Kevin Xu
15 followers · 16 following · 2372 views
on the atlas · 168
- How I've run major projects | benkuhn.net53 savers
- Be less scared of overconfidence | benkuhn.net16 savers
- Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to... — programming is terrible6 savers
- My weekly review habit | benkuhn.net18 savers
- The Law of Leaky Abstractions – Joel on Software11 savers
- Non-Doing Social Interactions2 savers
- Impact, agency, and taste | benkuhn.net32 savers
- The Disadvantages of an Elite Education -9 savers
- Yash Dagade2 savers
- US Energy Data — Understanding America’s energy system1 savers
- (Life) Advice From The Creator of C++ - YouTube1 savers
- Revolution OS (documentary about GNU/Linux) (Multilingual) (HQ) - YouTube1 savers
- Tether: Linux + iPhone - Zack Bartel1 savers
- The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations19 savers
- Internals for Interns1 savers
- ElevenLabs, TwelveLabs, ThirteenLabs, …2 savers
- Why Sal Khan’t: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling - Punya Mishra’s Web1 savers
- ‘Cult’-like college football akin to ‘living on a different planet’ for some students - The Athletic1 savers
- How Complex Systems Fail22 savers
- Git at any scale · Cursor18 savers
- Solar and batteries for generic use cases – Casey Handmer's blog2 savers
- Friendship happens on the way to something else. - James Clear1 savers
- You're allowed to fight for something7 savers
- 3-2-1: On living with lightness, emphasizing what works, and the simple way to gain clarity - James Clear1 savers
- dan goods - Orbit1 savers
- dan goods - HI JUNO1 savers
- dan goods1 savers
- Is Mount Rainier Out?1 savers
- Going Viral1 savers
- Chris Paul's Biggest Regret: The True Cost of the NBA - YouTube1 savers
- You don’t need to work on hard problems51 savers
- catch-up culture is killing friendship - by laura2 savers
- 3-2-1: On finding joy, mastering your thoughts and actions, and two secrets to a fulfilling life - James Clear1 savers
- Pressure is Energy1 savers
- The American Scholar: Solitude and Leadership13 savers
- Future of Energy Reading List – Casey Handmer's blog7 savers
- Surprising Economics of Load-Balanced Systems - Marc's Blog1 savers
- Free Solo: "The Warrior's Spirit" - YouTube1 savers
- THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS3 savers
- The Real Cost of Owning a Home — Eric Turner3 savers
- a beginner's guide to mischief3 savers
- Why America stopped eating cereal - YouTube1 savers
- 3-2-1: On responding to challenges, winning the day, and lessons from a baseball coach - James Clear1 savers
- Starlink Constellation Altitudes | Starlink Space Safety1 savers
- Why do smart people form stupid organizations? – Casey Handmer's blog1 savers
- 3-2-1: On revenge, three principles to live by, and the power of commitment - James Clear1 savers
- Reading Changes You1 savers
- The Microscope and The Telescope1 savers
- 3-2-1: On the power of self-image, how luck travels, and the importance of solving mediocre problems - James Clear1 savers
- Do your Habits Match your Ambitions?2 savers
- Second Chances1 savers
- Tighter Edits1 savers
- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Feed the Jews to the Mob1 savers
- SpaceX "Test Like You Fly" Documentary 4K - YouTube1 savers
- The metaphor you want is "color blindness," not "blind spot." — LessWrong1 savers
- Terraform Talent Development – Casey Handmer's blog2 savers
- Scaling Career and Family: Systems Thinking, Public School, Home Enrichment – Casey Handmer's blog2 savers
- Pressure is a Privilege1 savers
- 3-2-1: On clarity of purpose, the skill of noticing, and what it takes to build a reputation - James Clear1 savers
- 747s and Coding Agents1 savers
- Seeing Underwater with Neural Networks1 savers
- The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code1 savers
- all the way to the bottom - by Ava - bookbear express1 savers
- I guess we’re doing Moon factories now – Casey Handmer's blog1 savers
- Having Kids19 savers
- To Leave a Company2 savers
- The space of minds | karpathy2 savers
- Fran Sans Essay — Emily Sneddon8 savers
- Nat Friedman61 savers
- How To Be Successful96 savers
- Theory of Change (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)84 savers
- The days are long but the decades are short - Sam Altman73 savers
- How to Do Great Work69 savers
- MAKING SOFTWARE62 savers
- 2025 letter | Dan Wang62 savers
- How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) — Wait But Why61 savers
- Productivity - Sam Altman58 savers
- There’s no speed limit57 savers
- What I Wish Someone Had Told Me - Sam Altman52 savers
- Fast · Patrick Collison50 savers
- Choose Good Quests - by Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner44 savers
- Learning By Writing43 savers
- Andrej's advice for success41 savers
- Why You Should Start a Blog Right Now39 savers
- Everything I know about good system design37 savers
- Home | Levers For Progress37 savers
- The Techno-Optimist Manifesto | Andreessen Horowitz36 savers
- College as an incubator of Girardian terror | Dan Wang36 savers
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued | Kalzumeus Software35 savers
- The housing theory of everything - Works in Progress35 savers
- HOWTO: Be more productive (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)34 savers
- 2025 letter | Zhengdong33 savers
- these are the days - beauty and terror29 savers
- The Best Textbooks on Every Subject - LessWrong28 savers
- Whole Earth Index27 savers
- The Trouble with Optionality | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson27 savers
- The Tail End — Wait But Why26 savers
- Michael Levin: The electrical blueprints that orchestrate life | TED - YouTube26 savers
- We Need a New Science of Progress - The Atlantic25 savers
- How to Do Great Work25 savers
highlights · 210
Your life is only ever since your last catch-up, and you aren’t talking about the bigger things in life, like your future, or the menial day-to-day.
catch-up culture is killing friendship - by lauraDon’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs most is more people who have come alive
Pressure is Energy“Wouldn’t it be funny if…” Do it. Do it. Do it. Don’t just hypothesize. Don’t overthink it.
a beginner's guide to mischiefToday, it seems unlikely that legislation will ever catch up with technological innovation. The political climate of the future is being determined in the present by the ideology of technology companies that connect people, conduct business, and solve particular problems.
Why do smart people form stupid organizations? – Casey Handmer's blogBeing around successful people shifts your ambition because extraordinary success feels attainable. And when success feels attainable, you lock in and work longer, harder, and with more focus.
Reading Changes Youindustries with lower barriers to labor mobility generally attract, nurture, and retain high productivity talent far better
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t – Casey Handmer's blogmanagers (who are your proximal customers for your output)
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t – Casey Handmer's blogThere’s also a market for low quality employers!
Stuff you should have been taught in college but weren’t – Casey Handmer's blogYou will rarely outperform your self-image
3-2-1: On the power of self-image, how luck travels, and the importance of solving mediocre problems - James Cleardo you want a nice view or do you want to be in the thick of it and playing the game
3-2-1: On the power of self-image, how luck travels, and the importance of solving mediocre problems - James ClearWhen someone’s habits don’t match their ambitions, trust the habits. The corollary: Do your habits match your ambitions?
Do your Habits Match your Ambitions?If you pour yourself into work because home feels empty, you look successful to everyone but those who matter most.
Tighter EditsIn a couple of years from now, we may look at alarm clocks and "sleep regulation" in the same way that we look today at other "great" human inventions in the league of cigarettes, asbestos materials, or radioactive cosmetics.
Good sleep, good learning, good life --- 良好的睡眠、良好的学习、良好的生活if the problem is a blind spot, then if they just shift their focus a little, they should see the thing, dammit, whereas if I model them as simply lacking the ability to perceive (even if only because they haven't practiced enough in this domain yet) it suddenly seems much less their-fault if merely shifting their focus doesn't fix it.
The metaphor you want is "color blindness," not "blind spot." — LessWrongCalling yourself creative doesn’t make it true. All that matters is what you’ve launched. Make finishing your top priority.
Here’s how to live: Create. | Derek SiversStay in situations where you’re forced to show your work to others.
Here’s how to live: Create. | Derek Siverseverytime you go somewhere that is one less time you visit
Pressure is a Privilegeevery time you see someone that is one less time you see them
Pressure is a Privilegeat times I feel more like a pilot than an engineer
747s and Coding Agentsit felt like such a big thing for me to let an idea go. To say, “You know what, this isn’t it. I really want it to be it, but this isn’t it”. Now my mindset is, easy come easy go. I came up with that idea in a day! Why would that be the thing that I would spend the next five years of my life on?
Employee #1: Dropbox | Y CombinatorThe way they got there was basically through this process that they shared with me, which is just play. Just be willing to explore ideas that you think are interesting and don’t worry a ton about how big they’ll be.
Employee #1: Dropbox | Y CombinatorI realized that if I raised money around solving the problem I wasn’t sure I was ever going get anybody’s money back.
Employee #1: Dropbox | Y CombinatorYou have to feel like if this person does not get hired, we’re crazy
Employee #1: Coinbase | Y Combinator“What do you wanna do with your life?” “What drives you as a person?” “What’s a belief you have that is extremely unpopular?”
Employee #1: Coinbase | Y CombinatorI wrote my undergraduate thesis about Bitcoin and the larger implications of open source finance in 2011. I was Coinbase’s 30th user and now we have four million. I literally cold emailed jobs@coinbase and said, “I love bitcoin. Here’s my thesis. I’ll do any job.”
Employee #1: Coinbase | Y CombinatorI figured that if this fell through that it would be easy for me to get another job and there’s no big loss, right?
Employee #1: Apple | Y CombinatorThe fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.
Having KidsRight now, because of federal mandates, utility pricing structures, insufficient infrastructure, and a general belief that water is scarce and should therefore be squirreled away and not used, many utilities don’t want more water. Instead they are trying to drive up costs and limit use.
The gold plating of American water - Works in Progress MagazineWarren Buffett described the airline industry as ‘the worst sort of business’, and noted that, ‘if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down’
How Airbus took off - Works in Progress MagazineAirbus prevailed because it was the least European version of a European industrial strategy project ever. It put its customer first, was uninterested in being seen as European, had leadership willing to risk political blowback in the pursuit of a good product, and operated in a unique industry.
How Airbus took off - Works in Progress MagazineArchitect Sir Reginald Blomfield judged the competition, picking an Ancient Egyptian-inspired design would soften the pylons’ appearance.
How the world's first electric grid was built - Works in Progress MagazineEdison went as far as staging public demonstrations of animals being electrocuted by AC.
How the world's first electric grid was built - Works in Progress MagazineAsk someone a specific question. The more specific, the better. Ask for criticism. Tends to be more effective than asking for advice. Share something interesting. An essay. Video. Company. Anything they’d like. Say something funny. Say something useful. Maybe you noticed a typo on their website. State your intention. Do you want to be friends? Try saying that. Share ideas. If you have some good (or crazy) ideas for them, go ahead and share. Ask about something random. What does your favorite designer think about Delta Airlines? [3] Just say hello. Introduce yourself. No ask. Maybe give them a …
Emails for Humans - Quarter MileMaster this one habit and you can always play the role of the hare in the fable, except that instead of being outrun by one fine turtle you will be outrun by hordes and hordes of mediocre turtles and even by some mediocre turtles on crutches.
No BullQ. What’s your concept of what it will mean to have lived your life well? A. People always say you should live every day as though it's your last. I sort of have taken the opposite tack, where I think you should live every day as though it's going to go on forever. You should treat people like you're going to see them again in the future. You should start working on projects that may take a long time. And so I want to live every day as though it's going to go on forever.
Peter Thiel on what works at work - The Washington PostIf you were a sociopathic boss who wanted to create trouble for your employees, the formula you would follow would be to tell two people to do the exact same thing. That’s a guaranteed formula for creating conflict.
Peter Thiel on what works at work - The Washington PostThe Yale undergraduate goes to work at McKinsey for two years, then comes to Harvard Business School, then graduates and goes to work Goldman Sachs and leaves after several years to work at Blackstone. Optionality abounds! This individual has merely acquired stamps of approval and has acquired safety net upon safety net. These safety nets don’t end up enabling big risk-taking—individuals just become habitual acquirers of safety nets. The comfort of a high-paying job at a prestigious firm surrounded by smart people is simply too much to give up.
The Trouble with Optionality | Opinion | The Harvard CrimsonIf we view excellent talent as a scarce resource, then I think it’s regrettable that asset management attracts so many smart young people.
How Technology Grows (a Restatement of Definite Optimism)Too many service jobs are meant to cancel out the efforts of other service jobs, for example in litigation, where a plaintiff’s lawyer creates a job for the defendant’s lawyer.
How Technology Grows (a Restatement of Definite Optimism)good software design requires a deep understanding of chips, and vice versa. The best developers are those who understand how processes interact both up and down the stack.
How Technology Grows (a Restatement of Definite Optimism)I think we tend to discount how much knowledge we can gain in the course of production, as well as how it should feed back into the design process.
How Technology Grows (a Restatement of Definite Optimism)He wonders if US News would consider adding numbers of funded graduate students to its rankings algorithm. That might get his PhD program back on track.
The Misuses of the University - Public Bookstechnology ultimately progresses because of people and the deepening of the process knowledge they possess
How Technology Grows (a Restatement of Definite Optimism)“Questions are answered as you move, not before you move. Moving forward with an answer that is partially correct will usually fill in the gaps faster than waiting until you come up with a plan that is perfectly correct.”
3-2-1: The price of compromise, the magic of art, and how to improve in the modern world - James ClearGo ahead and pick an industrial phenomenon and learn more about it.
Definite optimism as human capital | Dan WangI predict over the long term that diminishes the country’s capacity to have the labor force ready to take advantage of scaling up a big, innovative technology; and it slightly reduces the chances that the country will have the talent to create it.
Definite optimism as human capital | Dan WangThere are many Spheres in the world if you whistle in an orthogonal direction.
Don’t sacrifice the wrong thing - by Henrik Karlssoncognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introduces the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR), a tool designed to measure susceptibility to impressive-but-empty organizational rhetoric
Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs | Cornell ChronicleBrand once wrote that “science is the only news.”
Is Science Stagnant? - The AtlanticDetailed design, certifications, and construction management are viper nests of soft costs, almost by definition
Speed Can Reindustrialize America - Austin Vernon's Blog