"Diversify research bets instead of following crowds AI researcher Tatsunori Hashimoto observes that virtually all investment in AI has followed the same path of scaling models larger, creating a dangerous monoculture of approaches. He points out that 'historically whatever innovation happened with computers or phones they're always very large at the beginning and then over the course of time people figure out how to make it smaller yet more powerful,' suggesting the same trajectory is inevitable for AI. The lesson: when an entire field stampedes toward one solution, the highest-value research and investment opportunity is usually the road less traveled. Whether in business, science, or career strategy, resist the herd and place deliberate bets on under-explored directions. Source: Tatsunori Hashimoto, The Cognitive Revolution (or similar Stanford AI podcast), Small Language Models and AI Democratization"