2025-01-30 20:30:00
How to dramatically increase the impact we drive with 2 simple steps –
(1) Pick 1-2 problems (and no more than 2) to focus on at any given time.
(2) Stay with them till they’re solved.
Of course, it is so much easier to spread ourselves thin on multiple problems. And then switch course to something different when making progress on meaningful problems inevitably get hard.
The two steps above are simple. But simple is hard.
2025-01-29 20:36:00
There’s a lot written about DeepSeek’s AI highly efficient and optimized AI models. There are 3 lessons I’m taking away –
(1) It is clear we’re early in the AI adoption cycle given the amount of hype around an unknown competitor making big dents in efficiency. I think there are going to be many more twists and turns. And, in time, everyone will be more sanguine about these kinds of announcements. In sum, keep calm and keep shipping.
(2) If you’ve been using GAI regularly, one idea that has become evident over time is that foundational models are increasingly commoditized. Open AI hasn’t been the only game in town for more than a year. Excellent open source alternatives (Llama, Mistral, Qwen, etc.) provide access to useful models. The limiting factor is just having the infrastructure to run these in cost-effective ways.
(3) That, then, brings us to DeepSeek’s innovation. I was reminded of Steven Johnson’s idea that innovation isn’t just about doing more, it is about doing more with less. For the past couple of years, we’ve celebrated AI models doing many more amazing things – with Nvidia stock going up at every step given the compute required. Then DeepSeek came along and showed everyone that more is possible with significantly less – and open sourced all that knowledge no less.
This innovation was borne out of a real constraint. DeepSeek had access to fewer NVIDIA chips – so they just worked around it.
But that is just what high performing teams do. They focus on what they control, get dialed in on their execution, and work around their constraints to get what they want done.
That’s one lesson we all can take from this episode.
2025-01-28 20:44:00
One of the harder things to do when we’re attempting to build something is to separate the exercise of determining the “what” from the exercise of determining the “how.”
2025-01-27 20:54:00
Growing up in India, one of the strongest associations I made with wealth was comfort.
In a country with a large population, help was easily available. And the wealthier someone was, the more they seemed to be able to afford help of all kinds. This in turn meant wealthy folks I saw didn’t have to do any chores within their home. The help did their shopping, cooked food, ran behind their kids, and so on.
Things were outsourced and got done.
It is worth pausing a moment to consider the word we use for household tasks. We call them chores – the definition of a chore is an unpleasant but necessary task. That means the equation is simple – the more chores we outsource, the better.
And while help isn’t as cheap in other countries, the gig economy has made it possible for us to outsource chores in ways we might not have thought possible. So, if you work with the assumption that comfort is the goal, we can outsource said chores to Instacart, a weekly help-service, and so on.
My biggest reflection since wearing the CGM / continuous glucose monitor in the past 2 weeks is just how much I’ve grown to appreciate chores. After eating a meal or a snack, I look forward to getting things done around the house. That movement ensures any glucose I’ve taken in gets metabolized.
I think this has parallels to every part of our life. It has never been so comfortable to let media or the internet take over our attention. And every indicator shows AI agents will only accelerate this.
Keep extending this trend and the state of the humans in Wall-E are suddenly not unimaginable.
While it is an exaggeration, I am not sure it is all that far off. Every statistic around obesity and chronic diseases borne out our sedentary lifestyles is sobering. It isn’t surprising – the more we solve for comfort, the worse our health outcomes become.
It turns out that we are just built for discomfort. We are built to stand and to move (a lot), to do things around our homes, to lift heavy things, to sprint, to buy and eat whole non-sugary food, to get out in the warmth or the cold and take in fresh air, to wake up with the sun and sleep once it goes down, and to use less toxins and chemicals in our lives.
So many of these things are the antitheses of the image of comfort we all might have in our minds.
But we’re built for discomfort.
Ironically, the more we embrace that, the more comfortable our life will likely become in the long run.
2025-01-26 20:35:00
“I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.” | James Halliday (fictional billionaire creator of a virtual reality simulation), Ready Player One
In other words – log off, take a walk, smell the fresh air, give a hug, try things, fail… and live.
2025-01-25 20:53:00
When we think about behavior change, we often think about creating new habits/systems. This is why new year resolutions are popular. “New year, new me” and so on.
However, we’re far more likely to be successful if we find ways to incorporate new behavior by amending existing systems.
For example, I know I need to drink more water during the day. The new system approach would be to set alarms to remind myself to drink water. The amending existing system approach would be to drink a bottle after I wake up, at the end of my workout, after lunch, and so on.
The reason amending existing systems works well is because it leverages existing momentum vs. attempting to create new momentum.
This is also how products that attempt to change user’s workflows are made. We are always better off tapping into existing workflows and then making changes vs. attempting to force people into new workflows (which rarely ends well).
Start by modifying existing systems. Then use that momentum to create new systems.
