Onepod Podcasts

Subu

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the half life show. I'm Subu, fresh off a big bout of sickness, which my kid brought back from school. And we also have Vikram here, who's fresh off a camping trip.

Vikram

Hello!

Subu

It's been a while since we did one of these.

Vikram

It's been a while, time slips by, you get sick, we have vacations, we come back and be like, how do I even connect my microphone to work? I had so much difficulty even hooking up my microphone. So I think we forget all these basic things once we divert our attention to other things, but here we are.

Subu

Yes, yes, that's more important. I think the break was also much needed. So while I was sick, I listened to two audio books. Ready Player One and Ready Player Two. So this Ready Player One, there was a movie, but the book is completely different. It is a great book, right? I mean, it's up there top 10 All Time sci fi novels. I think it is a it's a really, really good book. And even if you have watched the movie, you should listen to the book because it's completely different. But Ready Player Two, man the sequel? Oh, God, I had to suffer through it. So Ready Player One is like 10 on 10. Right? Ready Player Two is like Jesus. It's like a 1 on 10. And it is an audiobook, right? I paid 15 bucks to go and purchase this thing. So I couldn't just put it down. I was so stressed because it was like a 15 hour long book. And I was just waiting for it to get over because I didn't want to put it down. And because I paid for this. So I suffered and listen through the whole thing.

Vikram

I don't know, man, you can't convince me to hear audiobooks anymore. I've been going away from that whole thing. I just prefer reading books, I suppose. I might read Ready Player One, and skip ready player two. But I've been going more on a nonfiction binge right now I actually finished in this camping trip, the book Sapiens, a brief history of humankind, which like guns, germs and steel kind of thing I would say. But it's much, much, much easier to read. I totally failed reading guns, germs and steel , I couldn't get through it. It's too academic to me. But this was nice. There are so many good examples. It's a very well written book. And I got it done on the camping trip, I sat and read like about three hours a day. And every day I was there because nothing better to do. I just sit in front of the campfire, Sam and I talk for some time. And then we get into our own space. And I read a lot actually, and even finished this book. So that's nice. The other one I started is this book called Psychology of Money that everybody is now talking about. And I see it on all YouTube channels. I figured I'll try reading that. It's not half as bad. Actually, I'm actually liking the book more than I thought I would. But I'll let you know when I finished.

Subu

I have something to say about both those books. So this Psychology of Money, I went to purchase it on Amazon, I just scrolled down to read reviews. And one guy left a one line review. I read that and I said yeah, that that's enough, I don't need. So he just summarizes there saying, okay, don't waste your time, he just asks you to invest in index funds. Okay, that's good enough. I'm not gonna read this book.

Vikram

It is totally true. There is no takeaway from it, I would say just that there is a collection of useful stories. For example, there is a little blurb about the third possible co founder of Microsoft. And he didn't actually make it because he actually died in high school and stuff. And so even though he had all the opportunity and the same place as Bill Gates, it just so happened that luck took over and he didn't make it out. So those kinds of things. So whatever it is, we had this whole episode on career success and what and you know, getting lucky, which is our second podcast episode, I think a lot of the information from the book ties into that. So I was interested more in the stories of luck and carrier success and stuff like that, more than trying to get investing information out of that book. That's how I like I'm liking it.

Subu

Right, actually. So one of the things he says in even the psychology of money is that for most people, you just got to make sure that you don't make mistakes. You don't have to make guesses and risk your money by investing in startups and here and there, betting on who's going to be the next big thing. Instead, you just live a responsible life, save money and reduce your chances of making mistakes, and then you will come up on top. Yeah, that that lesson is good enough for most people.

Vikram

That's true. It's also kind of a short book, which is nice. And it's organized into chapters that you can read in any order you like, which is also nice. So yeah.

Subu

So the other thing is about the Sapiens right? Yuval Noah Harari. I was listening to an interview of him on a podcast and he said that for like pretty much all publishers rejected his book, initially. And at some point, he even heeded some friends advice, and he self published it on Amazon. And then he pulled that out. Because even that didn't do well. And then too, this was like after many years and trying a lot. Finally someone picked it up and published it. And it's incredible. And it's a best seller and millions of copies sold. It's funny how no one would publish a book like this, but then it turned out to be such a big success.

Vikram

It's very readable. That's what I liked about it. Our podcast episode is almost devolving into a book review. Please, escape eject.

Subu

Alright, okay. So let's, let's get back on the wagon. So this week's topic is learning from first principles, right or first principles thinking. So would you want to take a stab at defining what this what this means?

Vikram

I can try. So there is a lot of schools of thought of what this actually means whether you're coming from philosophy or whether you're coming from mathematics and physics backgrounds. But anyway, from what I understand of it, because my background is science based, mostly is that you reduce everything to its most basic form, and build it up from there. So let me give a couple of examples. And hopefully, that will make it clear to anybody who hasn't heard this term first principle. So over 2000 years ago, Aristotle defined first principle as the first basis from which a thing is known. So an example of a first principle is all men are mortal. So that is a first principle. Now to this first principle, if you add any extra data to it, it will give you some new conclusions. So here's an example of adding data you can say, Subu is a man. So that gives you the conclusion that Subu is mortal. Okay, so now you just use first principles to come to a new conclusion. But if you start with Subu is mortal. That's not a first principle, because the question will then be is Vikram immortal? It doesn't answer that question. So all men are mortal. And Subu is a man, which means Subu is mortal. So that's why that is the first principle, right? So first principles basically give us logical relationships that forms the foundation, derive or conclude new things out of it. So that's what first principles is. And so if you follow the philosophy approach of this concept, Descartes, who is a French philosopher and scientist, he actually created a system, what is called Cartesian doubt. So what that means is, he takes something that he's thinking about, okay, a topic or anything that it is. And he would systematically doubt everything he could possibly doubt, until he was left with what he thought was a sequence of pure truths.

Subu

And so he kept asking the question, why kind of thing going?

Vikram

Yeah. So why does this happen? Why does that happen? Much like our kids ask us questions, right? If it's such a natural thing, our kids go through the why phase. Why is that? Why is this? Why is that until you reach the point where you can't answer something, or you reach the most fundamental form, where you start explaining, okay, that's because everything is made of atoms, if you hit that level of abstraction, you're probably in first principles domain, this whole concept of reducing everything to its fundamental form is called first principles. And it's actually the basis for Descartes statement that I think therefore I am the elongated form of that actually is, I doubt therefore, I think, I think therefore I am.

Subu

Okay. So, boo. That's pretty good.

Vikram

Yeah. So that's, that's where all this started. So that's what first principles means. And what we are going to discuss today is basically how we can use this thinking for ourselves and find ways to speed up our own ways of learning something, because I think there's a lot to be had. And so we can find some nuggets out of some of the examples or go through what we've seen other people and try to make some sense of it.

Subu

Yeah. And also what this for whole first principles thinking it didn't really come naturally to me, and what I have learned from using it over now it's an integral part of my work in the way I think, and I think that it brings about a lot of joy. I mean, there's, I find things a lot more fun to learn with this frame of mind like having this frame of frame of mind that came through this first principles thinking kind of a thing. Yeah, definitely. I enjoy learning stuff more now.

Vikram

So one other thing is that I'll go into a little bit more philosophy and pretty much come out of it pretty quickly. Because otherwise my eyes will glaze over myself, I'm going to fall asleep on the podcast. But yeah, here is the thing. What is the sequence of fundamental truths? That is difficult to determine who's to say that this is a first principle? Right?

Subu

Correct.

Vikram

So right, there are always going to be and has historically been a bunch of competing theories for what constitutes a first principle. And there is a method of separating one theory from another theory or separating the riffraff. So what this is, is the principle of Occam's razor, have you heard about our combs razor?

Subu

I have, but I don't remember what it is.

Vikram

So this is not like a law of nature or anything. It's somehow what is called a self evident philosophical truth. And if you don't have anything else to go by in your entire toolkit, use this one mental model wherever you are going with it, right? Could be in physics, philosophy, whatever it is. The Occam's razor, is this. The simplest theory, that explains all the evidence is the best one. If you have a bunch of competing theories, the simplest theory that explains all of the evidence that you see and observe is the best one. Notice that it does not say that it's true, or it's it's the correct one. It's just the best at that moment. Okay, so until a new theory comes along, and is probably simpler and explains all the evidence, in which case that becomes the best theory. Okay, so that is the principle of Occam's razor. It's a nice,

Subu

I guess, I guess the conspiracy theorists gotta listen to this.

Vikram

Yeah, I have to find all the evidence, there's more to this, like theories should also be able to be proven false. And there are many more requirements to what a first principle is. And I have a really good article on this, that is in the show notes that we can read, if we want to get more crazy into philosophy, but I'm going to end it right now.

Subu

Yeah, this actually, this outcome stays a thing is pretty good. It's a good rule of thumb, which I think we've all used to an extent unknowingly. Because when you have to make a decision in life, and if you perceive it to be a big decision, let's say you want to, you want to take a huge loan and buy a home, for example, right? Now, it's a very stressful situation, right? Because you're doing this for the first time, and you don't know what kind of risks you're taking off. So you can come up with all these explanations of why you should do it and should not do it and really complicate the decision making process. But at the end of it, none of that matters, you go back to your gut feel, or you go back to the simplest reason saying, hey, I want to start a family. So I'm going to buy this home. Right? So you had this huge two page long pros and cons. But you throw all that away and look, okay, I want to start a family. So I'm going to buy a home. So what are the risks, risks, and anything else that comes up? I just have to face it. I'll deal with it when it comes up. So you go for the simplest explanation for why you have to make this decision.

Vikram

So basically, Occam's Razor could be an antidote to analysis paralysis.

Subu

Oh, yeah. Especially in this world, right? Which we are because there's so much information out there.

Vikram

Yeah, we have a simplest thing we want to buy, you get start reading reviews, go down a rabbit hole and be like, you're totally confused and never buy it.

Subu

It took us like, two weeks before, before we decided which mic to buy for this podcast, right?

Vikram

Let the fact of the matter is really anything would do anything? Correct. So the simplest principle there is you need a mic. So get one. It's not really a theory or a perspective. But anyway, I think we can use that general concept to keep things in life simple. So that's what it is. So if you have a bunch of choices, pick the simplest one. Usually that will work out just fine.

Subu

So I think that was you laid it out pretty well. I think that's a good definition of first principles. And I think we will also get into some more examples to illustrate what it means. And some examples of people who have demonstrated the first principles thinker. Yeah, really. But before that, I was thinking of when was the first time I came across this term first principles, right? And I went back to our 11th and 12th IIT coaching exams, right? I mean, these physics and math examinations, the questions would It would, it would state something, you know, prove that x is equal to y plus z. And they would often end the question would derive from first principles. Right. So the statement derived from first principles, it usually cost a lot of dread me right, because this meant you can't make any assumptions. They would give you the simple two liner problem, and you you can't make any assumptions about anything and you got to prove that from scratch. And the other thing was, these exams usually happened at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday and And the both of us, and you usually had like two questions to answer and you had like three hours to do it. And the most embarrassing part about this thing was that you would show up at this exam examination at 6:30 in the morning, and they would give you 20 pages of white paper to do these two problems. And because because that's how much they think you'd need to answer all these questions, right? That's where they would give you like 20 pages. And then these problems are always, like, way beyond me, they were too hard. And once the timer starts, I would just take 20 minutes and scribble something on one piece of paper. And all that I needed was one piece of paper in order to answer these questions. And then lately, I would look at you sitting next to me and you right through the whole two hours, you use up all the 20 pages of paper and then ask for even more. Gosh, that is so friggin pissing off because I was done hours ago, and I didn't have anything more to write. And the thing is that I thought about this, and I thought that there is something to this, there is something different about the way a few people like you are, our very smart friend Biggie, that there was a difference. This of course, I'm retrospectively analyzing this, there was something different about the way you Biggie and some of our other friends how you guys thought and how people like me and a few people in my group thought, right. And this, what I'm saying is, they were distinctly two types of students. Okay, and so people like you and Biggie, you guys genuinely demonstrated independent thinking, okay, so if what that meant was, if a novel problem that we are looking at for the first time was given to us, you guys had a very good chance of actually approaching it and solving it because of the way you guys thought. But then there are people like me, right, and a whole bunch of us, our approach to learning was that we would work our butt off and make sure we would solve every problem from every textbook out there, with the hope that during the examination, we would see a problem that looks familiar. My approach to problem solving was pattern recognition. Right? So when an exam wherever I sit down for an exam, I look at these problems, all that I'm trying to think about is trying to match this question that they've asked with something that have previously done, and then use that as the starting point to start solving the problem. Oh, I've seen this before. And this is how I had solved it before. So let me use this approach to solve it. So. So my my brain was, essentially, my brain essentially had a table of formulas of how problems have to be solved. And if anything, didn't fit into this list of formulas of how something should be solved, then I'm pretty much at a loss. And what I saw was that what you and Biggie and all, all few of you folks demonstrated was that, you know, there was no table of formulas, there was none of that you would you take a problem and you know, knew how to solve it from scratch without making any assumptions. So and I kind of feel like the way our education system was, it made us good in my kind of thinking, which is, you work hard, and you solve a lot of problems, and build up a database of formulas in your mind of how problems should be solved.

Vikram

So you're reasoning by analogies, basically, you're finding something that you have already seen or like, oh, that's what this is. And actually, a lot of what I was seeing on the internet, the anti thesis of first principles thinking is reasoning by analogy.

Subu

I see. Okay.

Vikram

It is basically the, in my understanding of what I've been looking around is kind of the opposite of first principles thinking. Yeah. Where you're trying to extend based on what instead of breaking it down to the basics.

Subu

You're right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's good. So I think yep. Solving based on analogy. So that's what I'm calling pattern matching. I think solving based on analogies is a better way to call it. Yeah. And of course, you know, see, the thing is, I'm not trying to poopoo one way of thinking or the other right, I think even with this whole solving problems based on analogies, I think that also has its advantages, because if you fast forward to today, right? We are we are we have been working in the industry for a long time. At a high level breakdown, the kinds of problems that companies are trying to solve, but it companies like say, Google, Apple, the company, you and I work for, I think we can based on my experience, we can break down these problems into two categories. This one kind of problems that companies are trying to solve, which are well defined, okay, so the for these kinds of problems, they want people, engineers, whoever it is, they are looking for people with a lot of experience, because these folks have the ability to make decisions and hopefully avoid mistakes based on the work they've done. There. They're actually counting on these people with experience to come bring their database of formulas in their mind and successfully execute this engineering problem,

Vikram

aright.

Subu

So that's one category of problems. The other category of problem which for example, Google is famous for attacking is these open ended problems, we know where the problem itself is not fully defined. And for these job positions, it is it's very evident, you can see how Google goes out and seeks PhD candidates and researchers or people who have demonstrated the ability to independently think in novel ways, right? And the root of this whole independent thinking, and the root of this ability to think independently, I think, is first principles thinking.

Vikram

I have an example that maybe will be interesting in this context, right? So let's say like, companies need to make products, okay, that's what they do. And they need to sell it make money and make the company have better stock value and shareholder value.

Subu

It's basically the bread and butter. It's basically the bread and butter.

Vikram

So there are a lot of people who have already defined what it is what is required to make this bread and butter happen. It's not all invention, somebody has to actually do the job. So that's where a lot of people that you'd like you mentioned, who can reason by analogy, and who have seen various situations in various companies over many years, can contribute nicely to this mode of working, which is perfectly reasonable. So there's nothing wrong if you don't have that, you know, fundamental thinking from the ground up mindset, like you were mentioning, it's totally fine. So if there's anybody listening, who also has that mindset, I think it's a very valuable skill set. But take, for example, a company which makes suitcases, okay, let's just say that. Now, a suitcase company wants to make better materials so that he doesn't break in transit, bigger bags, many bags, small bags, big bags. So these are all kind of work that somebody needs to do at some point, right? Like you have to see what what's going to make this material better or things like that. So that's fine reasoning by analogy is just fine. But what every once in a while, even in something like a bag industry, right? A major revolution happens. Here's an example. Ever since ancient Rome, right? Soldiers have been carrying leather messenger bags, satchels, they carry food while going across the country sides in their their carts and horses and things like that. Also, remember that Romans had chariots. It's not like the wheel hadn't been invented. It has been around for for 1000s of years, people have been carrying bags and on top of mules, and mule has been big, dragging a cart with wheels on it. But it's not until the 1970s when a guy called Bernard saddo first saw this airport worker hauling this heavy machinery on a wheeled skid. And he's like, why don't I make a suitcase that has wheels in it? You know that a wheeled suitcase was invented only 1970. For 1000s of years, people have been dragging things around carrying it around without wheels. Whereas wheels have been invented. So that's what that's what I'm saying. So that is more fundamental thinking like, you see these things like why can't this happen, but the rest of the bag industry, till then has been perfectly fine making really good looking bags and improving the quality of leather making it more durable. That's that's just incremental work. They've been in improving the function of the thing. But without ever paying attention to the form. So that's that's what ends up happening. A lot of the times a lot of people like keep reasoning by analogy, okay, the bag is already here. How can I make this better? How can I make that better? That's still a form of invention, but it's not a fundamental.

Subu

Great example.

Vikram

Actually, I would say that tendency of humans to imitate is one of the fundamental roadblocks to thinking in from first principles, go down one deep or two deep a levels and think about what is exactly happening here that I can use. Here is an example I'll tell you there is this really famous military strategist. He is a famous fighter pilot. And his name is John Boyd. And he was so good in simulations of aerial combat that he did. They could put him at a disadvantage in simulations, and he would come back to win the aerial combat in 40 seconds. So he was called the 40 second Boyd because in 40 seconds, he'll come back and beat you. He is actually one of the United States greatest military strategists and he's been involved in the planning of the Iraq War, Desert Storm and a lot of things so he's a great mind really, in one of his talks he created this thought experiment. Imagine you have three things. Imagine you have a motorboat with a skier behind it. That's one, a military tank and a bicycle. Okay, what can you do with these three things that is completely new. So the example he gives us that you can make a snowmobile out of it by combining the handlebars and seat from the bike, using the metal treads from the tank, and the motor and skis from the boat. So I mean, this is the idea of breaking things down to the fundamental components and building it back

Subu

up. Like that case, basically, like The Matrix he could see through everything. Yeah, when it came to military strategy.

Vikram

Yeah, so he did a lot in military strategy that is just crazy. But basically, this is one of his thought experiments of how to think, fundamentally and how to first deconstruct everything to its basics, and then build it up

Subu

I have an example. Like this in a different domain, which is food there. and cooking. You want to hear this one?

So there is this. There's this chef called Samin Nosrat, she wrote

Vikram

Yeah, let's get it. this really popular book called salt, fat, acid and heat. Okay. And there's also a very nice Netflix show on this. I've watched it a couple of times. Very nice show. Most cookbooks are just a book of book full of recipes. Her book is not really a book of recipes. It is more of a book of principles, okay. And what she does is she, she breaks down cooking, all of cooking, she breaks on all of cooking into a balance of four fundamental ingredients, which is salt, fat, acid and heat. Okay. And for example, here's a snippet from the book, I'm paraphrasing, she says, if you consider something simple and seemingly boring as sauteing and onion, as you apply heat, it goes from being crisply acidic and pungent, to clean and sweet. And then to smoky and bitter. So half a dozen distinct flavors can be teased from one single humble ingredient.

That's amazing.

Subu

Yeah, so when she's approaching it, and if if she's cooking, Mediterranean dish, or an Indian dish, or a American dish, she has an idea of how she wants her onions to taste, and she applies heat, proportionally, that much amount of time to tease out that flavor.

Vikram

That's amazing. You know what? We both can cook to some extent, obviously. But I don't think I ever applied this mentality to cooking, like, what would we have done? So what is the first principles approach to going through this, take an onion, cut it into four parts, okay, and cook each of the four parts for a different amount of time, right? And then taste it and see what you can think about it. Right? And then write down something based on what you observe. And continue like this way. That's exactly should have done but we never had that to learn to paint. Yeah. Yeah.

Subu

Yeah. And also, then you see shortly see builds from there in the sense. So now we spoke about just cook the onion, right? Then she says, okay, so that we spoken about heat, we know what heat can do to the onion. And then let's talk about the fat you have to cook it in some sort of an oil or butter. And you usually have say two ingredients, you have butter and Indian household you have ghee. So you cook in each of these for the same in these four pieces and see how it sort of tastes. And then the same thing you eat instead of even don't even measure salt, you have a bowl of salt, take one pinch with your fingers and hold on to it. Take three pinches and put take seven pinches and put on it and see how it changes. So you have now you have a feel of what one pinch on an onion versus three pinches on onion taste. So that's how she builds with heat, salt and fat kind of thing. It's very beautiful.

Vikram

I think it's a great way to learn cooking.

Subu

Yeah. And the success of the book clearly shows that people really dig it right. And the millions of copies that have been sold and a lot of YouTube channels since then. And what I realized is that after I read this book, and I've been cooking before I read the book and my cooking style or what how I'm thinking of cooking has noticeably changed since I read the book, the way she is able to break things down and explain it to a regular Joe like me and affect my thinking. It's an example of how powerful first principles thinking can be.

Vikram

I like what you just said because it's about the average Joe, one of the attractive things about first principles is that on first principles in generally most things we already know. Okay, like that. We know that salt is an important ingredient. And we know heat is an important ingredient but we we just know after the fact we don't really know it, right. And what first principles thinking does is it takes the inaccessible knowledge that experts have and gives you the tools you need to emulate or get there. So I think most people like it because of this. Because you see what these people are doing and go like, wow, I think I can do it too. Now I can understand these basic principles. If I apply this and understand it, and I have a method, going from point A to point B, then I can also cook like these amazing chefs that I see on any popular cooking show Top Chef,

Subu

what he said was good. So the phrase that you use, right, it's taking what seems to be inaccessible knowledge that only experts have a lot of people even when it comes to finances, or this or that even say, For if it's woodworking, it's very easy for me to say, oh my god, it's only for the smart people, or it's only for some experts in that field kind of thing.

Vikram

Take woodworking as an example, it's a great example to when you start with woodworking you don't immediately you cannot make the gigantic furniture that you were thinking you're gonna make. Start by taking scraps of wood, and identify all the kinds of cuts that you need to make. Can you make a 45 degree cut? Can you make various kinds of joints? Do you know how to use glue? Do you know when to use nails, when to use screws? Do you know the difference between wood screws and not wood screws? I don't know anything about woodworking but I'm just extrapolating here. Yeah, that, you know, soon probably would work that I have all the tools by the way. Just don't use them. But yeah, basically identify the fundamental elements of woodworking and work on perfecting each skill. And then with those constituent skills, you can build an amazing piece of furniture.

Subu

See, this is one example, which I've always found this piece to be inaccessible. And the realm of experts and, and PhDs, right, which is, which is fundamental mathematics, things like calculus, and all the stuff that we did through school, it's always hard. See, I did well, in my exams, because of my approach to problem solving, right? I solved every single calculus problem in every single textbook there is so that when the exam came about, then the problems are all familiar to me. So I knew how to solve it. So that's how I got through and did well my exams. But that doesn't mean I mean, I understood calculus at all, I had no intuition about calculus, it was just about scribbling these weird marks on the paper. That's all it was. Now, just recently, maybe in the last couple of years, I came across this amazing YouTube channel called three blue one brown, you obviously heard of the Vikram and it is, in my opinion, one of the best mathematics channels there is. And I went and saw some of their calculus. Some of these guys is one person, but it was one chaps calculus courses and the way he explains concepts, it is clear that his own understanding of calculus and his own understanding of these mathematical concepts are at a completely different level. Because I was able to for the first time in my late 30s, I was able to appreciate why is calculus so important? And what it really is, I want to link a couple of videos from three blue one brown to especially these days, where, you know, pretty much everyone in the news is talking about AI and machine learning and neural networks, right. So there is there is one video on where he explains what a neural network or what AI is. And there is also one video titled The essence of calculus. So I want to link these two videos, and I think people should watch it.

Vikram

If people are interested, he also has a video on how to solve Wordle, which is the latest New York Times word game that has taken the world by storm. He solves the best starting guesses for the Wordle game using information theory. And shows how he can arrive at answers quicker. He says it's not it's not all about solving the puzzle, but it's a great way to learn information theory, which is amazing. Any other examples you have. Well, I do but give me one. I'll give you one more and then I want to take this calculus videos idea a little further. But I have one more thing when I was Googling and trying to understand more about first principles. There is so much stuff out there about Elon Musk and what he thinks is first principles reason Okay, okay. I'm gonna say it right up front, I think is total BS. And I think it has nothing to do with what first principles thinking is like, I think we have spoken enough about what first principles thinking is now to see what this is not. Okay. So here's the thing. It's about how he founded SpaceX. So Elon Musk wanted to go and you know, get a rocket to start a space program and then so he went and found out how much it takes to buy a rocket he found out it costs 65 million dollars said, Okay, this is ridiculous. I mean, I am a billionaire, but I can't, I can't possibly spend that much money. So what he did was he went to Russia and see our saw if he could buy in like an intercontinental ballistic missile like an ICBM, and then retrofitted for spaceflight. So he thought about this idea. So it's cheaper to is definitely cheaper, but it's still involved within the eight to $20 million range, not 65, but a $20 million. So then he goes and thinks about it and says, Okay, what is a rocket made of? It's made of aerospace grade aluminum alloys, titanium, copper, carbon fiber, okay. Then he said, Okay, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? And it turns out that he could make a rocket at like, 2% of the typical price of the rocket. So what he did, apparently was, then instead of buying that millions of dollars of rocket we found at SpaceX, and now it was born. Okay.

Subu

So is he claiming this is first principles thinking

Vikram

this is what he claims is to be widely touted as first principles. I mean, if you Google first principles, Elon Musk, you will see so much stuff. I mean, okay, you thought about the constituents of materials, but like, Look, you and I want to go start and buy a competitor to FedEx and we want to buy airplanes. Of course, you're gonna go buy an airplane, or you're gonna go be like, Oh, I can't buy an airplane, I need to find out what are the constituent parts of an airplane and startup from the wheels? I mean, you're reinventing the wheel. Okay, there is a logical limit to this. And

Subu

yeah, see the thing that see, I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk, right? I really like the guy and all the stuff he's done. But I think in this example, I agree with you. It's not, he's demonstrating that he is a good capital allocator. It's not first principles thinking. And he's a good engineer. He's a good capital allocator. And it is, and this aspect of him is very evident from all the successes he's had. So if he takes $100 million, he's able to think about capital allocation and planning in such in a very successful way. And that's the reason why he has multiple successful companies like SpaceX. So capital allocation, I think, is what he is good at. I mean, he like no money goes to waste. In some ways, of course, yeah. Apart from his good administrator in terms of building a team and all of that stuff, and people like to follow him. But yeah, I don't think this one

Vikram

is very hard worker. He's, he's historically worked 100 hours a week. And now he's apparently scaled down to 85 hours a week. So of course, I mean, he deserves all his successes. But I'm just saying that it's not an example of first principles thinking, which is what a lot of people on the internet has said, is it I don't agree with that. But I think there is still something to be had from this. I think everybody should go back and think about a little bit about what constituent elements comprise of something. And that could be a method of first principles, thinking not only making something from raw materials, that's just a very basic way of looking at it. But one could always go back to basics, like your cooking example was a good one, right? And also with this example, is that okay, you found that raw materials cost you 2% of typical price. But what about the fact that now you have to pay for the development, research and development of actually making that happen? SpaceX had so many failed launches? All that adds into the cost of this rocket ultimately, right? So it's not as simple as it looks, in my opinion. But anyway, I think he has done, Elon Musk has done a lot of revolutionary changes to this world. So definitely something that we can learn from him. There.

Subu

It's good. Because the thing is that if you if you go and Google first principles, and if this is what pops up first, it's good that you're calling it out, because that's not a good example.

Vikram

Yeah. So now I want to go to the learning aspect that you mentioned with the three blue one brown channel. And I think one of the reasons that I'm guessing it appealed to you so much, is the visual sense it gave you of calculus, okay? When you could see what an integral meant, or what differentiation means when you could see it with colors and movement. You now understand it in a way you never understood before, because you are not presented with that perspective at all. Okay, so now, there is this big theory called VARK. Okay, V AR K, which is basically the learning model one should use, and it's a big thing in education. What VARK stands for is V is visual. A is auditory, are is reading and writing. And K is kinesthetic, which is learning by doing something. It has hypothesized and I'm not saying it's true or not. Some people do say this whole model doesn't work, but I'm going to discuss it anyway. Because at the very least it gives you a good mental model, the mental model is that just you can learn the same thing in any of these patterns. And each person is different. And each thing you are learning might require a different mode of learning, like instrument playing might be different from learning to draw or color something like artists, or cooking may require a different senses versus learning something like calculus. So I actually did a test. And I think you did it too, because I made you. I sent you the link, which will be in the show notes. So this is a questionnaire that you can go through to find out what your learning model is. And I did this whole learning model. And it turns out that I am mostly visual and kinesthetic. So I learn better by doing. And I learned better visually, but I also can do reasonably well with auditory methods, and reading and writing. So I'm not sure what the scale of this thing is. But if it ever matters without any absolute reference, I got a 9 on the V, a 6 on the A, 6 on the R and 10 on the K. So I think a lot of people will score 10 on the K. I mean, it's like, people learn better when doing something I would say. But what's your score?

Subu

So? So the Yeah, so visual and aural, are pretty much the same as like seven and five. So I think we all everyone learns better visually, or through sound. But the funny thing is that I got one on read and write. So it seems like I basically don't learn at all from reading or writing. And at the same time, you got a six on kinesthetic, right, I got an 11 on kinesthetic. So I got a 10. What do you got going on? Okay, 11. Yeah, the whole bunch of numbers here. But the summary is, it seems like I learned best by doing rather than reading a manual or reading a book. Yeah. And it seems like in your case, you are generally good. It doesn't matter how the information is presented, you're able to learn if it's visual, or through reading and writing from a manual. Or if it is by doing you seems like you do well, in all. In all, yeah, I

Vikram

can actually like learn from reading and writing. And I can know that from my own experience. Because when I read I kind of sometimes take down notes, not because I want to refer to those notes later. It's just that by writing it, it kind of cements it in my mind better. So that way. Yeah. So I mean, it's just I think most people have multimodal learning mechanisms. But a lot of education systems are looking at this and going you can't give a presentation to everybody. That's why some courses have hands on labs and stuff like that. But at least when we were growing up, this kind of a mental model to learning wasn't really prevalent, I would say it so like you said, if reading and writing was all the method that was presented to you as a learning farm, you probably didn't do very well, if you could learn the same thing by doing something. If you were taught calculus, the way three blue one brown teaches you, you might have done far better, right? It's just that it wasn't suited to your particular style of learning. And that's because it's individualistic. It's not like you can each person is different, right? So that's where it all comes down to. I have been playing music for the good part of 30 years of my life, right? But until recently, I really haven't given it much thought and I started to realize that I can apply first principles learning to music. And the way I started doing this was I identified all the movements that my right hand needs to make to play guitar. Okay. Okay, the transitions between the strings, okay, so my picking goes, I pick up and pick down or I pick down I pick up there are various combinations between strings. And I saw a bunch of YouTube tutorials and videos. There are so many guitar instructors out there. But there's this one person who really resonated with me. And his approach is basically this. He's like, look, you can practice all the crazy songs you want. But ultimately, you're not getting down to the brass tacks. Just sit down and practice these movements and get your muscle memory and motor skill up to make these movements efficiently. And he says that a lot of people in history have used this technique, like Steve Vai is like the godfather of all guitar playing routinely watched TV and kept noodling those same movements on his guitar. And he says it in his tutorials too. If you find any section of music hard to play, stop right there and identify what is it that is not working for you? Are you not able to make this movement from this string to that string. Or if you're playing the piano, can you not go from one key to another key why, and work on just that, and then you will get better at it. Even Franz Liszt, who is like a great composer, used to read a book while he was practicing the piano. Because all he is developing is his motor skill. There was no TV back then. But he was like, read a book while I do this. So a lot of things you can break down into constituent forms, and then work on those fundamentals. Everybody told us that fundamentals are what you need, get a strong foundation, the stuff will be easier, but nobody kind of told us why. Yeah, it's because these basic principles form the building blocks for you to do the more complex and more expert things that you see people do. And never do you see how these experts got to where they are, you just see the end result because they get on media and this and that, very few times, you get to see the hard work and the and the approach they did to get

Subu

there. One thing I wanted to say again, is that see even now, when I'm when I'm approaching a problem, at work, or if it's in one of my side projects, and if it's a problem I'm trying to solve, I don't sit down and really think, Oh, how do I figure this out from first principles, that doesn't come to me naturally. What ends up happening is I'm playing around with this thing, I'm just going down some rabbit hole, just Googling for something and finding links and reading for a whole bunch time. So I go down these rabbit holes for a good amount of time. And after that happens, through this experimentation, I get some realizations, these realizations are essentially questions. So when I'm given a problem, I don't really know what the questions that I have to ask I don't ask the fundamental questions, I just fool around with it. And after a couple of days of fooling around, I am able to ask the question saying, oh, okay, this thing is working this way. Because X and Y is happening. But why is x and y happening? So for me to identify that this is x and y and ask that question, it takes me a little bit of time.

Vikram

That's perfectly fine. You're using Descartes method of Cartesian doubt. Basically, you start at a high level, and then you ask why and go down to the brass tacks. That's a valid approach, in my opinion.

Subu

And also, and if you if you look at the way we were taught in school, and how learning systems and curriculums are changing, now, it when we were in school in the 90s, it was mostly with a teacher standing in front of us and giving us instruction, right? That's essentially how we were taught. That's how the curriculum was set up. Right now, if you look at how kids learn, even in India, they give them a whole bunch of things. They let them experiment and let them come up with realizations themself. So instead of telling them a to z, okay, this is how everything works. They give a few things saying, Hey, go and experiment with that fail with it, and the sort of the kids are naturally able to reason are and because of their curiosity and ask the right questions.

Vikram

And the greatest attraction to this method is that the kids have a joy of discovery,

Subu

Correct? Yeah

Vikram

That is the beauty of it all. If you have these few first principles, and you could deduce something from it, it gives you a level of happiness that I can say a few other things give me especially, it's really satisfying to understand the entire picture. Initially, when you start a new subject or a topic, it seems like an enormous ocean of information, your brain is buzzing with all these keywords, and you don't know what any of it means. But sooner or later, when you break it down into its constituent forms, you see everything clearly, it becomes a few pieces that you put together in different combinations, and then you get different results. That's the beauty of going back to the first principles. But even now, when we look at podcasts that we are recording, we are always strapped for time, right? Like how do we pursue our hobbies, we always have more hobbies than we have time for. So my first principles thinking approach for that is, okay, look, I must, you know, engineer, I'm a scientist, what would what would that person do? Okay, let's collect data. So that's why I have the Timery app on the iPhone, which I convinced you also to install. Yeah. And the point is to log all your items of time consumption, and then look at it visually, to see where all your time is going. I realized that I spent an exorbitant amount of time on work. I mean, on my chart, I see like it's almost all work right? And then there's so little time left for anything else. And that really gives me perspective to think about, look, it the fact that I have a full time job is definitely a major contributor, but really, how can I structure my day, regardless of that, and also makes me think about one day when I do retire? This entire big time suck is going to go away from my life. And now how am I going to make the rest of my life meaningful? So these are all questions that came from going back to the basics and just answering the question of, I don't have time, but really where am I spending my time opens up a lot to discover about yourself. This is a long topic. I think it's so many examples that we can go on and on about, but I think we should end this podcast episode and ask our listeners if they have any examples of how they use first principles in their own life. Or if they have any stories that they have come across to let us know.

Subu

Yes, absolutely. The best way to reach us or write to us is by finding us on Instagram. Our handle is at halflife dot show. And if you prefer reading that a transcript of this podcast instead of listening to it, then you can just click on the link in the show notes. We'll have a link with the transcript. And that's about it. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

12: First Principles Thinking