Business, Innovation and Managing Life (October 9, 2024)

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Questions include: Can you comment on the recent Nobel Prizes? - Do you think you'll ever try to win a Nobel Prize? - Are this year's Nobel Prize nominations a kind of interim step towards Nobel Prizes awarded to AI "entities" (rather than programs)? - I'm not that fond of prizes, because there's many people out there that deserve it as much as they do. There's no need to waste too much time on it, since they probably already got the recognition. I mean, I'm more interested in understanding the contributions rather than the prizes themselves. Its like... OK. So what? They got a prize that somebody else wanted to give them... - What software do you use for the graphs/illustrations in your books? I always find the illustrations in your posts, books, blog to be aesthetically pleasing, and I'd like to reproduce that. The combinations of colors are amazing. Did you take any special course on visual representation of concepts or something? - What is your advice for attending technology conferences as a student? - ​​Do you have general advice for university students (in my case I am a CS student) that do not necessarily have the confidence to begin a big project? - What has made you happy or is the best thing about running a business? - What do you think about literature? About fiction books? What are some of your favorite books? What are some you would recommend? Do you think it is important to read fiction? - Have you ever been to Japan, Stephen? - How did you come up with your new blog about time? - Recently some friends' daughter was sharing enthusiastically what she was passionate about career-wise, and it crushed my soul that it was being taken over by AI already... what's one to say? - I'm learning about AI models right now. And I've come to the point where I am adjusting hyperparameters a lot, which is driving me nuts. Do you have any advice on what to do with this? - What gave you the confidence to work hard on your vision before you saw any external validation/success? - What is your advice for the people who are "not good employees"? How do they get to do their own things in their own way, but still contribute value and "make a living"?