Graham Duncan: “How close to that 10 can you get when you’re first getting to know someone and deciding whether they are a fit for your team? When I started making those sorts of judgments about people, I’d guess my average was a 3. I’ve since done thousands of interviews, spent just as many hours talking to references, and helped hire hundreds of people—as consultants for a research firm that I helped run right after college, and since then as analysts and investors in my role investing large pools of capital. Now, when I’m in the zone and the conditions are right, I think I can sometimes get to a 7. A lot of people, in my industry and others, see all of this as a drag, a distraction from the central mission of their team. But I’ve come to consider it the most important skill for anyone building teams—and to believe that, to the extent I have any unique skill, this is it. In the work context, managing the complexity around people is the most important skill for anyone building a business. As the gaming company Valve puts it: “Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe.”” See the reference guide at the end.
Shankkar Aiyar: “An abiding truth about governance in India is that it excels in projects – whether it is Jan Dhan Yojana or rural electrification — but struggles to reform processes which determine efficiency. The crux of success rests in the alignment of national goals with systemic reforms in the states to propel growth. A mystifying paradox is at play in India’s political economy – of attention and inattention. There is much debate and audit of the Union Budget and almost none about the budgets of state governments.”
Jeremy Tate: “Socrates never wrote a term paper. Active participation trumps essays in classical education….The more permanent fix would be to rethink the way teachers judge a student’s mastery of classroom material and come up with an option that doesn’t rely on essay writing. The essay hasn’t been banished from classically minded institutions. Rather, the more personalized, discussion-centric model of instruction by its nature renders essays a secondary tool. Students that skip their homework won’t be able to hide for long when asked to offer an opinion on last night’s reading. For centuries, the classical curriculum was the norm, rather than the exception. In the modern era, however, the march toward factory-style education replaced the old ways with more specialized studies delivered in lecture form. Perhaps it’s time to rethink this change. The classical method survived as long as it did because it fostered critical-thinking skills that can then be applied to any category of specialized study.”
Dallas Innovates: “John Carmack, the iconic Dallas game developer, rocket engineer, and VR visionary has pivoted to an audacious new challenge: developing artificial general intelligence—a form of AI that goes beyond mimicking human intelligence to understanding things and solving problems. Carmack sees a 60% chance of achieving initial success in AGI by 2030.”
Pramarth Raj Sinha: “India needs its best minds to work on and significantly impact the world’s toughest problems. For this to happen, our best faculty and students need to carry out cutting-edge research. Unfortunately, teaching and research have often been delinked in our country, despite the fact that it is research excellence that powers teaching excellence, and vice-versa. New thinking and insights from research-active teachers create an engaging classroom experience. In turn, inspired young minds are motivated to research solutions to intractable problems.”
