Recent content on Alex Wang
Surprise is inherently sequential. Conditioned on the past, a new piece of information is surprising if it “contains information that we didn’t expect”. This is almost a tautology. But it seems that this notion of time, or at the very least sequencing, is crucial to the concept of surprise. Intuitively, if we use a distribution $p$ to measure our own beliefs in the world, we can…
Picture two founders starting a company today. One scales by hiring. Each person sees a small part of the company and develops expertise that stays in their head. Everyone has a different perspective on what’s the right thing to do and it takes a while for them to reach a consensus. Over time, the company gets bigger. No single person holds the full picture and coordination overhead builds…
I am a writer and naturalist based in the Pacific Northwest. My work explores the intersection of organic biology and digital minimalism. I believe that websites should feel like paper, and that reading on a screen should be as calm as reading a book in the afternoon sun. Background My fascination with the natural world began in childhood, watching kea parrots navigate the alpine regions of New…