The West Coast Canon

04/18/2025

A message I sent to my friend Elaine Liu after she invited me speak to current MIT undergrads. I've always been enamoured with Californian tech ideology. It feels very distinct from the east. The links below are a good starting point.

Primary links

• How to be successful by Sam Altman
• Extremely underrated and surreal talk with Daniel Gross, “How to Win”

Key rationalist blogs

Weird, but novel and high signal. Strongly advise everyone to dive through the rabbithole on these and the sites they’re linked on

• Beware Trivial Inconveniences at LessWrong
• Meditations on Moloch at Slate Star Codex
• Complement - The Hidden Inefficiency by Gwern

Crucial YC reading

You need to read this if you’re interested in tech entrepreneurship

• Be good by Paul Graham
• Do things that don’t scale by Paul Graham
• Tarpit Ideas with Dalton and Michael

The last link is huge. They talk about multiple dumb ideas I personally had throughout college! I really wish this came out sooner. You are all very lucky to have it now. Watch it!

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me here