Airplane Thoughts - 1/8/25 - AI, Mortaility, Purpose
I’m on a flight back home from Nashville to Salt Lake City, so I’ve got some time to burn. It’s been a while since I’ve jotted down some thoughts. Obviously, the world hasn’t stopped and tons has happened since I last posted.
What better time than now to take a walk Beyond the Yellow Woods!
Mortality
On the top of my mind, this time around is mortality. The human body really is a fickle platform. On Christmas day, my appendix essentially ruptured and I had to go to the ER which led to surgery. It was such immense pain. In that time, I realized that I don’t have a will written and that even though yes, I am young, I’m starting to get to the age where health declines happen. Not only that, but they are cascading. One injury or medical setback leads to another and the dominos start to fall.
What is wealth without health? My wife and I are generally very health-conscious and fit people. Kicking this year off by being in the ER was yet another wake-up call to get even more serious about it.
Welcome to the Exponential Age
The reason I was in Nashville was for our company's annual planning. It was a productive meeting and I was presenting for 8 hours straight on a variety of topics.
The main driving point that I was pitching was this:
Welcome to the exponential age.
Humans are linear thinkers. We live in a linear time scale. We have amnesia in many ways to the past given that we are, at the core, a survivor species (fight/flight). We absolutely suck at thinking in exponential terms which causes us to dramatically underestimate not only what we are capable of but where things are going that tend to follow exponential curves, such as technology.
In my discussions with leadership, the obvious topic was artificial intelligence. Below are 2 charts that show just how fast the progress is happening in this field. It’s not years. It’s not months. It’s weeks or less.
The adoption rate of ChatGPT is vertical. Literally. What’s more insane is this:
Our progress to AGI is exponential. While the term “AGI” is subjective, what is clear is that the era of ushering in AGI is here. In fact, I think within the next 3 years, we will have achieved the general definition of AGI. I got some confirmation on this after an awesome discussion I had with a former AI Researcher at Google DeepMind. We both abstractly agreed with each other that the missing pieces in AGI (which is getting aggressive focus) are more robust knowledge graphs for hyper-tuned training and further development of AI Agents.
I think 2025-2026 will be the years that AI Agents make the most amount of progress in terms of utility value and return on investment. We’ll clearly see yield in employing these systems.
Last night, I got more confirmation of this from Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, and his keynote at CES. The below image tells the story of the evolutionary arc we’re going through:
I can only lead the horses to the water. I can’t make them drink. Either you realize what is about to happen is explosive and will fundamentally change every industry, or you don’t and you’ll get left behind.
What I can say is that AI is a hyper deflationary tool. It's sending the costs of building software to zero. There are no moats anymore because access to knowledge has been commoditized. Yields and defensibility have been pushed further out on the curves to the extremes.
The only way to win is to out-accelerate the competition. Being the first mover will give you a distinct advantage.
On Affinities
For those who know me, music is one of the more integral elements in my life. I enjoy listening to lots of music and generally have something on at all times.
One of the more interesting aspects that I find about music is its ability to trigger significant memories and develop deep affinities to other aspects of life. For me, one of those is particular locations.
There’s a certain artist that I listen to often that, no matter what, brings me back to a place that I’ve fallen in love with: Sedona, Arizona.
It’s weird in that when I play through his album, there’s a deep visceral multi-modal feeling that I can replay in my head. The warms, the red rock canyon visuals, the breeze, the happy emotional state, etc. Sure, it’s all psychological priming but I find it an interesting phenomenon - the brain’s ability to generate a quasi-suspended reality state when listening to music.
Purpose
The older I get, the more “my purpose” in life starts to become apparent. In this context, I’m talking about the things I enjoy working on and what not. I have many purposes, one of them is being a good and present father to my kids and wife. But in this context, I’m talking about my work purpose.
I used to want to be the CEO of a tech company, be a big shot, be somebody that everyone knew. A “big player” in whatever game I was playing in. This was mainly to stroke an ego that lowly old me, a college drop out, could make it big. I also wanted to make a ton of money, buy nice cars, whatever.
Oh young, 20-year-old me.
I’ve been in my field for 15 years and have been in it in a professional capacity for 10. More and more, my greatest enjoyment comes from building solutions to painful problems with people that are super bright. I very much enjoy the chaos and uncertainty of super difficult problems and going to war against them. It’s extraordinarily fun to build a cult of personalities with a shared vision and passion around a particular problem.
The allure of the potential to achiever greatness amidst the sheer complexity of a problem is one of those weird palpable life elements for me. I’ve learned that I dislike the meetings, the politics, talking about stuff with no action, not making bets, playing it safe, etc. It’s all the things that are the antithesis of who I am.
And lately, it’s felt good to flex who I am at the core. I think most folks go through life putting on a front or a flavor of their personality in order to “fit in” and have stability. I know I was this way all through my 20s. It’s only now that I’m learning that by doing so, I’m trading of short term gain for long term pain. It takes courage to be a truly unique individual but I’ve found that it is the fastest, more clear path towards having a purpose.
Sure, we all have monetary needs and I’m not discrediting that reality. However, what I wish I learned earlier on is that it’s much more lucrative to follow your passions than it is to become a sheep just so you can blend in. Yes, this is an old trope but if I was talking to younger me, it’s the advice I would give because I believe it more and more each year that goes by.
I thought I would want to write about more stuff that has been happening recently like politics, geopolitics, the markets, whatever. I definitely have opinions on what’s been happening lately but, honestly, it’s just not something I really care to write about right now. Perhaps next time.
We land in Salt Lake City soon. Feels good to be back. Travel just isn’t the same anymore when you have kids. It’s often necessary for business but no longer a mix of pleasure and business. I’d rather be home and see the family every night.
Until next time!