The people shaping what comes next, in their words.

“Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep; it's the factory of robots cranking out things.”

“Play iterated games. All returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge come from compound interest.”

“Desde 2007 para acá, la mayor parte de la riqueza se está creando con la tecnología, y el centro de eso es Silicon Valley.”

Translation: “Since 2007, most of the wealth is being created through technology, and the center of that is Silicon Valley.”

“There's the question of stagnation, which I think has been a story of stagnation in the world of atoms, not bits.”

“My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy.”

“Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations.”

“There are not one, but two, gale-force tailwinds, well off the Beaufort scale, dramatically reshaping the economic landscape around us: AI and stablecoins.”

“Extreme narratives of techno-utopia and apocalypse are abundant these days, but I continue to hold a more pragmatic view: AI is developed by people, used by people, and governed by people.”

“As far as I can tell, the average person has never experienced a technological unlock this dramatic, this fast.”

“…extreme pessimism tells you there's no point in doing anything. Extreme optimism tells you there is no need to do anything. They converge on doing nothing.”

“We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.”

“I do not believe ASI will replace humans. ASI is powerful—but it is a tool, a colleague, and a partner in our evolution.”

“This is how the singularity goes: wonders become routine, and then table stakes.”

“AI is the biggest platform shift for the economy since the internet, and in the not-too-distant future agents will account for most transactions online.”

“A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup.”

“One of the most common types of advice we give at Y Combinator is to do things that don't scale.”

“I do believe that if you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released it too late.”

“You need to test a real product with real customers as soon as possible—basically the moment you have a bare bones version.”

“It's not true that every person can start every startup. But a lot more people have what it takes to start some startup than realize it.”

“There is no one mold for a successful founder. Just because you might only see a certain type in the news, that doesn't mean you need to turn yourself into that.”

“We have created our own culture, which is low-ego and scrappy.”

“Innovation isn't entirely business-driven; it also requires curiosity and a desire to create.”

Translated from Chinese by ChinaTalk from Liang's July 2024 interview with 36Kr's Waves (暗涌).

“…this journey is filled with pain, sweat and tears. It takes strong conviction to continue moving forward in the face of the macro crises and the naysayers.”

“This large transformation is the opportunity to free humanity from the need to work. People will work when they want to work on what they want to work on.”

“We can now do things with software that weren't possible just a year or two ago — and we're still in the very early days!”

“Creo que es una gran revolución, un cambio de paradigma, probablemente el más grande que hayamos visto hasta ahora.”

Translation: “I think it's a great revolution, a paradigm shift, probably the biggest one we've seen so far.”

“While expert opinions may vary, my view is that ASI will be ten thousand times more intelligent than humans and realized in about ten years.”

“In the next couple of decades, we will be able to do things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents.”

“I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be.”

“Computing demand is growing exponentially — the agentic AI inflection point has arrived.”

“It feels like the conversation around AI is in the US and China, and Europe sometimes gets left out of that conversation.”

“We often say that there is a gap of one or two years between Chinese AI and the United States, but the real gap is the difference between originality and imitation.”

Translated from Chinese by ChinaTalk from Liang's July 2024 interview with 36Kr's Waves (暗涌).

“…my motivation has always been clear: AI must augment human capability, not replace it.”

“We're not "evolving/growing animals", we are "summoning ghosts".”

“A vos no te va a dejar sin trabajo un robot de inteligencia artificial, sino una persona que la entendió y la está usando a su favor y vos no.”

Translation: “You won't lose your job to an artificial intelligence robot, but to a person who understood it and is using it to their advantage while you aren't.”

“Unless you have been through the experience, you have no empathy for founders.”

“If you cannot handle a down valuation you should seriously consider abandoning the CEO position. Being a great leader means leading in good times as well as tough times.”

“Taking a terms-laden deal is like starting the clock on a time bomb.”

“If you're looking for a quick flip, this is the wrong business for you to be in.”

“Lo que queremos ver es que haya fuego en los ojos, que haya deseo de alguna manera irracional por llevar adelante esa idea, por desarrollar el negocio.”

Translation: “What we want to see is fire in their eyes, a somewhat irrational desire to carry that idea forward, to build the business.”

“Bitcoin es muy importante para Argentina, pero Argentina no es muy importante para bitcoin.”

Translation: “Bitcoin is very important for Argentina, but Argentina is not very important for bitcoin.”

“The experts highly cautioned that the enterprise was doomed as it was impossible to build a new, digital bank. But I listened and concluded that smartphones were a complete change of paradigm…”

“Todos me decían que no iba a funcionar. … Pero cuando estás convencido de algo, cuanto más te dicen que no, de alguna manera más energía te da. Porque ahí está la oportunidad.”

Translation: “Everyone told me it wasn't going to work. … But when you're convinced of something, the more they tell you no, somehow the more energy it gives you. Because that's where the opportunity is.”

“…my basic prediction is that AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years.”

“I think science is the most important, and the scientific method is probably the greatest, invention humanity has ever come up with. I think science is what drives all progress.”

“If you are working at the frontier of knowledge where no one's been before, which is exhilarating, then of course it means sometimes you'll make hypotheses that turn out to be not right.”

“We want to be that infrastructure layer that powers all the who's who of payments on the continent; I'd say we want to be the Adyen of Africa.”

“Africa today is not a country, but we want to make it feel like one.”