes on technology, science and the projects he funds.
Short-form posts on AI, science and the independent projects he backs — Vesuvius Challenge, Cursor, and others.
Recent
- 🚨 side project alert 🚨 Announcing Muse Gadgets, an open source ESP32 firmware and Linux sdk so that you can make hardware devices that work with Muse. Grab an API token from https://t.co/Q0dE0cYnCs and point your favorite coding agent at the github repo to build your own peripherals for Muse. 2 Oct 2026
- I hope you like it! 10 Sept 2026
- Vesuvius Challenge has been quietly making a lot of progress; we read a full scroll, developed a new unwrapping algorithm with a global spiral prior, and we just launched a new $1M grand prize for reading one of the scrolls we've scanned. There are also 10 $50k prizes available for finding text in a scroll we haven't found text in before, plus monthly progress prizes. Join the discord! 16 Jul 2026
Show 16 more
- Started work at Meta this week. My job is to make amazing AI products that billions of people love to use. It won't happen overnight, but a few days in, I'm feeling confident that great things are ahead. 3 Jul 2025
- Civilization is constant maintenance 3 Jun 2025
- We found the title of a scroll for the first time! This cylinder of charcoal turns out to be "On Vices, Book 1" by Philodemus 5 May 2025
- Amazingly, this looks like it might be solved, thanks to a lot of help from some wonderful people on X. 🤞 Thank you! 3 May 2025
- Please help us find smart people to work full time on the scrolls! 1 May 2025
- We must find the Diliad 1 May 2025
- Hadn't realized how close the ancient Greeks got to calculus. 27 Apr 2025 en.wikipedia.org
- Scrolls 23 Apr 2025
- Is anyone genetically engineering unicorns? It seems like that company would do numbers 17 Apr 2025
- Anyone have a mexico government connection? A project I’m supporting to LIDAR the jungle there just got rejected by some bureaucrat. Please DM if you can help. Thanks! 17 Apr 2025
- Let's build ships in California! 9 Apr 2025
- This has been helpful 12 Mar 2025
- @eightsleep you guys need a hotel edition that can be controlled with a dial on top (and/or easily temporarily paired with a smart phone). I'd select hotels on this basis if this existed. 12 Mar 2025
- Exciting PlasticList update: We were honored to work with @bobaguys to identify and eliminate the sources of BPA contamination, and their teas are now BPA-free! They have fully transitioned to BPA-free receipt paper, which PlasticList confirmed to be BPA-free through independent lab testing. They have also switched to brown sugar in BPA-free packaging. We have been impressed with their commitment to get to the bottom of the issue and move fast to remove BPA from their supply chain. If you want healthy and delicious tea, I highly recommend Boba Guys! 12 Mar 2025
- Preparing to transport scrolls to the scanner 6 Mar 2025
- Ugh we're still working on the scrolls 4 Mar 2025
Link verified 10 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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