Business, Innovation, and Managing Life (January 17, 2024)

Jun 21, 2024

Stephen Wolfram answers questions about business, innovation, and managing life. Topics include the value of a PhD, risk-taking in business, advice for software engineers, pricing software licenses, and the importance of computational thinking in decision making. Reflects on teaching classes, evolution of pricing models, and the role of AI in education.

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Intro

00:00 • 11min

Reflections on Original Thinking, Risk in Business, and Future Plans

11:04 • 6min

Navigating the Complexities of Quantitative Finance and Data Science

17:31 • 7min

Reflections on Teaching Classes and Structured Learning

24:31 • 3min

Pricing Software Licenses and Evolution of Pricing Models

27:07 • 16min

Exploring Computational Language and AI in Education

42:55 • 50min

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Questions include: Do you think a PhD is worth it when you are later in your career? Or should you just self-learn if you can? - As far as managing life, what has been your biggest takeaway in your career/personal life that you would like to pass on to the younger generation? - How do you approach risk-taking in business, and what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs about managing risk? - Do you have any New Year's resolutions/big plans for 2024? - I am a software engineer, and the field of quant + data science is very appealing to me. What advice do you have? - I teach my first class tomorrow—what advice do you have? Do you have any advice on pricing software licences? - I build bespoke design software and I'm kind of winging the licences. What do you think of subscription vs. one-time purchase for software? - Imagine Mathematica with inline YouTube ads! - What is the coolest thing your company has ever done? - How much computational thinking and modeling do you do on the business itself, both for decision making and planning? - Do you consider yourself a celebrity? -What has been your coolest encounter/weirdest encounter? - What do you think about organic education matters? Basically, can you use AI to figure out a fixed point for education (what you want to understand) vs. testing for knowledge? - Can you ski? - Can you picture AI creating an alternative legal system? - I'm wondering how you imagine your symbolic language might interface with AI. I'm not sure about the implementation, but on a surface level, Wolfram Language feels closer to interfacing with an AI than text-based languages. - Your mother was a major anthropologist and philosopher. Has she had any impact on you? - It would be cool to live in that future where you talk to your AI in your house and it does things for you. - When talking to ChatGPT, I ask politely and say thank you—way more than I should, too. Uncanny valley and all that! (Plus being Canadian, maybe.) - Do you think there is harm in always learning? I think humans aren't built to be putting so much demand for energy on our brains. But darn, it feels good to learn! - Would you want yourself to be automated, so that you would no longer need to exist? How far would you want yourself automated?