korrents

Silicon Valley

The place as an idea: its appetite for disruption, its moonshots, and what it has given up on.

FilterEveryone, all time40 from 34 people
Group All Technologists 7Scientists 2Economists & investors 2Founders & executives 4Artists & entertainers 1Writers & journalists 6
Who Everyone HFHenry Farrell 3 DWDan Wang 2 DADario Amodei 2 DHDavid Heinemeier Hansson 2 KCKyle Chayka 2 AWAdam Wiggins 1 ACAndrew Chen 1 ADAnil Dash 1 AAAnish Acharya 1 BLBrian Lovin 1 DSDan Shipper 1 DDDmitri Dolgov 1 GTGeoff Teehan 1 HDHorace Dediu 1 JGJames Gleick 1 JDJamie Dimon 1 JWJarrett Walker 1 JYJason Yuan 1 JHJensen Huang 1 LFLex Fridman 1 MAMarco Arment 1 MGMatthew Green 1 MHMax Hodak 1 MPMaxence Poutord 1 NLNathan Lambert 1 PCPatrick Collison 1 PGPaul Graham 1 PLPieter Levels 1 RMRay Maker 1 RHRobin Hanson 1 SASam Altman 1 SBSamo Burja 1 TGTanner Greer 1 TGTed Gioia 1
When All time Past 1 yearPast 3 yearsPast 5 years
  1. HF

    Henry Farrell quoted

    Professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-author

    Our readingIdeas forming the 'ideology of technological salvation' helped inspire the development of so-called frontier AI models.

    Their wordsThis heady concoction of ideas helped inspire the development of the so-called frontier models that have reshaped thinking about AI over the past four years.

    ↗What AI debates have to do with alchemyprogrammablemutter.com

  2. 9 days earlier
  3. GT

    Geoff Teehan quoted

    Chief Design Officer at Lightspark

    Our readingIf you are not shipping software now, you are behind.

    Their wordsIf you're not shipping software now, you're behind. I just want to at least be at the forefront. I don't have to have a crystal ball and be out ahead of it so much.

    ↗Geoff Teehan - Navigating change as a designeryoutube.com 12th of 15 in this recording

  4. 1 day earlier
  5. RM

    Ray Maker quoted

    Reviews sports technology at DC Rainmaker — watches

    Our readingCompanies that avoid taking risks rarely succeed in the tech industry.

    Their wordsand sometimes you just fold the cards. Companies that don't take risks rarely succeed in tech.

    ↗Amazfit T-Rex Dual Solar Hands-On: AMOLED meets Solar?!?dcrainmaker.com

  6. 4 days earlier
  7. HD

    Horace Dediu quoted

    Analyst of the business of technology

    Our readingPrioritizing higher profitability above all else is a strategic trap that leads companies into disruption.

    Their wordsIt's a trap to think that more profitability is always the right answer.

    ↗Refurbishing the Innovator’s Dilemmaasymco.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  9. RH

    Robin Hanson quoted

    Associate professor of economics at George Mason University

    Our readingSpeculative market prices are the moral authority best suited to guide the management of cultural evolution.

    Their wordsAt the mind level, the new moral authority that seems to best support these solutions is: speculative market prices.

    ↗The Arc of Moral Authority: From Tradition To Interiors To Pricesovercomingbias.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  10. 5 days earlier
  11. PL

    Pieter Levels quoted

    Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone

    Our readingSoftware is mostly dead and hardware is the way forward, as new Silicon Valley startups aren't even building software anymore.

    startups

    Their wordsIn the most early adopting tech pioneering place that's Silicon Valley new startups aren't even building software anymore And it's debatable if anyone will actually need a custom harness or it won't just be generically offered by the AI frontier companies So software is mostly dead and hardware it is

    ↗Y Combinator's batch only has harness or hardware startups, so software is mostly deadlevels.io

  12. 7 days earlier
  13. AA

    Anish Acharya quoted

    General partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

    Our readingThe fear of falling into an AI-made permanent underclass is a funny dark fantasy Silicon Valley seems to hold collectively.

    Their wordsit's a funny dark fantasy that we seem to have as, you know, Silicon Valley collectively.

    ↗Why companies are becoming a series of loops | Anish Acharya (a16z)youtube.com 1st of 20 in this recording

  14. 12 days earlier
  15. TG

    Ted Gioia quoted

    Music critic and cultural historian

    Our readingMost of the world's free time has been converted into revenue for technology companies, and that conversion is where their fortunes come from.

    Their wordsMost of the world’s free time has now been monetized by tech companies. In fact, the monetization of leisure time is how Silicon Valley execs make their billions.

    ↗How Our Leisure Time Got Monetizedhonest-broker.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  16. 4 days earlier
  17. AD

    Anil Dash quoted

    Technologist and writer, a blogger since 1999

    Our readingShaming people out of using a harmful technology does not work, because the companies selling it have already priced the stigma into their plans.

    Their wordsIn short, the venture capitalists and CEOs of Silicon Valley have priced the costs of shame into their business plans.

    ↗Why shaming people about AI slop isn’t enough to stop Big AIanildash.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

  18. 1 day earlier
  19. MH

    Max Hodak quoted

    Co-founder and chief executive of Science

    Our readingMoonshots succeed more often than Silicon Valley's use of the word admits -- we actually got to the moon.

    Their wordsIt's like, you know, when we went to the moon, we did it. And so, historically, the success rate of moonshots is higher than I think people give them credit for.

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 1st of 18 in this recording

  20. 12 days earlier
  21. HF

    Henry Farrell quoted

    Our readingSilicon Valley's actual trajectory increasingly resembles Philip K. Dick's paranoid, hallucinatory fiction rather than the optimistic space-age visions of Asimov and Clarke.

    optimismconsciousness

    Their wordsIncreasingly, it is looking much more like the one anticipated by the drugged-up 1960s oeuvre of Philip K Dick, filled with deranged billionaires, machines that claim consciousness, hallucinated worlds and political breakdown.

    ↗We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universeprogrammablemutter.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  23. HF

    Henry Farrell quoted

    Our readingThe grand visions promoted by today's tech titans conceal realities that are messier, more sordid, and more contingent than claimed.

    Their wordsAll of these grand visions hide truths that are messier, more sordid and more contingent.

    ↗We're stuck in Philip K. Dick's imagined universeprogrammablemutter.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  24. 5 days earlier
  25. DD

    Dmitri Dolgov quoted

    Co-CEO of Waymo and a founding member of Google's self-driving car project

    Our reading"Move fast and break things" is the wrong mantra when you are dealing with atoms; the job is to move fast and ship safely.

    Their wordsin Silicon Valley, there's a common mantra to move fast and break things. However, when you're dealing with atoms instead of bits, breaking things is not really okay. So, the thing you have to do is to move fast and ship safely.

    ↗Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov: The Demo Is Only 1% Of The Workyoutube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording

  26. 3 days earlier
  27. PC

    Patrick Collison quoted

    Co-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc Institute

    Our readingStartup opportunities are not fleeting; Silicon Valley has reliably had a surfeit of them for decades.

    startups

    Their wordsYou know, in hindsight, I think that um that was a a poor intuition. Uh it's been pretty robustly and reliably the case over many decades in Silicon Valley has a surfeit of opportunities.

    ↗Patrick Collison: Is AI Breaking the Lean Startup Playbook?youtube.com 5th of 20 in this recording

  28. 3 days earlier
  29. SA

    Sam Altman quoted

    Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI

    Our readingY Combinator's much-mocked insistence that founders move to San Francisco was, in hindsight, plainly correct.

    startups

    Their wordsit used to be very heretical that YC told people they had to move to San Francisco. And looking back, it was clearly right.

    ↗Sam Altman: "Never a Better Time to Do a Startup"youtube.com 9th of 20 in this recording

  30. 13 days earlier
  31. JY

    Jason Yuan quoted

    Designer and founder of Hivemind

    Our readingPeople are probably not that busy in general; most people do not need a personal assistant to manage their life, unlike people in tech.

    Their wordspeople are not that busy. Like people in tech are busy. People in Silicon Valley and students and we are busy, but a soccer mom in the Midwest with one PTA meeting a week is not going to need a personal assistant to manage their life.

    ↗Jason Yuan - Designing 99 "No"s for a single "Yes"youtube.com 3rd of 18 in this recording

  32. 7 weeks earlier
  33. DS

    Dan Shipper quoted

    Co-founder and chief executive of Every

    Our readingThe edge of AI is not San Francisco; it is wherever a model meets a real person doing something real.

    Their wordsI think people think of the edge of AI as being in San Francisco. And I actually don't think that that's where it is. I think the edge of AI is wherever AI meets like a real human doing something.

    ↗AI predictions: Job markets, Codex beats Claude, and the death of org charts | Dan Shipperyoutube.com 24th of 24 in this recording

  34. 6 weeks earlier
  35. BL

    Brian Lovin quoted

    Product designer at Notion working on AI products

    Our readingRoughly every six months, everything done before becomes more or less irrelevant.

    Their wordsis every 6 months everything that we did before becomes more or less irrelevant.

    ↗Brian Lovin - How to level up with AI as a designeryoutube.com 4th of 20 in this recording

  36. 13 days earlier
  37. MA

    Marco Arment quoted

    Developer and podcaster; created Instapaper and Overcast

    Our readingThe tech industry today is dominated by scale-driven optimization and growth at the expense of the idealism that once drove it

    Their wordsImmense scale, soulless optimization, and an insatiable thirst for growth dominate its behavior and discourse, leaving little room for the spirit and principles embodied by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

    ↗A letter to John Ternusmarco.org 1st of 3 in this piece

  38. 6 days earlier
  39. KC

    Kyle Chayka quoted

    Staff writer at The New Yorker

    Our readingAI companies promote themselves around 'taste' because their products are unappealing outside tech circles.

    taste

    Their wordsA.I. companies need to associate themselves with taste precisely because their tools are not very palatable, much less cool, to anyone outside of Silicon Valley.

    ↗Why tech bros are obsessed with "taste"kylechayka.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  40. 6 weeks earlier
  41. DA

    Dario Amodei quoted

    Co-founder and CEO of Anthropic

    Our readingSome of the other AI companies have not written down the spreadsheet — they are committing hundreds of billions without understanding the risk.

    Their wordsI kind of get the impression that, you know, some of the other companies have not written down the spreadsheet, that they don't really understand the risks they're taking. They're just kind of doing stuff cuz it sounds cool.

    ↗Dario Amodei — “We are near the end of the exponential”youtube.com 14th of 29 in this recording

  43. DA

    Dario Amodei quoted

    Our readingThe real danger in AI-driven growth is geographic: 50% growth in and around Silicon Valley and business as usual everywhere else.

    Their wordsa worry I have is that the growth rate could be like 50% in Silicon Valley and, you know, parts of the world that are kind of socially connected to Silicon Valley and, you know, not that much faster than its current pace elsewhere. And I think that'd be a pretty messed up world.

    ↗Dario Amodei — “We are near the end of the exponential”youtube.com 19th of 29 in this recording

  44. 1 day earlier
  45. LF

    Lex Fridman quoted

    AI researcher and host of the Lex Fridman Podcast

    Our readingSilicon Valley talking only to itself has produced a dismissal of ordinary human experience everywhere else.

    America

    Their wordsthere’s also within that excitement, and within everybody talking just to each other, there’s a dismissal of the basic human experience across the United States and the Midwest, across the world.

    ↗OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet - Peter Steinberger | Lex Fridman Podcast #491youtube.com 30th of 30 in this recording

  46. 5 weeks earlier
  47. JH

    Jensen Huang quoted

    Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA since 1993

    Our readingDeepSeek's paper was the single most important thing Silicon Valley researchers read in years.

    Their wordsThis is, you know, let's face it, Deep Seek was probably the single most important paper that most Silicon Valley researchers read from in the last couple years.

    ↗NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang on Reasoning Models, Robotics, and Refuting the “AI Bubble” Narrativeyoutube.com 10th of 20 in this recording

  48. 7 days earlier
  49. DW

    Dan Wang quoted

    Writer and analyst of Chinese technology and industry

    Our readingSilicon Valley's intolerance of dissent functions as a kind of soft Leninism.

    startupsventure capital

    Their wordsStartups don't need dissent; they want workers who can grind until the network effects kick in. VCs don't like dissent, showing again and again that many have thin skins. That contributes to a culture I think of as Silicon Valley's soft Leninism.

    ↗2025 letterdanwang.co 1st of 3 in this piece

  50. 3 weeks earlier
  51. TG

    Tanner Greer quoted

    Essayist, journalist and independent researcher on Chinese…

    Our readingSilicon Valley's old dominant ideology has collapsed and no new one has emerged to replace it.

    Their wordsSilicon Valley's "California ideology" is dead but no new ideology has risen up to take its place.

    ↗Book Notes: The Technological Republic (2025)scholars-stage.org 1st of 2 in this piece

  52. 6 days earlier
  53. JG

    James Gleick quoted

    Author and journalist, born in New York City in 1954

    Our readingThe rush to AI seems to be repeating the web's pathologies: devaluing workers and creators, closed standards, overheated marketing and concentrated power.

    Their wordsSo far, the rush to AI seems to be embracing the same pathologies: deprecation of workers and creators; secretive closed standards; overheated marketing; and consolidation of power.

    ↗How the Web Was Lostaround.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  54. 5 months earlier
  55. JD

    Jamie Dimon quoted

    Chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase

    Our readingSilicon Valley Bank failed because its deposits were concentrated, not because they were uninsured -- the usual account of it is a misstatement.

    Their wordsBut they they both had something something unique that we didn't know at the time. I'm going to call them concentrated deposits. Not uninsured cuz people are misstating that, concentrated.

    ↗The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bankyoutube.com 15th of 19 in this recording

  56. 5 months earlier
  57. KC

    Kyle Chayka quoted

    Our readingThe Trump-Musk government's approach descends from a Silicon Valley ideology that prizes frictionless technology built by elite engineers over messy human institutions.

    government

    Their wordsBut the underlying ideology is familiar from Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg's dictum to "move fast and break things" and replace the messily human with frictionless technology, built by elite engineers who are supposed to know better than anyone else.

    ↗The history of techno-fascismkylechayka.substack.com

  58. 4 weeks earlier
  59. NL

    Nathan Lambert quoted

    Machine-learning researcher on open language models

    Our readingStealing AI code and data is hard and stealing ideas is easy, because Silicon Valley already moves ideas legally, inside the heads of the people it hires.

    Their wordsCode and data is hard, but ideas is easy. Silicon Valley operates on the way that top employees get bought out by other companies for a pay raise, and a large reason why these companies do this is to bring ideas with them.

    ↗DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459youtube.com 32nd of 44 in this recording