Everything Patrick Collison has said about why progress slowed
Collison marshals converging evidence — total factor productivity flat since roughly 1970, and vastly more researchers producing significant discoveries at only a constant rate — to argue that science's per-person productivity is declining. He locates much of the blame in conservative, slow funding institutions, and argues the returns to experimenting with how science is funded and organized are enormous.
6 points · 2 appearances · 2019–2020
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6 points · 3 appearances · 2015–2025 · changed view
“I think probably the biggest thing, aside from how we interview folks, that we did differently is just being okay taking a really long time to hire people, in that, kind of the received wisdom is work really hard to hire the best people, and you're like, "Gee, thanks, I was going to do the opposite, but now that you've said that, I'll work really hard to hire the best people." And so I guess the question is sort of to what lengths should you go and kind of what does that actually mean in practice. And in practice it means being okay waiting a really long time to hire people and having to be painfully persistent in doing so. And so it took us, let me think, took us a year — well, it took me six months to hire the first two people, so.”
8 points · 7 appearances · 2019–2025 · changed view
“Wealth is the thing that you really want. Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep. Wealth is the factory that with the robots as cranking out things. Wealth is the computer program that's running at night that's serving other customers. Wealth is even money in the bank that is being reinvested into other assets and into other businesses. Even a house can be a form of wealth, because you can rent it out — although that's probably a lower use of productivity — but land and actually doing some commercial enterprise. So my definition of wealth is much more businesses and assets that can earn while you sleep.”
5 points · 5 appearances · 2024–2026 · changed view
“The observation is that don't die is the most played game by everyone all over the world every day. You and I breathe every few seconds, we look both ways before we cross the street, we all play don't die. So it's played more than capitalism, it's played more than any religion. It's the most played game in the world.”
6 points · 4 appearances · 2007–2020 · changed view
“Well, you can say everybody knows that. Well, I think I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.”