A Few Things: Marko Papic and Louis Gave on Markets, SuperHumans & the Race for AI Supremacy, Playbook for Better Parenting, Longevity Imperative, Evolution of AI, Photonics and Quantum Computing....
February 9, 2024
I am sharing this weekly email with you because I count you in the group of people I learn from and enjoy being around.
Here is last week’s discussion: Life's Cheat Codes, AI Copilot For Finance, Top 10 Lessons from Rockefeller, America's Immigration, Nuclear Energy, The Longevity Imperative, ARK's BIG Ideas, Century Of Biology....
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Quotes I Am Thinking About:
"The more things you have, the more things you have to manage. Simplicity isn't merely cheaper, it's easier."
- James Clear
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
- Mark Twain
“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
- Peter F. Drucker
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- EE Cummings
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.”
- Victor Hugo
"Have more than you show, Speak less than you know.”
- William Shakespeare
A. A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
1. Marko Papic at ClockTower shared two great reports this week.
Cover pages below:
2. Louis-Vincent Gave at Gavekal had a good piece titled: Party Like its 1999?
He was also on the MacroVoices podcast discussing it.
Three Insights From The Conversation:
There are similarities between the tech boom/bubble of the late 1990s and the current AI/tech boom, including high market concentration and dependence on a handful of stocks for market performance.
There was an unwinding from dot-coms to network infrastructure companies in 2000 that could parallel today's potential unwinding from EV companies to semiconductor companies. The narrative has shifted from tech being asset-light cash cows to needing layoffs to fund new AI capex - a key change.
Ultimately tech is priced for monopoly-like profits indefinitely, but history suggests either competition or regulation tends to undermine monopolies in capitalist democracies. Upcoming US elections pose risks if trust-busting gains more political momentum on both left and right.
3. Demetri Kofinas at Hidden forces spoke to Stephen Hsu, a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is the founder of SafeWeb (acquired by Symantec), Genomic Prediction, Othram, and SuperFocus.ai. He has a Ph.D. from Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and Michigan State University.
They discussed advancements in genomic science and AI, including the competitive landscapes, social and ethical dilemmas, and the risks and opportunities these technologies pose.
They explore the possibility of selecting desirable traits in IVF, the influence of wearable tech on genomics, and the parallels between technology adoption and AI safety.
Three Insights From The Conversation:
Genomic science is advancing rapidly, allowing more accurate predictions of human traits and disease risks from DNA data. Companies like Genomic Prediction are using this to provide embryo selection services for IVF clinics.
Artificial intelligence systems are progressing quickly, fueled by intense competition between companies and countries. This "race condition" prioritizes speed over safety.
Advanced technologies like genomics and AI will likely exacerbate inequality at first as the wealthy use them to enhance themselves and their children. This may prompt "progressives" to advocate genetic resource redistribution to help the disadvantaged.
4. The Knowledge Project Podcast had Dr. Becky Kennedy discuss: A Playbook for Better Parenting.
She’s a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and mother of three. She has been dubbed the “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME Magazine, and is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of "Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be."
We have discussed her book, Good Inside in the past.
In this conversation they discuss how to set proper boundaries for your kids, how that differs from making requests, and how you can use the same strategy with your partner.
Kennedy also explains teenagers' psychology, why they must stray from their parents, and how we can teach our teens confidence and resilience as they grow up. Shane and Dr. Kennedy also discuss how we learn to regulate our emotions, how we can recover from blowouts with our kids, why kids will learn to blame themselves, and why it’s important to approach children with curiosity when trying to understand the challenges in their lives.
Four Insights From The Conversation:
Events don't necessarily traumatize kids, it's the stories they tell themselves about those events that impacts them. Effective parenting involves helping kids reframe negative stories. Building confidence in kids is about developing their ability to trust themselves (self-trust), not just feeling good about themselves. Validating their feelings helps build this self-trust.
Regulating our own emotions as parents is important so we can help our kids learn to regulate theirs through our relationship with them. Strategies like "acknowledge, validate, permit" can help with this. Strong parent-child relationships are central. Kids need to feel they have a "home base" with their parents while they explore their identity during the teen years.
After emotional outbursts, taking responsibility and stating what we'd do differently helps repair relationships. Wrapping our identity and unfulfilled dreams too much in our kids leads us to push them excessively. We need more self-reflection as parents.
Letting kids struggle with appropriate consequences helps build skills for independence and adulthood. Prolonged adolescence can result from too much parental involvement preventing this.
5. 17 Thoughts About Money by A Wealth of Common Sense
My favourite three:
Enjoying your job is a form of wealth. I can’t quantify this, but I know it’s true — there are more wealthy people in America than those who love what they do for work.
I know plenty of rich people who constantly complain about their jobs. The hours. The responsibilities. The stress. Their boss.
It’s hard to put a price on an enjoyable work environment.
Outsourcing is money well spent. Time is a finite resource. Outsourcing services to people or businesses that have more expertise or resources than you is a good investment if it saves you time or stress.
Everyone needs a get-out-of-jail-free card for spending. You have to prioritize your spending if you ever hope to save enough money. But you should also allow yourself certain guilt-free spending categories so you can enjoy your hard-earned money.
For me it’s books, streaming services, clothes and shoes.
Other people like nice restaurants or automobiles or expensive bags or travel or whatever.
As long as you’re saving money, you should give yourself a break when it comes to certain budget line items.
6. Professor Andrew Scott is one of my favourite people and thinkers.
His new book “The Longevity Imperative” compellingly argues for a comprehensive societal transformation in response to increasing life expectancies. You may have read his prior books, including: The 100-Year Life and The New Long Life.
Professor Scott articulates a vision for a “longevity society,” where longer lives are not seen as a burden but as an opportunity for growth, innovation, and sustainability. He presents the "longevity imperative" as an urgent need for systemic change across healthcare, employment, education, and financial planning to ensure that an aging population can lead fulfilling, healthy, and secure lives.
Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford says:
As improvements in medical science and living standards ensure that most of us now live to be old, how do we make sure that we "age well"—that we are "evergreen"? That is the question at the heart of Andrew Scott's striking new book, which argues persuasively that aging is as big a challenge for humanity as climate change or artificial intelligence...
Scott has some wise suggestions as to how exactly we can do it.
Many of you are interested in Longevity and it’s myriad impacts and opportunities on individuals and society, I will be hosting a very special zoom session with Prof. Scott on March 20th 12 pm EST (just a week after the book is released) to discuss the Longevity Imperative.
We will limit the group to make sure we can have an open and interactive discussion. If you’d like me to hold you a precious spot, just reply to lock it in.
B. News and Charts You Might Have Missed
1. Many young people, including Gen Zers, are struggling to make friends, with less than one-third of Americans under 30 reporting having five or more close friends. The loss of fringe friends, casual acquaintances who provide diverse perspectives and introduce new experiences, is a major factor contributing to shrinking social circles, analysts say.
2. Chinese companies are reportedly nearing a breakthrough in domestic semiconductor development, despite tough US curbs. Huawei and SMIC, China’s biggest chipmaker, plan to make 5-nanometer smartphone semiconductors as early as this year.
China is investing heavily in modular computer chips, betting the technology will allow it to bypass US export restrictions on advanced semiconductors.
3. You are better than you think.
C. The Science and Technology Section
1. This fireside chat with Gavin Baker, Bill Gurley and Antonio Gracias is a good-listen about the evolution of AI, venture capital, Elon Musk, the future of the data center, and more.
Three Insights From The Conversation:
AI "turbocharges" the increasing returns to scale and network effects in technology. Larger companies have the most data and compute, giving them an exponential advantage that will be hard for smaller companies to compete with.
The standalone "frontier model" AI companies (like OpenAI) are overvalued. Their value comes mostly from capital allocation to large data centers, not from proprietary data or models. They will struggle against internet giants like Google with more data and models.
There are big opportunities in AI infrastructure - to make systems more efficient, rearchitect data centers, improve data access speeds, etc. This is a key constraint for progress. Public and private companies will benefit in storage, networking, memory.
2. WILTW / 13D had a good piece on Photonics in Computing and AI.
Firstly what is Photonics: Photonics is the science and technology of light, involving the generation, detection, manipulation, and application of light in the form of photons. It encompasses a wide range of practical applications, including telecommunications, information processing, laser manufacturing, biological and chemical sensing, medical diagnostics, and optical computing. Photonics is closely related to quantum optics, focusing on the study of light and other radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon.
Three Insights:
Photonics technology, which uses light/photons instead of electrons to process data, is an emerging solution to increase computational capabilities and interconnect speeds for high-performance computing and AI workloads. It can help alleviate the communication bottleneck between chips and chip clusters that currently restricts problem-solving scope and speed.
Photonic interconnects bring 1000x more bandwidth at 10x lower power versus electronic chips. They are gaining traction with the trillion-dollar data center upgrade cycle towards accelerated computing and AI. Companies are working to use photons within and between chips.
Photonics chips can be made using existing manufacturing processes unlike leading-edge electronic chips. This allows scaling up quickly. China is making major progress designing and producing photonic chips and could overtake the US with this technology.
A video on the basics:
And if you want to go deeper:
3. Learning more Quantum Computing since I think we will be hearing more about this in the next 5 years. Here’s a good basics video:
Key Insights:
Transistors are reaching atomic size where quantum physics causes unpredictable electron behavior that can disrupt computing. Quantum computing aims to exploit quantum properties instead.
Qubits exist in superpositions of 0 and 1 probabilities until measured when they take on a definite state. This allows parallel processing of exponentially more values.
Entangled qubits intrinsically affect each other's states instantly over distance. Measuring one gives information about the other.
Quantum gates manipulate qubit probability superpositions for parallel computations on all possible input values at once.
While unlikely to replace regular computers yet, quantum computers offer extreme speedups for searching large databases, breaking encryption, and accurately simulating molecules and quantum systems.
Lex Fridman did a deep interview with Scott Aaronson, a professor at UT Austin, director of its Quantum Information Center, and previously a professor at MIT. His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers and computational complexity theory more generally.
Three Key Insights:
Qubits and superposition - The basic unit of quantum information is the qubit, which can exist in a superposition of 0 and 1 states rather than just 0 or 1 like a classical bit. This allows a quantum computer to represent exponentially more information than a classical computer with the same number of bits.
Quantum interference and amplitude manipulation - Quantum algorithms aim to choreograph interference between quantum amplitudes in order to reinforce amplitudes that lead to the right solution while canceling out those leading to wrong solutions. This unique quantum effect is key to achieving speedups.
Quantum error correction - A major engineering challenge is decoherence and noise. But quantum error correction techniques can mitigate this by encoding logical qubits across many physical qubits. This allows building reliable quantum computers even with unreliable components, once you reach a sufficient physical qubit count. Error correction is key to scaling up quantum computers.
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One of your best/most helpful newsletters yet. Thank you!