My brother is in biology and told me about Le Châtelier’s Principle and I have not stopped thinking about it and its applications to startups/VC, software and AI progress.
Le Châtelier’s Principle states that if a dynamic equilibrium is disturbed by changing conditions (concentration, pressure, or temperature), the system will shift to counteract the change and re-establish equilibrium.
Concentration: For the equilibrium equations: N 2 ( 𝑔 ) + 3 H 2 ( 𝑔 ) ⇌ 2 NH 3 ( 𝑔 ) N 2 (g)+3H 2 (g)⇌2NH 3 (g) Adding more N2 or H2 pushes the equilibrium toward more NH3. Pressure (for gases): If total pressure is increased, the system shifts to the side with fewer gas molecules. Temperature: If the forward reaction is exothermic, heating shifts equilibrium toward reactants; cooling shifts toward products.
In all cases, if you increase the inputs, you will get more of the outputs. What are the inputs for startups/VC, software and AI?
The more VC capital and hungry ppl the more startups, the more startup success. The more VCs/accelerators, the more startups, the more success, the more founders with money in their pocket so the more capital, the more startups, the more success, etc etc. Vinod/Andreesen to larry and sergei to dylan fields.
What are the inputs to software? More trained engineers, more ideas, more passion, perhaps more capital but open source counters that argument quickly. The more software.
What are the inputs to progress on AI? More trained engineers, more ideas, more passion, more data, more benchmarks that are unsaturated, and definitely more capital as you need GPUs (so compute, energy, bandwidth, etc) to train these things (today). So this is the main difference of software. You need to provide huge capital and compute credits to these folks to keep the fly wheel spinning.
The is a larger discussion on the "efficiency" of the conversion of the equilibrium but rest assured the Le Châtelier’s Principle applies, the more inputs the more output. We can worry about the efficiency later.