Zuckerberg Taps Infrastructure, Voting Control to Outlast AI Rivals

扎克伯格依托基础设施与投票控制权在AI竞争中持久制胜 Meta在人工智能领域占据优势，是因为Mark Zuckerberg将高度集中的公司控制权、专有的公用基础设施以及帝国般的进取意志相结合，意在比风投支持的竞争对手更具持久力。 Colossus编辑Jeremy Stern解析了他通过心理刻画与人物特写来报道知名创始人的手法，将文学式的人性观察与传统的商业新闻进行了对比。他探讨了Mark Zuckerberg强烈的竞争意识、长期的运营耐力以及对古罗马帝国历史的深刻认同，将Zuckerberg勾勒为古典式的美国工业大亨，而非具有救世主情结的硅谷意识形态家。此外，Stern还讲述了现代不对称战争如何启发了他对Palmer Luckey的深度人物报道，并探讨了为何像Zuckerberg和Elon Musk这样极度执着的创始人从根本上始终痴迷于业务构建。 Mark Zuckerberg仍是同代大型科技公司中唯一仍在任的创始人兼CEO，其统领的Meta规模约为Stripe（千禧一代创立的第二大企业）的十倍左右。 (0:02) Meta的AI战略有别于硅谷救世主式的叙事，而是依赖工业级护城河：专有数据中心基础设施、市政公用事业协议，以及覆盖全球半数人口的分发渠道。 (16:32) Zuckerberg的企业哲学和个人形象深受奥古斯都·凯撒（Augustus Caesar）和古典罗马的影响，从内部动员口号到其个人AI智能体Agrippa的架构均体现了这一点。 (6:39) Jeremy Stern从国际关系与军事背景转型进入商业新闻界，起因是一篇对Palmer Luckey的3000字问答最终扩写成了极具影响力的1.5万字传记式特写。 (21:11)

Profile writer Jeremy Stern argues that modern technology founders serve as the defining figures of contemporary American power, requiring deep psychological portraiture rather than tactical business playbooks to understand their true motivations and historical significance. Literary Portraiture Over Tactical Extraction (26:55) While business analysts typically examine corporate mechanics or extract tactical playbooks for operators, Stern approaches biographical writing through the tradition of long-form American magazine journalism. Originating across publications like The New Yorker, Esquire, and Vanity Fair before digital media fragmented the format, this approach treats subjects as complex human beings shaped by neuroses, historical circumstance, and private motivations rather than as corporate archetypes. Stern emphasizes that extraordinary founders are deeply contingent on their historical eras rather than timeless titans. Instead of offering operational advice, Stern aims to shift reader perceptions of a subject's interior psychology by even a modest margin, exploring how individuals cope with mortality, ambition, and the immense pressure of their positions. Zuckerberg's Roman Archetype and Operational Moats (6:39) Stern's profile frames Mark Zuckerberg through the lens of Augustus Caesar, an obsession dating back to Zuckerberg's high school Latin studies. Unlike peers who adopted messianic language or stepped down from leadership, Zuckerberg functions as a classic industrial mogul with an appetite for multi-decade execution. His self-conception aligns with Augustus's transition of Rome from a republic to an autocracy that established commercial stability, though Stern notes Zuckerberg's historical reading selectively downplays the centralization of autocratic power. Colleagues and competitors describe Zuckerberg as exceptionally ruthless yet personally decent, driven by perpetual discontent rather than malice. Meta's strategic positioning in artificial intelligence relies on concrete advantages that venture-backed research labs lack: voting control, independent cash flows, proprietary data centers, municipal infrastructure deals, and an installed product surface area reaching approximately half the global population. Divergent Founder Temperaments: Wu and Kushner Stern identifies contrasting psychologies across the entrepreneurs he profiles. Cognition co-founder Scott Wu displays an unvarnished, totalizing competitiveness reminiscent of elite athletes, seeking to win every minor contest while maintaining minimal separation between his public conduct and private self. Having earned top standing among international mathematics Olympiad champions, Wu retains an unfiltered drive that led him to reject acquisition offers to build an enduring, independent firm. In contrast, Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner's ambition is anchored in generational memory. Tracing his lineage to Holocaust survivors who escaped into the forests of Belarus with the Bielski partisans, Kushner operates with an acute awareness of fragility. Stern links Kushner's private anxiety—exemplified by asking music producer Rick Rubin how to avoid losing his creative "magic"—to a subconscious recognition that accumulated success, wealth, and safety can vanish abruptly. The Moral Obligation to One's Gifts (61:44) Stern roots his evaluative framework in the teachings of his college Russian professor, Natalya Shansky, an immigrant who fled the Soviet Union. Shansky instilled the belief that possessing an innate gift imposes an absolute duty to develop and apply it; squandering potential was viewed not merely as personal neglect, but as an existential offense. This principle guided Stern through his own unconventional path—from academic underperformance and military service in the U.S. Army during federal sequestration budget cuts to long-form writing. It also provides the consistent standard Stern uses when profiling builders like Zuckerberg, Luckey, Wu, and Kushner: examining whether they are fully answering the demands of their endowments. Stern suggests that as tech entrepreneurs supplant political figures and cultural artists at the center of global influence, the ultimate test of their legacies lies not merely in balance sheets or valuation multiples, but in whether their enduring architectures justify the vast concentration of power they hold.

[2:53] Jeremy Stern: If I could like tilt the gyroscope that people have on this person's life and their psychology by 10%, I feel like... I've accomplished something. [6:39] Mark Zuckerberg: Carthage must be destroyed [6:39] Mark Zuckerberg: Domination! [12:56] Unnamed former Meta AI researcher: Mark is the fucking Terminator. He just doesn't stop. [18:09] Mark Zuckerberg: I'm addicted to building. I just like building things. [18:09] Jeremy Stern: die as CEO [26:09] Jeremy Stern: hole in my brain [26:55] Jeremy Stern: So, the day the piece is done, I feel like is the day I have to get out. [26:55] David Senra: I'm getting like Genghis Khan vibes off of you, and I go, if this was 1,100 years ago you'd be on a horse chopping people's heads off, wouldn't you? [29:42] Jeremy Stern: at some point like we're all going to die and we're all going to get forgotten and all of this hard work is going to, you know, end up being meaningless. [29:42] David Senra: It doesn't seem to change you, which is fucking shocking to me. Like that you're so good at what you do... and you just will not give me any of this. [29:42] Jeremy Stern: Maybe the answer to your question is I'm not introspective enough to understand how it does change me. [29:42] Jeremy Stern: There's maybe a few things that I'm good at and maybe there's a few things that make me happy, but there's only one thing that's both, right? I think I'm pretty good at writing and it makes me pretty happy. [29:42] Jeremy Stern: watchers and lurkers and starers

[0:02] All right. You're here because I'm a [0:04] massive fan. Uh I think you are the best [0:06] in the world at what you're doing right [0:07] now, which is writing these incredible [0:08] long- form profiles on a lot of the top [0:11] investors and entrepreneurs in the [0:13] world. I just finished reading the one [0:15] you did on Mark Zuckerberg. I thought it [0:17] was so good. I actually did an episode [0:18] on it for my other podcast, founders. [0:20] So, I want to just like jump into what [0:22] it was like spending if you just like go [0:24] behind the scenes of like, okay, how [0:27] long did that piece take to write? How [0:28] much time did you spend with him and and [0:30] like his entire world? [0:32] >> So his team reached out to me first [0:34] originally I think toward the end of [0:36] last year which surprised me quite a bit [0:39] cuz a couple years ago I wrote this [0:41] profile of Paul Murli who started and [0:44] Oculus and in that profile the big [0:47] villain in the piece is Mark Zuckerberg. [0:50] Zuckerberg had provided a comment for it [0:52] which I think eventually led to some [0:54] sort of reconciliation between Palmer [0:56] and and Zuckerberg because you know [0:58] after 2016 Zuckerberg had fired or [1:01] didn't block the firing of of Palmer [1:03] Lucky after he'd made this small [1:05] contribution to a a proTrump group. So [1:07] they'd had a big falling out and that [1:09] falling out had become legendary at that [1:11] point in Silicon Valley and it was a big [1:12] part of this piece I'd written. So I was [1:14] kind of surprised to hear from his team [1:17] uh that he would be interested in [1:19] talking to me. So, I think you know [1:21] earlier this year I think we were both a [1:24] little bit skeptical about the idea and [1:26] we decided just to have lunch for a [1:28] couple hours off the record just to meet [1:29] and say hi and say everything that was [1:31] on our minds. I initially came away from [1:33] it feeling uh a a little bit pessimistic [1:37] about a piece just because, you know, [1:39] he's one of the most overexposed people [1:41] on planet Earth. He's been under a [1:42] microscope for 25 years. But eventually [1:45] I did land on, you know, a number of [1:47] things that I thought really made him [1:49] interesting, which is some of the stuff [1:50] that we've talked about before. In a lot [1:52] of ways, he's kind of the last man [1:53] standing from his generation of [1:55] founders. So, you know, Larry and [1:57] Sergey, they eventually step away. Bezos [1:59] steps away. Obviously, Bill Gates [2:01] stepped away. Jobs died. Zuckerberg, in [2:03] a lot of ways, is kind of, you know, the [2:05] last one. He's also kind of weirdly [2:07] representative of millennials as as [2:09] founders because there are literally no [2:11] others at his level, at his scale. I [2:14] haven't looked this up so maybe this is [2:15] a bit wrong but I think you know the [2:17] second most valuable company started by [2:20] a millennial would be Stripe which I [2:22] think is worth I don't know 100 $150 [2:24] billion something like that so like [2:26] onetenth of Zuckerberg's company so I [2:28] thought maybe there was some you know [2:30] underexplored territory there with him [2:32] and then like with a lot of these pieces [2:34] the things that you start out being [2:37] interested in you know they still make [2:39] their way into the piece but once you [2:40] talk to someone a kind of whole galaxy [2:42] opens ends up uh and so I think it ended [2:45] up going a lot of different directions [2:46] and over the course of about five or six [2:48] months I spoke to him I spoke to almost [2:51] 40 other people for the piece. [2:53] >> Wait, explain that when you start to [2:55] talk to somebody you realize a whole [2:56] galaxy opens up. What does that mean? [2:58] >> Usually with these pieces I begin with a [3:01] thing that I'm interested first in first [3:03] before I find the right person to use as [3:06] an excuse to explore the thing. You [3:09] know, I think with Zuckerberg, there was [3:10] still a lot of kind of rawness and open [3:13] wounds from the 2016 to 2020 period [3:16] where there was an enormous amount of, [3:18] you know, government and other types of [3:20] pressure to censor social media. [3:23] Obviously, since then, there's been this [3:25] huge national debate about, you know, [3:28] whether social media is a good thing in [3:30] the first place, whether it's extremely [3:32] harmful and comparable to alcohol and [3:34] cigarettes and should be regulated as [3:35] such. There was a number of different [3:37] themes I think I was broadly interested [3:39] in before I was interested in Zuckerberg [3:42] per se. But I think like you know w with [3:44] a with a lot of these people that I [3:47] write about there's this you know the [3:49] old uh in the Talmud there's a rabbi who [3:51] basically says when you kill a person [3:53] you destroy a world and I think you know [3:55] it basically gets at the idea that every [3:56] individual life contains you know many [4:00] many different worlds within it. Um, and [4:03] so once you spend a lot of time with [4:04] someone and spend a lot of time talking [4:06] to their family, their friends, their [4:08] colleagues, thinking about them, reading [4:09] every book that's been written about [4:11] them, this entire universe of [4:14] relationships and work and psychosis and [4:17] successes and failures just opens up and [4:20] then it's usually not until that point [4:21] that you kind of figure out what the [4:22] piece is really going to be about. [4:24] >> You said that you think you thought he [4:26] was overexposed. I would take the [4:28] opposite. I actually think he's like we [4:30] know so considering how powerful he is [4:32] and the way you just said he is a [4:33] singular character. I I I spent a few [4:35] days with him and this is the [4:36] conversation I had where it's just like [4:37] listen I've read every single book on [4:39] Facebook. They're [ __ ] terrible. Uh [4:41] I've seen all your interviews just like [4:43] what I was trying to to to do is like I [4:45] want to basically you have all this [4:47] stuff in your head. You know you have a [4:49] singular living experience. There's [4:50] nobody your age is even remotely close [4:52] to achieving what you've achieved. And [4:54] yet like I still don't understand like [4:55] how you think about building products, [4:57] how you think about recruiting talent, [4:59] how you think essentially how I'm only [5:00] interested in like how you've built this [5:02] phenomenal company. Nothing else. [5:04] Nothing about your personal life, [5:06] nothing about all the the the lawsuits [5:08] and the you know all the other um like [5:11] controversies like just this. And I feel [5:13] like that still hasn't been done. Like [5:15] there's so much information inside of [5:16] his head that he has not let out yet. [5:19] Was there you went into this saying he [5:22] he's overexposed? Did you did you change [5:23] your mind when you started spending time [5:24] with him? [5:25] >> There's partially like a difference in [5:27] the way like you and I kind of do a [5:29] similar thing in terms of our work. You [5:31] on the podcast side, me in in pros. Um, [5:34] but I think the angle that of approach [5:36] that we that we each use is like a [5:38] little bit different. So what you just [5:39] just described, I totally agree, is like [5:42] really underexplored and I don't think [5:44] anyone's gotten at it. And anyone who is [5:46] primarily interested in that is probably [5:48] like a bit disappointed by the piece [5:49] about him that I wrote. Usually what I'm [5:52] interested in is like who this person is [5:55] and what it's like to be them and what [5:56] it's like for the people in their lives [5:58] to be around them. If I could like tilt [6:01] the gyroscope that people have on this [6:03] person's life and their psychology by [6:05] 10% I feel like, you know, I've I've [6:07] accomplished something. If the person [6:09] is, you know, kind of culturally central [6:10] and salient in an important way, which [6:12] obviously Zuckerberg is. The piece opens [6:14] with this interview I did with his [6:16] parents. It closes with um you know time [6:18] I spent with his family and his wife. [6:20] And I think those two bookends kind of [6:23] explain the lens that I I brought to him [6:26] a bit more than trying to get into the [6:29] hardcore details of the business he's [6:31] built, which you know I I agree it's all [6:33] somewhere in his head, but he's you know [6:35] he's not the he's not the best spokesman [6:38] for it. [6:38] >> Why did you choose the angle of like [6:41] essentially comparing him to like an [6:43] emperor or a Caesar? He has this [6:45] long-standing interest in the Romans and [6:48] in Augustus in particular. Augustus was [6:51] the first emperor of Rome and turned it [6:54] from a republic into an empire. I think [6:56] a lot of these figures uh you know I I I [6:59] remember at some point Elon compared [7:01] himself to Napoleon. So I I think a lot [7:03] of these like world straddling figures [7:06] at that level, they do think in these [7:09] historical parallels, but they're mostly [7:11] pretty superficial. When I looked into [7:13] the Zuckerberg thing, you know, this is [7:15] actually a very very long-standing [7:17] interest of his going back to when he's [7:19] 15, 16, 17 years old. [7:21] >> He's making computer games. [7:23] >> He's making computer games. He, you [7:25] know, one thing I I realized when [7:27] talking to him is that, you know, [7:29] courses he took in Latin in high school [7:31] where they had to read and memorize [7:33] verses from Virgil's A&E, he still [7:36] remembers now at the age of 42 and can [7:39] and can recite them. Augustus is like a [7:41] big figure in that. [7:43] >> One of my favorite parts of the piece [7:44] was I didn't I don't think I remember [7:46] this at least I don't remember from many [7:48] of the books I read because this was [7:49] quite a while ago but he when you know [7:51] Facebook and Google at the very [7:53] beginning of early as Facebook and he [7:55] would end these meetings by saying like [7:58] Carthage must be destroyed which is also [8:00] in your piece. [8:01] >> Yeah. There's another funny thing is uh [8:03] he used to end the meetings by shouting [8:05] domination and Sean Parker the early [8:08] president of Facebook told him he had to [8:09] stop doing it because it could be cited [8:11] one day in an antitrust suit. [laughter] [8:13] When you ask him about it I think you [8:15] know he says well it's like a little bit [8:16] overdetermined. I only took Latin [8:18] because I was really bad at French and [8:19] when you take Latin of course they make [8:21] you read these things. And but then kind [8:23] of the more time we spent talking about [8:25] it the more animated you could see him [8:27] getting about it. And you know, just [8:29] recently at their keynote, you know, he [8:31] he brings out his personal muse agent [8:34] and he refers to it as a Grippa. The [8:36] name Agrippa is was one of the two key [8:39] early lieutenants for Augustus who until [8:41] the end of his life he mourned the the [8:44] the death of. [laughter] So obviously [8:46] this is like a really salient thing for [8:48] him. Augustus is also just a very [8:50] interesting choice because he's kind of [8:53] he's he's the most sensible of the Roman [8:56] emperors. He doesn't go into a lot of [8:58] the excesses of of his successors. [9:01] >> What do you mean by excesses? [9:03] >> You know, I think a lot of the later [9:05] emperors, uh, you know, it's like it's [9:07] it's kind of the it's it's the usual, [9:09] you know, succession plan problem [9:11] throughout history. Like you have the [9:12] one good king and then you get the sons [9:15] and the sons of the sons and then you [9:17] get the friends or the advisers of the [9:19] sons and you get these egoomaniacs who [9:21] don't have the right political mind for [9:23] empire building. they end up wasting a [9:25] lot of the trust they've built with [9:26] their constituencies. They don't [9:28] actually have that like founder gene to [9:30] be able to build a state, a standing [9:32] army, a trade-based economy. All this [9:34] Augustus did have it. Zuckerberg's [9:36] interpretation of what Augustus did is [9:38] really interesting because when he talks [9:40] about it, he says, you know, one of the [9:42] things that Augustus did was he took a [9:44] pillillage-based economy and turned it [9:46] into a trade-based economy and he was [9:48] able to kind of show, you know, Roman [9:51] citizens that they didn't just have to [9:52] be fighting endless civil wars decade [9:54] after decade. they could actually live [9:57] and trade and work in peace, which is a [10:00] pretty selective interpretation of what [10:02] Augustus did because, you know, one of [10:04] the ways Augustus was able to do that [10:06] was by, you know, erecting a standing [10:08] army, which Rome had not previously h [10:11] had and, you know, also by entirely [10:14] eliminating political liberty from Rome. [10:17] He turned it from a republic into a [10:19] system that was entirely based on the [10:21] power of one man. the ways in which his [10:23] own interpretation and his memory kind [10:25] of colluded to give him uh a pretty idio [10:30] idiosyncratic understanding of who [10:32] Augustus was and what his contribution [10:34] to history was. I thought was like a [10:35] pretty interesting and revealing insight [10:37] into maybe how Zuckerberg sees himself. [10:40] >> I want to tell you about the presenting [10:41] sponsor of this podcast, RAMP. I have [10:43] been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. [10:45] SpaceX is one of the most valuable [10:47] businesses in the world and one of the [10:48] main themes in the history of SpaceX is [10:50] constantly attacking and questioning [10:52] your cost. Ramp helps many of the most [10:54] innovative businesses in the world do [10:56] exactly that. The median company running [10:58] on ramp cuts their expenses by 5%. 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The founder of [12:26] 11 Labs has a great description of the [12:28] value deal can give your company. He [12:30] said, "We built 11 Labs to break down [12:32] language and communication barriers. [12:34] With deal enabling us to hire and [12:36] support exceptional talent anywhere, we [12:38] can accelerate our innovation and bring [12:40] more voices, stories, and ideas to every [12:43] corner of the world. Deal is trusted by [12:46] over 40,000 companies and growing fast. [12:48] Learn how they can help your business by [12:50] going to deal.com/enra. [12:53] That is deal.com/enra. [12:56] When you talk to either him or the [12:58] people around him, do they talk about [12:59] like this ruthless competitive drive of [13:03] his? You know, if you were to ask a lot [13:05] of these people like what are the two [13:06] things that people still don't [13:07] understand about him even though he's [13:09] been a public figure and in our lives [13:11] for, you know, close to a quarter [13:13] century now. The two things they always [13:15] say are, you know, you might think you [13:18] understand how competitive and ruthless [13:20] he can be in a business sense, but like [13:22] you're probably underestimating that. [13:24] And then the second one is that he's [13:27] actually not an [ __ ] he doesn't [13:30] treat people badly and he's actually [13:32] like a pretty nice guy. I didn't include [13:34] those quotes in the piece because you [13:36] know you would a lot of you know members [13:38] of his family and his colleagues like [13:40] would say things like that. Even his [13:42] critics and his rivals and his enemies [13:44] who I did also interview said a lot of [13:46] the same stuff. His competitive drive [13:48] can't really be underestimated. And it's [13:50] also interesting that you know most [13:53] other people who are that competitive [13:54] just have this gene where they also are [13:56] pretty monstrous to the people around [13:58] them. One of my favorite quotes in the [13:59] in the piece is there was a former AI [14:02] researcher that used to work for Zuck [14:03] and now is at a competing lab and he's [14:05] goes unname in the piece, but he's just [14:06] like he said exactly that. He's like [14:07] he's Mark He said Mark is the [ __ ] [14:09] Terminator. He just doesn't stop. One of [14:11] his advantages is that he's always [14:13] discontent. He's always unhappy, but [14:14] he's not I think he says he's not an [14:16] [ __ ] He just keeps moving forward. [14:18] And then there's another thing that that [14:20] Mark I thought was interesting. It was a [14:21] direct quote from Mark if I remember [14:22] correctly and he was talking about his [14:24] advantage relative to like Sam Alman and [14:26] Elon where he's just like you know the [14:27] things I do are kind of unsexy. I'm just [14:29] very good at getting a team and taking [14:31] something and improving it over a lot [14:34] over a long period of time and then [14:36] because of the the structure and the [14:37] business that I have. I don't have to [14:39] essentially keep raising more money and [14:40] I don't really have to ask other [14:42] people's permission to do what I'm [14:43] doing. [14:44] Yeah, that was something that I I found [14:47] very interesting about him and that I [14:48] think I came to appreciate about him in [14:51] the course of reporting the piece. I [14:53] think I you know I began it with [14:55] skepticism about a lot of the products [14:58] that Met has built and feeling pretty [15:00] ambivalent about the impact on society [15:02] that social media has had. Lots of [15:05] things like that. One of the things I I [15:07] did come to appreciate about him is that [15:09] I do kind of see him in the mold as like [15:11] a classical American business mogul as [15:15] distinct from the more recent generation [15:17] of like AI founders. In that quote, I [15:20] think he says something to the effect [15:21] of, you know, my my edge in the world is [15:25] sitting down with a team and [15:28] methodically improving a single product [15:31] over the course of decades and building [15:34] like more and more value into it and he [15:36] doesn't go out and do all these like big [15:38] splashy things. I think one of the [15:40] things I appreciated about that was [15:42] regardless of what you think about Meta [15:44] and the products it makes and and and [15:46] offers. Zuckerberg as a figure I think [15:49] is ideologically [15:51] coherent and unconfused in a way that a [15:54] lot of the major AI figures are not. He [15:57] sees Meta as kind of a you know it's [16:01] it's a business like you know first and [16:03] foremost and uh I know it's like a you [16:06] know full stack deep technology company [16:09] and all these other things but I don't [16:11] think he overestimates [16:13] the impact that the business has on [16:16] history whereas you know if you talk to [16:18] a lot of the major AI figures um it's [16:21] really hard to talk them off this cliff [16:23] of thinking that their company is the [16:25] last thing that will ever be built in [16:27] human history. And I appreciate about [16:29] Zuckerberg that he doesn't go there. [16:31] >> Yeah, you did a great job of like, okay, [16:33] because I've heard the same thing, you [16:34] know, like, oh, like you're so far [16:36] behind in AI, they'll never catch up. [16:38] Like, this is he can't buy it. He [16:40] doesn't get it. And okay, well, let's [16:42] just like steel man the other side where [16:44] for decades everybody says this guy's [16:46] dead. He's going to fail. And he just [16:48] like keeps rising, keeps walking [16:50] forward. Like you cannot kill him. So [16:52] like what what is the AI equivalent of [16:54] that? And I think in one part of the [16:55] piece like would you want to bet against [16:57] him not figuring this out? And they're [16:58] like no no no like suddenly their [17:00] confidence is like no no I'm not betting [17:02] against him. [17:03] >> Yeah. And I I think that's probably [17:05] reflected to some extent in the markets. [17:07] But yeah, I think you know he never said [17:09] this explicitly, but I think you know a [17:11] big part of the the bullcase for meta in [17:14] AI would basically be that you know [17:16] their potential in install base for [17:18] whatever model they have regardless of [17:20] how good it is [17:22] approximately half of all human beings [17:24] that live on planet Earth at any given [17:26] time. That's how many people use [17:29] WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, you know, [17:32] uh Messenger, Meta AI. So they have the [17:35] distribution. You know, he spent 20 [17:37] years doing all of these really boring, [17:40] you know, mind-numbing things like [17:42] negotiating [17:44] contracts for infrastructure projects [17:46] with municipal and state governments and [17:48] figuring out the tax incentives and how [17:50] much of the revenue that the data center [17:52] generates is going to be used to pay for [17:54] other public works in that community, [17:56] blah blah blah. all this really unsexy [17:58] stuff that again like he and a fairly [18:00] small team of people have been have [18:02] spent you know the last quarter century [18:05] negotiating. I think it's all resulted [18:07] in you know they basically have the [18:09] distribution the infrastructure and then [18:11] of course the attention that they [18:13] dominate uh through the apps they just [18:15] have a lot of the things where probably [18:17] a lot of the value that AI generates [18:19] it's going to acrue at the compliments [18:21] that Meta already dominates when I spoke [18:24] to those people and they said you know [18:25] they would not be willing to bet that [18:27] Zuckerberg or Meta loses the AI race I [18:31] think it's based on the fact that he's [18:32] just built you know this business that's [18:35] kind possibly perfectly positioned to [18:39] win the race in an important way. [18:40] Whereas the pure AI labs don't have [18:43] anything like this and still have to pay [18:44] to rent a lot of the infrastructure and [18:46] the compute and and all the stuff that [18:48] he owns. So in the piece there's several [18:50] times where he says like I'm addicted to [18:52] building. I just like building things. I [18:54] didn't even think I was starting a [18:55] company. I was just, you know, this is [18:57] like a natural evolution of just the [18:59] fact that I build. I'll never stop. I [19:00] won't quit. Those are my favorite kind [19:03] of founders. You and I have talked about [19:04] this privately over and over again. I'm [19:05] just super interested in the people that [19:06] cannot be bought that they're doing it [19:08] for other reasons. They're not like [19:09] looking to be acquired. They're just [19:11] like this is how I want to spend the [19:13] short amount of time that I have on this [19:14] planet and there's nothing else like [19:15] you're not going to get me off the path [19:16] that I'm on. Based on the time you spend [19:18] with him and talking to all the people [19:19] around him, including his family, like [19:21] what would it take for him to like say, [19:22] "Hey, I'm just going to step step back [19:24] from Meta." [19:25] >> I think that is the other interesting [19:27] thing, right? So, like we we talked [19:28] before about how he's kind of the last [19:30] man standing from his generation of [19:32] founders. There's obvious obviously one [19:33] very big exception to that which is [19:35] Elon. But I think the thing that ties [19:37] Zuckerberg and Elon Musk is that it's [19:40] unimaginable that they would just step [19:42] back and live the rest of their life on [19:45] a yacht and, you know, engage in various [19:49] forms of, you know, space exploration [19:51] that have nothing to do with the like [19:53] original companies they build or [19:54] philanthropic work that they, you know, [19:56] do full-time with their spouse or [19:58] something like that. I think those are [19:59] the two people that you would imagine [20:01] like they're just going to die as CEO [20:03] like something's going to happen, their [20:04] heart's going to explode and they're [20:05] just going to like die at their company. [20:07] And I think they are pretty singular in [20:08] that sense. And you know, Zuckerberg [20:10] does have like the kind of canonical [20:13] piece of evidence for that in Facebook's [20:15] history, which is that in something like [20:17] 2006, I think, Yahoo offers a billion [20:20] dollars to buy it. The entire management [20:22] team wants to say yes. you know, the [20:24] board, which I think just consisted of [20:25] Don Graham and Peter Teal at that time, [20:27] really were encouraging him to say yes. [20:30] He's 21, 22 years old. It's a billion [20:32] dollars. He owns 70% of the company or [20:35] whatever it is. It's not like a [20:36] torturous negotiation where he's [20:39] considering both sides. He just says no [20:41] immediately. That's the kind of thing I [20:44] think you probably can't fake, right? [20:45] when you're that young, it's that much [20:47] money, you're under that much pressure, [20:48] and the entire management team at [20:50] Facebook at the time ends up walking [20:51] away because he wouldn't take the money. [20:53] And there's, I think, kind of [20:55] periodically been episodes like that [20:57] throughout the history of the company [20:58] where, you know, in the face of [21:00] opposition, he decides he's not going to [21:02] sell um or he's not going to walk away. [21:05] And I think that's probably just going [21:08] to be the case possibly forever. The [21:11] profiles that you write are some of my [21:13] favorites. Uh, I still think the Zucker [21:15] one was excellent, but I still think my [21:16] favorite profile you've ever made was [21:19] the one on Palmer Lucky, which you told [21:21] me last time that was the first profile [21:23] you ever wrote on a person, which is [21:25] insane. I just want to go through a [21:27] couple of the people that I'm most [21:28] interested in. Some of which I've been [21:30] uh like some of them are friends, some [21:32] of spent time with, and just go over [21:33] like what went into making them because [21:36] I do think I have a a high uh like a [21:39] high respect for the amount of craft [21:40] that you put into this, but also like [21:42] what did you learn from not only the [21:44] process of making these incredible [21:46] profiles, but like what did you learn [21:47] from being around these people? So, like [21:49] let's start with Palmer. Why choose him [21:52] as the first profile ever that you're [21:54] going to write on a person? Yeah. So, up [21:56] until that point, I'd been doing a lot [21:58] of writing, but I'd never written like a [22:00] profile of a person. I'd never written [22:01] anything that had anything remotely to [22:03] do with technology or or business. I was [22:06] writing mostly on like American politics [22:08] and German politics and foreign policy [22:09] and all this stuff that had to do with [22:11] my my previous life. Like I said before, [22:14] I I usually start with a thing that I'm [22:16] interested in and then I kind of go in [22:18] search of the person who would be the [22:20] best way to explore the thing. And in [22:23] the case of Palmer, it was, you know, [22:25] after October 7th in Israel, you know, [22:28] one of the interesting things about it [22:30] was that the amount of technological [22:33] overmatch that the Israeli military had [22:35] over Hamas was, you know, basically [22:37] infinite, right? And Israel in a lot of [22:41] ways was thought to have had the most [22:43] advanced fourth generation hybrid [22:46] warfare style military on the planet. [22:48] their drone fleets, the use of [22:51] satellites, underground sensors, smart [22:53] fences. They'd basically thought of [22:55] themselves as having been able to [22:57] obviate the need for more classical [22:59] forms of military hardware like tanks [23:03] and artillery uh and all this other [23:05] stuff. And then when Hamas invades on [23:08] October 7th, they do it with hang [23:10] gliders and construction equipment and [23:12] small arms. One of the interesting [23:14] questions I thought came out of that [23:15] was, is this whole defense tech thing [23:17] basically [ __ ] Like, does any of [23:20] this stuff actually work? It didn't seem [23:22] to work in this one case. Doesn't mean [23:23] it doesn't work elsewhere. But, you [23:25] know, we were at that point already, you [23:27] know, a year and a half into the the war [23:29] in Ukraine, which was this really [23:31] interesting mix of, you know, next [23:34] generation warfare that was being fought [23:36] by drone swarms. And on the other hand, [23:38] you have, you know, hundreds of [23:40] thousands or millions of 18 year olds [23:42] with sticks fighting in trenches, right? [23:44] Which is a form of warfare that's like [23:46] at least 150 years old. So the question [23:48] I started out with was, is defense tech [23:50] real or is it [ __ ] And if it's [23:52] real, how far away are we from figuring [23:54] it out? And Palmer, you know, I think at [23:56] that point he was [23:59] already a legend and an icon within [24:02] tech, but he wasn't well known outside [24:04] of it yet, which is interesting because [24:05] this is only a couple years ago. Now I [24:07] think he's a pretty ubiquitous figure [24:09] and it's the kind of person my mom will [24:10] tell me she saw him on 60 Minutes or [24:12] something like that. Uh but that was not [24:14] the case back then and I'd heard only a [24:16] little bit about him when I was in the [24:18] army. I think I remember hearing when I [24:20] was deployed about Anderl you know it [24:22] was this new company that was started by [24:23] the guy who invented the Oculus and they [24:26] were going to start you know they were [24:28] going to build the first new prime [24:30] defense technology company in you know [24:32] 100 years or whatever. So, I mostly got [24:36] interested in him in so far as I wanted [24:38] to write, you know, a fairly short [24:40] 30,000word piece based on an interview [24:42] with Palmer Lucky about where we [24:44] actually were with defense technology. [24:46] Again, it's you you start spending time [24:48] with someone, you start thinking a lot [24:49] about them, you talk to everyone in [24:51] their life, and a whole universe opens [24:53] up, and it turns into this 15,000word [24:55] cradle to grave piece about basically [24:57] his entire life, which I thought was [25:00] particularly salient at the time [25:02] because, so I think the piece came out [25:05] something like August 2024. So this was [25:08] only a month or two maybe one month [25:11] after the assassination attempt on Trump [25:13] after which kind of all of Silicon [25:15] Valley a bunch of founders and VCs end [25:18] up aligning behind Trump having not [25:20] aligned behind them you know the the [25:22] previous two times and one really [25:24] interesting thing about Palmer is that [25:26] you know he had supported Trump which [25:29] his you know the specifics of his [25:31] support for Trump I thought were just [25:32] not particularly interesting what was [25:34] really interesting was that he did it [25:35] and was willing to stand behind it not [25:37] at a moment when everyone else in his [25:39] industry was also doing the same thing, [25:41] but when it cost him everything, right? [25:44] He he did it at a moment when it, you [25:46] know, it led to him getting fired by [25:48] Facebook, which had bought his company [25:50] and he lost the company that he'd spent, [25:52] you know, his brief adult life building. [25:55] And so, I thought that also suggested [25:56] something interesting about his [25:59] character or his integrity or his belief [26:01] in himself or belief in what was right. [26:04] Anyway, it ended up going in a in a [26:06] bunch of different directions I never [26:07] could have anticipated at the beginning. [26:09] >> What was the most surprising direction [26:10] it went in to after the fact that you [26:13] didn't expect at the beginning? [26:14] >> I usually spend like 6 months to a year [26:17] working on each of these pieces and [26:19] thinking about these people and it's [26:20] like the day it's taken away from me and [26:22] it's with the copy editor and then it [26:24] gets published. It's like there's a way [26:26] in which I that I I get like a hole in [26:29] my brain that never gets filled back in [26:30] and I kind of forget a lot of the [26:31] details. We were talking about before [26:33] recording cuz like I have this like 10 [26:35] year history of for my other podcast [26:37] where I have like all every single note, [26:38] every single highlight. I have all the [26:40] transcripts. I like use it all the time. [26:42] I have an AI agent that just helps me [26:44] like remember all this stuff. And I was [26:46] like, "What do you do with your stuff?" [26:46] Like nothing. [laughter] [26:49] I find it really hard. I I find it what [26:51] I can do is I can try my best to enter [26:55] the psychology of a different person for [26:57] a finite period of time, but if I stay [26:59] there too long, I feel like I'm going [27:01] insane. So, the day the piece is done, I [27:03] feel like is the day I have to get out. [27:05] Wait a minute, though. I want to because [27:06] this is where I'm also interested in [27:08] addition to like you covering very [27:09] fascinating people, spending a lot of [27:10] time with them, writing these incredible [27:12] pieces. I'm also curious how your work [27:14] shapes yourself [27:16] and like the podcasts I make change me [27:19] constantly. like I you can if you just [27:21] listen to them over you can hear me [27:22] changing my opinion and kind of being [27:24] shaped into new thinking and realizing [27:25] oh this is a really important idea I [27:27] need to keep that with me like is that [27:29] not the case for you? [27:30] >> I think maybe one one place where we [27:32] differ is you know I I see founders in [27:35] this show as kind of stripmining very [27:39] interesting people for insights that [27:41] then other people can use in their lives [27:43] and think about as they're building [27:45] their businesses or or or whatever else [27:47] they're doing. I think probably my the [27:51] things I write are not valuable in that [27:53] sense. And if they are valuable, it [27:56] would be more in trying to understand [28:00] the lives of individual people that from [28:03] the outside seem almost unreal in a way [28:06] because of either the power or the fame [28:09] or the celebrity or the political, you [28:12] know, relevance of what they're engaged [28:13] in is kind of unimaginable to a lot of [28:15] people on the outside. to try to um you [28:20] know get at who they are as individual [28:23] human beings which I think is valuable [28:25] in its own right and also to just kind [28:27] of figure out like what the larger [28:30] cultural and historical patterns that [28:33] they're swept up in how those things [28:36] impact their lives. I think you know one [28:38] of the things that I think a lot of [28:40] these people feel is that they are kind [28:43] of timespanning figures and that you [28:46] know if they would have existed 500 [28:48] years ago you know they wouldn't be [28:50] building a technology company but they [28:52] would have been raising an army and [28:54] become an emperor or something like [28:55] that. [28:56] >> That's definitely true. So I can't tell [28:57] you who but I've had a conversation with [28:59] I was like I'm getting like Jenis Khan [29:01] vibes off of you and I go if this was [29:03] 1100 years ago you'd be on a horse [29:05] chopping people's heads off wouldn't [29:06] you? And this is what I said to this guy [29:07] in private meeting. He goes absolutely. [29:09] [laughter] [29:09] >> Yeah. I think you know Andre has this [29:11] line that he's that he used with [29:13] Zuckerberg and probably some others that [29:15] you know now you raise venture capital [29:17] but 500 years ago you would have been [29:18] raising armies or something like that. [29:20] And you know maybe there's a way in [29:21] which that's true but I also see a lot [29:23] of these people as just being [29:25] historically contingent in a lot of [29:27] important ways which is not to take [29:28] anything away from them. But I think you [29:30] know when these people are examined and [29:33] written about 100 200 500 years from now [29:35] and I think some of them will be [29:37] Zuckerberg would be one. I think they're [29:39] going to be understood in the context of [29:40] the world that we all live in. [29:42] >> How did we get to what you're saying now [29:44] based on the question I just asked you [29:45] where it's just like how does your work [29:46] change you? [29:47] >> I think [29:48] >> you're saying these people are just too [29:49] different from the way you view [29:50] yourself. [29:51] I think mostly it's that I maybe to a [29:54] fault I find it valuable and interesting [29:58] just to try to understand and reveal [30:02] individual human lives and how messy how [30:06] impactful uh they can be. I love doing [30:09] that kind of on its own terms. I'm much [30:12] less I think able to [30:15] uh you know kind of gather different [30:17] insights from people's lives and apply [30:19] those lessons to my own life. I think if [30:22] I learn from these people in an [30:24] important way, I think it's it's that, [30:28] you know, the stories that we all tell [30:31] ourselves about our lives. You know, [30:34] there's there are ways in which they're [30:35] really valuable and important and [30:37] accurate and there are ways that they're [30:39] kind of constructed in order to protect [30:41] us against the uncomfortable thought [30:44] that at some point like we're all going [30:45] to die and we're all going to get [30:46] forgotten and all of this hard work is [30:48] going to, you know, end up being [30:50] meaningless. So I I like being able to [30:54] glimpse that in people who I think from [30:56] the outside seem unreal in a certain way [30:58] because they are so powerful and so [30:59] wealthy and so important. [31:01] >> Are you introspective? [31:03] [laughter] [31:04] >> This is a minefield. Uh I think I'm very [31:09] introspective although it might say [31:12] something that I like to spend most of [31:13] my time thinking about other people [31:16] rather than thinking about myself. I [31:18] keep asking this question in like half a [31:20] dozen different ways through texts, [31:22] through phone calls, if I was sitting in [31:23] the backyard earlier like you don't give [31:26] on this at all. I don't think you are [31:28] introspective. Like, and I'm not like [31:31] that's not the the main thing I'm trying [31:33] to figure out for you, but it's just [31:34] like you Yeah. You're just like, "No, [31:36] I'm just like I like writing these [31:37] pieces. Uh I'm intensely interested in [31:39] them. As soon as they're done, I forget [31:41] about them completely. I move on to the [31:42] next." It it doesn't seem to change you, [31:45] which is [ __ ] shocking to me. Like [31:47] that you're so good at what you do. [31:49] Again, I think you're the best in the [31:50] world at what you're doing right now. [31:51] And like you just will not give me any [31:53] of this. It's like no, I'm taking [31:55] nothing from [31:56] >> Yeah. I mean, so maybe the answer to [31:58] your question is I'm not introspective [31:59] enough to understand how it does change [32:02] me. [32:03] >> If I asked your wife, would she say that [32:04] you're different today than you were [32:07] when you started writing at Colossus? [32:09] >> No, I don't think so. [32:10] >> Okay. [32:11] I don't think my parents would either. [32:13] Um, but I I think it's, you know, [32:15] >> you think you're fully formed? What is [32:16] this? What's happening right now? [32:18] >> I think it's one of these things where I [32:21] I I think there's, you know, there's [32:24] maybe a few things that I'm good at and [32:25] maybe there's a few things that make me [32:27] happy, but there's only one thing that's [32:29] both, right? I think I'm pretty good at [32:32] writing and it makes me pretty happy. [32:35] And I think over the last several years, [32:37] I've been so focused on the craft of [32:41] writing pros and storytelling and [32:43] narrative and bringing some c sort of [32:47] literary or cinematic ambition to bear [32:50] on the lives of these core figures in [32:52] business and technology and you know [32:55] eventually elsewhere that I've been more [32:58] focused on the success of the craft [33:03] rather than on what I'm trying to absorb [33:06] from these individual people. There's [33:08] this great um David Foster Wallace essay [33:11] that I I really like where he talks [33:14] about writers as naturalb born watchers [33:18] and lurkers and starers and what they [33:21] kind of covet is this image of [33:22] themselves as witnesses of other things [33:25] and other people. And therefore what [33:27] they're most afraid of in life is for [33:29] the tables to be turned, which is the [33:31] exact situation we're in right now, [33:33] where they're the ones being watched and [33:35] interrogated and and stared at. And so I [33:38] think it's also just I'm kind of by [33:40] nature I probably have less access to [33:42] that part of myself. And also, you know, [33:44] this is all relatively new to me. Like [33:46] it was, you know, only seven or eight [33:49] years ago, I had a completely different [33:51] life where I was, you know, in the army [33:53] and I was 8,000 miles from where we are [33:55] right now. and all of a sudden now I'm [33:57] like doing things in public and that's [33:58] all brand new to me. [34:00] >> I found one of my all-time favorite [34:02] quotes when I was reading the book 0ero [34:03] to1. The quote says, "The single most [34:05] powerful pattern I have noticed is that [34:07] successful people find value in [34:09] unexpected places." And they do this by [34:12] thinking about business from first [34:13] principles instead of formulas. That is [34:16] exactly what Apploven has done with [34:18] their advertising platform. Apploven [34:20] connects you with over a billion [34:21] potential new customers in mobile games. [34:23] Apploving allows you to capture [34:25] undivided attention. Apploven ads are [34:27] full screen videos that are watched for [34:29] an average of 35 seconds. That is [34:31] retention that blows other ad platforms [34:34] out of the water. And you can launch on [34:36] Apploven in minutes. You set the goal [34:38] and Apploven achieves it. No complex [34:40] setup, no expertise needed. And Apploven [34:43] scales quickly. They can put your ads in [34:45] front of over a billion potential [34:47] customers. Other businesses have seen [34:49] immediate results, scale to hundreds of [34:51] thousands of dollars of spend per day [34:53] and increase their revenue by millions. [34:56] So you want to get started quickly [34:57] before all of your competitors are on [34:59] AppLoven. And you can do that by going [35:01] to apploven.com. [35:02] That's apploven.com. [35:05] I still don't understand other than you [35:08] said it makes you happy and you you know [35:09] you're good at it, right? Like I don't [35:13] understand your approach though. What [35:14] I'm trying to get out of is like how you [35:16] think about your own work. [35:18] >> I spent, you know, my whole previous [35:20] life doing and thinking about things [35:22] that had absolutely nothing to do with [35:23] business or technology. Um, it was not [35:26] an area of interest for me whatsoever. [35:28] The way it became an area of interest [35:30] was, you know, it started with this [35:32] profile I wrote of of Palmer Lucky a [35:34] couple years ago, but people in business [35:37] and technology had somewhat recently [35:39] become uh a lot of the most interesting, [35:43] the most interdisciplinary, the most [35:46] culturally central and salient figures [35:49] in American life. And that was not [35:51] always the case. And it's not always [35:53] going to be the case, but it's the case [35:54] right now. So maybe if you think about [35:56] like in the 1940s, who are those people? [35:58] They're they're physicists or they're [35:59] people who work in the national security [36:01] bureaucracy. In the 1960s and '7s, I [36:04] think it's probably musicians, [36:06] filmmakers, and writers. Um, you can go [36:08] on and on. I think in the last like 10 [36:10] to 20 years, I think it's it's clearly [36:13] technologists and and business people. [36:16] What I kind of began with was, you know, [36:19] an interest in who are the people [36:22] determining the world that we live in [36:24] and shaping the future the most, which [36:26] again has nothing to do with an inherent [36:28] interest in, you know, technology [36:31] founders or VCs per se, but I think [36:33] they're just the answer to that question [36:35] right now. So, I am most interested in [36:38] them. However, you know, my entire [36:41] previous life was, you know, the thing [36:43] that I love and that I've always been [36:45] interested in is books and fiction and [36:49] literature and poetry and writing. You [36:51] know, I've spent more probably more time [36:53] reading books than I've spent doing any [36:55] other activity in my life. I think we [36:57] probably, you know, you and I share that [36:58] in common to an extent. And you know, [37:01] having realized that people in [37:03] technology and business are the kind of [37:05] most central figures in American life at [37:07] this point, you read around and one [37:10] thing you notice is that the most [37:12] talented pro stylists, the people who [37:15] bring real literary ambition to the [37:17] things they write, tend not to be in [37:19] this space, which is not a blanket, you [37:21] know, claim. There's there's there's [37:23] plenty of uh excellent amazing writers [37:25] who who write about this stuff, but as a [37:28] whole, there's just not many. the [37:29] quality of pros that covers a lot of the [37:31] stuff that I cover just like isn't [37:34] great. It's not like built to last. It's [37:37] not uh of interest a year after it's [37:39] written, let alone five or 10 or 20 [37:41] years later. And I thought, you know, [37:43] one slice of the market that was kind of [37:45] there for the taking. And this is what [37:47] Patrick and I originally discussed when [37:49] we were talking about me coming to [37:50] Colossus was, you [snorts] know, there [37:53] was this great tradition of long form [37:56] American magazine writing, which my my [37:58] old colleague at Tablet David Samuels [38:00] likes to say is the America's only [38:01] indigenous form of writing, right? Like [38:03] we didn't invent the novel, we didn't [38:05] invent poetry, we didn't invent verse, [38:07] but we did invent the long form magazine [38:09] profile, which kind of belongs in the [38:11] American vernacular. And this has like a [38:14] great tradition from the New Yorker in [38:16] the 1940s and50s, Esquire in the 1960s, [38:20] Vanity Fair and Harper's in the 1980s [38:22] and 90s. All of which kind of gets [38:24] destroyed in the last 10 to 20 years [38:27] kind of starting with Facebook and you [38:28] know the things that Zuckerberg built. [38:30] And that there was like a big [38:31] opportunity to bring a lot of that [38:34] literary ambition to bear on what we [38:37] hope is the very best writing about [38:38] people in business and technology. And [38:40] so that is I think maybe one way of [38:44] trying my best to answer your question. [38:47] >> Okay. You just dig cuz you're like [38:49] David, no. I'm not taking ideas from [38:51] Zuck or Scott Woo or Josh or Neil or any [38:55] of the other people you've written on [38:56] and we're going to talk about today. I'm [38:58] taking it from fiction and from poetry [39:01] and I'm applying that craft to [39:03] storytelling in what I think is one of [39:05] the most important [39:07] areas of American life and and worldwide [39:10] life today. [39:11] >> That's right. Aspirationally at least. [39:12] >> I There you go. I got my answer now. All [39:14] right, we're going to move on. I want to [39:16] go person by person. Another person that [39:19] I want the first person I want to bring [39:21] up to you now is Scott Will. and I [39:24] called you. I think I think I was [39:26] driving to go meet Scott. And I've known [39:28] Scott for a few years. I actually uh [39:30] there's a picture of me, him, and one of [39:32] his co-founders the week before uh [39:35] Cognition um launched. And yet I thought [39:39] the way you again that wasn't really a [39:41] profile, right? This is very different [39:43] from all the other pieces you you you [39:45] wrote where you're saying that like this [39:48] person is the he's not like trying to [39:52] craft an image in my opinion, right? And [39:54] I can share some of like my background [39:56] for the episode that that we did what [39:57] happened after the fact that speaks to [39:59] this, but like I'm very curious. Okay, [40:01] let's go through like why you set up the [40:04] profile on Scott. It's almost like you [40:06] had this this introduction which was [40:08] very unusual compared to the rest of [40:10] your introductions, but then from there [40:11] it's almost like a transcript of the [40:13] conversation you had. Why did you go [40:14] that route? [40:15] >> So, the thing that I was interested in [40:17] that led me to Scott was, you know, it [40:20] was kind of I think it was at the [40:22] beginning of this this last summer, the [40:25] negative public response to a lot of the [40:27] major AI figures was cresting at that [40:30] point. It still hasn't quite receded. If [40:33] anything, it's accelerated. But you know [40:35] what I was noticing was a lot of the [40:38] leading figures in this technology [40:40] that's supposedly going to upend our [40:42] world and our lives are [40:46] people who, you know, the rest of us [40:48] find very grading and irritating and [40:50] annoying and unself-aware and they're [40:52] not the people we would welcome as our [40:54] new overlords. So the kind question I [40:56] had was is there a a major AI figure or [41:00] potentially a future major AI figure who [41:04] uh is not like that who you know is [41:06] obviously a technology nerd but is also [41:09] like a humanist in a very fundamental [41:11] way who you know someone who you might [41:14] trust with this technology. So I went [41:16] asking around you know mainly through [41:18] people that I'm sure we know in common [41:20] and the name that came up more than any [41:22] other was Scott Woo. So, you know, I [41:25] decided I just wanted to go and talk to [41:26] him. And for all of these pieces, what [41:29] what I usually ask for is a is a minimum [41:32] of two different 90-minute conversations [41:36] separated by, you know, some sizable [41:38] interval in time because I kind of want [41:39] to catch them in like two different [41:41] environments. And often it ends up going [41:44] a lot longer or or we'll do a lot more. [41:47] But that's what I asked for from Scott. [41:48] And what I did appreciate about Scott, [41:51] which I think you were kind of [41:52] suggesting in your question, is he's not [41:55] stage managed. He's not overly manicured [41:58] as a as a figure. I think there's not [42:02] layers of bureaucracy or PR or train [42:05] media training separating you from him, [42:07] which is often a challenge of [42:09] interviewing people like this. I liked [42:11] him as a person. And so in the intro to [42:13] the piece, I kind of went all in on this [42:15] idea of Scott being a person who, you [42:20] know, maybe most readers haven't heard [42:21] of yet, whose opinions about AI and [42:24] projections about the future they might [42:26] find more valuable than what we hear out [42:28] of uh out of the major labs. And then [42:31] the second thing was I just found his [42:34] willingness to be introspective, which I [42:37] think was hard for him, you know, harder [42:40] than it is for me, to be really [42:43] interesting in good faith and at times [42:45] profoundly moving and and really [42:47] interesting. And it was the first time [42:49] I'd ever talked to someone where I kind [42:50] of felt like me turning them into a [42:53] character in a story actually wouldn't [42:55] be as good here as the reader just [42:58] hearing from them directly. A lot of it [43:00] also just depends on rapport, right? [43:02] Like when you interview people, you [43:04] don't develop a good healthy rapport [43:06] with all of them. Scott and I, I felt [43:07] like, just kind of hit it off and we had [43:09] a good back and forth and like we got [43:11] each other's jokes and we liked [43:13] following each other in the direction [43:14] that, you know, our thoughts were taking [43:16] us. And there was a couple other people [43:18] in the room when we were talking to each [43:19] other and they seem to agree. And I [43:21] thought maybe this is actually like a [43:22] good opportunity for the reader to kind [43:23] of feel more like they're in the room [43:26] with us while we're talking rather than [43:28] just trusting me as a third person [43:30] omnisient narrator. [43:32] >> What did the people that you interviewed [43:34] around Scott say about him? you know [43:36] he's an authentic mathematics genius [43:38] which is like a relatively obvious point [43:40] but I think uh what impressed me about [43:42] it was even among the other people who [43:45] have won gold at the international math [43:47] and physics and you know and uh computer [43:49] programming Olympiads even among those [43:52] people he's kind of considered the GOAT [43:54] he's the goat competitor he's the goat [43:56] coach and mentor of the people who came [43:58] after him and he's kind of this [44:00] godfather figure to to a lot of those [44:03] >> which is funny cuz he's not even 30 He's [44:05] not even 30, but he, you know, he does [44:07] have this kind of I I I think I, you [44:10] know, said it in one of the lines of the [44:11] piece, but he just does have that thing [44:14] that the rest of us don't have where [44:16] it's like, you know, you just put him [44:18] into a picture with like 12 other people [44:21] who work at the company, who who [44:23] competed in those Olympia ads, and you [44:25] show the picture to someone who's never [44:26] heard of any of them, you'll be like, [44:28] "Who do you think the leader is in this [44:29] group?" They'll point immediately at [44:31] Scott. It's just like obvious. He's got [44:32] something. I think that was something [44:34] that came up over and over like e even [44:37] in this, you know, collective of people [44:40] who are math geniuses that his genius [44:42] was kind of, you know, in that realm at [44:44] least is kind of on a different level. [44:46] And also to find both that and that [44:50] natural leadership capability, finding [44:53] both of those things in one person is [44:55] just exceptionally rare. I know you tend [44:57] to forget about the people once you [44:59] write about them, but did you draw any [45:01] parallels between the ruthless [45:03] competitive drive of Zuckerberg and the [45:05] ruthless competitive drive of Scott [45:06] Will? [45:07] >> I don't think so. Not quite. Um, you [45:09] know, for for Woo, I you know, maybe [45:13] there is a sense in which he's [45:15] ruthlessly competitive in a business [45:18] sense and he wants to crush all of his [45:21] company's rivals. [45:22] >> No, I think he's competitive in [45:24] everything. There's a great line where [45:26] um Kobe was being interviewed by one of [45:27] the late late night hosts and they're [45:30] like, "Who's more competitive, you or [45:31] Michael Jordan?" He's just like, "It's [45:33] obviously Michael." I'm like, "What do [45:34] you mean?" He goes, "I'm competitive at [45:35] basketball." Michael Jordan's [45:36] competitive [ __ ] that doesn't matter. [45:37] Like, who can eat this salad the [45:39] fastest? [45:40] >> Like stuff like that. Where Scott wants [45:42] to win at everything, [45:43] >> I think. So, that might be like an [45:45] important difference. I, you know, my my [45:47] understanding of both of them is [45:48] probably imperfect, but I think [45:50] Zuckerberg is probably the most [45:52] competitive person in the world at the [45:53] thing that he does. I don't think he's [45:55] like trying to destroy his children in [45:57] quizbowl. Scott, you know, from what I [46:00] understand, does have that Michael [46:01] Jordan thing where it's like, okay, [46:03] we're sitting in this room. We have 5 [46:04] minutes until the thing that we're we're [46:06] here for starts. Does anyone have some [46:08] quarters? Let's play. You know, does [46:10] anyone have some dice? Like, he just [46:11] wants to use every moment of every day [46:13] destroying people at something. I from [46:15] what I understand, Scott, he's like [46:16] that. [46:17] >> This is what's fascinating. I told him [46:18] we had such a good time. Um, and I was [46:19] like, you just need to come on like the [46:21] show every like three months, every six [46:22] months just cuz he is one of the people [46:24] where again he I think his one of his [46:26] gifts is he can explain very complex [46:28] things in a very simple manner. Uh, he's [46:30] obviously brilliant, but he also has [46:31] this like very friendly UI [snorts] [46:33] where and like he can just talk and talk [46:35] and talk. Um, but then underneath that [46:37] is just he said on the the the podcast [46:39] he did with him over and over again, [46:40] he's like, "I'm really salty. I'm really [46:42] salty." He's just like constantly has to [46:44] compete, has to win cuz I I know from [46:46] firsthand I like know all the people [46:48] involved there. I know like some behind [46:49] the scenes stuff like they're throwing [46:51] so much money at that dude and he's just [46:53] saying no to every single acquisition [46:55] offer. She's like no I I don't think he [46:56] thinks of himself as being conquerable. [46:59] >> Right. That that was another thing that [47:00] got me interested in him and that I [47:02] appreciated is I approached him for that [47:05] piece shortly after Curser did the deal [47:08] with XAI or whatever it was called at [47:11] the time. And so, you know, he was kind [47:13] of like the Scott seemed at least at the [47:16] time to be the sort of less the [47:18] Moheakans, you know, figure within this [47:20] AI world. And who knows what'll happen, [47:23] but when he explained the reasons for [47:25] why he has no interest in selling and [47:27] why he just wants to ride this thing all [47:29] the way to the end as his company, um, [47:32] you know, it does seem kind of [47:34] plausible. You believe him. Do you think [47:35] out of the people that you spend the [47:36] most time with, he has the the shortest [47:39] gap between who he actually is and who [47:41] he presents the himself to the world to [47:42] be? [47:43] >> It's always hard to answer that question [47:45] because I tend not to know these people [47:47] in any other context outside of [47:48] interviewing them and writing a profile. [47:50] I've never yet written about someone [47:52] that I've been friends with before or [47:53] even really since. [47:54] >> But what's your sense of it? Yeah, my my [47:56] my impression is that like again because [47:59] he [48:00] does not have all these years of media [48:04] training under his belt and also he [48:05] doesn't seem to be interested in [48:07] developing that part of his brain which [48:09] I appreciate. He was the one who seemed [48:12] to be yeah the kind of the same person [48:15] while I was interviewing him that he was [48:18] when he did a product review or went [48:20] into some sort of meeting or was raising [48:22] money or went home to his girlfriend or [48:24] whatever. Like I think yeah he's he's [48:26] the one who's kind of most plausibly the [48:28] same person across the board. [48:29] >> I want to go to your piece on Josh [48:32] Kushner which before the Zuck piece was [48:35] I think the most viewed profile so so [48:39] far on Colossus if I if [48:40] >> still is which is interesting and I [48:42] never would have expected. [48:43] >> Okay. Interesting. Okay. What was the [48:46] thing that you you you you said before [48:48] I'm not interested in the person first. [48:51] I'm interested in the thing and then to [48:53] to understand and explain the thing, I [48:55] look for the person that can do that. [48:56] What was that in Josh's case? [48:58] >> There's a kind of like specific answer [48:59] here and then there's a more kind of [49:00] like 50,000 foot bird's eye view. The [49:03] specific thing is that I just kind of [49:05] been interested in the Kushners going [49:07] back several years going back even to [49:09] before his older brother Jared was [49:11] involved in the White House after Trump [49:13] won in 2016. [49:14] >> Wait, wait. You were interested in Jared [49:15] before he went to the White House? [49:17] >> I was interested in the family as a [49:19] whole. At that point, I had no idea who [49:21] Josh was. I I think I didn't even know [49:22] that he existed. Jared at the time, I [49:25] think, was the publisher of the New York [49:27] Sun or, you know, observer, [49:29] >> the Observer, local New York paper. But [49:32] what I knew at the time was their father [49:36] and grandfather had built this New [49:39] Jersey real estate principality that the [49:42] children were getting involved in and [49:43] that the you know the father had all of [49:46] these problems with the law and it was [49:49] uh the grandparents had had their lives [49:52] shattered in the Holocaust and came to [49:54] the United States with literally [49:56] nothing. And what was kind of [49:58] interesting to me about the family was, [50:01] you know, in one generation, maybe, you [50:03] know, in now at this point in two [50:05] generations, but in a very very short [50:07] period of time, you know, these people [50:09] had their lives completely shattered [50:12] and, you know, when their their [50:13] grandmother who, you know, had her [50:16] basically her whole family executed in [50:18] the Holocaust, uh, you know, tries for [50:21] years to get to the United States, [50:23] finally makes it here, and within her [50:25] lifetime, uh, you know, Bill Clinton and [50:28] Benjamin Netanyahu are coming to her [50:30] home to have dinner with her family to [50:33] basically kiss the ring and ask for the [50:35] favor of her son, right? And there was [50:38] this element in which this family had, [50:41] you know, they had elements of the [50:43] Kennedy family story, but it was also [50:45] representative of this typical Holocaust [50:49] story. And I think, you know, even among [50:51] harrowing Holocaust survival stories, um [50:54] the story of the the Kushner [50:55] grandparents is is kind of particularly [50:58] >> there's a movie based on it, right? It [50:59] was [51:00] >> deliverance is is defiance. [51:02] >> Defiance. That's what I was deliverance. [51:04] That's [51:05] >> the guy that I should know his name. He [51:06] played Bond. What is his name? [51:08] >> Daniel Craig. Thank you. [51:09] >> That's right. [51:09] >> Yeah. They're like essentially hiding in [51:10] a forest. [51:11] >> That's right. So they're in the in the [51:13] forest of, you know, I think it's Barus. [51:16] what's now modern-day Barus. And the [51:19] story of Englorious Bastards, I think, [51:21] is also partially inspired by this, you [51:24] know, collective of escape of of, you [51:26] know, concentration camp escapees run by [51:29] this man named Tuviaki who basically, [51:32] you know, they live in the forest and [51:34] they train each other with small arms [51:36] and they conduct a lot of these [51:38] kidnappings and reprisal killings of [51:41] Nazi soldiers in in Eastern Europe. And [51:44] yeah, the Kushner grandmother was part [51:46] of the Bellski partisans, which is [51:48] amazing, right? So that was kind of I'd [51:51] already had this long-standing interest [51:53] in the family um going back to even [51:55] before I think they became nationally [51:58] famous in the Trump era. I think this [52:00] permeates a lot of the stuff I've [52:01] written in the last couple years, but [52:04] I'm also the Jewish grandson of [52:07] Holocaust survivors. and the idea of [52:09] American national identity. It's the [52:12] thing that allows all of us to be as [52:15] Irish or as seek or as Korean as we want [52:17] to be, right? You don't have to make any [52:20] sacrifices to that part of your kind of [52:22] like subnational identity. So long as [52:25] you still, you know, subscribe to this [52:28] idea of an American supra tribe that [52:31] transcends all of the others, which is [52:33] basically a belief in the Constitution [52:34] and individual liberty and freedom. um [52:37] and and you know the values that all [52:39] Americans kind of share in common. And [52:41] so this thing is not like a kind of [52:44] fairy tale Disneyland, you know, story [52:47] to me and my family. I think it's been [52:49] very important for my whole life. And I [52:51] think it's been fraying at the edges um [52:54] now for most of my adult life and it's [52:56] kind of coming unglued. And that has [52:59] worried me a lot. And so part of what [53:01] I've tried to do in a lot of these [53:02] pieces I've written in the last couple [53:04] years is try to kind of check in with [53:07] the current state of the American dream [53:10] and try to figure out how live and true [53:13] is it still regardless of its various [53:16] shortcomings and flaws which we're all [53:19] very familiar with. But like is it still [53:22] a live animating issue in in America? um [53:25] or as you know as it's various critics [53:27] on the right and left like to say like [53:29] it was always just a failure and a lie [53:31] and again I think mining for evidence [53:34] that it is still true and alive in [53:37] business and technology at this [53:38] particular moment in time is very [53:40] fruitful and I thought you know given my [53:42] own you know prior interest in the [53:44] Kushner family already and then given [53:46] all of uh Josh's success now in the last [53:50] decade plus you know as a kind of new [53:52] generation VC and you know one of the [53:55] most important investors and a lot of [53:56] the most important companies that [53:58] >> don't don't tell him you called him a [53:59] VC. He'll take offense to that. [54:00] >> Yeah. Well, [laughter] [54:01] a lot of these VCs uh I think [54:03] >> No, but listen, I over complicated. [54:05] >> Can you share this? In fact, hold on. I [54:07] got to pull up one of my favorite [54:08] quotes. I I think you were being [54:09] interviewed by Lulu if I remember [54:11] correctly, but um you were talking about [54:14] uh because I thought it was interesting [54:15] like why the hell your first piece I [54:17] think the first piece you write for [54:18] Colossus is on Neil Ba right who's a [54:20] friend. I just actually spent a few days [54:21] with him like like last week. But uh you [54:24] you said something that was hilarious. [54:25] You're like I had never really [54:27] encountered technology investors much. I [54:28] had always found the personality types [54:30] kind of annoying as a class of people. [54:32] They feel like they're full of [ __ ] So [54:34] I was asking around who's the guy who's [54:35] not full of [ __ ] and that led you to to [54:37] to Neil. But I would say like Josh has [54:42] way wider and grander ambitions and I've [54:44] talked to him about this than like I [54:45] don't consider him a VC. You can [54:46] consider him a veester, but like he [54:48] really he's a builder and a founder and [54:50] everything else. He just does not and [54:51] this is what I like so much about him is [54:53] he kind of um what I think you you [54:56] picked apart in your uh you demonstrate [54:57] in your piece rather and I think this is [54:59] was fascinating is the the when it [55:01] starts with the Rick Rubin him going to [55:03] visit Rick Rubin essentially asking him [55:05] you know giving him a download of his [55:06] thoughts I'm like how am I crazy the way [55:08] I'm thinking about this is Josh kind of [55:11] doesn't really care he's not search just [55:13] like you're not searching for the people [55:16] you profile to influence your work [55:17] you're like I'm looking out over here I [55:19] feel Josh is the same way he's like not [55:20] looking around to other investors, he's [55:22] looking around to other founders. [55:23] >> He's a good example of that. I think [55:25] Neil too, yeah, we have kind of entered [55:28] this era of oversaturation of the public [55:31] engagement of various venture [55:33] capitalists who I think overestimate how [55:36] interesting they are to other people. [55:38] And well, we've gotten to this point [55:39] where they're out there like offering [55:41] >> That's actually really funny. I don't [55:42] want I got they overestimate how [55:44] interesting they are to other people. I [55:46] guess what Let me clarify what I'm [55:48] trying to say here. I'm very curious how [55:50] people think about themselves and their [55:53] work and like the way it is like we can [55:55] all like you like oh Jeremy's a writer [55:58] or whatever the case is like I [55:59] unsuccessfully just trying to like get [56:01] into like what what is there anything [56:02] more there like how does it relate to [56:04] your life how does it change you and [56:06] everything else so like I think sitting [56:07] down you did this with Zuck piece and [56:11] when I talked to him I was just like I [56:12] don't know if when I talked to Zuck I [56:14] was like I don't think he thinks of [56:15] himself like a CEO like I got like [56:17] emperor vibes and then six months months [56:18] later and out comes your piece where [56:20] it's like guys essentially Augustus [56:22] reincarnated. Yeah. [56:23] >> Um so that's what I mean by that. I [56:25] think it's very fascinating. It doesn't [56:26] mean you have to agree with their [56:28] perception of what they're doing, but I [56:29] think you should at least figure out how [56:31] they view what it is that they're doing. [56:33] And I can just tell you he damn sure [56:34] does not think of himself as a venture [56:35] capitalist. [56:36] >> Yeah. I I thought the interest I mean I [56:38] think that the reason that I wanted to [56:40] start the piece with that anecdote about [56:42] him kind of you know asking for advice [56:45] from Rick Rubin you know at that point [56:47] in our interviews like I hadn't really [56:49] figured out yet like what the piece was [56:51] going to be about by that point I really [56:53] didn't have any intention of going [56:56] through the entire family history first [56:58] which I ended up doing but he was [57:00] telling me about this time that he went [57:02] to go see Reuben and the, [57:06] you know, kind of crisis that he felt [57:08] like the personal crisis that Josh felt [57:09] like he was having and why he sought out [57:11] Rick Rubin in particular and was trying [57:14] to get him to kind of recreate that [57:16] morning and the scene and where they [57:18] were and what was actually bothering him [57:20] and what was the question that he was [57:22] hoping Reuben would answer for him. And [57:25] again, I can't remember exactly what it [57:26] was, but it it was something like the [57:28] idea of Kushner felt like he had [57:31] captured magic in a bottle in some way [57:33] with Thrive. He's also built companies [57:36] himself, but that he was kind of on on a [57:39] really good run. And he went to Reuben [57:42] to basically ask like, "What do I do if [57:46] I lose the magic?" Right? Like I I I'm [57:48] afraid that I'm gonna it's going to [57:50] escape me one day and I'm going to be [57:52] without it. and things are going to fall [57:55] apart. And I thought that was really [57:57] interesting and I sympathized with it [58:00] and I kind of recognized it immediately. [58:02] I know the same thought occurs to all [58:04] kinds of people, but at least in my [58:06] mind, it was a very specifically [58:10] Holocaust family type question where the [58:14] fear of everything you've built can be [58:16] taken away from you overnight and living [58:19] in constant fear even in America that [58:22] you know you'll be stripped of [58:24] everything that you value and that you [58:25] love and you'll have to go figure it out [58:28] again somewhere else. I felt like that [58:30] was a kind of particularly deep and [58:32] vulnerable moment that he shared with me [58:34] and then that ended up kind of [58:35] determining the rest of the piece. So [58:37] one thing I really appreciate about Josh [58:39] more to your question is that I think he [58:42] does recognize even if only in some [58:45] ultimate sense that you know things do [58:48] eventually fall apart and you have to [58:50] like make the most of it while you can [58:52] and you also have to tr you know do [58:54] everything you can do to make yourself [58:56] invulnerable while you can. whereas I [58:59] think a lot of other people in the space [59:01] uh you know can often give the [59:03] impression of like they're on a roller [59:04] coaster and they're just having as much [59:05] fun as they can while they can. [59:07] >> You just did live what you do in your [59:09] pieces. Listen to the founders episode I [59:11] just did on Mark Zuckerberg on your [59:12] piece and I know um it just came out [59:14] today when we're recording this so you [59:15] haven't heard it yet but I say in that [59:17] ep in the episode you'll start so we [59:20] started with the Holocaust then we went [59:21] on this tangent we started talking about [59:23] and then you brought it right back [59:24] around to the Holocaust where you forget [59:25] where it started. You do this in writing [59:27] that's really really good and you did it [59:29] when you started with sitting with his [59:30] parents Zuckerberg and then you go on a [59:32] tangent you go bring it back then you [59:33] close the loop on his parents when he [59:35] starts fighting you forget that the [59:37] scene that you laid out was we were [59:39] fighting and then you go into all these [59:40] other details and you're fascinated then [59:41] you I was like oh [ __ ] then Jeremy [59:42] brought us back to the fact that no [59:43] we're in here why is this guy choosing [59:45] to wake up every day and beat the [ __ ] [59:47] out of people for two hours like it's a [59:49] very fascinating thing the way you do [59:50] that I want to go back to the the the [59:53] Rick Ruben thing because he came on this [59:54] show and what was also interesting is [59:56] tied to what you and I were just talking [59:57] about. It's like how do people think [59:58] about what they're doing? And you know, [60:00] oh, Vic Rubin's a producer. He's he's a [60:03] uh like he's he's in the music business. [60:06] He founded a record label. And he's [60:08] like, I just think of myself as a [60:09] professional researcher. Like every day [60:12] I just get up and research intently [60:14] about what I'm most interested in and [60:15] that that point. And sometimes it's [60:17] music and sometimes it's podcast, [60:18] sometimes it's different people I'm [60:19] talking to. Like I'm just researching [60:20] all day long. [60:21] >> That's really interesting. uh like I [60:22] sometimes think you know especially the [60:24] way a lot of VCs discuss it is like what [60:26] one thing they look for in a founder is [60:29] you know that the the kernel of their [60:31] inspiration to build their company is [60:33] traceable back to some early thing in [60:35] their life or you know they like it when [60:37] the idea for the company came as early [60:39] in their life as possible and I [60:41] understand that because it suggests [60:43] quite a lot of discipline and commitment [60:45] to a single idea and pursuing it [60:47] ruthlessly but there's like a flip side [60:49] to that which I also think is really [60:50] interesting in a lot of these people [60:52] that you interview and that I've [60:53] interviewed is I often like it when [60:57] you know a lot of these things end up [60:58] just being a lot more contingent and you [61:01] I think you end up with a lot more [61:02] people who are not exact you know [61:04] they're not motivated primarily by money [61:06] per se and the idea of building a [61:08] company or becoming an investor only [61:10] actually occurred to them much later [61:12] after they were just like pursuing their [61:14] actual interests and meeting and [61:15] spending time with the people that they [61:17] really liked and cared about for you [61:19] know their entire adolescence and even [61:21] part of their adult life and ending up [61:23] at building a company or becoming an [61:24] investor was kind of like the the [61:26] logical end point of all these other [61:28] things. But you know I guess it's all to [61:30] say like I think there's actually value [61:32] in a lot of people who come to this [61:34] world a little bit later than you know [61:37] maybe some of the Zuckerbergs of the [61:38] world who you know had this one idea [61:40] when he was very very young and has been [61:42] will never do anything else. [61:44] >> Something just popped to my mind that [61:45] I'm very c personally curious about. So, [61:47] the same way that Josh Kushner goes to [61:48] Rick Rubin for like advice or counsel or [61:52] whatever you want to call that, do you [61:53] have anybody in your life that plays [61:55] that role for you? When I was growing up [61:58] and I was a little kid, it was my older [61:59] brother, uh, Josh. When I was in [62:04] college, it was my Russian professor [62:07] whose name was Natalya Shansky. I now [62:09] have a one-year-old daughter who's named [62:10] after her. She was the biggest person in [62:12] my life. And uh she was this kind of [62:15] very classically Soviet grandmotherly [62:18] woman who um was very good at pointing [62:22] out all of the ways that in which I was [62:25] an idiot and I was uh making bad [62:28] decisions and destroying my life and not [62:30] thinking about the future. And [62:31] >> wait, how old were you when you met her? [62:33] >> 18 years old. [62:34] >> And she had such a profound impact on [62:36] your life that you named your daughter [62:37] after her. [62:38] >> Yes. Yeah. I I mean the the basic story [62:41] there is I I did so badly in high school [62:44] Spanish that I could not place out of [62:46] the freshman year language requirement [62:48] that my college had. So I knew I was [62:50] going they were going to make me take a [62:51] language for a year. So I just decided [62:53] to pick the kind of weirdest sounding [62:55] thing that I could suffer through for [62:57] for two semesters. So I picked Russian. [63:00] It ended up completely changing my life. [63:02] I fell in love with it. It was my major. [63:04] I decided to spend a year and a half of [63:06] my four-year college experience living [63:08] and studying in Russia. And she I spoke [63:11] to, I think, every Sunday for the entire [63:13] year and a half that that I was there. [63:15] And then she unfortunately died a few [63:17] years later. But, you know, I think for [63:19] that whole kind of part of my early [63:22] adult life, she was definitely, you [63:24] know, she was my Rick Rubin figure. [63:26] >> What did you learn from her? [63:28] >> She thought people have a gift. This is [63:30] something I write about in the Scott Woo [63:31] piece that if people have a gift, then [63:34] they have an obligation to that gift. [63:37] And if they do not do everything in [63:39] their power to uh share and exploit that [63:43] gift, then they're actually [63:46] sinning against themselves and against [63:48] God uh in an important way. And I think [63:52] I was very fortunate that she saw [63:54] something in me and she thought that by [63:57] behaving and acting uh the way I did [64:01] that part of my life which involved too [64:04] much drinking and too much drugs and not [64:06] enough uh you know focusing on my work [64:10] and my future that I was not just being [64:13] an idiot but I was actually sinning [64:15] against my own future. And [64:17] >> that's [ __ ] incredible thing to tell [64:20] a young 18, 19, 20 year old kid with a [64:23] lot of potential, though. [64:24] >> It completely changed my life. And it it [64:26] it it changed how I think about other [64:29] people. I mean, I've never thought about [64:31] this before, but now that we're talking [64:33] about it, I think it's probably why I'm [64:36] interested in a lot of these people that [64:38] we've been talking about during this [64:39] conversation. And it's also just it's [64:42] now the lens that I can bring to the [64:45] people I meet, that I become friends [64:47] with, that I work with at Colossus. I [64:50] would say up until that point in my [64:51] life, it was the single biggest thing [64:52] that anyone did for me. [64:55] >> Did you keep in touch with her after [64:57] college? [64:58] >> I worked for a year after college and [64:59] then I joined the army. Um, which was [65:01] she she she was very very upset about. [65:03] >> Why? She had this, you know, her own [65:06] harrowing story about escaping the [65:07] Soviet Union, which took decades for her [65:10] to be able to do. She left just with her [65:13] like infant daughter, made it to [65:15] America. I think in her mind is you know [65:19] if you are born into circumstances of [65:22] safety and comfort then it's in you know [65:26] it's idiotic to choose something as kind [65:29] of physically risky and dangerous as [65:33] joining the military. It's like throwing [65:34] away the most precious thing that you [65:37] could have in life which you know I [65:40] think for her made a lot of sense and [65:42] for me it it didn't make sense at the [65:43] time and I was kind of searching for [65:46] something else. I joined at an [65:47] interesting time it was dur during the [65:50] late Obama administration during [65:52] sequestration which was kind of gutted [65:54] the defense department budget. One of [65:56] the consequences of that was when I [65:58] signed my contract to go to basic [66:00] training. You know, the way it [66:02] ordinarily works is like a couple days [66:03] or a couple weeks later, they ship you [66:05] off to basic training. But when I did [66:07] it, there were so few slots available [66:10] because so much of the funding had had [66:12] dried up that I had an 8-month period [66:14] between when I signed the contract and [66:16] when I actually went to to to boot camp. [66:18] And for those eight months, she and I [66:20] talked all the time. [66:23] And uh I still, you know, she she died [66:26] of uh of [snorts] Lou Garri's disease um [66:30] in 2015. So I I kept all of the [66:33] voicemails that she left me from that [66:35] period of time on my phone. And I still [66:37] have them. And I've uploaded them to [66:39] like various cloud accounts to make sure [66:41] like, you know, if one of these [66:42] companies implodes, then I don't end up [66:44] uh losing any of those those recordings. [66:47] Yeah, we kept in touch and I I wrote her [66:50] uh you know, in basic training they take [66:51] your phone away and you can only [66:53] communicate with the outside world still [66:55] by writing letters by hand. And so the [66:58] two people I wrote to were my girlfriend [67:00] at the time who's now my wife uh and and [67:02] and Natasha who was the person I kept in [67:05] in in contact with while I was there. I [67:08] love this idea of her like holding [67:10] somebody accountable like you have gifts [67:12] that are bigger than yourself and [67:14] [snorts] that utilizing them and [67:16] expressing those gifts is refusing to do [67:20] is sin but it's really like a a service [67:22] to society and other humans in the [67:24] world. But that thanks for sharing that [67:26] story. That was like freaking [67:27] incredible. One of the most incredible [67:29] things. I didn't even know that about [67:30] you. [67:30] >> I think about it all the time but uh [67:32] it's it's been a very very long time [67:34] since I've talked about it out loud. So, [67:36] a lot of it was new for me, too. [67:38] >> Really appreciate you taking the time to [67:39] do this. You're a real soulful dude. [67:40] Huge fan of your work. I hope every [67:42] single person listening goes and checks [67:44] out every single one of your profiles. [67:45] >> Thanks, David. [67:46] >> Thanks. [67:47] >> I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please [67:48] remember to subscribe wherever you're [67:50] listening and leave a review. And make [67:52] sure you listen to my other podcast, [67:53] Founders. For almost a decade, I've [67:55] obsessively read over 400 biographies of [67:58] history's greatest entrepreneurs, [67:59] searching for ideas that you can use in [68:01] your work. Most of the guests you hear [68:03] on this show first found me through [68:05] Founders.