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Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  In a conflict, a coherent weaker actor tends to prevail over an incoherent stronger one.

  Their words

  In a contest between a coherent weak actor and an incoherent strong one, bet on coherence.

  braddelong.substack.com

Freelance climate and energy analyst in Oslo, writing on Europe, the US and Australia; worked in the Australian renewables industry before that.

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  Claims that AI will be a net benefit for the climate lack strong supporting evidence.

  Their words

  we explore and contest all these claims, which we contend are not supported by strong evidence.

  NVIDIA’S AI Climate hoax – reportketanjoshi.co

Writes Stratechery, a subscription newsletter on the business and strategy of technology, and hosts the Dithering and Sharp Tech podcasts.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Making AI agent hardware and software free to consumers dramatically lowers the barrier to entry and brings AI's benefits to ordinary people who otherwise wouldn't adopt it.

  Their words

  what Meta has assembled is free (to consumers) hardware and software that dramatically reduces the barrier to entry for ordinary people looking to harness the power of agents, making the AI upside a lot more accessible to the masses who don't want to buy a Mac Mini.

  2026.37: Duo Threatsstratechery.com

Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs their internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.

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  AI has lowered the barrier enough that non-technical people with strong ideas, taste, and cultural awareness can build successful businesses.

  Their words

  especially with AI now I'd say anyone can try, and non-technical people with the best ideas, creativity/taste and understanding of whatever cultural zeitgeist we're in can win

  levels.io

Programmer; makes Handmade Hero and teaches Performance-Aware Programming, and argues loudly about how software got slow.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Once the barrier to making a game collapsed, making a good game stopped being enough: no game gets noticed organically any more, so shipping without a marketing plan is unwise.

  Their words

  It's it's so massive that there is no way that your game will be organically noticed anymore pretty much period.

  youtube.com

Neurologist at Oxford; studies apathy, motivation and attention after brain injury, and edits the journal Brain.

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  Apathy is not a quieter brain but a costlier one: apathetic people burn more energy simply deciding whether an action is worth it.

  energy

  Their words

  It's showing us that apathetic people use more brain energy when they're making this decision. They have a bigger activation energy barrier to overcome because when they're making that decision, the brain is consuming more energy. It's consuming more glucose when it's doing that.

  youtube.com

Graphic designer and type designer, who created the original Macintosh icons and typefaces at Apple from 1982 and has since designed interface graphics for NeXT, Microsoft, Facebook and Pinterest.

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  A contest between five paid firms is not the way to get good creative work.

  Their words

  he thought we should have a contest. Like probably which I would never think is the best way to get good creative

  youtube.com

Co-founder and chief scientist of Safe Superintelligence Inc., and previously co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI.

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  Today's models are the student who drilled 10,000 hours for the programming contest, which is exactly why what they learn does not carry anywhere else.

  Their words

  The models are much more like the first student but even more because then we say okay so the model should be good at competitive programming so let's get every single competitive programming problem ever and then let's do some data augmentation so we have even more competitive programming problems

  youtube.com

Writer and novelist. Publishes essays and book notes at nateliason.com; author of the novel Husk and of Crypto Confidential.

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  As AI lowers the barrier to building software, personal taste becomes a more valuable differentiator.

  Their words

  But along with the question of what you're willing to maintain, as the barriers to creation drop the value of taste will only increase.

  The Past and Future of Vibe Codingnateliason.com

Founder of Telegram, and before it of VK.

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  The best way to hire engineers is a coding contest, because competition leads to progress and picks the most qualified people for the task.

  Their words

  Well, it's in line with my overall philosophy. I think competition leads to progress. If you want to create an ideal process for selecting the most qualified people for certain specific tasks you have in mind, what can be better than a competition?

  youtube.com

Writes Don't Worry About the Vase, a near-daily account of what is happening in AI and what they think it means. Former Magic: the Gathering pro and trader; unusually willing to put a number on a belief and to grade their own past calls.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  AI Futures Project

  Their words

  All of it is written with a much lower barrier to entry than my work, and I find the writing consistently strong and interesting.

  thezvi.substack.com

Engineer writing about the physical economy — oil and gas, manufacturing, batteries, drones and what it costs to build things.

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  What stands between us and cheap lightweight vehicles is that they are illegal, not that they are hard to build.

  Their words

  Cheap, lightweight people movers are currently illegal in many situations, so regulation is a barrier.

  Human Driving Increases Transportation Cost 10xaustinvernon.site

Pseudonymous essayist. Writes at gwern.net on AI scaling, statistics, genetics and long-running internet research, with heavy citation and a habit of revising old essays in place rather than leaving them wrong.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Blade Runner 2049

  Their words

  one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, well worth paying to see on the big screen

  gwern.net

Urban planner, co-author with Charles Marohn of Escaping the Housing Trap, and policy director at the Parking Reform Network. Wrote for Strong Towns from 2015, mostly about how housing markets actually set prices.

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  The single biggest barrier in the housing market is that most neighbourhoods are legally forbidden to add any housing at all.

  Their words

  The biggest barrier of all, of course, is that the majority of neighborhoods are not allowed to add any housing at all.

  strongtowns.org

Marketing author and daily blogger; founder of the altMBA and the Akimbo workshops, and author of books including Purple Cow and This Is Marketing.

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  Which products become visible is decided by distribution friction rather than by any contest of merit.

  Google

  Their words

  Your product might be great, but how do you get it on the shelves of Walmart? Or how do you get it on the shelves of Google? Because if you're not on the shelves of Walmart, you're not on the shelves of Google, you might be invisible. And it's friction that kept you there, not some sort of merit contest.

  youtube.com

Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

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  China will not fade away, so America has to reform itself for a protracted contest with a peer competitor.

  ChinaAmerica

  Their words

  It is that China will not fade away, meaning that America must reform itself for a protracted contest with a peer competitor.

  2023 letterdanwang.co