Business, Innovation, and Managing Life (March 1, 2023)
Nov 17, 2023
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Stephen Wolfram answers questions about business, innovation, and managing life. Topics include his favorite book, diving deep into various topics, maximizing productivity by working around constraints, balancing interesting work and making money, saving experiences and code review, evaluating computer time usage, establishing the Wolfman Institute, and understanding the foundations and building from there.
Develop a personal connection with advisors to increase chances of admission to a master's program.
Peer review process lacks objectivity, leading to a reverting to the mean and disregarding innovative ideas.
Tackling difficult projects with dedication and commitment yields better results and more interesting outcomes.
Deep dives
Choosing a Favorite Book
Stephen Wolfram's clear favorite book is 'A New Kind of Science' because it took him 10 years to write and it is a great source of information.
The Trip to Morocco
Stephen Wolfram went to Morocco to attend a conference related to a field he was deeply involved in. Although he spent minimal time as a tourist, he found the experience interesting, reconnecting with people he hadn't seen in 40 years.
Handling Difficult Projects and Frustration
Stephen Wolfram believes that tackling difficult projects is important because they are usually more interesting and offer better results. He cautions against rushing through challenging projects and emphasizes the need for dedication and commitment to achieve success.
Increasing Chances of Admission
Stephen Wolfram suggests that to increase the chances of admission to a master's program, it is essential to develop a personal connection with the advisor or professor and demonstrate one's research capabilities and interest in the field.
The Limitations of Peer Review
The speaker criticizes the peer review process, suggesting that it lacks objectivity and can be influenced by personal biases and social gaming. They argue that this mechanism often leads to a reversion to the mean and a disregard for innovative and original ideas. The speaker shares their own experience of bypassing traditional academic publishing due to the system's emphasis on social connections and conformity rather than the quality and novelty of the work.
Choosing Meaningful Projects and Overcoming Challenges
The speaker discusses their approach to selecting projects and managing their work. They emphasize the importance of doing things that they find interesting and meaningful, even if there is no immediate business case. They mention their recent projects on the second law of thermodynamics and observer theory, highlighting the benefits of following intellectual curiosity. The speaker also touches on the significance of understanding the historical foundations and ideas in a field to gain insights and identify new directions for research.
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: What is your favorite blog/book you've written? Any specific reason, why or why not? - How was your trip? Was it for business or just for fun? - As a remote CEO, do you ever get cabin fever from being home constantly? Do you try to keep work in certain rooms of your home to combat this? - Have you tried anything like tracking your sentiment as you work by using a neural net to analyze a video feed of your face/body? - I'm struggling with this nagging feeling that I'm progressing slower than I want to. I know I'm doing what I can, but I still can't shake it off. Have you ever dealt with this? If so, how? - What management strategies do you use to get the most out of your employees? - How can I increase the chance of my admission to a master's degree in complex systems or cognitive sciences? - How do you decide on when to make a big change in the technology you use/build, for example, switching Wolfram Workbench from Eclipse to VS Code? - Good project definition—formalizing what a project means—is one very important part. But how much do money/stock options/vacations (to avoid burnout) influence employee morale? Or giving them a project that they want to work on, or people they want to work with? - I've been one to say, "If I get more money, I'll care more." In the end, it didn't work. It's better to optimize for things that you just like working on. - What do you think about code review/peer review? Does it slow down a company or research? Do you think there are other alternatives to this? - How often do you work on the Physics Project in terms of weeks or months? How do you manage your life to work on this when finding the rule of our universe has no business case (at least in the short term)? - How do you deal with confusion and the feeling of "I don't understand this"? - Given your knowledge of the foundations of math and physics: do you bother to research the fundamental theories of project management, or try an attempt to formalize it, experiment with different project definitions, etc.? - How is the process of picking a mentee? Do you look for specific clues? Is there anything an individual can do to stand out? - You seem to care a lot about the history of ideas in scientific areas. Do you think this is a must for producing meaningful work in research? - I work as an innovation consultant. For a year now I have been on a journey to redesign/innovate and develop a new type of computer case. But I battle with this feeling all the time that I will fail and don't have a chance against all the "giants." How do I overcome this feeling? Or do I just accept it and go on?
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