Durkin retweeted
The year is 1854. Cholera is killing thousands in London. John Snow traces an outbreak to a contaminated water pump. Everyone blames bad air. Eventually cities separate sewage from drinking water. Clean water and sanitation will save more lives than almost anything medicine invents.
The year is 1867. Surgery is often more dangerous than the disease it treats. Joseph Lister starts cleaning instruments and wounds with antiseptic. Other surgeons ridicule him. Infections plummet.
The year is 1890. Your daughter has diphtheria. A thick membrane is forming in her throat, slowly suffocating her. The doctor injects a new antitoxin. She survives. A disease that killed tens of thousands of children will become almost unheard of in America.
The year is 1922. Your 14-year-old son has diabetes. He is starving to death no matter how much he eats. The only treatment is a starvation diet. The doctor injects insulin. His blood sugar falls. Children who would have died within months will grow up and have children.
The year is 1943. Your daughter has pneumonia. Before antibiotics, doctors could do little but hope. Now they give her penicillin. The fever breaks. Infections that routinely killed healthy adults become treatable.
The year is 1955. Parents are terrified of polio. Swimming pools close. Children become paralyzed. Some spend their lives in iron lungs. Jonas Salk develops a vaccine, tested in more than a million children. Within decades, polio disappears from America.
The year is 1960. Your wife is giving birth, and something goes wrong. A century earlier, she might have died. Now there are blood transfusions, antibiotics, safer cesarean sections, and anesthesia. Maternal mortality has fallen dramatically. Millions of women survive childbirth who otherwise wouldn’t have.
The year is 1978. Your blood pressure is 180 over 110. You feel fine. The doctor prescribes a pill. Clinical trials show that treating hypertension prevents strokes, heart failure, and death. You take it every morning. Nothing happens. That’s the point.
The year is 1980. The WHO declares smallpox eradicated. A disease that killed hundreds of millions in the twentieth century has disappeared from nature. Not treated. Not managed. Eliminated.
The year is 1996. Your brother has HIV. A decade earlier, the diagnosis was effectively a death sentence. Now doctors combine antiretroviral drugs. People who had months to live begin living for decades. Many will have near-normal life expectancies.
The year is 2014. Your father has hepatitis C. For decades, the infection has meant liver failure and cancer. Now he takes pills for twelve weeks. The virus disappears. A lifelong infection becomes curable in more than 95% of patients.
The year is 2019. Your daughter has cystic fibrosis. Her lungs are slowly failing. For decades, treatment meant managing infections and delaying the inevitable. Now doctors have a drug that corrects the underlying protein defect. Her breathing improves. Hospitalizations plummet. Predicted median survival rises from roughly 40 to more than 60 years.
The year is 2026. Your doctor has ten minutes and a screen. Your blood pressure is high, so the tablet is for life. Your cholesterol is high, so another tablet is for life. Your weight is high, so she offers an injection. The drugs have side effects. Not everyone needs them. But clinical trials show that appropriate treatment prevents heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, and death.
None of these treatments is perfect. None needs to be.
For most of human history, parents buried their children, infections killed healthy adults, and childbirth killed young women.
Today, global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900. Child mortality has collapsed.
Medicine has made terrible mistakes. We should remember them.
We should also remember the hundreds of millions of people alive because somebody got it right.
The year is 1867. Surgery is often more dangerous than the disease it treats. Joseph Lister starts cleaning instruments and wounds with antiseptic. Other surgeons ridicule him. Infections plummet.
The year is 1890. Your daughter has diphtheria. A thick membrane is forming in her throat, slowly suffocating her. The doctor injects a new antitoxin. She survives. A disease that killed tens of thousands of children will become almost unheard of in America.
The year is 1922. Your 14-year-old son has diabetes. He is starving to death no matter how much he eats. The only treatment is a starvation diet. The doctor injects insulin. His blood sugar falls. Children who would have died within months will grow up and have children.
The year is 1943. Your daughter has pneumonia. Before antibiotics, doctors could do little but hope. Now they give her penicillin. The fever breaks. Infections that routinely killed healthy adults become treatable.
The year is 1955. Parents are terrified of polio. Swimming pools close. Children become paralyzed. Some spend their lives in iron lungs. Jonas Salk develops a vaccine, tested in more than a million children. Within decades, polio disappears from America.
The year is 1960. Your wife is giving birth, and something goes wrong. A century earlier, she might have died. Now there are blood transfusions, antibiotics, safer cesarean sections, and anesthesia. Maternal mortality has fallen dramatically. Millions of women survive childbirth who otherwise wouldn’t have.
The year is 1978. Your blood pressure is 180 over 110. You feel fine. The doctor prescribes a pill. Clinical trials show that treating hypertension prevents strokes, heart failure, and death. You take it every morning. Nothing happens. That’s the point.
The year is 1980. The WHO declares smallpox eradicated. A disease that killed hundreds of millions in the twentieth century has disappeared from nature. Not treated. Not managed. Eliminated.
The year is 1996. Your brother has HIV. A decade earlier, the diagnosis was effectively a death sentence. Now doctors combine antiretroviral drugs. People who had months to live begin living for decades. Many will have near-normal life expectancies.
The year is 2014. Your father has hepatitis C. For decades, the infection has meant liver failure and cancer. Now he takes pills for twelve weeks. The virus disappears. A lifelong infection becomes curable in more than 95% of patients.
The year is 2019. Your daughter has cystic fibrosis. Her lungs are slowly failing. For decades, treatment meant managing infections and delaying the inevitable. Now doctors have a drug that corrects the underlying protein defect. Her breathing improves. Hospitalizations plummet. Predicted median survival rises from roughly 40 to more than 60 years.
The year is 2026. Your doctor has ten minutes and a screen. Your blood pressure is high, so the tablet is for life. Your cholesterol is high, so another tablet is for life. Your weight is high, so she offers an injection. The drugs have side effects. Not everyone needs them. But clinical trials show that appropriate treatment prevents heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, and death.
None of these treatments is perfect. None needs to be.
For most of human history, parents buried their children, infections killed healthy adults, and childbirth killed young women.
Today, global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900. Child mortality has collapsed.
Medicine has made terrible mistakes. We should remember them.
We should also remember the hundreds of millions of people alive because somebody got it right.
The year is 1873. Your wife tires easily and reads too much. The doctor prescribes the rest cure: six weeks flat in bed, no books, no visitors, fed on milk, forbidden to sit up without his permission. The man who devised it is the most famous nerve specialist in America, and the ieter, which is taken as the cure.
The year is 1915. The hospital has a new way of delivering your child. Morphine, then scopolamine, and the mother wakes two days later with a baby she cannot remember having. They call it twilight sleep. The women are strapped into padded cots so they do not hurt themselves while they scream, and the straps are the modern part. The babies arrive blue and slow to breathe.
The year is 1945. The truck comes down your street fogging DDT, and the children run behind it in the white cloud because the man on the back says it is harmless. At the beach it is sprayed over the bathers on their towels. It goes on the cattle, over the barn, and across the kitchen table.
The year is 1948. Your son has trouble with his ears. The doctor slides a rod tipped with radium up each nostril and holds it there for the best part of ten minutes, and you bring him back three more times. Hundreds of thousands of American children get the same treatment. The cancers arrive in their fifties.
The year is 1962. The health visitor tells you breastfeeding is old-fashioned and the formula is scientific. By 1972 fewer than one American baby in four is breastfed at all. The formula is skimmed milk and sugar, with the milk fat taken out and vegetable oil put in.
The year is 1971. The family planning clinic fits a small plastic crab called the Dalkon Shield. Its tail is a bundle of fibres that wicks bacteria up into the womb. 2.8 million are fitted in America before it is withdrawn, and the company goes bankrupt under the claims. It had been sold as safe and superior.
The year is 1983. The doctor says your arteries are the butter's fault. The dripping tin goes in the bin, the yolks go to the dog, the margarine goes in the fridge, and you have the heart attack anyway, on skimmed milk, having done everything right.
The year is 2001. Your 15-year-old is low, and the doctor prescribes Paxil, because the trial in the journal says it is effective and well tolerated in adolescents. The raw data, reanalysed 14 years later, shows more suicidal thinking on the drug than on the sugar pill. The company pays $3 billion to settle. Nobody rings the house.
The year is 2009. The government has spent around £500 million stockpiling Tamiflu for the pandemic, on the strength of the manufacturer's trials. When the trials are finally prised loose five years later, the drug shortens flu by about half a day and nothing shows it keeps anyone out of hospital. The stockpile goes out of date in a warehouse.
The year is 2026. The doctor has ten minutes and a screen. The number is high, so the tablet is for life. The weight is high, so the injection is for life. The meat is bad for the planet and the oil is good for the heart, and the person in the chair is as certain as everyone who ever sat in it.
Every one of those was settled, by a committee, in a journal, with a doubter somewhere being laughed at. The rest cure, the straps, the fog, the rod, the formula, the crab, the margarine, the trial, the stockpile. All of it certain, all of it printed, all of it done to somebody who had asked for help.
You were never the one who was wrong. You were the one it was done to, and the only person in the story who did as they were told every single time.
The apology comes a generation late, in a footnote, addressed to nobody.
The next one is being drafted now.
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Durkin retweeted
Utah did a really smart thing and passed legislation making it easier for microschools to open without having to navigate all the usual red tape around local zoning and permitting.
So when @Alphaschool approached me last year about opening a school on a property I own in Park City, it seemed like a perfect fit. The property had been home to a 150-kid private school for years.
Ironically, despite the history of the property and a state law that explicitly makes microschools a permitted use in every county zoning district, Summit County has refused to issue @Alphaschool a business license without first requiring a conditional use permit. Which seems like the exact thing the law was intended to prevent.
So now we have a perfectly good six-acre school campus sitting empty while we figure out where else in Park City we're allowed to educate children.
Makes loads of sense.
@SpencerJCox little help 🙏
So when @Alphaschool approached me last year about opening a school on a property I own in Park City, it seemed like a perfect fit. The property had been home to a 150-kid private school for years.
Ironically, despite the history of the property and a state law that explicitly makes microschools a permitted use in every county zoning district, Summit County has refused to issue @Alphaschool a business license without first requiring a conditional use permit. Which seems like the exact thing the law was intended to prevent.
So now we have a perfectly good six-acre school campus sitting empty while we figure out where else in Park City we're allowed to educate children.
Makes loads of sense.
@SpencerJCox little help 🙏
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Durkin retweeted
Why are universities charging students $200,000+ for a degree? There's no justification for that. We need to prop up our future generation, not handicap them.
The traditional model is coming to an end.
The traditional model is coming to an end.
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Durkin retweeted
Watertown-based Tutor Intelligence, founded out of MIT, raises $75 MILLION to expand its AI-powered robot workforce.
Its robots already work in U.S. factories and warehouses, and the company aims to have 1,000+ robots under contract by the end of 2027.
Its robots already work in U.S. factories and warehouses, and the company aims to have 1,000+ robots under contract by the end of 2027.
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Durkin retweeted
Boston increasingly a hard tech talent center
We raised a $75M Series B to deploy intelligent robots now, led by @a16z, with participation from @usv and @neo.
@tutorintel robots work real jobs across the United States, directed by human “tutors” and the foundation models we’ve trained on the work done. This round del training, robot manufacturing, and deployment into industry.
We’re in almost 4x as many sites as a year ago; nearly a third of this year’s deployments went to existing customers coming back for more; and we’re on track to have more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027.
Our mission is to proliferate robotics for the common good. If you want to make robots reliably do things others think are impossible, for people who’ve never had access to this technology, join us.
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Durkin retweeted
if you run a city or a transit agency in the US you should know that the probability that self driving cars will exist in your city and work with perfect safety (as in 0 deaths) + be cheap within 5 years is 100%.
which means is now time to start redesigning cities for this. This should be very exciting for making cities more livable! It means
- no more land used for parking. We can return this to humans
- no need to waste money on extremely expensive car ownership (financing + insurance + maintainance is very expensive)
- vehicle sizes trend smaller as there is less ownership
- more ridership in mass transit as a connector for long distances and as car ownership goes down
- tons of new jobs maintaining, cleaning, charging, etc these new vehicles
I think the idyllic cities of 20 years from now will mostly have AVs roughly the size of rickshaws that interconnect with mass transit and manual bikers that safely share the road with them. There will be some cars roughly the size of current normal cars for when it’s 2 ppl and the occasional current-SUV sized car for full-family transit or luggage.
human-driven cars will be for recreation and used in roughly the same places horses are used now
which means is now time to start redesigning cities for this. This should be very exciting for making cities more livable! It means
- no more land used for parking. We can return this to humans
- no need to waste money on extremely expensive car ownership (financing + insurance + maintainance is very expensive)
- vehicle sizes trend smaller as there is less ownership
- more ridership in mass transit as a connector for long distances and as car ownership goes down
- tons of new jobs maintaining, cleaning, charging, etc these new vehicles
I think the idyllic cities of 20 years from now will mostly have AVs roughly the size of rickshaws that interconnect with mass transit and manual bikers that safely share the road with them. There will be some cars roughly the size of current normal cars for when it’s 2 ppl and the occasional current-SUV sized car for full-family transit or luggage.
human-driven cars will be for recreation and used in roughly the same places horses are used now
Holy shit. Tesla is 55 cars away from surpassing Waymo’s registered autonomous fleet in Texas.
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WHOOP CEO, Will Ahmed: 50B Hours of Health Data, a 4 Million Member Data... youtu.be/Uc6xXNBWjfc?is… via @YouTube
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Durkin retweeted
A few months ago someone close to me lost her husband out of nowhere.
He handled all the money. She didn't know what accounts they had, where the insurance was, or who to call first. She's still piecing it together.
It made me realize how many families are one person away from the same thing.
So we built Silvia Legacy.
You choose the people you trust. If something happens to you, they get a package with a summary of your finances, a spreadsheet of every account and asset, the documents you uploaded, and a personal note from you.
I can't change what happened to her. But I can make sure fewer people end up where she was.
cfosilvia.com/blog/silvia-le…
He handled all the money. She didn't know what accounts they had, where the insurance was, or who to call first. She's still piecing it together.
It made me realize how many families are one person away from the same thing.
So we built Silvia Legacy.
You choose the people you trust. If something happens to you, they get a package with a summary of your finances, a spreadsheet of every account and asset, the documents you uploaded, and a personal note from you.
I can't change what happened to her. But I can make sure fewer people end up where she was.
cfosilvia.com/blog/silvia-le…
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Let’s go!
Cambridge has always been the best place in the world to be an academic researcher. These days, a lot of cutting edge research also happens in industry, and Cambridge is the home to many amazing research startups, spanning AI research, robotics, biotech, defense, and industrials.
We'd love for these two worlds to meet eachother, so we're bringing YC Paper Club to Cambridge!
if you're a researcher in industry or academia, request a spot below.
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Durkin retweeted
I spent years thinking I’d never get married or have kids. Now I come home to my best friend and 4 kids yelling ‘Dad!!’ as they run at me. To me, that is success. Here’s why:
Success was always something I had difficulty defining. One individual may measure success by money in lace importance on their professional accolades. And someone else may define it via their material possessions. Each person is optimizing for something different.
Eventually, I found a description of success that resonated and became my personal definition.
WHOOP founder @willahmed said, “Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home.”
What a perfect encapsulation of how I view the world.
In my perspective, success has never been about a number, an award, or any single accomplishment. Frankly, I like to compete too much to ever admit I have ‘made it,’ so my definition of success is naturally more about the process of my life rather than a specific outcome.
A large percentage of people do not enjoy their job. They either dislike their industry, company, or colleagues. They may stay in the situation because the money is attractive or they are scared to leave for the unknown. Regardless of the reason, these individuals are unhappy for a large chunk of their day.
Many people are also dissatisfied with their personal lives. Some are single and frustrated that they haven’t found the right partner, while others are married but unhappy because they feel like strangers in their own home. And plenty of people have health or financial issues that are gnawing at them daily.
Although I have faced similar daily struggles as others, I have always felt fortunate that I enjoyed going to work and coming home each day.
Professionally, I sacrificed my time and short-term potential earnings in order to work on what truly mattered to me. I was able to become my own boss and design a career that was satisfying and exciting.
The excitement in my personal life is entirely because of my wife and my kids. Getting married and having children has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. There is nothing better than walking in the door after a long day of work and hearing the sound of little kids yell “Dad!!” as they run towards me to give me a hug.
@polinapompliano and I are genuinely each other’s best friend. We enjoy spending the majority of our time together and we feed off each other’s energy and ambition. Maybe most importantly, we are happiest when we talk about ideas and help make each other’s dreams come true.
I am just as excited to go to work as I am to come home. I know it is probably rare, but I have achieved all the success I ever wanted.
My hope for you is that you can do the same.
This is an excerpt from my new book, How To Live An Extraordinary Life Volume 2. You can buy a copy of the book here: amazon.com/How-Live-Extra…
Success was always something I had difficulty defining. One individual may measure success by money in lace importance on their professional accolades. And someone else may define it via their material possessions. Each person is optimizing for something different.
Eventually, I found a description of success that resonated and became my personal definition.
WHOOP founder @willahmed said, “Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home.”
What a perfect encapsulation of how I view the world.
In my perspective, success has never been about a number, an award, or any single accomplishment. Frankly, I like to compete too much to ever admit I have ‘made it,’ so my definition of success is naturally more about the process of my life rather than a specific outcome.
A large percentage of people do not enjoy their job. They either dislike their industry, company, or colleagues. They may stay in the situation because the money is attractive or they are scared to leave for the unknown. Regardless of the reason, these individuals are unhappy for a large chunk of their day.
Many people are also dissatisfied with their personal lives. Some are single and frustrated that they haven’t found the right partner, while others are married but unhappy because they feel like strangers in their own home. And plenty of people have health or financial issues that are gnawing at them daily.
Although I have faced similar daily struggles as others, I have always felt fortunate that I enjoyed going to work and coming home each day.
Professionally, I sacrificed my time and short-term potential earnings in order to work on what truly mattered to me. I was able to become my own boss and design a career that was satisfying and exciting.
The excitement in my personal life is entirely because of my wife and my kids. Getting married and having children has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. There is nothing better than walking in the door after a long day of work and hearing the sound of little kids yell “Dad!!” as they run towards me to give me a hug.
@polinapompliano and I are genuinely each other’s best friend. We enjoy spending the majority of our time together and we feed off each other’s energy and ambition. Maybe most importantly, we are happiest when we talk about ideas and help make each other’s dreams come true.
I am just as excited to go to work as I am to come home. I know it is probably rare, but I have achieved all the success I ever wanted.
My hope for you is that you can do the same.
This is an excerpt from my new book, How To Live An Extraordinary Life Volume 2. You can buy a copy of the book here: amazon.com/How-Live-Extra…
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Durkin retweeted
Boston-based AI company ASI has raised $325 MILLION at a $3 BILLION valuation.
Its technology is already used by the FAA, U.S. military, Delta, United Airlines and National Grid.
The company plans to expand its AI research and engineering teams in Boston.
Its technology is already used by the FAA, U.S. military, Delta, United Airlines and National Grid.
The company plans to expand its AI research and engineering teams in Boston.
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Durkin retweeted
Fun having @bryan_johnson by @Ginkgo ! Lucky to have his early support and robotic labs + AI agents in your pocket open the door to lots of new ways to approach wellness and longevity. Going to be fun coming up in this space !
Maintaining health during 10 days on the road
> to washington dc speaking with politicians
> america by design launch
> @drmichaellevin lab deep dive
> @Ginkgo AI automated biology lab
> tobi lutke car racing
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Durkin retweeted
My kids are 6 weeks into @Alphaschool Park City and my primary takeaway so far is I'm mostly jealous this didn't exist when I was a kid.
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Durkin retweeted
It is insane that home values go up over time.
The home should be most expensive when it is initially built. At that point, the structure is new and unused.
As the home experiences wear and tear, the home becomes used and should be worth less money over time.
A used home should cost less than a new home.
But that is not what happens.
Home prices continue to grow to the sky because the debasement of the dollar distorts the market, which enriches the home owners at the expense of the home buyer.
This is a silent wealth transfer that requires the home buyer to pay more for a less valuable product.
Just insane.
The home should be most expensive when it is initially built. At that point, the structure is new and unused.
As the home experiences wear and tear, the home becomes used and should be worth less money over time.
A used home should cost less than a new home.
But that is not what happens.
Home prices continue to grow to the sky because the debasement of the dollar distorts the market, which enriches the home owners at the expense of the home buyer.
This is a silent wealth transfer that requires the home buyer to pay more for a less valuable product.
Just insane.
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