Dwarkesh Podcast

Dwarkesh Podcast

Dwarkesh Patel
en
Deeply researched interviews

Episodes (103)

Why evolution designed us to die fast, & how we can change that – Jacob Kimmel

Why evolution designed us to die fast, & how we can change that – Jacob Kimmel

August 21, 2025 1h 44m
Jacob Kimmel thinks he can find the transcription factors to reverse aging. We do a deep dive on why this might be plausible and why evolution hasn’t already optimized for longevity. We also talk...
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? - Casey Handmer

China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? - Casey Handmer

August 15, 2025 1h 8m
How will we feed the 100s of GWs of extra energy demand that AI will create over the next decade? On this episode, Casey Handmer (Caltech PhD, former NASA JPL, founder & CEO of Terraform Industries)...
The surprising economics of the meat industry – Lewis Bollard

The surprising economics of the meat industry – Lewis Bollard

August 07, 2025 1h 8m
A deep dive with Lewis Bollard, who leads Open Philanthropy’s strategy for Farm Animal Welfare, on the surprising economics of the meat industry.Why is factory farming so efficient? How can we make...
Sarah Paine: How Imperial Japan Defeated Tsarist Russia & Qing China

Sarah Paine: How Imperial Japan Defeated Tsarist Russia & Qing China

July 25, 2025 1h 55m
After my last lecture series with Sarah Paine ended, I still had so many questions. I knew we’d only scratched the surface of Sarah’s scholarship, so I immediately invited her back for another series:...
Stephen Kotkin — How Stalin Became the Most Powerful Dictator in History

Stephen Kotkin — How Stalin Became the Most Powerful Dictator in History

July 10, 2025 2h 12m
The Stephen Kotkin episode. Kotkin is arguably the world’s foremost expert on Joseph Stalin and has written a massive 2-volume biography on him (with a 3rd volume in the works).No other individual had...
Why I don’t think AGI is right around the corner

Why I don’t think AGI is right around the corner

July 03, 2025 14m
I’ve had a lot of discussions on my podcast where we haggle out timelines to AGI. Some guests think it’s 20 years away - others 2 years. Here’s an audio version of where my thoughts stand as of June...
George Church — A Billion Years of Evolution in a Single Afternoon

George Church — A Billion Years of Evolution in a Single Afternoon

June 26, 2025 1h 33m
George Church is the godfather of modern synthetic biology and has been involved with basically every major biotech breakthrough in the last few decades.Professor Church thinks that these improvements...
China’s Manufacturing Dominance: State Directives & Ruthless Competition — Arthur Kroeber

China’s Manufacturing Dominance: State Directives & Ruthless Competition — Arthur Kroeber

June 19, 2025 2h 26m
Arthur Kroeber is a leading researcher on Chinese tech and macro, a founding partner at Gavekal Dragonomics, and author of "China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know." It's the most useful,...
“China is digging out of a crisis. And America’s luck is wearing thin.” — Ken Rogoff

“China is digging out of a crisis. And America’s luck is wearing thin.” — Ken Rogoff

June 12, 2025 1h 36m
Ken Rogoff is the former chief economist of the IMF, a professor of Economics at Harvard, and author of the newly released Our Dollar, Your Problem and This Time is Different.On this episode, Ken...
Xi Jinping’s paranoid approach to AGI, debt crisis, & Politburo politics — Victor Shih

Xi Jinping’s paranoid approach to AGI, debt crisis, & Politburo politics — Victor Shih

May 29, 2025 1h 29m
On this episode, I chat with Victor Shih about all things China. We discuss China’s massive local debt crisis, the CCP’s views on AI, what happens after Xi, and more.Victor Shih is an expert on the...
Is RL + LLMs enough for AGI? — Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken

Is RL + LLMs enough for AGI? — Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken

May 22, 2025 2h 24m
New episode with my good friends Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken. Sholto focuses on scaling RL and Trenton researches mechanistic interpretability, both at Anthropic.We talk through what’s changed in...
What Will Automated Firms Look Like?

What Will Automated Firms Look Like?

May 01, 2025 10m
Based on my essay about AI firms.Huge thanks to Petr and his team for bringing this to life!Watch on YouTube.Thanks to Google for sponsoring. We used their Veo 2 model to make this entire video—it...
Mark Zuckerberg – Llama 4, DeepSeek, Trump, AI Friends, & Race to AGI

Mark Zuckerberg – Llama 4, DeepSeek, Trump, AI Friends, & Race to AGI

April 29, 2025 1h 15m
Zuck on:* Llama 4, benchmark gaming* Intelligence explosion, business models for AGI* DeepSeek/China, export controls, & Trump* Orion glasses, AI relationships, and preventing reward-hacking from our...
Why Rome Actually Fell: Plagues, Slavery, & Ice Age — Kyle Harper

Why Rome Actually Fell: Plagues, Slavery, & Ice Age — Kyle Harper

April 24, 2025 1h 23m
800 years before the Black Death, the very same bacteria ravaged Rome, killing 60%+ of the population in many areas.Also, back-to-back volcanic eruptions caused a mini Ice Age, leaving Rome devastated...
AGI is Still 30 Years Away — Ege Erdil & Tamay Besiroglu

AGI is Still 30 Years Away — Ege Erdil & Tamay Besiroglu

April 17, 2025 3h 8m
Ege Erdil and Tamay Besiroglu have 2045+ timelines, think the whole "alignment" framing is wrong, don't think an intelligence explosion is plausible, but are convinced we'll see explosive economic...
2027 Intelligence Explosion: Month-by-Month Model — Scott Alexander & Daniel Kokotajlo

2027 Intelligence Explosion: Month-by-Month Model — Scott Alexander & Daniel Kokotajlo

April 03, 2025 3h 4m
Scott and Daniel break down every month from now until the 2027 intelligence explosion.Scott Alexander is author of the highly influential blogs Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten. Daniel Kokotajlo...
AMA ft. Sholto & Trenton: New Book, Career Advice Given AGI, How I'd Start From Scratch

AMA ft. Sholto & Trenton: New Book, Career Advice Given AGI, How I'd Start From Scratch

March 25, 2025 49m
I recorded an AMA! I had a blast chatting with my friends Trenton Bricken and Sholto Douglas. We discussed my new book, career advice given AGI, how I pick guests, how I research for the show, and...
Joseph Henrich – Why Humans Survived and Smarter Species Didn't

Joseph Henrich – Why Humans Survived and Smarter Species Didn't

March 12, 2025 1h 52m
Humans have not succeeded because of our raw intelligence.Marooned European explorers regularly starved to death in areas where foragers thrived for 1000s of years.I’ve always found this cultural...
Notes on China

Notes on China

March 05, 2025 19m
I’m so excited with how this visualization of Notes on China turned out. Petr, thank you for such beautiful watercolor artwork. More to come!Watch on YouTube.----------Timestamps(0:00:00) -...
Satya Nadella – Microsoft’s AGI Plan & Quantum Breakthrough

Satya Nadella – Microsoft’s AGI Plan & Quantum Breakthrough

February 19, 2025 1h 16m
Satya Nadella on: Why he doesn’t believe in AGI but does believe in 10% economic growth; Microsoft’s new topological qubit breakthrough and gaming world models;Whether Office commoditizes LLMs or the...
Jeff Dean & Noam Shazeer – 25 years at Google: from PageRank to AGI

Jeff Dean & Noam Shazeer – 25 years at Google: from PageRank to AGI

February 12, 2025 2h 14m
This week I welcome on the show two of the most important technologists ever, in any field.Jeff Dean is Google's Chief Scientist, and through 25 years at the company, has worked on basically the most...
Sarah Paine Episode 3: How Mao Conquered China

Sarah Paine Episode 3: How Mao Conquered China

January 30, 2025 1h 48m
Third and final episode in the Paine trilogy!Chinese history is full of warlords constantly challenging the capital. How could Mao not only stay in power for decades, but not even face any...
Sarah Paine Episode 2: Why Japan Lost (Lecture & Interview)

Sarah Paine Episode 2: Why Japan Lost (Lecture & Interview)

January 23, 2025 2h 8m
This is the second episode in the trilogy of a lectures by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College.In this second episode, Prof Paine dissects the ideas and economics behind Japanese...
Sarah Paine Episode 1: The War For India (Lecture & Interview)

Sarah Paine Episode 1: The War For India (Lecture & Interview)

January 16, 2025 2h 12m
I’m thrilled to launch a new trilogy of double episodes: a lecture series by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College, each followed by a deep Q&A.In this first episode, Prof Paine talks...
Tyler Cowen - the #1 bottleneck to AI progress is humans

Tyler Cowen - the #1 bottleneck to AI progress is humans

January 09, 2025 59m
I interviewed Tyler Cowen at the Progress Conference 2024. As always, I had a blast. This is my fourth interview with him – and yet I’m always hearing new stuff.We talked about why he thinks AI won't...
Adam Brown – How Future Civilizations Could Change The Laws of Physics

Adam Brown – How Future Civilizations Could Change The Laws of Physics

December 26, 2024 2h 43m
Adam Brown is a founder and lead of BlueShift with is cracking maths and reasoning at Google DeepMind and a theoretical physicist at Stanford.We discuss: destroying the light cone with vacuum decay,...
Gwern Branwen - How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI's Trajectory

Gwern Branwen - How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI's Trajectory

November 13, 2024 1h 36m
Gwern is a pseudonymous researcher and writer. He was one of the first people to see LLM scaling coming. If you've read his blog, you know he's one of the most interesting polymathic thinkers alive.In...
Dylan Patel & Jon (Asianometry) – How the Semiconductor Industry Actually Works

Dylan Patel & Jon (Asianometry) – How the Semiconductor Industry Actually Works

October 02, 2024 2h 9m
A bonanza on the semiconductor industry and hardware scaling to AGI by the end of the decade.Dylan Patel runs Semianalysis, the leading publication and research firm on AI hardware. Jon Y runs...
Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century

Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century

September 18, 2024 1h 27m
Unless you understand the history of oil, you cannot understand the rise of America, WW1, WW2, secular stagnation, the Middle East, Ukraine, how Xi and Putin think, and basically anything else that's...
David Reich - How One Small Tribe Conquered the World 70,000 Years Ago

David Reich - How One Small Tribe Conquered the World 70,000 Years Ago

August 29, 2024 1h 56m
I had no idea how wild human history was before chatting with the geneticist of ancient DNA David Reich.Human history has been again and again a story of one group figuring ‘something’ out, and then...
Joe Carlsmith - Otherness and control in the age of AGI

Joe Carlsmith - Otherness and control in the age of AGI

August 22, 2024 2h 30m
Chatted with Joe Carlsmith about whether we can trust power/techno-capital, how to not end up like Stalin in our urge to control the future, gentleness towards the artificial Other, and much...
Patrick McKenzie - How a Discord Server Saved Thousands of Lives

Patrick McKenzie - How a Discord Server Saved Thousands of Lives

July 24, 2024 2h 1m
I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence,...
Tony Blair - Life of a PM, The Deep State, Lee Kuan Yew, & AI's 1914 Moment

Tony Blair - Life of a PM, The Deep State, Lee Kuan Yew, & AI's 1914 Moment

June 26, 2024 52m
I chatted with Tony Blair about:- What he learned from Lee Kuan Yew- Intelligence agencies track record on Iraq & Ukraine- What he tells the dozens of world leaders who come seek advice from him- How...
Francois Chollet, Mike Knoop - LLMs won’t lead to AGI - $1,000,000 Prize to find true solution

Francois Chollet, Mike Knoop - LLMs won’t lead to AGI - $1,000,000 Prize to find true solution

June 11, 2024 1h 33m
Here is my conversation with Francois Chollet and Mike Knoop on the $1 million ARC-AGI Prize they're launching today.I did a bunch of socratic grilling throughout, but Francois’s arguments about why...
Leopold Aschenbrenner - China/US Super Intelligence Race, 2027 AGI, & The Return of History

Leopold Aschenbrenner - China/US Super Intelligence Race, 2027 AGI, & The Return of History

June 04, 2024 4h 31m
Chatted with my friend Leopold Aschenbrenner on the trillion dollar nationalized cluster, CCP espionage at AI labs, how unhobblings and scaling can lead to 2027 AGI, dangers of outsourcing clusters to...
John Schulman (OpenAI Cofounder) - Reasoning, RLHF, & Plan for 2027 AGI

John Schulman (OpenAI Cofounder) - Reasoning, RLHF, & Plan for 2027 AGI

May 15, 2024 1h 36m
Chatted with John Schulman (cofounded OpenAI and led ChatGPT creation) on how posttraining tames the shoggoth, and the nature of the progress to come...Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple...
Mark Zuckerberg - Llama 3, Open Sourcing $10b Models, & Caesar Augustus

Mark Zuckerberg - Llama 3, Open Sourcing $10b Models, & Caesar Augustus

April 18, 2024 1h 17m
Mark Zuckerberg on:- Llama 3- open sourcing towards AGI- custom silicon, synthetic data, & energy constraints on scaling- Caesar Augustus, intelligence explosion, bioweapons, $10b models, & much...
Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken - How to Build & Understand GPT-7's Mind

Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken - How to Build & Understand GPT-7's Mind

March 28, 2024 3h 12m
Had so much fun chatting with my good friends Trenton Bricken and Sholto Douglas on the podcast.No way to summarize it, except: This is the best context dump out there on how LLMs are trained, what...
Demis Hassabis - Scaling, Superhuman AIs, AlphaZero atop LLMs, Rogue Nations Threat

Demis Hassabis - Scaling, Superhuman AIs, AlphaZero atop LLMs, Rogue Nations Threat

February 28, 2024 1h 1m
Here is my episode with Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMindWe discuss:* Why scaling is an artform* Adding search, planning, & AlphaZero type training atop LLMs* Making sure rogue nations can't...
Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) - Craft, Beauty, & The Future of Payments

Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) - Craft, Beauty, & The Future of Payments

February 21, 2024 1h 54m
We discuss:* what it takes to process $1 trillion/year* how to build multi-decade APIs, companies, and relationships* what's next for Stripe (increasing the GDP of the internet is quite an open ended...
Tyler Cowen - Hayek, Keynes, & Smith on AI, Animal Spirits, Anarchy, & Growth

Tyler Cowen - Hayek, Keynes, & Smith on AI, Animal Spirits, Anarchy, & Growth

January 31, 2024 1h 42m
It was a great pleasure speaking with Tyler Cowen for the 3rd time.We discussed GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?, especially in the context of how the insights...
Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro [Narration]

Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro [Narration]

January 23, 2024 36m
This is a narration of my blog post, Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro.You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/lyndon-johnsonListen on Apple Podcasts,...
Will scaling work? [Narration]

Will scaling work? [Narration]

January 19, 2024 25m
This is a narration of my blog post, Will scaling work?. You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/will-scaling-workListen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform....
Jung Chang - Living through Cultural Revolution and the Crimes of Mao

Jung Chang - Living through Cultural Revolution and the Crimes of Mao

November 29, 2023 1h 31m
A true honor to speak with Jung Chang.She is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (sold 15+ million copies worldwide) and Mao: The Unknown Story.We discuss:- what it was like growing up...
Andrew Roberts - SV's Napoleon Cult, Why Hitler Lost WW2, Churchill as Applied Historian

Andrew Roberts - SV's Napoleon Cult, Why Hitler Lost WW2, Churchill as Applied Historian

November 22, 2023 1h 18m
Andrew Roberts is the world's best biographer and one of the leading historians of our time.We discussed* Churchill the applied historian,* Napoleon the startup founder,* why Nazi ideology cost Hitler...
Dominic Cummings - COVID, Brexit, & Fixing Western Governance

Dominic Cummings - COVID, Brexit, & Fixing Western Governance

November 15, 2023 2h 34m
Here is my interview with Dominic Cummings on why Western governments are so dangerously broken, and how to fix them before an even more catastrophic crisis.Dominic was Chief Advisor to the Prime...
Paul Christiano - Preventing an AI Takeover

Paul Christiano - Preventing an AI Takeover

October 31, 2023 3h 7m
Paul Christiano is the world’s leading AI safety researcher. My full episode with him is out!We discuss:- Does he regret inventing RLHF, and is alignment necessarily dual-use?- Why he has relatively...
Shane Legg (DeepMind Founder) - 2028 AGI, New Architectures, Aligning Superhuman Models

Shane Legg (DeepMind Founder) - 2028 AGI, New Architectures, Aligning Superhuman Models

October 26, 2023 44m
I had a lot of fun chatting with Shane Legg - Founder and Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind!We discuss:* Why he expects AGI around 2028* How to align superhuman models* What new architectures...
Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown) - Past, Present, & Future of Mathematics

Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown) - Past, Present, & Future of Mathematics

October 12, 2023 1h 31m
I had a lot of fun chatting with Grant Sanderson (who runs the excellent 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel) about:- Whether advanced math requires AGI- What careers should mathematically talented students...
Sarah C. M. Paine - WW2, Taiwan, Ukraine, & Maritime vs Continental Powers

Sarah C. M. Paine - WW2, Taiwan, Ukraine, & Maritime vs Continental Powers

October 04, 2023 2h 24m
I learned so much from Sarah Paine, Professor of History and Strategy at the Naval War College.We discuss:- how continental vs maritime powers think and how this explains Xi & Putin's decisions- how a...
Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) - Scaling, Alignment, & AI Progress

Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) - Scaling, Alignment, & AI Progress

August 08, 2023 1h 58m
Here is my conversation with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.Dario is hilarious and has fascinating takes on what these models are doing, why they scale so well, and what it will take to align...
Andy Matuschak - Self-Teaching, Spaced Repetition, & Why Books Don’t Work

Andy Matuschak - Self-Teaching, Spaced Repetition, & Why Books Don’t Work

July 12, 2023 2h 22m
A few weeks ago, I sat beside Andy Matuschak to record how he reads a textbook.Even though my own job is to learn things, I was shocked with how much more intense, painstaking, and effective his...
Carl Shulman (Pt 2) - AI Takeover, Bio & Cyber Attacks, Detecting Deception, & Humanity's Far Future

Carl Shulman (Pt 2) - AI Takeover, Bio & Cyber Attacks, Detecting Deception, & Humanity's Far Future

June 26, 2023 3h 7m
The second half of my 7 hour conversation with Carl Shulman is out!My favorite part! And the one that had the biggest impact on my worldview.Here, Carl lays out how an AI takeover might happen:* AI...
Carl Shulman (Pt 1) - Intelligence Explosion, Primate Evolution, Robot Doublings, & Alignment

Carl Shulman (Pt 1) - Intelligence Explosion, Primate Evolution, Robot Doublings, & Alignment

June 14, 2023 2h 44m
In terms of the depth and range of topics, this episode is the best I’ve done.No part of my worldview is the same after talking with Carl Shulman. He's the most interesting intellectual you've never...
Richard Rhodes - Making of Atomic Bomb, AI, WW2, Oppenheimer, & Abolishing Nukes

Richard Rhodes - Making of Atomic Bomb, AI, WW2, Oppenheimer, & Abolishing Nukes

May 23, 2023 2h 37m
It was a tremendous honor & pleasure to interview Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic BombWe discuss- similarities between AI progress & Manhattan Project...
Eliezer Yudkowsky - Why AI Will Kill Us, Aligning LLMs, Nature of Intelligence, SciFi, & Rationality

Eliezer Yudkowsky - Why AI Will Kill Us, Aligning LLMs, Nature of Intelligence, SciFi, & Rationality

April 06, 2023 4h 3m
For 4 hours, I tried to come up reasons for why AI might not kill us all, and Eliezer Yudkowsky explained why I was wrong.We also discuss his call to halt AI, why LLMs make alignment harder, what it...
Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI Chief Scientist) - Building AGI, Alignment, Future Models, Spies, Microsoft, Taiwan, & Enlightenment

Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI Chief Scientist) - Building AGI, Alignment, Future Models, Spies, Microsoft, Taiwan, & Enlightenment

March 27, 2023 47m
I went over to the OpenAI offices in San Fransisco to ask the Chief Scientist and cofounder of OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, about:* time to AGI* leaks and spies* what's after generative models* post AGI...
Nat Friedman - Reading Ancient Scrolls, Open Source, & AI

Nat Friedman - Reading Ancient Scrolls, Open Source, & AI

March 22, 2023 1h 38m
It is said that the two greatest problems of history are: how to account for the rise of Rome, and how to account for her fall. If so, then the volcanic ashes spewed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD - which...
Brett Harrison - FTX US Former President & HFT Veteran Speaks Out

Brett Harrison - FTX US Former President & HFT Veteran Speaks Out

March 13, 2023 2h 37m
I flew out to Chicago to interview Brett Harrison, who is the former President of FTX US President and founder of Architect.In his first longform interview since the fall of FTX, he speak in great...
Marc Andreessen - AI, Crypto, 1000 Elon Musks, Regrets, Vulnerabilities, & Managerial Revolution

Marc Andreessen - AI, Crypto, 1000 Elon Musks, Regrets, Vulnerabilities, & Managerial Revolution

February 01, 2023 1h 19m
My podcast with the brilliant Marc Andreessen is out!We discuss:* how AI will revolutionize software* whether NFTs are useless, & whether he should be funding flying cars instead* a16z's biggest...
Garett Jones - Immigration, National IQ, & Less Democracy

Garett Jones - Immigration, National IQ, & Less Democracy

January 24, 2023 1h 14m
Garett Jones is an economist at George Mason University and the author of The Cultural Transplant, Hive Mind, and 10% Less Democracy.This episode was fun and interesting throughout!He explains:* Why...
Lars Doucet - Progress, Poverty, Georgism, & Why Rent is Too Damn High

Lars Doucet - Progress, Poverty, Georgism, & Why Rent is Too Damn High

January 09, 2023 1h 40m
One of my best episodes ever. Lars Doucet is the author of Land is a Big Deal, a book about Georgism which has been praised by Vitalik Buterin, Scott Alexander, and Noah Smith. Sam Altman is the lead...
Holden Karnofsky - Transformative AI & Most Important Century

Holden Karnofsky - Transformative AI & Most Important Century

January 03, 2023 1h 56m
Holden Karnofsky is the co-CEO of Open Philanthropy and co-founder of GiveWell. He is also the author of one of the most interesting blogs on the internet, Cold Takes.We discuss:* Are we living in the...
Bethany McLean - Enron, FTX, 2008, Musk, Frauds, & Visionaries

Bethany McLean - Enron, FTX, 2008, Musk, Frauds, & Visionaries

December 21, 2022 1h 25m
This was one of my favorite episodes ever.Bethany McLean was the first reporter to question Enron’s earnings, and she has written some of the best finance books out there.We discuss:* The astounding...
Nadia Asparouhova - Tech Elites, Democracy, Open Source, & Philanthropy

Nadia Asparouhova - Tech Elites, Democracy, Open Source, & Philanthropy

December 15, 2022 1h 22m
Nadia Asparouhova is currently researching what the new tech elite will look like at nadia.xyz. She is also the author of Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software.We talk...
Byrne Hobart - FTX, Drugs, Twitter, Taiwan, & Monasticism

Byrne Hobart - FTX, Drugs, Twitter, Taiwan, & Monasticism

December 01, 2022 1h 30m
Perhaps the most interesting episode so far.Byrne Hobart writes at thediff.co, analyzing inflections in finance and tech.He explains:* What happened at FTX* How drugs have induced past financial...
Edward Glaeser - Cities, Terrorism, Housing, & Remote Work

Edward Glaeser - Cities, Terrorism, Housing, & Remote Work

November 28, 2022 57m
Edward Glaeser is the chair of the Harvard department of economics, and the author of the best books and papers about cities (including Survival of the City and Triumph of the City).He explains why:*...
Kenneth T. Jackson - Robert Moses, Hero of New York?

Kenneth T. Jackson - Robert Moses, Hero of New York?

November 08, 2022 1h 33m
I had a fascinating discussion about Robert Moses and The Power Broker with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.He's the pre-eminent historian on NYC and author of Robert Moses and The Modern City: The...
Brian Potter - Future of Construction, Ugly Modernism, & Environmental Review

Brian Potter - Future of Construction, Ugly Modernism, & Environmental Review

October 27, 2022 2h 25m
It was a pleasure to welcome Brian Potter on the podcast! Brian is the author of the excellent Construction Physics blog, where he discusses why the construction industry has been slow to...
Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues

Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues

October 20, 2022 2h 5m
It was a fantastic pleasure to welcome Bryan Caplan back for a third time on the podcast! His most recent book is Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice.He explains why he thinks:- Feminists...
Tyler Cowen - Talent, Collapse, & Pessimism of Sex

Tyler Cowen - Talent, Collapse, & Pessimism of Sex

September 28, 2022 1h 34m
It was my great pleasure to speak once again to Tyler Cowen. His most recent book is Talent, How to Find Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Across the World.We discuss:- how sex is more pessimistic...
Charles C. Mann - Americas Before Columbus & Scientific Wizardry

Charles C. Mann - Americas Before Columbus & Scientific Wizardry

September 14, 2022 1h 31m
Charles C. Mann is the author of three of my favorite history books: 1491. 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet. We discuss:* why Native American civilizations collapsed and why they failed to make...
Austin Vernon - Energy Superabundance, Starship Missiles, & Finding Alpha

Austin Vernon - Energy Superabundance, Starship Missiles, & Finding Alpha

September 08, 2022 2h 23m
Austin Vernon is an engineer working on a new method for carbon capture, and he has one of the most interesting blogs on the internet, where he writes about engineering, software, economics, and...
Steve Hsu - Intelligence, Embryo Selection, & The Future of Humanity

Steve Hsu - Intelligence, Embryo Selection, & The Future of Humanity

August 23, 2022 2h 20m
Steve Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University and cofounder of the company Genomic Prediction.We go deep into the weeds on how embryo selection can make babies healthier...
Will MacAskill - Longtermism, Altruism, History, & Technology

Will MacAskill - Longtermism, Altruism, History, & Technology

August 09, 2022 56m
Will MacAskill is one of the founders of the Effective Altruist movement and the author of the upcoming book, What We Owe The Future.We talk about improving the future, risk of extinction & collapse,...
Joseph Carlsmith - Utopia, AI, & Infinite Ethics

Joseph Carlsmith - Utopia, AI, & Infinite Ethics

August 03, 2022 1h 31m
Joseph Carlsmith is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy and a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Oxford.We discuss utopia, artificial intelligence, computational power of...
Fin Moorhouse - Longtermism, Space, & Entrepreneurship

Fin Moorhouse - Longtermism, Space, & Entrepreneurship

July 27, 2022 2h 19m
Fin Moorhouse is a Research Scholar and assistant to Toby Ord at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. He co-hosts the Hear This Idea podcast, which showcases new thinking in philosophy,...
Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order

Alexander Mikaberidze - Napoleon, War, Progress, and Global Order

July 13, 2022 1h 23m
Alexander Mikaberidze is Professor of History at Louisiana State University and the author of The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History.He explains the global ramifications of the Napoleonic Wars - from...
Sam Bankman-Fried - Crypto, Altruism, and Leadership

Sam Bankman-Fried - Crypto, Altruism, and Leadership

July 05, 2022 45m
I flew to the Bahamas to interview Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX! He talks about FTX’s plan to infiltrate traditional finance, giving $100m this year to AI + pandemic risk, scaling slowly + hiring...
Agustin Lebron - Trading, Crypto, and Adverse Selection

Agustin Lebron - Trading, Crypto, and Adverse Selection

June 23, 2022 1h 4m
Agustin Lebron began his career as a trader and researcher at Jane Street Capital, one of the largest market-making firms in the world. He currently runs the consulting firm Essilen Research, where he...
Ananyo Bhattacharya - John von Neumann, Jewish Genius, and Nuclear War

Ananyo Bhattacharya - John von Neumann, Jewish Genius, and Nuclear War

May 11, 2022 54m
Ananyo Bhattacharya is the author of The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann. He is a science writer who has worked at the Economist and Nature. Before journalism, he was a...
Stephen Grugett (Manifold Markets Founder) - Predictions Markets & Revolutionizing Governance

Stephen Grugett (Manifold Markets Founder) - Predictions Markets & Revolutionizing Governance

May 05, 2022 50m
Stephen Grugett is a cofounder of Manifold Markets, where anyone can create a prediction market. We discuss how prediction markets can change how countries and companies make important...
Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World

Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World

April 27, 2022 1h 39m
Today I talk to Pradyu Prasad (blogger and podcaster) about the book "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix. We also discuss militarization, industrial capacity, current...
Razib Khan - Genomics, Intelligence, and The Church of Science

Razib Khan - Genomics, Intelligence, and The Church of Science

April 20, 2022 1h 3m
Razib Khan is a writer, geneticist, and blogger with an interest in history, genetics, culture, and evolutionary psychology.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast...
Jimmy Soni - Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the Paypal Mafia

Jimmy Soni - Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the Paypal Mafia

April 16, 2022 1h 7m
Jimmy Soni is the author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.Episode...
Bryan Caplan - Discrimination, Poverty, & Mental Illness

Bryan Caplan - Discrimination, Poverty, & Mental Illness

April 12, 2022 1h 3m
I interview the economist Bryan Caplan about his new book, Labor Econ Versus the World, and many other related topics.Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a New York...
Richard Hanania - Foreign Policy, Fertility, and Wokeness

Richard Hanania - Foreign Policy, Fertility, and Wokeness

February 24, 2022 1h 2m
Richard Hanania is the President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and the author of Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons...
David Deutsch - AI, America, Fun, & Bayes

David Deutsch - AI, America, Fun, & Bayes

January 31, 2022 1h 24m
David Deutsch is the founder of the field of quantum computing and the author The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality.Read me contra David on AI.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts,...
Byrne Hobart - Optionality, Stagnation, and Secret Societies

Byrne Hobart - Optionality, Stagnation, and Secret Societies

October 05, 2021 1h 11m
Byrne Hobart writes The Diff, a newsletter about inflections in finance and technology with 24,000+ subscribers.  Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast...
David Friedman - Dating Markets, Legal Systems, Bitcoin, and Automation

David Friedman - Dating Markets, Legal Systems, Bitcoin, and Automation

August 09, 2021 1h 23m
David Friedman is a famous anarcho-capitalist economist and legal scholar.  Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.Episode website + transcript here.David...
Sarah Fitz-Claridge - Taking Children Seriously

Sarah Fitz-Claridge - Taking Children Seriously

June 04, 2021 58m
Sarah Fitz-Claridge is a writer, coach, and speaker with a fallibilist worldview. She started the journal that became Taking Children Seriously in the early 1990s after being surprised by the heated...
Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

May 28, 2021 1h 37m
Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is the author of more than sixty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political...
Uncle Bob - The Long Reach of Code

Uncle Bob - The Long Reach of Code

November 28, 2020 45m
Robert Martin (aka Uncle Bob) is a programming pioneer and bestselling author or Clean Code. We discuss the prospect of automating programming, spotting and developing coding talent, occupational...
Scott Aaronson - Quantum Computing, Complexity, and Creativity

Scott Aaronson - Quantum Computing, Complexity, and Creativity

November 20, 2020 1h 27m
Scott Aaronson is a Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. He's the author of one of the most interesting blogs on the...
Scott Young - Ultralearning

Scott Young - Ultralearning

November 16, 2020 1h 38m
Scott is the author of Ultralearning and famous for the MIT Challenge, where he taught himself MIT's 4 year Computer Science curriculum in 1 year.I had a blast chatting with Scott Young about...
Charles Murray - Human Accomplishment and the Future of Liberty

Charles Murray - Human Accomplishment and the Future of Liberty

October 28, 2020 1h 52m
I ask Charles Murray about Human Accomplishment, By The People, and The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead.  Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast...
Alex Tabarrok - Prizes, Prices, and Public Goods

Alex Tabarrok - Prizes, Prices, and Public Goods

October 19, 2020 1h 26m
Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and with Tyler Cowen a founder of the online education platform http://MRU.org.I ask Alex Tabarrok about the Grand Innovation...
Caleb Watney - America's Innovation Engine

Caleb Watney - America's Innovation Engine

September 04, 2020 55m
Caleb Watney is the director of innovation policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.Episode website here.Follow...
Robin Hanson - The Long View

Robin Hanson - The Long View

August 31, 2020 1h 40m
Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of The Elephant in the Brain and The Age of Em.  Robin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhansonRobin's blog:...
Jason Crawford - The Roots of Progress

Jason Crawford - The Roots of Progress

August 25, 2020 48m
Jason Crawford writes at The Roots of Progress about the history of technology and industry and the philosophy of progress.  Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast...
Matjaž Leonardis - Science, Identity, and Probability

Matjaž Leonardis - Science, Identity, and Probability

August 22, 2020 34m
Matjaž Leonardis has co-written a paper with David Deutsch about the Popper-Miller Theorem. In this episode, we talk about that as well as the dangers of the scientific identity, the nature of...
Tyler Cowen - The Great Reset

Tyler Cowen - The Great Reset

July 10, 2020 47m
Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Director of the Mercatus Center.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast...
Bryan Caplan - Nurturing Orphaned Ideas

Bryan Caplan - Nurturing Orphaned Ideas

May 22, 2020 59m
Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a New York Times Bestselling author. His most famous works include: The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More...

About this Podcast

Copyright
Dwarkesh Patel
Language
en