Hiro Rose

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Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit4 savers
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon12 savers

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It's unclear that there is one clear takeaway from this. We've learnt that specific inventions can often happen simultaneously in different places, that innovations at a larger scale often happen in clusters, and that the creation of clusters can happen within a meta-group arrangement like cluster-creation-centers like the Valley. To get there there needs to be enough giants to step on. Whether that's in the form of simultaneous progress in a bunch of areas so new things can be put together, or bringing new ideas that can be tried and applied in new sciences. The innovation landscape is more l…
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Did everyone in Paypal have unerring insights into how awesome they all were, or did that only become apparent once Elon Musk started catching rockets falling from the sky? Did the people in the Renaissance period clap each other on the back as new theories and artforms kept emerging, exactly as they had predicted?
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Speaking in clichés, the first is a "build it and they will come" sort of belief, and the second is "it is what you make of it".
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Another is that they often have highly similar social circles.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
In bringing people together it increases the rate of reproduction of ideas, speeding up the emergence of new ones.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
One commonality that we find when looking across these clusters is that they are all geographically close by.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
If you look at the Hungarian cluster, they all seemed to be within a few blocks of each other. If you look at the Silicon Valley cluster, they all seemed to be within a few miles of the Stanford campus. If you look at the exceptional outpouring of art in the Renaissance, it came from the few city states that had amenable, even modern, rulers.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
And there's the enthusiasm that comes from the fact that the ideas rely upon strong execution to succeed, rather than a pure spark of unalloyed and irreplaceable genius.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
People who are bona fide geniuses, at the cutting edge of their respective fields, seem to have an unerring instinct towards the same few ideas and exploration targets.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
It's Kevin Bacon all over again. If you're 2 nodes away from the dream customer, acquirer, partner, etc for your company, then life's pretty good. Chances of your success just went up. If you're 1 node away, the chances don't double. They go up much much more.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
To be successful clearly indicates that you need not just a killer idea, which apparently a bunch others would also be having an epiphany about at that same moment, but also execution. And that execution is made easier when you're surrounded by people with whom you have a trusted relationship.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
1) that all genius insights are explorations of plateaus of knowledge that exist atop various mountains, each explored to a different extent, and 2) since this exploration of areas unknown is performed by people who "stand on the shoulder of giants", there's quite often the phenomenon of simultaneous discoveries.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Aristotle's Logic Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems Newton's Physics Darwin's Natural Selection Einstein's Miracle Year Shannon's Information Theory Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Standing on the shoulders of giants is a known cliché but it also happens to be true. More importantly it happens to mean that when there are giants standing around that you can climb up on, as long as there are enough of you, many of you will be looking at the same vista at the same time.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Standing on the shoulders of giants is a known cliché but it also happens to be true. More importantly it happens to mean that when there are giants standing around that you can climb up on, as long as there are enough of you, many of you will be looking at the same vista at the same time.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Whatever the right metaphor, the scene has to be set right.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Some things are harder than just to be a function (talent, time to work, network). It also needs the variable that is feasibility of making progress.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Some things are harder than just to be a function (talent, time to work, network). It also needs the variable that is feasibility of making progress.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
larger numbers of smart people, who have the time to cogitate and work on things that go beyond their daily bread, connected in networks that enable them all to rise together, rather than just succeed individually.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Though we don't know the names, I imagine there would have been similar cliques in architecture in Ancient Rome, or Egypt for that matter. In the Renaissance, they could build on the knowledge that had existed on arts and architecture to sculpt Pieta or build the Pantheon. In Central Europe in the late 19th century there were pressing problems in physics and chemistry which were opening up entire vistas of knowledge.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
They need to have the right toolkit and ideas in the first place. In Ancient Greece, in the absence of much scientific progress, the advances were mostly made amongst subjects that can be done solely in the mind - philosophy and mathematics.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
My conclusion then was that somehow genius clusters make each other succeed more often than they would have otherwise. Which isn't a particularly controversial thing to say, since that's what seems to happen anyway. Put smart people together, they do even smarter things. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all.
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
That opens up the question of whether there were groups of smart people who all thought to explore similar research areas at the same time, and turns out there are! Clusters of people who looked at the same fields at the same time are everywhere!
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
Jet engines were built by the Allies and Germans independent of each other trying to one up the other side during World War II
Eureka! On the clustering of geniuses - by Rohit
We need more actual patronage, ones that provide both social and financial capital, and encourages more talented folk to pursue their vision.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon
What we need is the YC of talent identification and encouragement.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon
Also, frustratingly for us and pushing ahead the great stagnation, none of this is even remotely similar to the actual way that Galileo or Kepler got their patronage. An identification of their talent with an implicit understanding that pursuing their work is what's asked of them is key. They had duties for sure, tutoring the occasional princeling, but hardly something that fundamentally distracted them from their research.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon
Ivy League universities. Extraordinarily prestigious but extremely ossified.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon
What they provide is financial backing and an imprimatur of legitimacy for a team with an idea. Which is great, but its not the same as identifying individual genius to try and foster it. Institutions do grow and over time provide legitimacy and certification to those it selects, but that's not the same as a patron giving a relatively free rein.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon
What seems the simplest trade-off; I pay some of my enormous sums of money to get exposure to smart people, and increase my social stature and secure posterity by helping them achieve greatness, seems to have disappeared.
On Medici and Thiel - by Rohit - Strange Loop Canon