The Anthology of Balaji

the point of doing a startup is to build something money can’t buy.
ultimate purpose of technology is to eliminate mortality, the main source of scarcity.
Speed has value because time has value. Time has value because life spans are finite.
Regulation is slow compared to real time regulation of Uber/airbnb.
- pass a law - force someone to do something
- write code - i will do something
every area tech touches reduces prices - it is the opposite for government. eg guns meant tech + supply chain were more important than physical skills
1900’s was centralised power/media/communication → now unbuilding → and will rebundle around new core
physical (cash, theatre) → digital (e-transfers, movies) → native digital (crypto, CGI)
in future, drones could transport us anywhere, VR will allow us to visualise online communities of millions. imagine continuous sugar monitoring, or dopamine monitoring.
pursue truth > health > wealth - distinguish social consensus from truth.
If you are what you eat, then you think what you see/consume.
- could wearable detect dopamine?
- could a tool give me nutritional facts on the media i consume?
- blocknyt.com
people normally say: war reporting, politics in one end of spectrum ←→ kardashians is the other end. actually :
infotainment ← → news you can use+tutorials. People consume media to be entertained, so they don’t have the incentive to understand something deeply.

overconsuming novely + underconsuming purpose - imagine a personal dashboard on metrics you want to improve like health/hobbies. Imagine MensHealth 2.0 that gave personalised info for you, and you could track the info.
Socialism < nationalism < capitalism < technologist
6 P’s
- Product - what are you selling?
- Person - to whom?
- Purpose - why are they buying it?
- Pricing - at what price?
- Priority - why now?
- Prestige - why from you?
Ask reports to describe bull, base, bear case for 1 yr + longer (eg 4yr) period
When scaling, include a metric of quality to compensate for possible cheating of main growth metric
Execution - every person responsible for 1 thing
Hard work is a competitive advantage
Even thinking hard work is a competitive advantage is itself now a competitive advantage.