“For me, understanding the brain has always been a computational problem,” says Papadimitriou, who became fascinated by the brain five years ago. “Because if it isn't, I don't know where to start.”

Interesting - we do tend to approach problem sets via the lens that is readily available to us.

Slightly unrelated but I've always been fascinated by how useful it is to overlay two areas of interest and the insights that present themselves when you focus at the intersection. What's more it seems to work with disparate ideas as well as it does with adjacent ideas. I'm convinced it's a useful way to ideate/think of ideas for startups/businesses.