A few curiosities from 2020

Here’s a collection of a few interesting things I learned in 2020:

On innovation I realized that some of the biggest innovations in human history were made by trying to mimic human processes. Mass production - was enable by interchangeability of parts. This also happens to be how our cells operate. Take a person with good eye sight that becomes blind after an accident. After a moment, cells reserved for sight will reorganize and reprogram themselves to take a new role, that is probably more demanding because of the lack of sight, such as hearing.

Artificial Intelligence - by understanding how our brains operate, scientists and engineers were able to reproduce the basic learning processes, namely giving birth to (digital) neural networks.

Division of labor - In history, humans were able to grow intellectually by first establishing a safe environment to thrive in other domains than hunting and fighting. By establishing long term encampments, they were able to divide duties and hence specializing themselves in different spheres, faster than if everyone were doing the same thing. Unsurpriszingly, our cells happen to do the same thing. By having cells organized and specialized in different spheres, the body can do abstraction of basic processes and focus on more demanding tasks, such as long-term planning. Efficiency vs Productivity Those two words are often interchanged in the context of output. Here’s a proper definition:

Efficiency produces the same output with less input. Productivity produces more output with the same input. To make a process more efficient, you figure out how to get some X output while using as little input as possible. To make a process more productive, you figure out how given some Y input, you can maximize your output.

On Businesses Business is 4 equal parts; product, marketing, collecting money and timing/luck. They are all critical and very often, not in your ocntrol.

This Paul Graham’s quote for his children The apparently random collection of things you learn when you’re young makes you into a sort of key. Then you have to find the lock it matches. But that’s not as hard as it sounds, because the matching lock is usually nearby.

Types of writings From Devon Zuegel: Writing falls into three buckets: (1) trivial things that everybody knows, (2) things that everybody knows, but nobody around you knows, and you have a unique perspective on, and (3) stuff that nobody knows so you have to do tons of research.

The Genius of Unrecognized Simplicities Most geniuses - especially those who lead others - prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities, but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities - Andy Benoit

On Optimization This is an actual quote from one of my mentor (a veteran industrial engineer): "Optimizing your solution ensures someone else can’t come into your industry, get the same suppliers and contract terms, and beat you."