Given this year’s AI craze, a few months ago I was watching an interview of Ilya Sustkerver (the Chief Scientist at OpenAI) with the goal of gaining some insight around GPT large language models (LLMs). While I did get some insight into LLMs, what stood out for me the most was how Ilya responded to a question regarding how to go about innovating. The answer he gave was very commonsensical and simple but quite powerful at the same time. He simply said that the key to innovation is understanding.
The reason why this stood up for me so much is because of how profound of a statement that is. It is so obvious yet so easy to overlook. This is mostly because we live in a hack obsessed world, where everyone wants everything to be easy, gratifying and immediate. If you need proof, just look at all the gurus on the internet selling you a course on how to become a “successful something” in ten days.
The truth is that following the hack will only get you so far and more often than not will lead you in the wrong direction. In reality, the key for becoming good at something is to have a passionate and almost unconscious understanding of that something. And, for better or worse, reaching such a level of understanding takes a long time, copious amounts of humility, and figuring things out through trial and error. Hence why such an approach is not as appealing as the hack.
Furthermore, the other big reason I believe understanding is such an important factor for being able to innovate, become good at something, or merely to find the solution to a problem, is because it is the best antidote against uncertainty. Simply put, the more understanding one has of something, the more clarity one gets, and with clarity comes certainty.
To portray my point better, let’s play a quick and poorly thought mental game. Imagine I blindfolded you, drove you five hours to a remote location, got you out of the car, and asked you to jump horizontally a couple feet… Now just think about what you would do in such a situation… If you are anything like me, you would probably start asking questions. Perhaps you would inquire if there is a precipice in front of you, why was the drive so long, or could you remove the blindfold please? The point I’m trying to make is that you would probably do anything in your power to understand the situation better (i.e. remove uncertainty) in order to determine if you should jump or not. The same goes for venturing into doing anything, from camping in the woods to starting a company. The more understanding we have of something, the more clarity we get, and thus our odds improve to do whatever it is we want to do.
To be honest, I selfishly wrote this post as a reminder to myself. I wanted to make sure that I do not forget about the importance of understanding in daily life. As my grandma told me recently, if you treat continuous learning and understanding as a moral duty you will probably have a good life. I believe her, there is no better skill in life than just being able to figure things out. As such, let’s just figure 💩 out.