1/N Why does Silicon Valley produce disproportionately more ambitious ideas than anywhere else, yet Denmark is the happiest country?

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

2/N First, ambition is by definition is a moving target. What was ambitious 10 years back is probably easy today.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

3/N people who have ambitious ideas are on a treadmill. They need to embed themselves in a context where that treadmill is worth it

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

Valley creates myths and stories that make this treadmill worth it. TechCrunch, Hacker News play a big role here

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

5/N It also provides me with feedback loops where my beliefs that value ambition over comfort get validated.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

6/N it also pre-selects ambitious people by requiring them to immigrate. America is a country of immigrants, California more so

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

7/N Think about it: if you value ambition over any other aspect (family, community, friends, morality), where would you go?

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

8/N This is not to say, people in valley don’t value other aspects. But above all hey have to be ambitious to thrive there.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

9/N while ambition is good for creating value in the world, it’s a plain fact that it’s an aberration of human behaviour.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

10/N in hunter gatherer societies we evolved, only a few were ambitious explorers. Rest are ok with human-scale activities: gossiping, etc

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

11/N early on all these ambitious people were spread out and didn’t know about each other. Internet and immigration brings them together

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

12/N Ambitious communities aren’t necessarily happier, but they prevail over gosspiers. That’s why value creation and wealth concentrates

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

13/N Human brain is wired to derive happiness when it is around a safe and trustworthy group.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

14/N Small, homogenous countries with sufficient resources and safety but less wealth gap are happy in a primordial, hunter-gatherer sense

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

15/N ambition requires dissatisfaction as a pre-requisite. So it follows value creators wont ever be done with their work.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

16/N in the globalised world, even satisfied societies / people will be required to do what doesn’t come naturally do them: ‘be ambitious’

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

17/N Taxi drivers who are comfortable will need to learn data science because someone created value through self driving tech

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

18/N So fundamentally the question is not whether ambition is good, it’s whether there’s an alternative to being ambitious?

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

ambition also evolved out of necessity, which can be lack of resources, persecution by the rulers/majority etc.

— Akash Gehani (@gehani) October 26, 2017

Not necessarily. For reproduction, genes for ambition compete for genes for charm and manipulation

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

In a way, isn't procreation the the driving force behind all humanity?

— Akash Gehani (@gehani) October 26, 2017

No, as @ESYudkowsky we are adaptation executors, not fitness optimisers. Our brains evolved in a different context than today.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 26, 2017

I get that, the contextual changes are increasingly more accelerated.

— Akash Gehani (@gehani) October 26, 2017

गुड इग्ज़ैम्पल अव नैरटिव फ़ैलसी। good example of narrative fallacy or hindsight bias. https://t.co/pWKmgDyxu4

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

I’m interested in knowing counter examples and would agree with you if same context produces different outcomes.

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 27, 2017

Paras, from what I have read, you are a great at what you do. But, you can’t generalise more than 200 years of advancement in a tweetstorm.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

I have recently realised my fallacies; one of them is generalising my failure or success in hindsight. Mostly failures.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

@vgr ‘s breaking smart explains some of the phenomenon. He has also written why there can’t be another SV.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

I am myself questioning things. For example wealthy regions perpetuate linear view of the world; why not London/ SV? What if it’s opposite.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

Why can’t we have our own niche? However, it may come from educational framework, entrepreneurial government and a large enough market.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

Of course, but in a globalised wrld and open market like ours, we end up using Apple, Facebook and Google

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 27, 2017

I differ. I hope to meet you some day, and discuss at length.

— Rai_. (@Abhishek_Rai) October 27, 2017

Valley is ambitious bcoz valley is very very expensive. People have to run hard just to stay where they are.
Necessity makes ambitious work! https://t.co/ljH1DBhah7

— gab.ai/murali (@muralipiyer) October 27, 2017

And why is it expensive? Because ambitious people want to be there and are willing to pay anything

— Paras Chopra (@paraschopra) October 27, 2017

I don't know that part.
All I saw was people in perpetual struggle just to maintain their lives.

If we omit expenses, Valley is a gr8 place

— gab.ai/murali (@muralipiyer) October 27, 2017