George Holdridge

Hacking the simulation

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

Interesting. I agree we will likely go through a similar experience with AI as with electricity, but on a 10-100x faster time frame.

[Zara Zhang @zarazhangrui]

If you've adopted AI at your company but haven't seen any tangible results, read this 1990 article: "The Dynamo and the Computer" by Paul David.

When electricity first arrived, factories that "adopted" it barely got faster. They just swapped the steam engine for an electric one and ran everything else exactly as before: same machine layout, same workflow, same management. Electricity in, no real gains out.

The most common mistake with any new technology is to drop it into the old organization and then declare the transformation done.

The real leap came decades later, when each machine got its own small motor. Suddenly machines no longer had to be lined up around one central drive shaft. They could be rearranged around the actual flow of work.

The productivity gains didn't come from electricity. They came from REDESIGNING THE ENTIRE FACTORY around it.

AI is the same. Bolting it onto your existing process gets you a faster steam engine. The payoff comes when you redesign the work itself.

(link to paper in comments)

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

The speed and amount of AI-related software keeps increasing. Feel like it effectively doubles every month. Incredible.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@johnennis Agree. And anyone who has ever lived in So Cal knows it (aka, me, in a previous life).

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@DavidSacks Thanks for the clarification @DavidSacks, but still disappointed. We want to reduce regulation, not increase it, because, regardless of "good intentions", the regulators always expand their power, inhibit innovation, and become, yes, corrupt. Always.

Sad, sad, sad.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

Early #MicrosoftBuild thoughts:

@Microsoft is moving in a good direction - treating on-PC inference under Windows as a first-class citizen. The NVIDIA collaboration, new AI Surface laptops (smart reference designs), their own AI agent infrastructure, and deeper native Linux command support are all great.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@PeterDiamandis 🎯

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

I'm with Peter. And hurry up!

[Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis]

The best time to start was last year. The second best time is right now. The worst time is 'when things settle down.' They never will.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

Agree with Sally's take. I've been in tech for over 40 years myself and my fondest memories are those years when, working as a team, we were fully committed to getting a project done, whatever it took. Often with very aggressive deadlines. Many, many all-nighters.

I chose to stay.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

Legend

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

What a story: apparently Typescript was created after the Outlook Web team asked the C# team to create Script# for them: a language that would compile C# to JavaScript.

Anders said “no” to that path, because it felt too hacky, then created Typescript instead!

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@rob_stemp @GergelyOrosz Ditto

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@elonmusk @PeterDiamandis Ok Elon - we'll hold you to it. Never give up!!!

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

For SWE, there may be a level where being best is not required. But we're not there yet. If OAI, Anthropic, or Google leapfrogs the others, people will switch quickly - I've gone back and forth between Claude and Codex multiple times. Currently, there is huge value to latest-and-greatest models.

Would love for XAI to be a 4th player. Looking forward to the day when the models become literally expert SWEs, and the price wars begin!

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

Disagree. Automation has been the bread and butter of every system I've built over 40 years. A few examples:
- Electric power billing
- Insurance policy page assembly
- Securities trading, settlement
- Check clearing

1000s of manual jobs were eliminated. AI is just another tool in the progression of automation.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@davidfowl Agree

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@stats_feed 8

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@runaway_vol Expect an agent to be knocking on your door shortly

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@signulll Excellent rationalization. Well done!

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@realEstateTrent ...and "suddenly" will become your go to word for all kinds of changes from that point forward. I speak from experience! 😉

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@jasonfried Well, why even use a still camera? Just take video, then ask AI to grab the best frames and turn them into "photos".

I'm afraid that the train has left the station for software dev, photography, and anything involving knowledge or a computer.

[George Holdridge @gholdridge]

@dvassallo I always liked WFO - the interactions, the noise, even the chaos. But I never liked those things.