‘Hill-climbing’ becomes Silicon Valley’s new favourite jargon

The term “hill-climbing,” originally a niche machine-learning concept, has become Silicon Valley’s latest buzzword, used by executives like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis. Nadella told The Wall Street Journal in June that companies should use multiple AI models “hill-climbing inside of a machine you control.”

The phrase describes a step-by-step algorithm for improvement through trial and error. It now extends beyond tech, with founders, researchers, and even parents using it to talk about professional growth, personal achievement, and parenting. Paul Graham, YCombinator co-founder, encourages founders to focus on immediate growth rather than hitting a “local maximum.”

Some in Silicon Valley embrace the term as a philosophy of guaranteed returns, while others find its emphasis on optimisation excessive. AI researcher Alex Dong uses “climb the geometry hill” to motivate his daughter. The term threatens to cross into wider business jargon, following the path of “reboot” and “bandwidth.”