The power of science is the idea that specific outcomes are repeatable—that hypotheses can be tested, proved, or disproved.

We are frequently confronted with opposing viewpoints on knowable things. It's the entire premise of sports betting. We each think a different player will win, but only one of us will be right.

In sports, we say "scoreboard!" to remind each other of the empirical truth vs. our subjective opinions.

I can't stop thinking about Rosetta: a spacecraft launched from Earth in 2004 that landed on a comet about 590 trillion kilometers away ten years later, after getting a gravity assist from a few planets along the way. Insane.

Only science could have made that happen.

When deciding which of two truths to believe, look to the results. Look to the scoreboard.

...where everybody knows your name.

And your Social Security Number and every address you’ve ever lived at.

Not long ago, students in Boston demonstrated that with camera-equipped glasses and a single frame of a passenger on the Boston metro, you could instantly see a shocking level of (personal) detail about any stranger.

There’s a shady network of data broker sites out there, making it nearly impossible for you to delete this data. Seeing what’s out there when you search your name will send chills down anyone’s spine.

There are categories of truly terrifying devices that exist today that the public is largely unaware of, eroding our privacy by the second.

In a world where 2-factor authentication is a must, biometric passkeys can replace passwords, why is an American’s social security number still just a 9-digit string? Is this the best we can do in 2025?

We must demand more from our public institutions and replace the outdated systems that define our lives. Or else, we might as well change all our passwords to “password” and stop pretending.

Some years ago, I worked for one of the top dance music record labels in the world, Armada Music in Amsterdam.

It’s the record label of frequent world’s-number-one DJ Armin van Buuren.

Armin’s business model is insane, and it’s something I’ve always thought of as a “virtuous triangle”.

There are three parts to Armin’s empire:

1. The DJ. Armin gets exorbitant fees to perform around the world. And the music he plays largely comes from the catalog of his record label.
2. The record label owner. In addition to a gigantic back-catalog of dance music classics, Armada supplies Armin the DJ with a never-ending supply of new tracks. He gives publicity to the catalog by playing the music live, and in turn the music generates extra money in the form of streams and buys.
3. The talent manager. Throwing giant events is big business. When you’re selling tens of thousands of tickets, picking the right talent is key. Ensuring your signed artists perform at these events compounds the ROI.

Each of these parts of the triangle is distinct, yet each reinforces the other.

Whenever you see an outsized personal or business success, chances are there is something like this triangle at play.

On your own path, are your activities reinforcing each other or hurting each other?

I started programming Z80 assembly language on my TI calculator when I was 13.

I wrote code like this:

Start:

ld hl,

FPNum1

call $42D7

call $4263

call $4A7E

call $4A86

call $4A95

ld hl,title

ld de,$c324

ld bc,51

And it would compile into gibberish like this:

¡2˝¿>02¡!÷ÊÕCÁÕ°fiÕ°fiÕCÁÕ°fiÕ°fiÕCÁÕ°fiÕ°fi!:ÁÕCÁ!:ÁÕCÁ√ŸÕÇJÕ˜fi!�¸°‚>C2¡Õfl…ÌK¡ÌC¡>2�¡Õ¡Ÿ:˝¿˛� A€˛ˇ A€>

Every programming language is an abstraction layer that makes it easier for humans to interface with machines.

So when a “real” programmer tells you that using AI isn’t coding, unless they are literally writing machine code on a TextEdit doc (or directly manipulating physical transistors like Steve Wozniak did), they are benefiting from the exact same abstraction layers that have made modern programming possible for decades.

Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the insanely talented programmers whose mathematical and logical genius forms the underpinning of our entire society. And I don’t believe that we should toss them aside like yesterday’s garbage.

I just believe that AI is the next evolution of programming languages, nothing more. And in the hands of experts, these tools become even more powerful.

Coding is a way of looking at the world, using logic and problem solving. Everything else is just a means to an end.

When you speak with as many Silicon Valley founders as I have, you start to recognize their “doublespeak”.

They switch into pitch mode and jump into the same set of rehearsed lines they’ve practiced 1,000x.

One founder seriously told me that his motivation to electrify taco trucks was that the gas generators were so loud he and his friends couldn’t have a conversation.

As a connoisseur of hundreds of taco trucks, I can safely say that while gas generators aren’t the best thing in the world, they’ve never stopped me from eating or talking.

So the Silicon Valley investor reason is: I needed to fix this annoying problem that made it unbearable to talk! But the real reason is: I want to electrify everything to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

We don’t need to couch our solutions in made-up problems. We don't need to communicate what we think people want to hear.

Just be honest. Exit pitch mode, and enter "real human being" mode more often.