Wisdom in fragments

During the day, we strive for efficiency. The brain forms habits to avoid wasting energy on unnecessary tasks, like finding a new route to work daily. It automates routes, like driving on autopilot, sometimes arriving home without recalling the journey. This efficiency undoubtedly has its benefits in a resource-limited environment shaped by evolutionary pressures.

There's a compelling hypothesis in the field of machine learning called 'overfitting,' where systems become so tuned to recognizing patterns that they falter when faced with new, unexpected scenarios. Interestingly, some computer scientists are exploring ways to inject noise into computational models to keep them adaptable.

Similar to the 'use it or lose it' principle that applies to muscles, our brains engage in a nightly routine that stimulates thoughts and ideas not typically relied upon during the day. This built-in process keeps our thinking adaptive and nimble, fostering divergent thoughts and offering an evolutionary advantage.

Unlike the waking brain, the dreaming brain shows reduced executive function, specifically in areas like logic and mathematical reasoning. Instead, areas like the default mode network, which I'd argue functions as an imagination network, along with emotional centers, are highly active. This configuration makes the dreaming brain less logical but more emotional, visual, and imaginative.

If dreams are brain-generated, then understanding brain activity during sleep becomes crucial. This continuous activity during certain sleep phases, especially those associated with vivid dreams, is so intense it resembles waking brain activity, a phenomenon dubbed paradoxical sleep. It challenges the notion that the brain 'rests' during sleep.

People have been told that asthma is an incurable condition, that they'll need to rely on a bronchodilator every few hours for life. But that's just not true. The way you breathe is deeply connected to asthma symptoms.

Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science

We get more energy from air than from food or drink. So, if we're absorbing that energy inefficiently, it's bound to catch up to us.

Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science

About 65% of the population mouth breathes at night. If you're breathing through your mouth for eight hours, you increase your susceptibility to respiratory illnesses, sleep apnea, snoring, and allergies. You get less oxygen and overwork your body.

Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science

We have become the only species with chronically crooked teeth. Consequently, a smaller mouth leads to a smaller airway and various obstruction issues. We have become dysfunctional breathers due to our environment.

Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science

No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you're not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing.

Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science

Suddenly, your intuition about what to build is much more likely to be right because you're building what's missing in the future. You're tinkering with technologies first hand, understanding what's new about them firsthand, and understanding what's missing to fulfill and actualize their full potential firsthand.

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

My favourite question when evaluating a startup idea is, 'Is this from the future?' I'm not interested in your ideas about the future; I want to understand why you are living in it today. Why are you living in a different future right now than other people are?

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

If you want to have a great startup idea, don't try to think of a startup. If you focus on creating a startup, you'll be grounding yourself in the present, studying customers living in the present, their problems in the present, and their unmet needs in the present.

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

Most of the time, startup ideas don't work. Most of the time, the world stays as it is. The status quo has an advantage; it has a built-in upper hand. For a startup to win, it has to be not merely better than what's there; it has to propose something radically different, something that never could have existed before.

Venture capitalist and early-stage investor, founder of Founders Fund

It's about finding the right balance between being bold, patient, and persistent. For me, it's about not thinking it's crazy to reach out to an Oscar winner or a billionaire, but realizing it takes patience and time.

My first ask in any meeting wasn't for money or to put their name on something; it was simply for a second meeting, an opportunity to show them what we're doing and what we're building.