Topic
interviews
- Are They Funny?
From an interview with Jerry Seinfeld at HBR: HBR: You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’ room, and burnout was one reason you stopped. Was there a more sustainable way to do it? C…
- Interview with Richard Rhodes, on the Making of the Atomic Bomb
This is a phenomenal interview with Richard Rhodes, author of the legendary The Making of the Atomic Bomb, an expansive history of the Manhattan Project and the development of nuclear weapons technology. Dwarkesh Shah…
- Read later Apps with Tristan Homsi and Dan Doyon
A fun discussion on the origins and history of my favorite app, Readwise, with the founders Daniel Doyon and Tristan Homsi.
- Patrick Collison and Sam Altman at Sohn 2023
An interesting discussion between Patrick Collison and OpenAI founder Sam Altman on a predictably fascinating assortment of subjects. AI developments, stagnation, long-term bets, and what's preventing us from having m…
- Devon Zuegel on Inflation, Argentina, and Crypto
Argentina has become infamous for its decades-long struggles with inflation and economic instability. For an otherwise fairly well-off nation, it's surprising to outsiders how deep the problem on this has been. In thi…
- Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman on AI
This interview was one of the best overviews and deep dives on the current state of AI / machine learning I've heard yet. Daniel was at Apple in the early work on machine learning in iOS, and Nat Friedman was CEO of G…
- Tools and Craft with Andy Matuschak
The latest episode of Notion's Tools & Craft podcast features the excellent Andy Matuschak, talking about his research, productivity practices, and more. Also check out Andy's work on smoothly-ratcheting goal tracking…
- Permission to Leap
Tyler Cowen hosted Moderna's co-founder Noubar Afeyan for a conversation on mRNA technology, their COVID vaccine, and what's going on in the biotech space. A ton of great insights in this one. Tyler raised the now-fam…
- Ben Thompson Interview with John Collison
This week Stripe launched two new major products in their ever-expanding mission to build the economic and financial backbone for the internet. Ben Thompson was one of two (along with the Wall Street Journal) to have…
- Profile of Arsène Wenger
The Guardian's extensive profile and Q&A with Arsène Wenger, legendary Arsenal manager. “Arsenal had a style of play that was criticised, but there was a style of play,” he says. “I can understand that people want onl…
- Systems and Constraints
There are so many good little pieces in this brief interview with Alicia Juarrero, who studies complex systems and complexity theory. Three options are possible once a complex system reaches a threshold of instability…
- The Future of Media: Movies, the Metaverse, and More
An interview with media and gaming industry analyst Matthew Ball. Make sure to listen to his thoughts on metaverses (around the 34:00 mark). The section on Epic Games and the future trajectory they're putting themselv…
- Science, Innovation, and Longevity
This conversation with José Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente on Erik Torenberg's podcast was an expansive cover of more topics than I think I've ever heard discussed on a single podcast. A brief sampling of the subje…
- An Oral History of Deus Ex
One of my favorite games hit its 20th birthday. Two decades ago Deus Ex was an amazing achievement in open narrative, emergent game design. In this piece, Rock Paper Shotgun gathered up a bunch of the original team fr…
- Investor's Field Guide with John Collison
I enjoyed this interview with Stripe co-founder John Collison. The range of topics covered in this discussion is wild. Always impressive to see someone that's been so objectively successful still maintain the level of…
- The Torch of Progress with Tyler Cowen
This is the second episode of the "Torch of Progress" series that the Progress Studies for Young Scholars program is putting on, hosted by Jason Crawford. Tyler Cowen is unbelievably prolific in projects he's got goin…
- Martin Gurri on EconTalk
I've been following Gurri's work closely since I read The Revolt of a Public a couple months back. I think he's one of the sharpest minds we have right now thinking and writing about what's going on in politics, media…
- Stalin, Putin, and the Nature of Power
Stephen Kotkin is a historian that has studied and written mostly about Soviet history and Josef Stalin. This was an excellent interview with him by Lex Fridman — Lex asks simple, broad questions and let's Kotkin go d…
- President Goop's Ultralight Beam Vaccine
Two of my favorite podcasts collide with Jonah Goldberg visiting the Fifth Column. Lively and hilarious discussion, as expected.
- North Star Podcast: Eugene Wei
This was from early 2018, an interview with Eugene Wei on his background, experience, and some of his ideas from his excellent blog, Remains of the Day.
- David Deutsch on Brexit and Error Correction
I ran across this interview with physicist David Deutsch, with his thoughts on Brexit. A lot of great stuff here on resilience, error correction, individualism vs. collectivism, Karl Popper, and Britain's first-past-t…
- Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Cultures
This was a fascinating interview with Dr. Michele Gelfand from Jonah Goldberg's The Remnant podcast. It mostly covers the subject of her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers, on the differences between "tight" vs. "loose"…
- EconTalk Archive
If you're holed up in quarantine and have some extra time, Russ Roberts's website has a nice browsable list of all the EconTalk episodes in the archives. So many timeless interviews in here, which is unique for podcas…
- How Elite Institutions Lost Their Legitimacy
A discussion between economist Arnold Kling and author Martin Gurri about the erosion of institutions and what that means for polarization and cultural instability. Martin Gurri doesn’t like to make predictions. But i…
- Daniel Kahneman on AI Podcast
I don't know what Lex Fridman is doing to recruit the guests he gets on his show (The Artificial Intelligence Podcast), but it's one of the best technical podcasts out there. This one is a good introduction to the wor…
- On Atlassian's Unique Sales Model
I enjoyed a couple of notes from this interview with Atlassian President Jay Simons. They've famously built a business with bottom-up adoption dynamics, allowing them to hit the $1bn revenue milestone without a tradit…
- Rory Sutherland on Alchemy
This is a great conversation from EconTalk with advertising exec Rory Sutherland on his new book Alchemy. He's got interesting ideas on the role of psychology and human emotion when it comes to decision making, market…
- Venkatesh Rao on Waldenponding
“Waldenponding” is a phrase coined by Rao to describe the growing backlash movement against hyperconnectedness, driving people to disconnect completely and long for a life of lower information overload and deeper mean…
- Weekend Reading: Ted Chiang, Renewable Energy, and ColorBox
✍🏼 Ted Chiang Uses Science to Illuminate the Human Condition I enjoyed this interview with author Ted Chiang. It covers his recent short story collection Exhalation: Stories with nice context and background on the id…
- Russ Roberts on Key Economic Concepts for Founders
This is a good interview with a great interviewer, Russ Roberts of EconTalk. His is probably my favorite podcast — if I only listen to 1 episode a week, it's the latest EconTalk. On Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sen…
- David Deppner on Leadership, Confidence, and Humility
I thought this was a fantastic interview on EconTalk. David Deppner is a listener of the podcast that sent Russ a thought-provoking email question on the subject of leadership and what traits make for "good" qualities…
- Weekend Reading: nvUltra, Progress, and Comma.ai
📝 nvULTRA This is a new notes app from Brett Terpstra (creator of nvALT) and Fletcher Penney (creator of MultiMarkdown). I used nvALT for years for note taking on my Mac. This new version looks like a slick reboot of…
- Interview with Keith Flaherty, MD
Dr. Keith Flaherty is an oncologist specializing in targeted therapy treatments, with a background in studying and treating varieties of melanoma. I listened to this extended interview with him on Peter Attia's The Dr…
- Jonathan Haidt on the Righteous Mind
Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind was one of my favorite recent nonfiction books I've read in the last few years. It's one of the most objective, deep analyses of a question that's interested me for years: why do pe…
- Entrepreneurs, Then and Now
I always enjoy conversations with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This interview (conducted by Slack founder Steward Butterfield) reviews their experiences as founders back in the pre-bubble era and compares and con…
- The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence
Most of the popular conversation around intelligence these days (at least in circles I follow) is about the artificial variety — AI, deep learning, neural networks, and the like. Neuroscientists Jeff Hawkins and his c…
- Interview with Naval Ravikant
Naval’s thoughtful, measured perspective on most issues I find insightful and novel in a sea of people with hot takes and commentary around political issues in the zeitgeist. He’s got an interesting “long view” on a r…
- Mental Models: A Conversation with Shane Parrish
This is a great episode between two guys with interesting perspectives. Parrish's Farnam Street blog is one of my favorites out there, along with his podcast, The Knowledge Project. This conversation covers a lot on t…
- David Foster Wallace Interview with Charlie Rose
I'm currently reading David Foster Wallace's collection of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, so I went back to look at some interview clips with him on his nonfiction writing. This one with Charlie R…
- Weekend Reading: Wind Turbines, Bruce Sterling, and Economic Ideas
⚡️ The US Wind Turbine Database Ben Hoen from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab gave a lightning talk at Geo2050 about this project, a map and database of the operational wind generation capacity in the US. The map c…