Write Things Down | Stratechery by Ben Thompson

Episode Timeline

1. 0:01

   Ben Thompson reflects on David Allen's Getting Things Done and the RAM analogy for mental clutter.

   • David Allen's Getting Things Done argues the mind functions like RAM—a focusing tool with limited capacity, not a storage place, so incomplete items constantly distract us.
   • Thompson admits he was a beta user of OmniFocus but sucked at using the system, eventually hiring an assistant to manage his inbox and tasks for him.
   • The core lesson is that writing things down lets you empty your RAM and focus on actual work, a theme that recurs throughout the episode.
2. 2:08

   Jensen Huang declares AGI has arrived with GPT-6 Astra, but Thompson disputes the definition.

   • NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang declared on X that AGI has arrived with GPT-6 Astra trained on roughly 100K+ Grace Blackwell GPUs, his second such claim this year.
   • Thompson's personal definition of AGI is AI that learns continuously, which current LLMs fail because their weights are frozen after training.
   • He cites his own experience with Claude, whose January knowledge cutoff made it give wildly outdated RAM pricing advice, proving it couldn't update its understanding over time.
3. 3:45

   Thompson argues the real AGI moment may have been the harness—deterministic software that writes things down.

   • Claude Code's 2025 launch introduced a workflow of writing copious notes and markdown files that could be read into context to keep models on task.
   • This crude form of memory simulates continuous learning even with a frozen model, mirroring how writing propelled human evolution from oral communication to scalable, extendable knowledge.
   • Biological evolution is the slowest form of learning, oral communication is like a lossy context window, but writing things down made learning scalable.

Key Concepts

• write things down— The central thesis: externalizing thoughts into written form is the foundation of both human progress and AI capability.
• Getting Things Done— David Allen's productivity philosophy that frames the episode's argument about clearing mental RAM.
• AGI— Artificial General Intelligence, which Thompson defines as AI that learns continuously, unlike current LLMs.

Notable Quotes

• AGI is AI that learns continuously.

  🔥

  — Thompson offers a crisp personal definition that directly contradicts Jensen Huang's declaration, reframing the AGI debate around a testable criterion.

  Jump to 3:42

• My solution to not being the sort of person who is organized enough to run Omnif Focus was to hire someone to do it for me.

  🎯

  — A candid admission that even the productivity guru's biggest fan outsourced the system entirely, revealing that tools alone don't change behavior.

  Jump to 2:36

Actionable Takeaways