korrents

Max Hodak

@max-hodak · 40 positions · 0 changes of mind

Co-founder and chief executive of Science, a neurotechnology company whose retinal implant restores sight to blind patients; before founding it he spent five years at Neuralink.

Max Hodak did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

  1. Our reading

    Moonshots 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.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 6:07 · all korrents from this recording

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

    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    Humanity is not good enough at molecular biology to make drugs that restore vision or hearing or stop Parkinson's.

    Their wordsPeople have spent huge amounts of time and money looking for drugs to restore vision or to restore hearing or to stop Parkinson's or to to help paralyzed people move again. Understanding the like the biology and the molecular detail required to make a drug has been very difficult. Humanity just isn't that good at that, to be totally honest.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 7:13 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 2nd of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our reading

    Putting a device into the brain works in an hour, which makes it far more amenable to biology than drug discovery.

    Their wordsIt's like if I put electrodes in M1, you will probably be using a computer in an hour. Um and so it's just it's easier, it's more amenable to biology in many ways.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 8:16 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 3rd of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our reading

    The brain is very literally a computer, and so is the universe -- this is not a metaphor.

    Their wordsLike, the brain very literally, very clearly, plainly is a computer in in my understanding of the world. I also view the universe generally as a computer.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 10:12 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 4th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our reading

    Treating brain-computer interfaces as one investment category is like having a single "drug bet" -- the field is as varied as pharma.

    Their wordsYeah, I mean I think BCI is a category kind of like how pharma is a category. I think sometimes you I I'll talk to VCs and like, "Oh, we have a BCI bet." I'm like, "Do you have a drug bet? You made one bet on a drugs? Like that's that's how you think about the category?"
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 12:26 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 5th of 18 in this recording

    venture capital

    Interesting

  11. Our reading

    You want to command a device explicitly, not have it act on a thought you happened to have.

    Their wordsIt'd be pretty annoying if they just start like spontaneously getting notifications during meetings that like, "Oh, it thought that you were thinking about an Uber, therefore it decided to summon summon two for you." And so you'll probably want these to be pretty explicit.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 13:32 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 6th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  13. Our reading

    Vision, hearing, balance and a kilobit per second of motor control would get you halfway to the Matrix.

    Their wordsbecause if you can if you get vision, hearing, balance, and a kilobit per second of motor control, you're halfway to the Matrix.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 14:03 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 7th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  15. Our reading

    What people care about in their own identity is continuity, not similarity -- they accept enormous drift so long as the thread is unbroken.

    Their wordsso I'm in the camp that like continuity is greatly important. And so people will accept significant drift in their identity over time as long as they have continuity.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 18:26 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 8th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  17. Our reading

    Concepts are represented with strikingly similar geometry inside large AI models and inside brains.

    Their wordsAnd so when you look inside these big AI models, the mathematical objects that you see look a lot like the things that you see in neuroscience. So if you look at how do how do these AI models represent um just like represent concepts and you look at the parts of the brain that represent concepts, you see these you see very similar geometry.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 20:20 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 9th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  19. Our reading

    Intelligence looks like a fact of physics: apply enough compute to matter and you get something that thinks.

    Their wordsI mean it feels like a lot of physics. Like if you apply enough compute to matter, you get this thing that looks like intelligence.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 21:06 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 10th of 18 in this recording

    physics

    Interesting

  21. Our reading

    The most fertile way to study neuroscience today is to work on AI models rather than on brains.

    Their wordsWell, I mean ironically it's probably working on AI.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 22:09 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 11th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  23. Our reading

    Restoring vision to the blind is a good business, and a company doing it should aim to be profitable rather than permanently funded.

    Their wordsYeah, well I mean becoming profitable or at least have like having the ability to do this forever is a super high priority. Restoring vision to the blind is pretty good business if you can actually do that.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 22:49 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 12th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  25. Our reading

    The brain is the only organ that cannot even in principle be transplanted; the heart, liver and lungs are support characters.

    Their wordsthe only organ that you can't even in principle transplant is the brain. The like the heart, pancreas, the liver, the lungs, as far as I'm concerned, they're really support characters. They're there to keep the brain activity interesting and and going.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 25:33 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 13th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  27. Our reading

    Getting vision, hearing, balance and motor signals in and out of the brain is an end in itself, because the world you experience is generated in there.

    Their wordsThat world is is generated by the brain. And so, if you can get visuals the visual signal, auditory signal, balance, motor, like somatic sensory motor in and out of the brain, that is that is an end in itself. That is the central object.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 26:47 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 14th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  29. Our reading

    If this work succeeds, the sense of jeopardy that comes with having a body will simply fade.

    Their wordsAnd I think that if we're successful, what will happen is that sense of jeopardy will fade. Like we will be we will just become much less fragile.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 27:59 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 15th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  31. Our reading

    If we are serious about going to the stars we will have to adapt our bodies, because we are not going to export Earth everywhere we go.

    Their wordsthe other extreme is if we're serious about exploring the universe and going to the stars, we are going to have to adapt ourselves to that environment. We're not going to export Earth with us everywhere we go.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 28:28 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 16th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  33. Our reading

    Talking and writing are not read-outs of a finished thought -- they are the thinking, so a faster brain-to-text channel would not make you think faster.

    Their wordsWell, I mean first of all, I think that talking or writing is thinking.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 29:18 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 17th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  35. Our reading

    A brain keyboard may go the way of AR glasses: attention was already fully occupied, so moving the interface closer changes nothing.

    Their wordsIt might turn out to be like AR AR glasses where it's just we were our attention was already fully 100% occupied and putting it on the face didn't really change that. We were already consuming all of the available time.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 30:40 · all korrents from this recording

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

    Interesting
  36. 13 days earlier

  37. Our reading

    Making a highly paid team wait a week to buy a tool at half price destroys far more value than it saves.

    Their wordsthen you also remember that you've hired some very highly paid and talented employees. And are you saying they can't get the tools that they need? That you're spending $100,000 a week. If you wait a week to get a power supply half off, you have certainly dwarfed any possible benefit from getting it.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 4:25 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 1st of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  39. Our reading

    Approving purchases one at a time is the wrong place to control burn; spending review belongs earlier, in a budget people can make their own trade-offs inside.

    Their wordsAnd so what you realize is not only is this very hard to keep burn under control, but also it's just this is the inappropriate place to exercise spending review. Spending review has to come earlier. You have to have some concept of budgeting.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 4:44 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  41. Our reading

    If nobody can say what an experiment costs, everyone behaves as though experiments are free — it does not cost dollars, it costs media, and media comes from the fridge.

    Their wordsAnd so if nobody knows how much an experiment costs, like every time you like grow up a new cell line or every time we make a new a new probe in in the fab, how much does that loop cost? Nobody knows. Therefore, experiments are free. Um, it doesn't cost dollars. It costs media. And media comes from the fridge.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 6:54 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  43. Our reading

    The best companies come out of scenes: a moment and a community that nucleate the founding team, and once that moment passes it is hard to get back.

    Their wordsI think the best companies in my experience come from what might be characterized as scenes. There's like a moment that enables a new company to be born and there's a bunch that comes together that really creates this like unique nucleation for the new company.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 9:11 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 4th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  45. Our reading

    There is no right hiring process, but there is a wrong one: not having something you do religiously as a company.

    Their wordsthere's no one right answer, but this is a thing where you need a really defined process. There is no right answer, but a wrong answer for sure is not having something that you do very religiously as a company.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 10:09 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 5th of 22 in this recording

    hiring

    Interesting

  47. Our reading

    Any one person or small group placed at the top of the hiring funnel will bottleneck the whole organisation, so first-round review should be distributed across the company as a vote.

    Their wordsAnd so we can distribute the voting across a lot of the company for this initial review, which is essential because if you're doing anything cool, by the time you get a couple years into it, that top of funnel is overwhelming. And if you place any in any small group of employees or any one person in the way as a bottle bottleneck on this, they will absolutely bottleneck the whole rest of the organization.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 11:47 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 6th of 22 in this recording

    hiring

    Interesting

  49. Our reading

    The annual performance review is disruptive and surfaces nothing you did not already know but had avoided acting on.

    Their wordsUm which based on my experience is like this is a a very disruptive process that doesn't tend to surface issues that you don't already know about but haven't acted on because you knew that thing was there.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 16:00 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 7th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  51. Our reading

    Performance review is best done as a PageRank-style computation over continuous company-wide votes, not as an annual HR cycle.

    Their wordsThis is a little bit different than actually literally I vector centrality but it's very similar and so we call this technique IGEN reviews and I've become convinced that this is more or less the right way to do performance reviews.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 17:38 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 8th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  53. Our reading

    Rate of iteration separates success from failure: a competitor learning one thing a month will never matter to a company learning one thing a week.

    Their wordsBut the the real theme of the talk is that rate of iteration separates success from failure. And if you can get a fast iteration loop, that really overcomes many other things you're going to run into. And this effect is so severe. I mean, if you can learn one thing every week and there's a competitor that's learning a thing every month, they will they will never matter.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 18:44 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 9th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  55. Our reading

    A startup's speed is set by boring internal infrastructure — purchasing, recruiting, spending — and that matters as much as understanding the technology itself.

    Their wordsAnd so speed determines success and failure and speed is determined by infrastructure. This is driven by really boring sounding things like how well do your purchasing and recruiting and spending processes work. This is as important as how well do you understand understand the object level technical content of the thing that you're building.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 19:27 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 10th of 22 in this recording

    startupsinfrastructure

    Interesting

  57. Our reading

    Deep tech companies rarely fail because the technology does not work; they fail because nobody built the systems to run the organisation around it.

    Their wordsIt's like it's it's uncommon that these deep tech companies that fail because the technology doesn't work. They fail because once you end up with this organization of hundreds of people and thousand hundreds of thousands of square feet of physical infrastructure, you haven't built the systems to manage that.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 19:53 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording

    infrastructure

    Interesting

  59. Our reading

    A founder cannot delegate judgment: the chief executive has to make the decision that makes sense to them, however much momentum the alternative has.

    Their wordsAnd one of the harder lessons as a startup founder, one of the harder things I think to to really deal with is the fact that you cannot delegate your judgment. As as the CEO, you must always make decisions that make sense to you, no matter how much momentum or inertia alternatives seem to have.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 20:30 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 12th of 22 in this recording

    startups

    Interesting

  61. Our reading

    Copying the consensus drags you towards the average, and average is not good enough — so you have to make the decisions that make sense to you even when you are completely alone in them.

    Their wordsAnd so um in order to succeed your judgment has to be differentiatedly good. Now the reality might be that you don't know if your judgment is good yet. And so um one way or another you will have to find out and that means making decisions that make sense to you even when you are totally alone in that realization.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 21:08 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  63. Our reading

    It is very hard to actually get stuck, because the action space is always larger than it appears.

    Their wordsNow, the good news is that in my experience, it's very difficult to actually get stuck. Um, you can get yourself into trouble and the action space is always larger than it appears.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 22:02 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 14th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  65. Our reading

    Once a field really starts to work, the best people leave the universities, because industry can marshal far larger resources and move much faster.

    Their wordsSo when a field really starts to work, industry can just marshall such larger levels of resources and can just move so much faster.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 25:43 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 15th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  67. Our reading

    The best evidence of exceptional ability is winning at a legible competitive game, and without one it is hard to know whether you are exceptional at all.

    Their wordsI think you have to have that type of competitive feedback. It is tough to know if you're exceptional um without having some legible competitive game.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 27:22 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 16th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  69. Our reading

    Consciousness is a practical problem rather than a philosophical one: given a brain-computer interface that could read and drive every neuron, we would work it out quickly.

    Their wordsNow, if we had a tech if we had a magical BCI that allowed me to see the instant state of every neuron in the brain and and drive them, I think we'd figure out consciousness pretty fast. I don't think I think this is a practical problem, not a philosophical problem.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 31:54 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 17th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  71. Our reading

    Treating the brain directly as a computer produces effect sizes medicine does not otherwise see — a deep brain stimulator takes a patient from unable to hold a cup of water to writing cursive in ten seconds.

    Their wordsIt gives you these effect sizes that you just don't really see in medicine. Like if you have a patient on on a dopamineergic drug for Parkinson's that works for some period of time, but it's a it's a relatively small effect after a little while. You turn on a deep brain stimulator and a patient goes from not being able to hold a cup of water to being able to write cursive in like 10 seconds.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 41:08 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 18th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  73. Our reading

    Some ideas are worth funding with fifty million dollars or with nothing, and never with five million, because underfunding buys you an ambiguous outcome instead of an answer.

    Their wordsthere are definitely some ideas that are worth funding with $50 million or zero dollars, but not $5 million. Um you won't run the experiment. It'll be really frustrating experience. You'll get an ambiguous outcome.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 43:53 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 19th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  75. Our reading

    Even a long-horizon deep tech company should chase revenue sooner than it thinks, so that it is valued on its roadmap rather than on its probability of dying.

    Their wordsyou do need to think about how do you get to revenue so that not just you can do it forever, but then you'll be valued on your long-term road map, not not valued on your probability of dying.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 45:34 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 20th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  77. Our reading

    A company doing something at the edge of the Overton window has to hold two cultures at once — the true believers and the serious professionals who think they are crazy — and integrating them is what makes it work.

    Their wordsI think one of the things that makes science the company very special is that it has both of those cultures and is able to integrate them and we're able to simultaneously do some really cool research that I think is really at the edge of the Overton window while simultaneously running clinical trials in six countries now with an approved medical device in Europe and clinical trial results in the New England Journal of Medicine.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 53:17 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 21st of 22 in this recording

    Europe

    Interesting

  79. Our reading

    Telling your investors after a Series A that you are going to vibe-code your own purchasing system is contrarian enough that any reasonable board would question it.

    Their wordsWell, I mean, okay, even the whole basis of building Helix is contrarian. Like, I think that if you raise a series A and then you tell your investors that you're going to vibe code a purchasing system, I think that any reasonable board is going to like ask you what you're thinking.
    spoken · machine transcript hear it at 56:25 · all korrents from this recording

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 22nd of 22 in this recording

    vibe coding

    Interesting