00:41:45 · Amjad Masad, Aditya Agarwal, Haya Odeh
[00:41:45] S0: the problem with family, there's a lot of good things about family business, but part of the problem is like, a lot of us come from countries where nepotism is like a big problem. You need to be aware of that. Like you shouldn't approach this with a nepotistic mindset. It should actually be meritocratic. Everyone should be putting their best. [00:42:04] S2: It's a great answer. I I don't have much more to add based on what Haya said. But I often tell people is that my work is really important to me. And I think that it would be very hard to explain the insanity of being an entrepreneur to somebody who wasn't actually living it. It's actually very hard to kind of be like, hey, I'm crazy, I want you to understand me, right? So the fact that I have a life and kind of a work partner who deeply understands that insanity, I think is actually just a really good thing. [00:42:34] S1: Yeah, I just wanna add something from my experience in building Replit, to watch out for power hungry people that can get like in, make you feel skeptical of what you're doing or questioning what you're doing. So it's finding like other people who are doing similar work like you and seeking advice like, hey, I'm noticing this, this, that. Am I crazy or am I not crazy? So advice there, this is something that we experienced, that we seek advice, and it was super valuable.
00:42:34 · Haya Odeh, Ruchi Sanghvi
[00:42:34] S1: Yeah, I just wanna add something from my experience in building Replit, to watch out for power hungry people that can get like in, make you feel skeptical of what you're doing or questioning what you're doing. So it's finding like other people who are doing similar work like you and seeking advice like, hey, I'm noticing this, this, that. Am I crazy or am I not crazy? So advice there, this is something that we experienced, that we seek advice, and it was super valuable. [00:43:08] S3: So one of the things that I'm paranoid about is that I cannot keep up with the pace of information. So I'm curious, what is your information regimen? How do you keep up with the pace of everything that's changing, especially with AI, and also run a company at the same time?
00:43:08 · Ruchi Sanghvi, Amjad Masad
[00:43:08] S3: So one of the things that I'm paranoid about is that I cannot keep up with the pace of information. So I'm curious, what is your information regimen? How do you keep up with the pace of everything that's changing, especially with AI, and also run a company at the same time? [00:43:23] S0: It's hard. Look, I think that you need to have certain predictions or a working model about the world such that things should not be massively surprising. If they are surprising, you need to update your priors. So you need to have a model of a world such that if you're off of Twitter for a day or two or a week or two, it's not a big deal because you sort of understand where things are headed. And I constantly am trying to figure out where things are headed. I'll make predictions. I'll often make predictions publicly. And I think it's just like a skill to hone. So if you understand and try to understand the models and how they work and try to read some research papers when they come out. Again, it's a kind of buzzword, but if you have more first principles understanding of things, you don't have to be on top of That's actually the
00:43:23 · Amjad Masad, Aditya Agarwal, Ruchi Sanghvi
[00:43:23] S0: It's hard. Look, I think that you need to have certain predictions or a working model about the world such that things should not be massively surprising. If they are surprising, you need to update your priors. So you need to have a model of a world such that if you're off of Twitter for a day or two or a week or two, it's not a big deal because you sort of understand where things are headed. And I constantly am trying to figure out where things are headed. I'll make predictions. I'll often make predictions publicly. And I think it's just like a skill to hone. So if you understand and try to understand the models and how they work and try to read some research papers when they come out. Again, it's a kind of buzzword, but if you have more first principles understanding of things, you don't have to be on top of That's actually the [00:44:15] S2: best answer I've heard about this. I've asked a lot of people on stage that same question, and I think that I wouldn't have been so articulate about it, but a lot of what I'm trying to do is you are making micro predictions, and then if you see something that is wildly off, either you need to update the model, your own model, or you Or it's a scam. Or it's a scam, exactly. Most of apps say, oh, that person's stupid, right? Go ahead, I was gonna open it up maybe I after one more [00:44:45] S3: mean, do have a lot of questions, but we can open it up. [00:44:47] S2: Why don't you give one last one? [00:44:48] S3: Why don't you ask the kid question?
00:44:48 · Ruchi Sanghvi, Aditya Agarwal, Amjad Masad
[00:44:48] S3: Why don't you ask the kid question? [00:44:50] S2: Yeah, okay. So Shyam says six now, So our kids are almost like three, six, and nine ourselves. And you think a lot about obviously raising your children, giving them a great environment, trying to prepare them for the world that they will grow up in. But it is very hard to kind of have a high conviction, high confidence mental model of the world. What's the world going to look like in nine years when Avian has to go to college, right? That's kind of insane to think about. So how are you preparing your children for the coming, I would say, change in the world? [00:45:27] S0: Before we had our kids, I've been always like a ad tech nurse. I always liked education technology, worked in education technology, invested a lot in it, really bad sector investment. And then when we had our kids, I like tried all these tools on them, especially Shams, it was like he learns very differently. And it's sort of like, what is Mike Tyson's kind of quote where you have plans and [00:45:54] S2: then like- You get punched in the face. [00:45:55] S0: You get punched in the face. [00:45:56] S2: Everybody's got a strategy until they get punched in the face.
00:45:56 · Aditya Agarwal, Amjad Masad
[00:45:56] S2: Everybody's got a strategy until they get punched in the face. [00:45:58] S0: Yeah, I feel like having kids is like getting punched in the face by reality constantly. And so we're just learning as we're going. The one surprising thing is actually the Bay Area should be one of the places that's quite innovative on education. But it's like a Montessori school is like the most innovative thing you can find here, which is like 70 years old now. It's deeply frustrating how little change happen in education. I think what a lot of people with means end up doing is they end up creating their own schools like Elon. I think you guys might have experience with that. And then other people do just homeschooling because it really is not that great. Like you go look for schools, most of them are not that good. Ultimately, the main lesson from education technology is Bloom's Two Sigma problem. So this researcher found that no matter what intervention you can make in school, there's one intervention that creates two standard deviation improvement in educational attainment. And it is one on one tutoring. And there's nothing really better than that. So finding like one on one tutors for your kids, or finding AI apps that are really good at that, one of my investments, Synthesis, could actually be really helpful. But I think we're just trying to navigate.