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xianshou | on: Former Nvidia CEO Huang had a relationship with a second employee, sources say
If you find two ants in the kitchen, there are more than two ants in the kitchen.
dang | parent | next
It's true of kitchen-ant comments as well: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

We have to figure out where this comes from! It's so recent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828285 references https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535 - that's the earliest I've seen so far. Others?

Edit: thanks ChatGPT: https://barrypopik.com/blog/there_is_never_one_cockroach_bus...

Proverb #232 of https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/2759983.pdf says it's attested from 1991:

232 There is never just one cockroach. (1991)

Variant: There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen

Ants are nicer though.

mandevil | root | parent | next
Warren Buffet said the cockroach variant in his 1989 investor letter.

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1989.html

"In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen."

close04 | root | parent | next
My grandmother was using a similar saying long before that, translated approximately: "there's never just 1 mouse in the barn". I'd bet these expressions have been common across the world for centuries (maybe substitute for local rodent).
mito88 | root | parent | next
"Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out."
jordanb | root | parent
Warren buffet didn't invent it either it's an old saying. I vaguely recall it from an insecticide commercial when I was a child but they probably didn't invent it either.

Not surprising its use has exploded in recent days..

gnabgib | root | parent | next
Possibly Nathan Calvin on Twitter in August: If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two

August 5th about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535

September 4th.. still about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2095854095139537064

November 11th.. Alex Lawsen on Twitter, referencing Nathan's post (above):

https://x.com/lxrjl/status/2120640689620861335

morganf | root | parent
It's much much older. As a kid growing up in NY in the 90s, I heard many times the version of this saying, "one cockroach on the floor means one hundred behind the wall."
mkehrt | root | parent
That's different, though. The point of the ant thing is sometimes things just happen, but if they happen twice, that's a very different matter.
Teever | root | parent | next
Completely tangential but I always find it interesting how different expressions become attached to specific contexts in people's heads.

"This old house as got good bones" is the realtor 'slaps roof of car' meme that seems to have caught on during the 2010s and peaked during COVID. Now I hear people mindlessly propagating it whenever they talk about renovating/buying an old home.

I'm sure that we'll be hearing this ants in the kitchen of the house with good bones thing forever now.

zippyman55 | root | parent
I heard this in ‘93 when I bought a house. Also: I’m worried about the gophers in the back yard. (Taking my focus off more important concerns)
iwassayinbourns | root | parent | next
This is my favorite HN comment of 2026. Thanks dang.
mmahemoff | root | parent | next
A 1985 Dallas Morning News article attributes the heuristic to "Sanders", as cited in a 2003 mailing list (https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2003-Septe...).

Fable 5.2 couldn't access the full DMN text (nor can I), but suggests the article is about "local TV journalists reacting to a report on minority hiring" and "Sanders" is probably a reporter named Bob Ray Sanders, a reporter in the region (who was later inducted to the National Association of Black Journalists' Hall of Fame). What he actually said is sadly paywalled in the archives.

busymom0 | root | parent | next
Aren't these similar to "when it rains, it pours" or "adding insult to injury" or "Troubles don't come alone, they like to arrive in groups"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/9uu7wp/troubles...

throwaway198846 | root | parent
They are more similar to "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action" because they include explicit low numeric information
lovich | root | parent | next
Viral memetics didn’t disappear just because we got bots pushing narratives.
thaumasiotes | root | parent
It makes sense for cockroaches, which make it their business to hide from you.

It's not even true for ants. If you find two ants in the kitchen, they were just there by coincidence. Ants aren't concerned with whether you can see them; if they're interested in something in your kitchen, they'll show up by the hundreds to take it away, and they'll be impossible to miss.

weinzierl | parent | next
"The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken."

-- Bertrand Russell, 1912

Point is, if you find two ants in the kitchen it's worth to investigate if there are more. Blindly assuming there were more, like the original quote seems to suggest, will burn you sooner or later.

frankest | root | parent | next
The chicken had long outsourced its brain to its owners. It didn’t have to look for food or fend off enemies for generations. Its food was provided, its safety was ensured by the owner. Leaving the yard would have gotten the chicken eaten by a coyote or a stray dog.

Even the dog guarding the chickens didn’t enjoy a better fate. At the first sign of illness, its vet recommended a cost efficient putting to sleep.

Those only useful, become discarded at the end of usefulness. Those only valuable can get sold or harvested. That’s why you have to be loved. Because everyone else can just upgrade their tools.

petesergeant | root | parent
> would have been useful to the chicken

As someone who's had to suffer through a lot of data visualization, unless the chicken is able to act on this insight, it's probably worthless.

mnw21cam | root | parent | next
Well, I think that chicken would be quite happy dealing with the ants for you.
aesh2Xa1 | root | parent | next
Russell didn't make the dashboard for the chicken. The chicken is a data point.
thaumasiotes | root | parent
It's worthless anyway. A chicken who can see the future and act on it in any way that bothers the people around it is going to be killed, and better-domesticated chickens will be bred to replace it.
zkmon | parent | next
If you find a tip of iceberg above the water, there is an iceberg under the water as well. Maybe ants analogy is better.

Jokes apart, the leaders usually require almost the same mindset of a savage sailor who is on a mission to plunder the riches from the far away lands. They break the rules to the extent possible and exhibit highest levels of survival skills. Sometimes that mindset spills into personal life.

fritzo | parent | next
If the ant in your kitchen IPOs the same day you are evicted from your kitchen, the spies in your kitchen are not Chinese.
thehamkercat | root | parent
ANThropic IPO pun? in this economy?
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bayarearefugee | parent | next
> If you find two ants in the kitchen, there are more than two ants in the kitchen.

And Jensen Huang may have had an improper relationship with at least one of them.

| root | parent | next
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sire-vc | root | parent
That's a sensitive place to get bitten.
loading story #50479041
jombib | parent
listening to the verge?