Garry's List

Boil the Ocean

2026-02-07 · 00:00 UTC ·Garry Tan ·5 min read

Brief

Garry Tan argues that the arrival of Artificial Superintelligence is a signal to abandon incrementalism and pursue radically larger ambitions: instead of optimizing for 1–5% efficiency gains, founders and capital should solve engineering-scale problems (he cites targets like 50% net IRR vs 10% and services 100x better). He recounts a university endowment’s engineers’ fear after seeing Claude Code as evidence of the status-quo threat, then reframes the moment as an opportunity informed by Buckminster Fuller’s 1938 concept of ephemeralization and Jevons Paradox—greater efficiency in intelligence will drive far larger demand if management backs bold projects. Tan’s prescription: workers should become builders and leaders should aim for 10x outcomes rather than layoffs and marginal cuts. A reader comment (Nick DeMarco) cautions the piece lacks a plan for those who can’t transition to builder roles.

Why it matters

Garry Tan (Garry's List, published 2026-02-07) argues that Artificial Superintelligence makes it time to “retire” the admonition to “don’t boil the ocean,” using an anecdote where a university endowment’s engineers were terrified after seeing Claude Code.

Key details

  • He reframes goals as engineering problems with concrete targets: examples include achieving 50% net IRR instead of 10%, startups delivering services 100x better than incumbents, and building products people would pay 10x for.
  • Tan invokes Buckminster Fuller’s 1938 concept of “ephemeralization” and Jevons Paradox to argue that dramatically greater efficiency in intelligence will expand demand, but this requires capital and management to raise ambitions rather than seek small efficiency gains.
  • Call to action: workers should “become builders” and management should pursue 10x+ aspirations; a critic (Nick DeMarco) warns this advice lacks a concrete transition plan for the large share of people who won’t or can’t make that jump.
Source evidence

Boil the Ocean

Artificial Superintelligence means it is time to stop playing it safe and raise our ambitions

TL;DR

Our fear of the future is directly proportional to how small our ambitions are. If your plan is to keep doing what you’re doing, AI is terrifying. If your plan is to build something dramatically bigger, it’s the best news you’ve ever gotten.

You know the phrase: “don’t boil the ocean.” Everyone’s said it in some overly ambitious meeting. It’s good advice in normal times. It keeps teams focused. It prevents scope creep. But we are no longer in normal times, and I think it’s time to retire saying it.

Artificial Superintelligence means it’s time to boil the ocean. We’ll start with a few lakes first.

I was recently with a university endowment’s head of private investing who told me their engineers were terrified for their jobs after seeing what Claude Code could do. And I get it — that’s the natural first reaction. But it’s the wrong one. It’s a zero-sum reaction to a positive-sum moment.

Instead of worrying about doing the same thing we’ve been doing for cheaper, why not focus on doing the thing we never even dreamed of doing? Why can’t that endowment achieve 50% net IRR instead of 10%? Why can’t a startup deliver a service that is 100x better than the incumbent? Why can’t we have fusion energy? Why can’t we talk to every single user and have a perfect understanding of every bug in our product?

These aren’t rhetorical questions anymore. They’re engineering problems with paths to solutions.

Here is what I think is actually going on with the fear: our fear of the future is directly proportional to how small our ambitions are. If your plan is to keep doing exactly what you’re doing, then yes, a machine that can do it faster and cheaper is terrifying. But if your plan is to do something dramatically bigger, then the machine is the best news you’ve ever gotten.

If you’re a worker — someone who trades labor for a living — this is the moment to become a builder. Start a business. And if you’re already management or capital, it’s time to go 10x more hardcore on what your aspirations could be. Not eking out 5% efficiency gains. Not increasing profit margins 2% by lowering cost and firing people. Those are the old games. The new question is: what would it look like to build a product or service so good that people would happily pay 10x what they pay now?

The net result of this is more jobs, not fewer. As Ryan Petersen likes to say, the human desire for more things is absolutely limitless. We can actually fulfill that desire now — if we have the agency to prompt it for ourselves.

Buckminster Fuller coined the term “ephemeralization” in 1938: doing more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing. His entire vision of progress was about technology enabling radical expansion of human capability through dematerialization. He traced this from stone bridges to iron trusses to steel cables — each iteration stronger, longer, lighter, cheaper. He wasn’t describing job destruction. He was describing civilization getting better at being civilization.

This is Jevons Paradox for everything. When you make a resource dramatically more efficient, you don’t use less of it — you use vastly more. Steam engines didn’t reduce coal consumption. They made coal so useful that demand exploded. The same thing is about to happen with intelligence, with labor, with every service and product we can imagine.

But Jevons Paradox doesn’t activate on its own. It requires capital and management to actually raise their ambitions — to boil lakes and oceans instead of drowning them in committee

That’s what startups have always been good at: moving fast in the face of radical uncertainty, building for the 10x future while everyone else is optimizing for the 1.05x present.

Time to start.

Take Action

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Related Links

-
Sam Altman: Three Observations on AGI(Sam Altman's Blog) -
Garry on scarcity vs. creation mindset(@garrytan) -
Garry on limitless human desire(@garrytan)

Comments (1)

Sign in to join the conversation.

I agree with the optimism — for people like us who are already building with these tools. But “just become a builder” isn’t a plan for

the 90% who won’t. Jevons Paradox for intelligence sounds great until you realize the demand explosion benefits the people who know how

to direct the machines, not the ones who were competing with them.

We’re not smarter or more deserving — we just learned to use the tools early. That’s not a moat, it’s a head start. And head starts

become chasms fast when the thing accelerating is intelligence itself.

The real question this post doesn’t answer: what’s the actual plan for the people who don’t make the jump? “Human desire is limitless”

doesn’t pay rent. If we’re serious about this being positive-sum, we need to be just as ambitious about the transition as we are about

the destination.

Reader Comments

Comments (1)
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Nick DeMarco
Member
•
3 months ago
I agree with the optimism — for people like us who are already building with these tools. But “just become a builder” isn’t a plan for
the 90% who won’t. Jevons Paradox for intelligence sounds great until you realize the demand explosion benefits the people who know how
to direct the machines, not the ones who were competing with them.
We’re not smarter or more deserving — we just learned to use the tools early. That’s not a moat, it’s a head start. And head starts
become chasms fast when the thing accelerating is intelligence itself.
The real question this post doesn’t answer: what’s the actual plan for the people who don’t make the jump? “Human desire is limitless”
doesn’t pay rent. If we’re serious about this being positive-sum, we need to be just as ambitious about the transition as we are about
the destination.