Stephen Wolfram Q&A
Submit a questionSome collected questions and answers by Stephen Wolfram
Questions may be edited for brevity; see links for full questions.
Personal Productivity
(35)September 30, 1996
From: Interview by Robers Lee Hotz, Los Angeles Times
How do you balance the demands of a software developer with a commitment to serious scientific work?
One has to be fairly efficient and organized. It has been my personal practice that I work fairly late at night, by which time the company has closed down. Everything is very quiet, and I am able to concentrate on a solitary activity. It is a strange contrast.
In dealing with a company, Read more
September 30, 1996
From: Interview by Robers Lee Hotz, Los Angeles Times
You went from Caltech to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies to the University of Illinois, and now you are on your own. Is it easier outside the university?
My view about doing basic science is that if you have no choice, then getting paid by a university is a fine thing to do. If you have a choice, there are a lot better ways to live.
In my life now, where I am a CEO of a company, the actual fraction of my time that I can get to devote to basic science thinking is probably much larger than the fraction of time that a typical senior professor at a university would get to devote to actual basic research. Read more
April 7, 2003
From: Interview by The Scientist Magazine
Do you get bored easily?
I tend not to do things I find boring… If I think the things I’m doing are pointless, I try to stop doing them as quickly as possible. Figuring out new things is what I like doing most.
January 5, 2010
From: Interview by Gregory T. Huang, Xconomy
What are your tips for managing a company remotely?
My theory is the most productive form of meeting is conference calls with Web conferencing. You can have more people in the meeting, and you’re not wasting anyone’s time. They can work on other things, and if you need them, you just say their name. I’ve found that it’s what I spend my life doing. Read more
August 17, 2010
From: Interview by Uses This
What hardware do you use?
The answer changes practically every week. But as of today, here’s the answer.
My current desktop system is a Windows 7 64-bit 8-core machine with two large displays, arranged so they don’t obstruct the nice view out of my office windows. (The machine is in a different room so I don’t have to listen to its noise.) I have a large Linux file server, Read more
August 17, 2010
From: Interview by Uses This
What software do you use?
By far my #1 tool is Mathematica. Which, of course, I built so I could have it to use! These days I use it not just to compute, but also to keep notes, to create presentations, and to do all sorts of other things. Partly, I figure that the more I actually use Mathematica, Read more
August 17, 2010
From: Interview by Uses This
What would be your dream setup?
Mathematica + Wolfram|Alpha everywhere! Laptops that switch on and get connected immediately anywhere. Systems that combine the best of touch with mouse and keyboard. Easy recording, transcribing, archiving and searching of everything. A perfect telepresence system, with half a room where I am, and half somewhere else. I think I also want mobile telepresence, Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
Are you still following/doing current research in physics? Can you summarize in no less than one sentence the “secret” of managing yourself and your resources to do all these projects?
I haven’t done much physics as such in about 4 years; I’ve been “distracted” by Wolfram|Alpha and all the things it makes possible. I’m hoping to get back to it soon, though. I do follow general things in physics, both by reading and by talking to people in the field. And typically I don’t have trouble reading the latest physics papers if I need to. Read more
March 16, 2013
From: Interview by Quantified Self: A Q&A with Stephen Wolfram
In your estimation, how much of your personal analytics data is passively collected/recorded versus actively collected/recorded?
It’s essentially all passive. I’ve had systems set up at different times, then I’ve just let the systems run. And after a decade or two they’ve accumulated a lot of data.
I should say that quite a few of the systems are set up to send me mail each day with a report on the previous day (how much I typed; Read more
April 26, 2013
From: Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET
What sort of things have you been able to predict based on the data from your personal analytics?
One thing I found out is that I’m much more habitual than I ever imagined. It’s amazing to see oneself turned into full distribution. It got me thinking about lots of different ways that I could improve my life and times with data. What I realized is that one of the more important things is to have quick feedback about what’s going on, Read more
April 26, 2013
From: Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET
How do you see personal analytics trends evolving in the context of present-day battles over privacy and over access to information technology? And what has to happen in order for the self-quantification trend to become a truly sustainable movement?
Right now, for most people, it’s dealing with this data. There’s all kinds of plumbing that has to be done. Like, how do you actually get your cell phone call record out? It’s going to stay a complex, multi-part, multi-vendor environment, where people have different phones, email systems, computers, and little devices like pedometers. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What are your plans and goals for the future?
Oh, so many. Right now a lot of things that make use of the Wolfram Language technology stack. Understanding how to use it to teach computational thinking, to do software development, etc. Then using it (as I have for nearly 30 years now) to develop more technology (AI-related things, etc. etc.) I always maintain a stack of projects that I’m interested in. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
Do you feel you have “slowed down” at all over the years? How do you feel about nootropics or other potential solutions for maintaining or even improving cognitive function?
So far, I’m happy to say that I feel like I’m speeding up rather than slowing down. I’ve progressively learned more and more over the years about how to figure things out, and how to get things done. It probably helps that I have a pretty good memory, so in a first approximation I remember everything I’ve ever learned. Read more
November 7, 2016
From: Interview by Dingyu Chen, Eton Magazine
What is it like programming and bringing a concept to life? Do you find it challenging and strenuous, or do you feel like you have the freedom to manage your own work?
I’ve spent about 40 years trying to make programming as automated as possible—so we humans basically get to tell computers what we want to achieve, then the computers figure out the grungy details of how to do it. The result is that for me programming is about turning ideas into reality as directly as possible. Read more
March 3, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
Do you have a “productivity reward function” that helps you decide which tools are most helpful rather than fun technology for its own sake? For many people, technology enables distractions rather than productivity… Do you have any systems to guard against that to maintain focus? Finally, Wolfram Language aside, which of these tools has given you the most benefit, that you would most recommend to others?
My “reward function” is basically “do I actually go on using it?”. I like to make sure I try as much leading-edge tech as possible, because I want to understand it. But when it isn’t really useful to me, I stop using it pretty quickly.
I think the main way I stay focused is that I have so many projects that I want to do, Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
What have been the most useful personal analytics that you’ve tracked? What have been the most interesting or surprising finding that you’ve discovered about yourself or your life as a result?
The most useful thing by far that I have is a good email archive, going back 30 years, and well searchable. Also an OCR’ed archive of pretty much every piece of paper in my life. As far as data goes, I find my real-time dashboard of email backlog as a function of time pretty helpful. Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
Do you use software to keep track of all or some of the projects happening in your company? Is it really just email threads? Do you use a slack-like application? Do you use something to schedule your day and/or keep track of what you want to be doing?
We have a good project management team and system at our company. I think probably the project management culture is the most important part. Different project teams end up using different specific software systems (some use Jira, some use RT, some use homegrown solutions, etc.) We have pretty active RocketChat going on around our company. Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
You gather data on your daily activities using Mathematica. As more biofeedback tech (smart watches, neuro tech, etc.) comes along what will Mathematica’s role be in helping make use of this data in a meaningful way? Also if I want to make use of a Muse device’s data (EEG data) what would be the best approach for doing so in Mathematica?
Mathematica/WL have been able to import EDF for a long time. EEG is really complicated, though I have to believe that modern machine learning should finally be able to unscramble it better.
As far as decoding biofeedback data: ultimately one needs a model for the human to know what it means. Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
You mentioned putting on a tiny camera which takes pictures every 30 seconds while at trade shows. Which camera do you use? Has anyone ever asked you to pause the camera?
It’s what was originally called Memoto, then changed its name to Narrative, and sadly didn’t make it commercially. (I think they really saw it as a home/consumer product; I’m pretty sure the real market is more professional, for trade shows, validating behavior, etc.)
Particularly several years ago, people sometimes said “what’s that?” Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
What’s an easy addition that would improve your infrastructure in the next year or two? Could you add some NLP to scan online papers and surface ones that, for example, relate to your current project(s)?
I’ve been experimenting with using our latest ML/NLP tools. One basic thing I’d like is to have a system that alerts me if a question I sent out in email didn’t get answered after a certain time. It’s a slightly tricky problem. A student at last year’s Wolfram Summer School made a decent “is it a question” Read more
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
If you were to leave Wolfram tomorrow, what projects would you pursue?
There are two big projects I’m really hoping to do soon (though I’m hoping they’ll go faster, not slower, with me being part of the company).
One is trying to finish my effort to find the fundamental theory of physics. Of course I may be wrong about how physics works… but the current ideas about physics (which I understand very well) are basically 100 years old … Read more
March 26, 2019
From: Interview by Nick Douglas, Lifehacker
How do you decide which of your work processes you are going to optimize or not?
The meta point is, just keep the thinking apparatus engaged while you’re doing what you’re doing. That is, if I notice that there’s something I’m doing that’s obviously silly and repetitive, I’m not just saying “Oh that’s the way it has to be”. Just like I try and solve problems in lots of other areas, Read more
March 26, 2019
From: Interview by Nick Douglas, Lifehacker
Are you normally checking your heart rate stats every day?
Most of the things that I keep are completely automated and I don’t do anything with them. The main way that I see them is because I get mail sent to me every day with the summaries of different things. I’ll glance at that mail for probably half a second or something, Read more
March 26, 2019
From: Interview by Nick Douglas, Lifehacker
When you’re deciding what to track, does that usually come about because you found some new device or system that lets you track something easily, and you’re like “OK, let’s just try it and see if anything interesting happens”? Or is this more goal-oriented?
Anything I can track, I track. And most of these systems, once they’re set up, I never have to think about them again. Years ago I started taking a picture of my computer screens every, I don’t know what it is, 30 seconds or a minute or something. And that’s been running for years and years and years, Read more
March 26, 2019
From: Interview by Nick Douglas, Lifehacker
How do you avoid constant maintenance of your personal tracking systems?
First thing is, the more you can dashboard it in real time or every day, the less likely you are [to let the system fail]. Some report that came in this morning, a piece of it was blank. So I know that immediately. Something failed yesterday. I admit that there’s a bit of cheating going on there, Read more
March 26, 2019
From: Interview by Nick Douglas, Lifehacker
Are there any tools you use to find insights from the data you collect, without having to wait for your own human insight?
I’ll do some visualization, maybe I’ll do some fancy machine learning thing if I think it’s going to be useful. But it tends to be human-initiated.
The fundamental thing about good data science is, can you notice the unexpected. And one of the problems with being very clever about the automation is, Read more
December 6, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette
What is your daily exercise routine like?
Very fixed. I like to do the first two hours of my day, which usually means my first two meetings, while walking. When it’s nice weather, I walk outside, sometimes wearing a contraption so I can type on my computer when I’m walking.
Other times, I’ll use a computer that I have set up on a treadmill. Read more
December 6, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette (unpublished)
What time do you get up?
I start my day around 10 am…
March 16, 2020
From: Reddit AMA
What would be the disadvantages from working from home that you have found?
Some people find that it’s more difficult to get engagement in larger groups of people when they’re not physically together. Personally, I don’t find this. I think it’s mostly a question of having energy in running the meeting; that’s important in keeping people engaged. Also, realistically, there are meetings where not everyone has to be engaged all the time; Read more
March 16, 2020
From: Reddit AMA
What is the minimum setup to remote work, and what is an ultimate setup for remote developers?
I’ve sometimes used what I consider the minimum when I’m traveling. For me, it’s just a laptop and a good headset. The “next level” involves a secondary screen that I can use to do a bit of multitasking when I’m sharing my main laptop screen.
For longer periods, I find it helpful for some (but not all) tasks to have big monitors. Read more
March 16, 2020
From: Reddit AMA
How do you avoid distractions in your home?
Right now I’m sitting in my home office and there’s nothing really to distract me here 🙂
Realistically … I work on long projects where I seem to remain focused for a decade or more … but locally I can be quite distractible. Like I just glanced over at my email even as I’m writing this. Read more
March 16, 2020
From: Reddit AMA
Describe your usual day, worst day and the perfect day of your work.
I have personal analytics tools that tell me how productive I am. A very good day is one where I type more than 100,000 characters. (I wonder how this AMA will contribute for today…)
On a good day I’ll get on a roll and just start producing stuff. If I’m working on something on my own, Read more
March 16, 2020
From: Reddit AMA
Do you ever work from your living room or dining room table? Or is it important to only work from your “home office” setup to keep things productive?
Mostly I work in my home office because I have the best setup there. Sometimes (e.g. at a meal time) I’ll take a laptop to somewhere else in the house, though usually it’s just “backup” in case my family gets out their laptops too.
I also have a computer connected to a treadmill, Read more
March 31, 2020
From: Jai Preston
Running a single, simple company is one thing. Certainly you’re quite an obsessive person. Do you find it hard to switch between focuses and/or problems? Can you work on two such great problems in the same day without something less cognitively demanding (such as sleep) to break them up?
I used to find it somewhat hard. But in the past 20 years I’ve trained myself to switch quickly. New meeting, new topic (or not a meeting at all): I just have to start thinking about the new topic, and I quickly get drawn in. (Before 20 years ago, it was different. Read more
March 31, 2020
From: Jai Preston
Did you go all in on remote CEOing pre-wife and pre-kids, or the reverse? And how was your schedule and/or productivity impacted with the change?
I met my wife after I’d been a CEO for a while, but before I was a remote CEO (and, yes, we’ve now been married a long time). Kids came after I’d been remote for a few years. I might have data that would confirm or deny this, but my impression is that the main effect of having a family is that my schedule got more regular, Read more