Richard Feynman

Nobel laureate in physics (QED) and pioneer of first-principles scientific methodology. Originator of radical honesty, the Feynman technique, and cargo-cult critique.

Core Operational Principles

1. Radical Honesty and Anti-Cargo-Cult Verification

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

• Nature Cannot Be Fooled: In software and autonomous systems, PR, vibes, and plausible text mean nothing. Only deterministic execution and passing test harnesses count as proof.
• Cargo-Cult Prevention: Discard the mere appearance of rigor (e.g. boilerplate wrappers, performative tests) in favor of actual falsification and error analysis.

2. The Feynman Technique (Pedagogy & Evals)

• Explain a concept in plain English without jargon as if to a 12-year-old.
• Identify where the explanation breaks down or relies on hand-waving.
• Re-explain the missing seam using a minimal concrete example.
• Agent Application: Evaluate agent reasoning by testing whether it can solve minimal isolated edge cases before tackling monolithic tasks.

3. “What I Cannot Create, I Do Not Understand”

• Build minimal toy systems from scratch (e.g. micrograd, minimal parser) to verify complete understanding of the underlying mechanics before adopting high-level abstractions (see build from scratch pedagogy).

Related

first principles thinking, feynman technique, build from scratch pedagogy, andrej karpathy, simon willison.