sudeepj

Productivity compared to which time in the past? If we compare productivity today compared to say 1960/1950 then we have definitely improved. We can manufacture at speed & scale. We can communicate with people across the continents like never before. We can work-from-home to a large extent than ever before. We can destroy each other at much grander scale like never before.

But like any system, any improvement in efficiency results in shifting the bottlenecks. It never truly goes away. The nature of the bottleneck may be different but its there. The things like "forms, compliance, process" are the new bottlenecks.

Technology is a means to an end. It cannot be the end itself (at a macro level). Tech is by humans, for humans and of humans. Humans will always be the centerpiece for time to come (unless AI becomes so good as they potray in sci-fi films/tv-series).

> patent offices will generate adversarial AI review examiners

What if someone patents these examiners first? :)

There are two modes of hiring:

1. General purpose: Typical FANG like where hire first and then do team matching later

2. Targeted hiring: Companies want specific people and they try to recruit them

A sizable number of top open-source contributors get recruited are in #2. Eg. 1) Top contributors in Rust lang hired by AWS. 2) FANG companies targeting top AI researchers from academia.

One's open-source presence needs to be really prolific and the project has to make an large impact to be in #2 category.

For #1 category folks, your public profile does not matter that much (atleast for FANG companies)

Other way to think is #1 are treated as cattle, #2 are treated as pets.

The famous incident where author of homebrew was rejected by a top company because he could not invert a binary tree got in the wrong channel (#1) to begin with where he was treated as a cattle.

Note: Recruiter from FANG calling you still goes in #1 category for most people

The rate of consumption is way greater than rate at which new/creative/interesting content can be created.

With improvement in tech (e.g internet speeds) and new accessibility nodes (like streaming services) the rate of consumption has increased even more.

After few years the same thing will happen to TV-series as well (e.g. [1])

[1] Game Of Thrones explored and doubled down on grey characters. Now, a lot of others will do it and it will become a trope.

I think the rate of change in tech & culture (and therefore the attitudes) in last 50-70 years is way more than our societies can cope-up with.

It almost feels like things are in so much great flux today in every aspect of our life than anytime in the past.

> Don’t start a company

Next tweet: "Today is the best time ever to start a company. You might fail, you might succeed, it’s a crazy ride either way, and you’ll learn and grow more than at any job."

I do not fully understand but my interpretation: Try it anyway even if you are not cut out for it.

Any other interpretations?

One thing which has helped me is to listen to a podcast or any audio of your favorite topic while lying down. Initially your mind will try to remain attentive but after 20 min or so it becomes harder. After a while you will feel so sleepy that you would want to stop the audio.

One factor I think is span of control. If the director you mentioned starts getting project statuses from 15+ teams then the director might not scale. The director will not be able to scale for things like appraisals, burning issues, hiring.