creativity
Where does creativity come from?
Making something new: where ideas come from, what conditions let them come, and whether a machine can have them.
FilterEveryone, all time43 from 30 people
- GR
Guillermo Rauch quoted
CEO of Vercel; creator of Next.js and Socket.IO
Our readingAI should be used to advance understanding of the universe and improve human capabilities.
Their wordsI want AI in the service of understanding the universe and enhancing human cognition and creativity.
- 1 day earlier
- PS
Peter Steinberger quoted
Founded PSPDFKit in 2011 and ran it for a decade
Their wordsBiggest limitation isn’t the tech, it’s imagination and creativity.
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals
Their wordsDon't get stuck on the stochastic parrot meme. You'll miss all the sparkling creativity and novel thinking in front of your eyes.
- 5 days earlier
- PS
Peter Sellis quoted
Former head of product at Discord
Our readingVery few people have the blank-sheet creativity to imagine the future unencumbered by the present.
Their wordsthere are very few people that have this type of like blank sheet creativity to think about the future totally unencumbered from the present.
↗90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellisyoutube.com 15th of 18 in this recording
- 10 days earlier
- NL
Nathan Lambert quoted
Machine-learning researcher on open language models
Their wordsAI has always been very jagged, and we are making models which are superhuman goal-seekers at math and software engineering, but they have massive limitations on intuitions, creativity, and other types of reasoning that humans are strong at.
↗One resignation turned the embers of AI fear into a wildfireinterconnects.ai 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- PL
Pieter Levels quoted
Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone
Their wordsespecially with AI now I'd say anyone can try, and non-technical people with the best ideas, creativity/taste and understanding of whatever cultural zeitgeist we're in can win
- 2 days earlier
- VR
Venkatesh Rao quoted
Writer and consultant on technology
Their wordsA productive mathematical ecology wants porous epistemic boundaries and impermeable verification boundaries. On the way in, metaphor, hallucination and category mistakes can be useful. On the way out, they are forbidden.
↗The Curiously Playable Universecontraptions.venkateshrao.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- MW
Matt Webb quoted
British designer and technologist
Their wordsTo make the series is a bonfire of human creative effort, think of what could have been done instead.
↗Harry Potter again againinterconnected.org 1st of 2 in this piece
- 9 days earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordsSo, in my opinion, this is the absolute best time to ever have been an open source software maintainer. Not only do we get this wealth of glorious pull requests made by agents with all the boxes ticked, we also get to tap into a creativity of people who did not have access to contribute to a project before.
↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Agentic Engineering, Vibe Coding & Linux | Lex Fridman Podcast #501youtube.com 9th of 41 in this recording
- 12 days earlier
- SK
Susan Kare quoted
Graphic designer and type designer
Their wordshe thought we should have a contest. Like probably which I would never think is the best way to get good creative
↗Susan Kare: Designing Icons & Graphics For the Original Macyoutube.com 17th of 19 in this recording
- 3 days earlier
- HK
Henrik Karlsson quoted
Swedish essayist who writes Escaping Flatland
Their wordsThe things you arrive at by exploring small seeds, on the other hand, lead you further astray and tend to produce more life.
↗On having more interesting ideas, pt. 2henrikkarlsson.xyz 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- LM
Lincoln Michel quoted
Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic…
Their wordsthis is one reason why I'm skeptical of outsourcing your creativity to LLMs.
↗Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revisioncountercraft.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- FL
Fei-Fei Li quoted
Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford
Their wordsit's not that technology should be taking their jobs away technology should be making their jobs better superpowering their creativity
↗Using AI to Increase Your Intelligence & Enrich Humanity | Dr. Fei-Fei Liyoutube.com 20th of 21 in this recording
- 7 days earlier
- JC
Jack Clark quoted
Co-founder and head of policy at Anthropic
Their wordsResearch papers like this continue to show that there's a certain absence of valuable, intuitive creativity in today's AI systems, and though they're extraordinarily capable engineers they seem to have a certain property of rote, formulaic thinking that might prevent them being good researchers.
↗Import AI 467: Self-sustaining AI viruses; pacing AI progress; confusion about AI and creativityjack-clark.net 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordsAnd in fact, when I look back upon my career, it only took off when I could close my door and not see anyone for long stretches of uninterrupted time.
↗DHH: How to Build a Profitable Company Without Losing Controlyoutube.com 6th of 15 in this recording
- 4 days earlier
- TF
Tiago Forte quoted
Writer and teacher on productivity and personal knowledge management
Their wordsDetails are the very heart and substance of human communication, creativity, and productivity.
↗Finding Alpha: What’s Worth Consuming in the Age of AIfortelabs.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- PL
Pieter Levels quoted
Our reading · no longer heldNow that everyone can build apps with AI, distribution is the thing that separates who wins.
No longer holdsI thought it'd be distribution but who knows, obviously creativity and ideas, but if you can copy a successful app in an hour, then how does that differentiating work?
SaidI thought it'd be distribution but who knows, obviously creativity and ideas, but if you can copy a successful app in an hour, then how does that differentiating work?
↗Superintelligence has passed us and we're all running after the carrotlevels.io
- 4 weeks earlier
- AG
Adam Grant quoted
Organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School
Their wordsalthough students' personal statements seem more creative because they use more varied words, they actually feature less original ideas. AI writing produces an illusion of creativity.
↗The Must-Read Articles of the Monthadamgrant.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- BF
Brad Feld quoted
Co-founder of Foundry Group and of Techstars
Our readingDoing creative work in public, where failures are visible, produces faster useful feedback.
Their wordsI'm doing it in public, where the failures show and crap gets feedback quickly so I can improve.
↗Read Zero Knowledge As I Write Itfeld.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 months earlier
- MN
Michael Nielsen quoted
Physicist, writer and researcher
Their wordsthere's sort of there's two types of work that tends to be involved in any kind of creative project. There's routine stuff and there you just want to avoid procrastination. You just want to like, you know, how do I get good at this or how do I outsource it and how do I do it as rapidly as possible? Um and just avoid you know, like getting into a situation where you're prolonging it. Um, and then there's high variance stuff where you actually you need to be willing to to you know take a lot of time.
↗Michael Nielsen – Why aliens will have a different tech stack than usyoutube.com 22nd of 26 in this recording
- 4 weeks earlier
- JK
Jeff Kaplan quoted
American game designer and director
Their wordsI think there’s a lot of moral concerns around AI when it comes to creative pursuits as well, like no one’s creative work should ever be used by AI without their permission.
↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 28th of 29 in this recording
- 8 days earlier
- DS
Derek Sivers quoted
Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008
Their wordsMedia silence creates a vacuum, which your own thoughts expand to fill.
- 4 weeks earlier
- SJ
Steven Johnson quoted
Non-fiction writer, podcaster and occasional TV host
Their wordsAt the most elemental level, that is the goal of a creative work environment: it should help you have ideas that would have never occurred to you.
↗The Architecture Of Ideasadjacentpossible.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 7 weeks earlier
- ML
Michael Lewis quoted
American author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball
Their wordsWhen you're in any kind of creative thing, there is this benefit to not just following the financial incentives and and not trying to kind of like milk every last penny out of it. And to creating scarcity, not just for the sake of the scarcity, but for the sake of the quality.
↗10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)youtube.com 14th of 16 in this recording
- 11 months earlier
- VB
Vicki Boykis quoted
Machine learning engineer working on recommender systems
Their wordsYet, I also need to read fiction because if I only read tech books, they take away my creative energy rather than grant it, as fiction does.
- 9 months earlier
- SG
Seth Godin quoted
Marketing author and daily blogger
Their wordsIt means that you have to extend yourself with empathy to the person you're seeking to serve, to the person who the work is for. And you have to extend yourself not just through space, but through time into the future, announcing something that might or might not work. You don't know yet. That's what makes it creative. If you exert the emotional labor to do those two things, sometimes you will have a successful creative outcome. That's a choice.
↗Seth Godin: "Failure is Learning on Your Way to Mastery" and Other Advice for Creativity (The Knowledge Project #105, published 23 February 2021)youtube.com 11th of 16 in this recording
- 6 weeks earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordsCreativity is perishable, just like inspiration. It has to be discharged regularly or it will spoil
- 4 weeks earlier
- AC
Andrew Chen quoted
General partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of The Cold Start Problem
Their wordsThe frequency of creating helps you build the muscle for more later.
- 5 days earlier
- CH
Cate Hall quoted
Former Supreme Court litigator and the top-ranked female…
Their wordsThe reality is that grinding, even if it temporarily increases output, kills creativity and big picture thinking.
↗How to be more agenticusefulfictions.substack.com 7th of 9 in this piece
- 7 weeks earlier
- NC
Nick Cave quoted
Australian songwriter and writer
Their wordsBut I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.
↗What do I do with these songs?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 2 in this piece
The line under a date fills as the words age, a quarter at a time: past a month, six months, a year, and three years. Empty means said within the last month; full, more than three years ago. It says when, not whether it still holds — a change of mind is marked on the claim itself.
Dashed means we only know the words existed by that date; they may be older.