Common Maxims - LLM Remix

Today I got access to OpenAI’s o1 pro, a specialized model within the ChatGPT Pro lineup, designed for complex reasoning tasks. It’s particularly effective for problems requiring deep analysis, making it ideal for fields like science, mathematics, and advanced programming. While this first experiment, detailed below, isn’t a perfect fit for o1 pro’s strengths, I wanted to try it out on something that’s been a background thread the last few days.

Earlier this week, I came across a tweet from Patrick Collison that caught my attention. He challenged the classic “good, cheap, fast—choose two” maxim, calling it “devious misinformation spread by the slow.” He argued that moving faster can often reduce costs, rather than increasing them, and shared an example of a project where cutting a year from the timeline significantly lowered its cost. As he put it, “It takes time to spend, and adding the temporal constraint tends to make things simpler and more efficient.” The tweet stuck with me, and I thought it would be interesting to see if an LLM could reason about rejecting similarly popular maxims – and even propose new ones that are counter-intuitive or not widely held.

I love throwing these types of thought experiments at models and working with them on it, because they’ll always give you something — often it’s unexpected and thought-provoking.

The results were compelling (see below). They made me think deeper about the beliefs we hold without much introspection, in a similar way to how the original tweet caught my attention. Turns out LLMs can work with you to inspect and unpack those beliefs.

I followed up and asked the following, which gave me an additional interesting set of maxims:

Based on the above, build several entirely new maxims that people may not have thought about before that one might believe to be true if they believe most of the above to be false or have caveats.

While this was just a small test, it highlighted how even simple exercises can benefit from tools designed for thoughtful analysis. I’m looking forward to exploring more ambitious and complex use cases with o1 pro and will share findings here on my site for anything I find compelling.

o1 pro Generated Results

Maxims To Challenge

These lesser-known or under-critiqued maxims have subtle origins and wide appeal, yet unraveling their weaknesses reveals how context, nuance, and evolving circumstances matter more than any single motto can capture. By challenging these quieter assumptions — often hiding in plain sight — we acknowledge that the world’s complexity defies neat rules. Each debunked saying is an invitation to think more deeply, experiment more freely, and reject the comfort of easy wisdom.

1. “All publicity is good publicity.” At first glance, this suggests that any exposure raises your profile. But in reality, bad press can corrode trust, damage long-term relationships, and repel potential allies. Far from an automatic benefit, negative attention can lock you into a harmful narrative that’s tough to escape, leaving you scrambling to repair your reputation down the line.

2. “What gets measured gets managed.” This mantra implies that by tracking numbers, you gain control. Yet it encourages a narrow focus that misses intangible factors like team morale or customer loyalty. Overemphasizing metrics can turn your organization into a box-checking machine, chasing artificial targets instead of nurturing genuine quality, creativity, and impact.

3. “Fake it till you make it.” The idea is to project confidence until you develop real expertise. In practice, it can reward superficial bravado over true skill-building, and push people to bluff their way through challenges they don’t understand. Instead of growing genuine competence, you risk normalizing hollow performances and undervaluing the deep learning that leads to lasting mastery.

4. “If you build it, they will come.” It’s tempting to believe that a great offering sells itself. But a crowded marketplace often ignores even brilliant ideas if you don’t communicate their value, engage your audience, and iterate based on feedback. Without intentional outreach and refinement, an exceptional product or service can remain a hidden gem nobody ever discovers.

5. “Time is money.” This phrase reduces human life to transactions, encouraging rushed decisions and cramped schedules. By seeing every minute as a potential dollar, you risk neglecting the slow-burning processes—like reflection, relationship-building, and creative downtime—that foster meaningful innovation and long-term fulfillment. Sometimes, time spent not earning pays dividends in resilience and insight.

6. “The early bird gets the worm.” Being first is often admired, but early entry can turn into costly missteps if you rush in without reading the terrain. Latecomers sometimes learn from pioneers’ mistakes, entering the market with better strategies and solutions. Chasing the worm too soon could mean burning resources and setting flawed standards that others will later exploit.

7. “Never meet your heroes.” This warning claims that admired figures, once encountered, will disappoint. While meeting your heroes might dispel illusions, it can also humanize greatness, offering nuanced insights into success and struggle. By keeping heroes distant, you lose the chance to learn from their complexity and grow more empathetic and grounded.

8. “Quality over quantity.” A high bar for excellence is good, but insisting on perfection above all else can stifle progress and experimentation. Sometimes repeated attempts and numerous prototypes uncover breakthroughs you’d never reach by crafting a single, flawless masterpiece. True innovation often emerges from the messy interplay of both quality and quantity.

9. “Jack of all trades, master of none.” This phrase belittles broad skill sets, suggesting that diverse abilities lack depth. But in complex, fast-moving environments, being adaptable and resourceful can outweigh deep but narrow expertise. A versatile “jack of all trades” can connect dots between fields, pivot with changing trends, and solve problems specialists might never consider.

10. “Better safe than sorry.” While caution can prevent disasters, an overprotective mindset smothers the bold moves and calculated risks that fuel real breakthroughs. Playing it safe makes short-term sense, but over time it can lead to stagnation. Sometimes you must dare to stretch beyond safety’s comfort to discover your next big success.

New Maxims

1. “What can’t be counted often counts most.” If distrusting the lure of metrics, one may embrace that the intangible—like trust, curiosity, or resilience—shapes success more than what’s easily measured. This new maxim counters the fetish for quantification, suggesting that real value often resides in the unseen.

2. “The value of your work isn’t sealed by its launch day.” Rejecting the notion that you must succeed immediately or be forgotten, this maxim acknowledges that impact can unfold slowly and compound over time. It reassures that quiet endurance can outlast flashy but hollow debuts.

3. “Invention thrives in the space where no one is asking for it yet.” If you’ve questioned that necessity alone drives progress, you may find that the spark of creativity emerges in quiet corners, before demands and deadlines loom. Sometimes it’s the uncharted territory, not urgent need, that births our most surprising solutions.

4. “When no news arrives, ask a better question.” Instead of taking silence as a positive sign, this maxim suggests that stillness calls for deeper inquiry. Rather than resting easy in quiet moments, the wise test assumptions, seek hidden truths, and re-examine weak signals that others ignore.

5. “Sometimes the best way forward is through someone else’s field.” If “core competency” can limit growth, consider the power of cross-pollination. Insight often arises by venturing into areas you know less about, borrowing tools and perspectives that specialists in your usual domain overlook.

6. “Let strategy teach culture, and culture refine strategy.” Instead of letting culture dominate or strategy reign supreme, this maxim embraces an evolving dance. By allowing deliberate plans to inform norms—and collective values to reshape plans—you constantly adapt to challenges in dynamic equilibrium.

7. “Effort without evolution is just expensive endurance.” If not all hard work leads anywhere, then mere persistence doesn’t guarantee progress. This saying encourages introspection: transform your labor over time, learn from failure, and steer your effort into directions that yield genuine breakthroughs.

8. “If everyone hunts the first worm, look for the hidden orchard.” For those wary of rushing into markets or ideas, this suggests that value may lie off the beaten path. Just as the earliest opportunities might be overfished and undersized, untapped niches and overlooked opportunities often promise richer, more sustainable rewards.

9. “A good idea untold is a closed door, not an open secret.” If you believe that building alone won’t bring people, you understand that ideas need voices. By sharing openly, engaging your audience, and crafting a narrative, you transform solitary brilliance into communal opportunity and momentum.

10. “True mastery accumulates beyond the spotlight.” For anyone rejecting the notion that you’re only as good as your last show of brilliance, this maxim honors slow, compound growth. Skills deepen in the quiet hours, beneath public attention, shaping lasting expertise that transcends single performances.