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Patrick McKenzie on Career · ViralLoop

Post by Patrick McKenzie on X

Patrick McKenzie@patio11

Startups are more fractal than you’d expect. Example: 10% of the days in your career probably matter than the other 90% combined, but even among those days, 10% of the decisions/etc matter more than the other 90% combined, etc.

778 likes24 repliesPosted Apr 28, 2021

View the original on X Written by Patrick McKenzie. Captured Sep 4, 2026.

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Based on absolute engagement — the platform doesn’t expose follower counts here, so large accounts score higher.

From likes, comments.

Why it worked

Opens with a short, self-contained line that is easy to take in at a glance.
The opening line stands alone, so it reads completely before the post is expanded.
Short enough to read in full without expanding, which removes a step before the point lands.

The mechanics

Hook: Plain observation
Structure: Hook → Landing
Style: Conversational paragraphs at a steady pace.
Tone: plain, matter-of-fact
Written for: Founders, marketers and operators

Analysis by ViralLoop — not written by the original author.

Topics

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The first “holy %{*#^” is at about 4:20, assuming one didn’t already spend it on the autonomously organizing agent swarm. Strongly recommend watching if you’re interested in security, AI trajectories, or even science fiction, because this is already above genre median in wowza.

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A few years ago, paraphrased. Me: I think I’m less concerned about rogue AI somehow gaining control of large amount of all productive capacity. Think of the choke points around energy, mass, etc. Them: What was the total mass of covid, do you think? Me: … Oh. Long overdue:

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If the *only* impact of LLMs professionally was causing people to "think out loud" in a way which was routinely captured by computer systems and then could be operated on by computer systems, that would *by itself* be one of the most consequential changes in practice in 100 years

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I moderated a discussion between Dwarkesh, Dr. Burry, and John Clark (of Anthropic) on disagreements among the set of people better informed about AI, including future impact on employment, whether it’s a bubble, etc. Thanks to Substack for making it happen.

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The Stripe annual letter is out: t.co The most important bit is the same every year (lots of companies growing very quickly due to the entirety of their efforts, most not conveniently recapable). This year’s bits of intellectual interest include AI / fraud.

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Sometimes that game is played by mixed "some participants on Twitter, some participants on Slack" coalitions. Hate that game, never played it, tried to simultaneously balance being prolific and public while also being able to put food on the table.