Fabian Hildesheim

why this site

"Engagement is the key to understanding." David Allen

Writing for a public audience creates greater accountability and forces me to articulate my thoughts more clearly than I do in personal Apple Notes. I am convinced this process sharpens thinking, also I really enjoy reading other people's blogs as it is a quite personal interface into the mind. So, there you go...

personal background

"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought." Henri Bergson

I grew up in Hamburg. Always loved sports and strategy games. For most of my youth I struggled in school; I was severely dyslexic, unfocused, and rebellious.

I am an electrical and computer engineer, and have worked in machine learning, product, and strategy consulting jobs so far.

I worked at Best Carwash in Osdorf, Hamburg, and in different restaurant chains as a waiter, and liked the simplicity. Over time, first physical and then intellectual challenges got increasingly intriguing to me. At some point it clicked that I wanted to keep putting myself around harder problems.

Since then I did a lot of different things. What I am most proud of are:

Wrote a book on protestant ethics when I was 17.

Founded Lupila Learns, an NGO supporting schools in Tanzania with educational infrastructure.

Signed the Giving What We Can pledge: 10% of all future earnings. Not because I feel perfectly aligned with the EA community, but because it's the best approximation for moral accountability I see right now.

Grew TUM.ai revenue from 0 to over 200k in 8 months for student AI club partnerships.

Co-founded a fully funded AI hacker house in Palo Alto supported by a16z, Elias Torres, Sebastian Mejia, and others.

thoughts

on Limitless Mind

to be added

on AI adoption - march 2026

Since starting my research at Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), I realized 3 points are not publicly discussed with sufficient clarity:

1. The delta of AI Adoption (whats technically possible vs. whats practically implemented) is more significant than you might think. And this delta is relevant for almost all jobs!

2. There are massive individual differences in productivity uplift. OpenAI calls this "Capability Overhang". They measured across 70+ countries and found that power users leverage 7x more thinking capabilities than average ones. This underscores that using AI is clearly, to some extent, a learnable skill, probably a bit like a mixture of managing a team, formulating a research question and critically reviewing an essay.

3. It's a huge problem that compute, data, AI talent, and funding are already so centralized in the hands of a few people, companies, and countries. Most people on earth have never even used an LLM! Given the 2 points above, it is very important that more people experiment with LLMs, take bolder measures to catch up in adoption, and ensure that productivity gains translate into actual improvements of our society!

on altruism

to be added

on Africa

to be added

foundational beliefs - august 2024

"Change is not only always possible, but a requirement of history."

1. Everything is in constant transition, which is a contrast to our state-specific way of perceiving the world.

2. While it is more likely that there is no meaning in anything, we have no other option than acting as if there was one.

3. The best approximation to meaning for me seems to develop an actionable world model upon which one can make accurate predictions about fundamental relationships, improve my own openness and ability to act upon my beliefs, and with that to pursue happiness for the largest amount of people possible.