I just finished Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, cofounder of YCombinator. I strongly recommend it for anyone who is thinking about doing a startup. The book consists of a collection of interviews with company founders. Some of the interviewees were extremely successful; others achieved a good modest success quickly, followed by a buyout; and others seemed like they were on a path to success but then failed.
One clear message from the book is that taking VC money is very decidedly not always a good thing.
Another depressing trend was how many companies startup, expand, and do very well, then are bought out by BigCorp, which then fails to manage them correctly, so the product effectively disappears.
Death Is Optional A Conversation: Yuval Noah Harari, Daniel Kahneman [3.4.15]
http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari-daniel_kahneman-death-is-optional
The money quote:
...KAHNEMAN: You seem to be describing this as something that is already happening. Are you referring to developments such as the plans to do away with death? That absolutely would not be a mass project. But could you elaborate on that?
.HARARI: Yes, the attitude now towards disease and old age and death is that they are basically technical problems. It is a huge revolution in human thinking. Throughout history, old age and death were always treated as metaphysical problems, as something that the gods decreed, as something fundamental to what defines humans, what defines the human condition and reality.
Even a few years ago, very few doctors or scientists would seriously say that they are trying to overcome old age and death. They would say no, I am trying to overcome this particular disease, whether it's tuberculosis or cancer or Alzheimers. Defeating disease and death, this is nonsense, this is science fiction.
But, the new attitude is to treat old age and death as technical problems, no different in essence than
Everything is heritable:
Politics/religion:
Statistics/AI/meta-science:
...TV and Movies (Live Action) Thread
I recently watched After The Dark, which has a very neat storytelling premise, but isn't actually that good.
It features a philosophy teacher running a thought experiment with his class of 18-year-olds on the last day of term, in which they're all given an identity and have to argue for their inclusion in a bunker to survive a nuclear holocaust and repopulate the human race. We cut between their classroom discussions and cinematic depictions of the scenarios they're role-playing.
It's not brilliantly done, and the sentiment it ends up pushing would give most LW readers an apoplexy, but it's an example of a film which I'd like to see done well.
This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.
Rules: