Tim Sullivan

Editor @a16zcrypto
Worked: @ucpress, @harvardbiz, @princetonupress
Wrote: are hardly even my views...

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

(to the tune of "too many cooks"): Writin' a book, writin' a book...

[Robert Hackett @rhackett]

Hey everyone, some personal news I’m really excited about...

For the past few months I’ve been working on a book proposal with my friend and colleague Tim Sullivan (@Tim_Org). We’re excited to share that it’s just been acquired by Crown Currency at Penguin Random House!

We’re calling it (for now) Inside The Machine: How Computer Science Rewired Everything.

Most of us talk about tech in terms of the shiny stuff — apps, gadgets, platforms, and the people who built them. But this misses a bigger, more interesting story.

Computer science didn't just hand us new tools. It changed how we think about problems in the first place — what even counts as a problem, what looks like a solution, what we optimize for, and what we ignore.

Over time, this way of thinking has seeped outward and saturated everything else. You see it in markets that run like algorithms instead of human institutions, in media that’s tuned for engagement, in companies organized more like software than trad hierarchies. Even in the way people talk: inputs, outputs, signals, noise, etc.

Once you start noticing it, it’s hard to stop seeing it everywhere.

Tim and I have spent years separately reporting on tech, business, science, and economics, and then also as editors on the a16z crypto editorial team. Throughout, we kept running into the same big question: what happens when the logic of computing becomes the logic of society?

This book is our personal attempt to answer that — to trace how these ideas spread (often without us realizing) and how they’ve reshaped the systems we all live with, including the tradeoffs that come with them.

We’re still super early in the process, but we’re thrilled it’s happening. If you want to follow along as the book comes together, we’d love that.

In the meantime, tell us: what’s your favorite example you’ve seen of computer science thinking sneaking into everyday life? Could be in business, politics, dating, whatever — we'd love to know what you all notice.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

Rosebud was his sled.

[claire @CineClaire]

Tom Holland spoiling The Odyssey is career suicide with Nolan

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@skominers @milesjennings https://t.co/QXRvBTgwIA

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@bencasnocha "You may recall that I've emailed you 1400 times before" can pay dividends.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@drewcoffman Good tweet

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

For example, I was writing about the disappearance of "local time," which was in part a consequence of the ubiquity of the telegraph. (By local time, I mean, for instance, the practice in my village of the clergyman blowing a conch shell every night to tell everyone it was time to say prayers.)

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

He was right, of course: The effects were immense and far reaching -- and we now take them for granted.

[Andy Hall @ahall_research]

"It is obvious...that this mode of instantaneous communication must inevitably become an instrument of immense power, to be wielded for good or for evil, as it shall be properly or improperly directed."

--Samuel Morse, to Congress, on the telegraph, 1838

How have people thought in advance about the potential effects of profound new technologies? As we grapple with the potential impact of AI, I've found it valuable to revisit past technologies, to compare predictions with actual subsequent outcomes. Over the coming weeks I'll cover the telegraph, radio, television, and more.

Morse recognized the profound implications of being able to contact anyone across the world nearly instantaneously. And he worried about what a company or the government might do with unchecked power over this technology.

In words that seem to foreshadow the DoW-Anthropic battle, he wrote to Congress:

"In the hands of a company of speculators, who should monopolize it for themselves, it might be the means of enriching the corporation at the expense of the bankruptcy of thousands; and even in the hands of Government alone, it might become a means of working vast mischief to the republic."

Morse then proposed a remarkable hybrid regulatory solution. The government would own and operate its own telegraph---so that companies could not interfere with the workings of government---while also licensing the right to operate telegraph networks to private companies in parallel. He thought this would balance the needs of the private sector and government.

Congress ultimately rejected Morse's solution, leading to privately provided telegraphs and, eventually thanks to network effects, the quasi-monopoly of Western Union. Was this better or worse than Morse's proposal? We'll never know.

What does this all mean for AI? I'm not sure yet. But just like Morse, we'll want to think about a wide variety of potential policy solutions for AI, lest the government or a frontier lab end up with undue amounts of power that allows them to work "vast mischief to the republic."

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

The lack of interoperability in data storage media is appalling

[Everything Price Sufferer (but especially eggs) @agraybee]

Give me your best Star Wars nitpicks. No reasonable criticisms or analysis, I'm talking real pedantic here.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

too cool

[Scott Kominers @skominers]

Super excited to share joint work with @axiommathai that kicks off a broader project of formalization in economics.

Aumann's celebrated theorem says we can't "agree to disagree."

But what does that actually mean – formally? 👀

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@theleanover that's no way to shop at a Costco

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@ccatalini You should write this up (for us)

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@bzogrammer Look, if it's not Vermont cheddar, I'm not interested.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@CaitlinPacific I mean, unless your a Pharisee.

(Yes, I know this is confused in lots of ways, but I stand by essence of the joke.)

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

Scott's piece is probably the most evenhanded assessment of prediction markets that you'll read.

[Ben Napier @BenNapier]

"When prediction markets work well, they can offer significant benefits over other forecasting methods. First of all, the simple fact that they provide a probability estimate is a superpower. Polls and surveys, by contrast, just give an opinion share — and to convert that into a probability, you have to reason statistically about how the share you measured relates to the overall population. Polls also typically reflect just a snapshot in time, whereas prediction markets can update in real time as new participants and/or new information arrive."

Great piece by my colleague @skominers 👇

https://t.co/evG9ow5o2E

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@skominers @BenNapier It really is very good.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@davidclowery Springsteen's "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder"

[The Free Press @TheFP]

Have a glass. Get some sleep. Stop tracking yourself. The millennial fixation with wearable devices and health optimization is pointless quackery. https://t.co/n2Zm0xWd1t

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@LoganJastremski @alive_ Decentralization is a means.

[Ali Yahya @alive_]

We’re at that point in the cycle where we’re forgetting what the whole point was to begin with.

The pendulum has now swung too far.

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

@benfielding @alive_ To be fair, writing is my job and I do in fact live in the woods, but I've never gotten fussed about writing technology (although WordPerfect 5.1 lived up to its name)

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”

[Tim Sullivan @Tim_Org]

It's somehow comforting that ChatGPT told me that the past few weeks have been "almost comically Melvillean."