Sam Bowman (Stripe) on Long-Form Content, Tech Skepticism, and Progress

Mainstream Media's Tech Skepticism

• ⚠️ Mainstream media often exhibits an anti-tech and anti-progress bias, driven by commercial interests, political views, and a preference for negative news stories.
• 💡 Journalists frequently focus on trivial negative anecdotes (e.g., a single data center's water use) rather than the broader impact of significant technologies like AI.
• 🧠 Many journalists hold a view that profit-motivated companies are inherently willing to do "bad things," leading to skepticism about new tech from private enterprise.
• 🎯 There's a common belief that AI's "hallucination problem" is inherent and unsolvable, leading to dismissal of the technology's potential despite industry efforts to improve it.
• 📈 Past predictions about tech companies like Uber failing to be profitable were often proven wrong, yet journalists rarely revisit or correct their initial negative assessments.

The Works in Progress Approach

• 🚀 Sam Bowman co-founded Works in Progress to create a platform for long-form, conceptual writing that wasn't available in traditional media.
• 💬 The magazine aims to bring important private discussions (e.g., from group chats) into the public sphere, making valuable insights accessible.
• 🔬 Works in Progress emphasizes understanding the mechanics and details of problems and ideas, encouraging writers to explain "how something actually works."
• 🧩 It focuses on non-ideological topics that don't fit standard political debates, appealing to a broader audience by pulling the "rope sideways."
• ✅ The magazine curates each issue as a "bundle" with a mix of topics for diverse audience segments, ensuring something for engineers, policy enthusiasts, and others.

Stripe's Publishing Vision

• 🤝 Stripe acquired Works in Progress to demonstrate its interest in ideas and broad-ranging curiosity, seeing itself as infrastructure enabling the internet economy.
• 💡 The initiative helps to shape an accurate perception of Stripe as a company fascinated by the world and curious about future possibilities.
• 🧑‍💻 It also serves to attract and retain talent by showcasing Stripe as a company that values intellectual breadth beyond its core business.
• 🌱 Stripe believes that ideas genuinely matter and can improve the world, aligning with a long-term, enlightened self-interest in fostering general prosperity.
• ⚖️ Works in Progress maintains full editorial control, avoiding topics that could create direct conflicts of interest with Stripe's core business.

Challenges to Progress

• 📉 The decline of the industrial R&D lab (like Bell Labs or Xerox Park) has hindered high-level technological advancements.
• 🔒 Weaker intellectual property rights and increased regulation on large companies reduce the incentive to invest in long-term, high-risk R&D.
• 💰 Science funding has become risk-averse and focused on measurable returns, favoring incremental research over bold, potentially "crazy" innovations.
• 🏛️ The realization that government policy is often ad hoc and lacks "ninjas" highlights the impact of small actions and public discourse on change.

Advice for Founders & Storytellers

• 🎯 Founders should identify the "potential energy" of social problems – how much better the world could be if a problem were solved – and connect their business to capturing a fraction of that benefit.
• 💼 It's crucial for companies to remember their primary job is to make money and clearly articulate how their big-picture vision translates into a viable business.
• 🗣️ Storytellers should master the skill of zooming between the big picture and micro details, relating specific actions to broader societal impacts.
• ✍️ Effective writing involves focusing on detail and spotting elements of absurdity or humor in a restrained way, as exemplified by Steven Cockins' biography of Stalin.