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Comment by juliangamble | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps the more apt analogy is that we need "a John Von Neuman" to come and organise the pieces to give us that leap.

Given that population has increased and arguably(?) gotten more intelligent since Neuman's day (and for all the deserved respect he gets, I'm more of a Feynman fan myself so there were a few brainiacs back then), you'd have to assume there are a few people on his level walking around today, and I wonder what they're up to. Is creating a more addictive website for a FAANG company or a better high-speed trading algorithm for a Fintech what they see as a good calling? The smartest person I knew in high school (and I went to a rather high end one) who easily was the valedictorian, basically only wanted to play the trumpet (which he was also superlatively good at). I don't really know what became of him.

> Given that population has increased and arguably(?) gotten more intelligent since Neuman's day, you'd have to assume there are a few people on his level walking around today, and I wonder what they're up to.

Hahaha, oh man.

Von Neumann, and many of his contemporaries, weren't secretive researchers toiling in obscure corporate labs -- they were famous public intellectuals with renowned accomplishments across many fields. There are no men of that caliber alive today, and the educational system absolutely excels in ensuring that such well-rounded men are not produced.

Either way - if/when that breakthrough happens would you rather have n compute or n^4 compute ready to go?

Buying compute before such breakthroughs is a terrible investment compared to just waiting.

It’s not like it’s sitting idle - the companies feel like they’re getting a ROI in whatever Gen AI nonsense they’re pushing to their apps

Same as it ever was.

SV runs 80/20 on investors getting fleeced vs. vaguely realistic business models.

Just rent it out. It's not like we have an abundance of GPUs as of now.

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