The Slow Hunch Alex Komoroske (Common Tools)
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Sep 10, 2025 
Join Alex Komoroske, co-founder and CEO of Common Tools, who previously led projects at Google and Stripe, as he shares insights on the transformative power of emergence in technology. He discusses how individual user behaviors can lead to significant collective outcomes and the importance of data-driven decision-making. The conversation dives into the complexities of AI and its security risks, urging the need for awareness around data policies and the potential dangers of an AI monoculture. Alex's perspective on the evolution of collaborative platforms like Wikipedia is equally captivating!
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Emergence As A Foundational Force
- Emergence produces outcomes larger than the sum of parts and is hard to analyze with reductionism.
- Alex argues emergent systems are extraordinarily powerful and worth designing for.
Wikipedia Thesis Sparked Long Interest
- Alex's undergraduate thesis studied Wikipedia's emergent community governance and why it converges to quality.
- He used that case to explore what small rules and norms enable robust bottom-up systems.
Folksonomies Create Coherent Ontologies
- Folksonomies combine open tagging with popularity signals to create coherent, discoverable ontologies.
- Alex highlights UX ranking by popularity as the trick that prevents diffusion and builds coherence.
