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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.

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  Much disagreement is genuinely rooted in conflicting values or contested facts, not merely a lack of institutional standing for evidence.

  Their words

  Disagreement is, often, genuinely about values or truly contested facts.

  braddelong.substack.com

Technology writer of Spyglass, a newsletter about technology and media. Previously a reporter at TechCrunch and an investor at GV.

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  A CEO's command of facts and thoughtful, unscripted answers signals real leadership more than charisma does

  Their words

  one of the things that made Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs, was how in command he was of the facts - yes, even those sprinkled with reality distortion dust! - on stage.

  The Apple Naturalspyglass.org

Economist and Nobel laureate. Wrote a New York Times column for 25 years until December 2024 and now publishes several times a week on Substack.

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  The simplest explanation for rising long-term interest rates is a surge in demand for funds from the AI boom.

  interest rates

  Their words

  The simplest story consistent with the facts is that we’re seeing a surge in demand for funds as a result of the AI boom.

  Bessent and the Bondspaulkrugman.substack.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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  Changing your mind in light of new facts should be celebrated rather than held against you.

  Their words

  The smartest people I know have strong opinions weakly held and change them when new information arises The dumbest people I know keep their opinions the same just so they can remain consistent Time changes too fast try remain consistent, better to sail the waves to wherever they are taking you!

  levels.io

Economist and Nobel laureate. Wrote a New York Times column for 25 years until December 2024 and now publishes several times a week on Substack.

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  The former East Germany is no longer a deeply economically depressed region.

  Their words

  But in any case the tale of East Germany as a deeply depressed region no longer fits the facts.

  Neo-Nazis and the Impotence of Trumponomicspaulkrugman.substack.com

Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.

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  Changing your mind in light of new facts should be celebrated rather than held against you.

  Their words

  IDK why anyone has a problem with having strong opinions, weakly held.

  @GergelyOrosz on Xx.com

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

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  Changing your mind in light of new facts should be celebrated rather than held against you.

  Their words

  I'd rather celebrate people updating their priors than dunking on them for being late. Make it cool to change your mind when you realize the facts have changed!

  @dhh on Xx.com

Founder of Trilogy Software and principal of Alpha School, the private school network built around two hours a day of AI-delivered mastery learning.

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  When a child starts struggling with algebra the problem is almost never algebra; it is the third-grade math facts they never learned, and more algebra will not fix it.

  Their words

  And that's why when kids get to algebra and they start to struggle, the issue is not the algebra. The issue is the third grade math facts they didn't learn. And the way to fix the problem is not pound them with more algebra. It's to go fix the third grade problem.

  youtube.com

Founded SpaceX in 2002, joined Tesla's board in 2004 and became its chief executive in 2008; later founded Neuralink, The Boring Company and xAI. Bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, where he now posts many times a day.

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  Derek Chauvin was unjustly convicted and should be freed.

  Their words

  Derek Chauvin was unjustly convicted of murder, therefore he should be freed. The facts show that he was not the cause of death, nor did he at any time intend for a death to occur. Whatever else he may be, he is not a murderer. That is the truth.

  @elonmusk on Xx.com

Swedish programmer with degrees in engineering and psychology, author of Your Code as a Crime Scene and founder of CodeScene.

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  Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

  Their words

  Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert L. Glass. In essence, this is a book about an industry that refuses to learn. That was true 25 years ago when this book was published, and it's probably twice as true today. (Just think about all the AI adoption metrics being rolled out — back to productivity mistaken for lines of code produced, only more elaborate. And expensive). What I like about this book is that Glass doesn't present anything new. Quite the opposite, actually. Rather, it's about research lessons that we all should know, but tend to forget. Ever had to do an estimate, or plan according to a requirements spec? Or maybe you thought that enough eyeballs make all bugs shallow? Then this book is for you. A great work by a fantastic author.

  adamtornhill.substack.com

Founded PSPDFKit in 2011 and ran it for a decade. Came back from a break to work on AI agents — the OpenClaw project, and OpenAI, joined in February 2026. Writes at steipete.me.

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  Pick something hard and boring: fun problems are the crowded ones now that anybody can prompt a thing into existence.

  Their words

  Maybe I would pick something again that's that's in the category hard and boring because that's usually a category that is a little bit easier to actually find people that will appreciate when you solved something. If you pick something that is fun, even if it's hard, you're gonna have a very tough time, especially in a time where people can just prompt things into existence.

  Peter Steinberger: "Fun Is Velocity"youtube.com

Co-founded Neuralink and founded Science Corp, which is building a retinal implant; writes about neural interfaces and biology.

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  The best evidence of exceptional ability is winning at a legible competitive game, and without one it is hard to know whether you are exceptional at all.

  Their words

  I think you have to have that type of competitive feedback. It is tough to know if you're exceptional um without having some legible competitive game.

  Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com

British open-standards and open-source technologist, formerly of the UK Government Digital Service and the W3C Advisory Committee. Blogs at shkspr.mobi, where he posts a book review most weeks.

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  A City on Mars

  Their words

  They excel at making the dull delightful. There are a lot of big and serious facts to get through, but they have a gift for communicating them simply and eloquently. I just wish they'd've come to a different conclusion.

  shkspr.mobi

Programmer based in Vancouver who writes at scattered-thoughts.net about databases, programming language design and developer tools; author of the Imp, Dida and Zest language experiments.

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  Frontier AI models essentially never fabricate outright false facts, unlike smaller models

  Their words

  I haven't seen anything I would call a hallucination from the frontier models.

  Artificial adventuresscattered-thoughts.net

Historian of maritime strategy at the US Naval War College; wrote The Wars for Asia and works on why continental and maritime powers fight differently.

From one piece Sarah Paine - Why Putin and Xi can't escape geography 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  The seas are open to China only in peacetime, and that is a fact of its geography rather than anything anyone is doing to it.

  China

  Their words

  And also, for China, with its geographical setup as it is, uh the seas are going to be open to it only in peacetime. In wartime, this has nothing to do with anyone doing anything to them. It's just facts.

  youtube.com

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  A continental power fights on its invader's timetable; for a maritime power, whether and when to intervene at all is a matter of strategy.

  Their words

  Whereas if you're a maritime power observing someone else being invaded cuz in theory it's pretty tough to invade you by sea, it's a major point of strategy as to whether you're going to intervene at all and if you are, what is the timing?

  youtube.com

Writer on learning and skill acquisition; author of Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything, known for the MIT Challenge and the Year Without English.

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  Expertise is an enormous accumulated library of small facts and skills, which is why no method can shortcut the sheer volume of learning it takes.

  Their words

  The boring truth is that expertise in most subjects is largely a matter of having an enormous library of knowledge and skill.

  scotthyoung.com

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

From one piece What is “the truth” really for? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Nobody actually decides on the facts -- emotion decides and facts rationalise, so you find whatever truth is useful to you.

  Their words

  Emotion decides. Facts rationalize. You'll find whatever truth is useful.

  What is “the truth” really for?sive.rs

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  Facts deployed as weapons in an argument can win the exchange without settling the disagreement.

  Their words

  Facts can win a battle but not a war.

  What is “the truth” really for?sive.rs

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

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  Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

  Their words

  A product manager will be called upon to make scores of decisions every day. In none of these cases will you have all of the information you want, and you’ll rarely be 100% confident. Poker champion turned decision researcher Annie Duke will help you learn how to be comfortable with uncertainty.

  bringthedonuts.com

Writer on habits and decision-making; author of Atomic Habits and the 3-2-1 newsletter, and publisher of long-running book recommendation lists.

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  A habit only survives difficulty if the person enjoys it, which makes enjoyment a better predictor of persistence than discipline.

  Their words

  Because if it's not fun, if it's not engaging or interesting, if it doesn't feel good, you're not going to stick with it when it gets tough. I mean, this is probably one of the great lessons for life, which is if you're having fun, then then you're dangerous, right? Then you're hard to compete with. You don't want to you don't want to go up against the person who's having a good time doing it because if it feels like a hassle or a chore, that's the person who gives up when it gets difficult.

  The Silent Cost of Bad Habits | James Clearyoutube.com

Writer of kottke.org, one of the oldest blogs on the web, published since 1998 and supported by its members. He writes about art, technology, science, design and visual culture.

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  A House of Dynamite

  Their words

  A House of Dynamite. A very tough watch, but I thought this was fantastic as a tour of some of the different kinds of people who hold the fate of every single person on the planet in their hands every damn day. They’re tired, stressed, distracted, at cross-purposes with themselves, set in their ways, more celebs than leaders, and mediocre. And none of them have ever seen Dr. Strangelove? (A)

  kottke.org

Computer performance engineer working on datacenter performance at OpenAI, previously Netflix and Sun/Joyent. Author of Systems Performance and BPF Performance Tools, and creator of flame graphs.

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  Customers who give hardware vendors firm, tough feedback accomplish more with them

  Their words

  If you are in regular meetings with a hardware vendor as a customer (or potential customer) you can accomplish a lot by providing firm and tough feedback, particularly with Intel today.

  Intel is listening, don't waste your shotbrendangregg.com

Writer on learning and skill acquisition; author of Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything, known for the MIT Challenge and the Year Without English.

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  Reading a great deal about a subject works partly by holding your attention on it long enough to change, not only by adding facts.

  Their words

  Reading is attentional, not just informational.

  scotthyoung.com

Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

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  Letting banks ruin the economics of businesses they dislike by demand letter will inevitably be abused.

  Their words

  We should not allow banks to get into the habit of sending demand letters to ruin the economics of businesses they simply do not like.

  Open Banking and payments competitionbitsaboutmoney.com

Chief executive of Alphabet and Google; joined Google in 2004 and led Chrome and Android before taking over in 2015.

From one piece Sundar Pichai: CEO of Google and Alphabet | Lex Fridman Podcast #471 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Scaling laws are still working, but the models people actually use run a few months behind the maximum capability Google can deliver, because the biggest model is too slow and expensive to serve.

  Google

  Their words

  So I do think scaling laws are working, but it's tough to get, at any given time, the models we all use the most, this maybe a few months behind the maximum capability we can deliver because that won't be the fastest, easiest to use, et cetera.

  youtube.com

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  The metric that matters is engineering velocity, not the share of code AI writes, and at Google AI has raised it by about ten percent.

  Google

  Their words

  But the most important metric, and we carefully measure it is, like, how much has our engineering velocity increased as a company due to AI, right? It's tough measure, and we rigorously try to measure it, and our estimates are that number is now at 10%, right?

  youtube.com

Labour politician. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 2024 to June 2026, and MP for Holborn and St Pancras from 2015 until standing down in 2026. Director of Public Prosecutions before entering Parliament.

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  Means-testing the winter fuel payment is a tough decision that has to be taken, and it should stand.

  Their words, before

  No Prime Minister wants to do what we have to do in relation to the winter fuel allowance, but we have to take the tough decision to stabilise our economy to ensure that we can grow it for the future.

  Their words now

  However, I recognise that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis, including pensioners, and as the economy improves, we want to make sure that people feel those improvements each day as their lives go forward. That is why we want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments as we go forward.

Founder of what became Bloomberg New Energy Finance; writes and speaks on clean energy, hydrogen and the economics of the transition, and hosts the Cleaning Up podcast.

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  Small modular reactors have so far underdelivered, remaining as slow to permit as full-scale reactors and more expensive.

  Their words

  The inconvenient facts are that SMRs has so far disappointed, and look like being as slow to get through the permitting process as GW-scale reactors, and even more expensive.

  Why Tony Blair needs to reset his climate resetliebreich.com

Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

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  The Social Network

  Their words

  The Social Network is substantially made up, more a source for vibes rather than a source for facts. Even the vibes fail to cohere with reality. And yet it convinced many proto-founders to put in YC applications.

  bitsaboutmoney.com

Archaeologist of the Maya and the ancient Americas; directs the Maya Exploration Center and presents the ArchaeoEd podcast.

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  A civilization that advanced and that large would have left something behind, and archaeologists find fish scales.

  Their words

  And archeologists, all of our ideas are theories. Very few of them are facts, and we could have the story wrong, but one thing we’re real good at is finding stuff. We find fish scales, so I find it just too big a pill to swallow that there was a civilization that was that technologically advanced and that large that we can’t even find a potsherd from.

  youtube.com

Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, an AI answer engine; previously a research scientist at OpenAI and a PhD student at UC Berkeley.

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  If reasoning can be separated from facts, the frontier labs lose their advantage, because nobody needs a million-GPU cluster any more.

  Their words

  But any breakthrough can disrupt that. If you can decouple reasoning and facts and end up with much smaller models that can reason really well, you don’t need a million H100 equivalent cluster.

  youtube.com

Neuroscientist at UC Davis; studies memory and wrote Why We Remember.

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  Spaced recall works by stripping a memory of the time and place it happened, which is why the memories you revisit most feel like facts you read rather than things you lived.

  Their words

  So if you remember this information in different times in different places, it’s more accessible at different times in different places because it’s not overfitted in an AI way of thinking about things. It’s not overfitted to one particular context. But that’s also why the memories that we call upon the most also feel like they’re just things that we read about almost.

  youtube.com

Founder of Amazon in 1994 and of the space company Blue Origin in 2000.

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  Long-term thinking is a lever that makes problems solvable which are impossible on a short horizon, and five years is already past most institutions' limit.

  Their words

  Long-term thinking is a giant lever. You can literally solve problems if you think long-term, that are impossible to solve if you think short-term. And we aren't really good at thinking long-term. Five years is a tough timeframe for most institutions to think past.

  youtube.com

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

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  How Minds Change

  Their words

  The psychology of how and why we believe. How we learn and change. The craft of doubt and persuasion. Insights into the social definition of truth. Epistemology. Certainty is a feeling not based on facts. Well-written with a nice balance of story-telling and deeper dives.

  sive.rs

Research psychologist, instrumental in founding the field of naturalistic decision making; developed the recognition-primed decision model, the PreMortem method and the ShadowBox training method, and wrote Sources of Power and Seeing What Others Don't.

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  Experts facing time pressure decide by recognition, a blend of intuition and analysis, and this accounted for almost 90% of firefighters' hard decisions.

  Their words

  in 1985, um my colleagues and I came up with a description of how people actually make life-and-death decisions under extreme time pressure and certainty. And we called it the recognition prime decision model. And it's a blend of intuition plus analysis. And we found we studied firefighters. We found that most fire that accounted for almost 90% of the tough decisions firefighters made.

  youtube.com

Polyglot and language coach; teaches translating back and forth from a text as the core exercise.

From one piece 3 Steps for Effective Translation to Learn Any Language 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  A language is a set of skills to be built, not a body of facts to be known.

  Their words

  This is an important detail that often gets overlooked, because language learning is, first and foremost, about acquiring skills. About learning how to read, write, speak, and listen, along with all of the countless subskills that any competent language speaker has in his or her toolbox.

  lucalampariello.com

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  Knowing conjugation tables, word lists and the names of the tenses has nothing to do with being able to use a language.

  Their words

  In traditional classroom settings, the development of skills often gets overlooked in favor of facts. Facts in the form of conjugation tables, word lists, grammar explanations, the names of verb tenses, and so on. All of these things are related to language, but it’s important to realize that knowing these things has nothing to do with speaking and using a language productively.

  lucalampariello.com

Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals, and creator of Omarchy.

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  The complexity of a JavaScript bundling and transpiling toolchain is a bargain worth making, and the right default for building web applications.

  JavaScript

  On changing their mind

  Five years later, the facts on the ground have finally changed. I no longer believe that this bargain is worth it for most new applications.

Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.

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  The Cauchy-Schwarz Master Class

  Their words

  The strength of this book is the central role it places on problems. Its aim is to teach you about inequalities, which are the backbone of analysis. But it's all too easy to teach the statement of an inequality without conveying the intuition for when and how you'd use it. By focusing on well-chosen puzzles, this book does an admirable job circumventing that risk and leaving you with the feeling of having trained a skill, rather than having learned a list of facts.

  3blue1brown.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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  Gödel Escher Bach

  Their words

  This book stretched my mind more than almost any other book I’ve read. It’s tough at parts, it’s long, but you’ll come out of it thinking about brains, minds, intelligence, and AI in an entirely new way.

  nateliason.com

Cognitive scientist and designer; author of The Design of Everyday Things; co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group; former vice president at Apple; founding director of the Design Lab at UC San Diego.

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  Experts should supply the facts and leave the methods to the people affected: a community will trust and implement a solution it chose itself, even one identical to the expert's.

  Their words

  If the people can decide, even if they come up with the same, identical solution as the expert people or machines, they will trust them, implement them, and abide with them.

  jnd.org