0:00

Hey upstream listeners, today we're

0:02

re-releasing a conversation I had

0:05

last year with economist Tyler

0:07

Cowan when he released his book, Goat,

0:09

who is the greatest economist

0:11

of all time and why does it

0:14

matter? We discussed the book, talent

0:16

spotting, stagnation, fertility, AI, and more.

0:18

Please enjoy. Tyler,

0:34

the latest book is The Greatest Economist

0:36

of All Time, The Goat, welcome to

0:38

the podcast. Excited to chat again. Thank

0:40

you. Good to be here, Eric. Before we

0:42

get into it, what is your algorithm

0:44

for determining what to write? When you look

0:47

at the next few decades of your writing

0:49

career, I think you're over 30 books at

0:51

this point or something like that. How do

0:53

you think about what you just have a

0:55

big list of books you want to write?

0:57

Is it much more, you know, what at

0:59

a time? How do you think about that?

1:01

It's not rational. It is much fewer

1:03

than 30, though it's a fair number.

1:05

But this book has a specific story

1:07

that I was trapped at home during

1:10

the pandemic, couldn't travel, and

1:12

my libraries were closed. So

1:14

I thought, what's the thing I can work

1:16

on so I don't go crazy? And

1:18

to write about the great classics of

1:21

economics, which mostly I own or they're

1:23

online, you don't have to go anywhere.

1:25

That was the one project I could

1:27

do. So that's how it came about.

1:29

And I wasn't planning it at all, just

1:31

one day I woke up and well, I

1:33

want to do something. Yeah. Why does it

1:36

matter? That's part of the subtitle of your

1:38

book. Like even zooming out, when you think

1:40

about the impact that macro micro

1:42

micro has made, you know, we were

1:44

in a clubhouse a few years ago,

1:47

I was reviewing that conversation with Mark

1:49

Andreessen and we were talking about how.

1:51

you know, macro certainly hasn't been predictive

1:54

and you said it will likely never

1:56

be predictive. And so what is the

1:58

importance or what is is a

2:00

contribution to society that

2:02

understanding macro or contributes,

2:04

or macro, the field

2:07

within academic contributes? Well,

2:09

my book in particular, I take to be

2:11

a sequel to my talent book

2:13

with Daniel Gross. So here's case

2:15

studies of the very top economic

2:17

talents. What made them great? What

2:19

were the weaknesses? How do we

2:21

think about that? How can we

2:23

learn to appreciate them? So that's not

2:25

a gain from macro per se, but

2:27

you need to understand. macro to

2:30

evaluate these individuals. Now, if you're

2:32

looking at the global stage and

2:34

you want to figure out how

2:36

different economies will do, macro

2:39

has some uses. So for instance, we

2:41

were just both in Argentina at

2:43

the same time, and if someone

2:45

asks me the question, will Malay

2:47

succeed? I'm quite sure I can't

2:49

predict that. But I do have a

2:51

sense what variables it depends on, and

2:53

the notion that he needs to

2:56

raise about $30 billion to dollarize.

2:58

I understand how that works

3:00

because I understand macro. So there

3:02

is value to macro because Malay

3:04

understands macro. So far, he's done

3:06

some good things. He may or

3:08

may not continue on a good track.

3:10

So it is practical value, but

3:12

not for forecasting. Yeah. Just to

3:15

ask you to make a forecast, you did

3:17

just write a great post in Argentina.

3:19

If you had to guess what Malay's

3:21

legacy will be, what do you think?

3:24

What would you predict? My total seat

3:26

of the pants judgment is that

3:28

his chance of succeeding, even if

3:30

he does everything right, is somewhat below

3:32

50%. So his legacy is most

3:34

likely to be, here's the guy who came

3:37

in really knowing what needed to be

3:39

done, and he still failed because

3:41

the rest of the system wouldn't

3:43

cooperate. That said, I'm not a

3:45

total pessimist, and he has a good

3:47

chance of succeeding. If the other parties don't

3:49

just wake up and decide to pull

3:52

the plug on him, and send

3:54

him in their own country

3:56

to its doom, I think what

3:58

he's doing will work. Is there

4:00

an example of a president, the

4:02

different president of the last few

4:05

decades, who's been able to come

4:07

in and dismantle massive parts of

4:09

the administrative state or your sort

4:12

of bureaucratic machine? Well,

4:14

you mean only president's prime

4:16

ministers? Prime Ministers, yeah. Well,

4:18

New Zealand was a terribly status

4:20

country and they had a series

4:23

of governments, both labor party and

4:25

national party, that made it much

4:27

freer. I wouldn't say they dismantled.

4:29

the administrative state, and in

4:31

some ways they enabled it

4:33

to grow. But overall they moved

4:35

to much lighter and cleaner

4:37

regulation and better transparency, and the

4:40

country avoided bankruptcy because

4:42

of that. So that's one example.

4:44

Now the collapse of communism is

4:46

a more complicated story, but

4:48

there's definitely a kind of

4:50

regulation. They really did get rid of. Yeah.

4:53

Over the last few decades, has

4:55

the US become a more statist

4:57

or more libertarian? economy, or a

4:59

freer or more controlled? Well, the

5:01

economy is more controlled, obviously.

5:03

The American electorate has

5:05

shifted to the left. We redistribute

5:07

more income. We regulate much, much

5:10

more. The different layers of

5:12

regulation from federalism, they bite

5:14

more. But we're freer on many personal

5:16

issues, so we have gay marriage. And

5:19

if you do something with marijuana,

5:21

your chance of going to jail, I

5:23

guess it depends on the state, but

5:25

it's really very low. It might even

5:28

be legal or decriminalized. So a mix,

5:30

but in economics, not way more status.

5:32

I don't think that's disputable. Is

5:34

that true also in academia? Has

5:37

academic economists moved more to the

5:39

left as well? Because the academics

5:41

in general, I have a colleague

5:43

Daniel Klein who works on measuring

5:46

this, and I don't have his

5:48

numbers on the tip of my tongue, but there

5:50

are just very few right leaning

5:53

academics left, and a lot of them

5:55

are quite old. or not that

5:57

active, if you look at the

5:59

flow. It's a pretty grim picture.

6:01

And even to be centrist makes

6:04

you a right-winger in today's academic

6:06

world. In economics too, because libertarians

6:08

like to celebrate and say, hey,

6:11

I know we haven't won any

6:13

sort of formal political battles, but

6:15

they like to say that they've

6:17

won the war of ideas in

6:20

popularizing free market, ideas among

6:22

smart people. Is that cope? Or

6:24

meaning, is that untrue? Economics is

6:26

the sayenest field, but last I looked.

6:29

It's something like five-sixth

6:31

of economists with party

6:33

affiliations or Democrats. They tend

6:36

to be more conservative

6:38

or market-leaning Democrats. But on

6:40

a lot of issues, trade and

6:43

protection is a minimum wage,

6:45

yes, economists have shifted to

6:47

the left. Yeah. So you outlined here

6:49

in the book, I believe six economists

6:51

that you focus on. Why don't you

6:53

just as a survey of people who

6:56

haven't yet yet died into it? Give

6:58

a brief survey of who are the

7:00

economists that you you know attribute to

7:02

a tie of the greatest of all

7:04

time and what were their main sort

7:07

of contributions to take on your thought. Sure,

7:09

but let me first say the book is

7:11

online and it's free. So if you want

7:13

to read it you can just Google to

7:15

it Google Tyler Cowan goat, GOAT, GOAT.

7:17

You have a great GPT. Yeah. It comes

7:19

with an AI GPT four linked bot. which

7:22

will answer questions about the book,

7:24

you can just read it on your Kindle

7:26

or printed out. But if you just

7:29

want to ask GPT, summarize Chapter 3.

7:31

I don't want to read about Keynes,

7:33

it'll do it. But anyway, the figures

7:35

I cover are Milton Friedman, John

7:38

Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, John

7:40

Stewart Mill, Thomas Robert Malthus,

7:42

and of course, Adam Smith.

7:44

They're the contenders. Who are

7:47

the audible mentions? Paul Samuelson.

7:49

Kenneth Arrow, who are both

7:51

uncles of Larry Summers, by

7:53

the way, Joseph Shumpertur, Alfred

7:56

Marshall, Gary Becker, who

7:58

are like very strong. you know,

8:00

top 10 or top 12 figures, but I

8:02

don't think they're really in the running

8:05

to be number one. And where

8:07

do you think your list, I

8:09

saw you did an episode with

8:11

the market monotrists, I forget, which

8:13

macromusings, where does your list differ

8:15

from your peers in terms of,

8:17

you know, where do you think

8:19

they're more likely to feel differently?

8:22

It depends who you take as

8:24

my peers, but if you took kind

8:26

of median economists at top

8:28

30 schools, I don't think

8:30

they would deviate far from my

8:32

list. They probably wouldn't put malthus

8:35

on it, or maybe they wouldn't put mill

8:37

on it, and they might have Samuelson an

8:39

arrow a bit higher. But I don't think

8:41

I'm far from a consensus in

8:43

whom I'm considering. Now Scott Sumner,

8:45

speaking of market moniturists, he

8:47

wrote a post on the greatest

8:50

monetary economists, and he said they

8:52

are David Hume, Milton Friedman,

8:54

Friedman, and Irving, and Irving, and

8:56

Irving, with Scott on that. Those are

8:58

the greatest monetary

9:00

economists. What's Hume's contribution

9:03

there? He was first, for one

9:05

thing. He understood why mercantilism

9:07

was wrong. He outlined the

9:10

quantity theory of money and

9:12

what causes inflation. And he

9:14

had a very good understanding

9:16

of how inflation moves through

9:18

an economic system. All in

9:20

clear, beautiful prose. I think

9:22

it was published in 1752, but

9:24

written sometime before then. And Hume

9:27

was one of the smartest

9:29

people ever, maybe the smartest,

9:31

and in economics too. He's amazing.

9:33

And my sense is that 100 years

9:35

from now, if we're talking about the

9:37

best philosophers of all time, that most

9:40

of that list will still be the

9:42

same from today, that we look back

9:44

for, let me know if you think

9:46

that's incorrect. I'm curious, yeah, I'm curious in

9:49

economics, if we look out 100 years

9:51

from now, how many... Are we going

9:53

to have new economists that come up?

9:55

Or is it also going to be

9:57

sort of a sort of, you know,

10:00

old field like philosophy. I don't

10:02

think it will change much. I

10:04

think Malthus is the candidate who

10:06

might be revalued. So if we

10:08

do collapse due to environmental problems,

10:10

which is not my prediction, not

10:13

my view, but it's possible, right,

10:15

then I think Malthus will really

10:17

rise in people's estimations. And

10:19

if we don't collapse, he'll

10:21

probably fall somewhat more. The others

10:24

will keep their posts of honor,

10:26

so to speak. Yeah. Well on

10:28

the Malthus question. That feels to

10:30

have resurfaced in light of AI

10:33

safety, resurfaced in different ways, this

10:35

idea of how much growth can

10:37

we have. The guy wrote the

10:40

book's scale, I can't remember, Jeffrey

10:42

West, he quoted in the book,

10:45

maybe quoted someone else, this quote

10:47

that said, the only people that

10:49

think exponential growth is possible are

10:52

idiots and economists. And I remember

10:54

asking you that a few years

10:56

ago, and you said, kind of glibly

10:59

I think something like you you're half

11:01

joking I think like I'll take 700

11:03

years of great growth you know at

11:05

some point maybe you know we'll be

11:08

unable to handle it. What are your

11:10

thoughts on sort of like runaway growth

11:12

and how should we think about you

11:14

know our potential ability to

11:17

handle it or not handle it?

11:19

Well economic growth brings dematerialization

11:21

right so we can do

11:23

more using less water using

11:26

less land using less material

11:28

resources. So there's not some

11:30

inexorable logic where the material pressure

11:33

on the earth just causes it all

11:35

to explode or run out of

11:37

everything. On that I'm quite optimistic,

11:39

as are most economists.

11:41

My main worry, which I've had for a

11:43

long time, is simply that as

11:46

energy becomes cheaper, not intelligence,

11:48

but energy, it will at

11:50

some distant point be too easy

11:52

for someone to build by something

11:54

like a nuclear weapon. and just set

11:56

it off, and that may lead to the collapse

11:58

of order in the world. Say you could

12:00

set off something like a

12:02

nuclear weapon for $50,000. What would

12:04

the world look like? I don't know.

12:07

I just don't think that's stable

12:09

forever. And that's my biggest

12:12

fear for the future. Our mutual

12:14

friend Nathan LeBens, he equates

12:16

or makes analogies between AI

12:18

and nuclear. He says we

12:20

wouldn't open source nuclear codes

12:22

or sort of, you know,

12:25

bio weapons. AI is going to get

12:27

that good, why would we think

12:29

about open sourcing something that is

12:32

so potentially dangerous? Are

12:34

you sympathetic to that instinct? I

12:36

would reframe it. I would say some

12:38

of the cats are already out of

12:41

the bag, and we have to decide,

12:43

do we have to deal with our

12:45

problems through Chinese AI or American

12:48

AI? And on that, my choice is clear.

12:50

So I think he just has a

12:52

quite wrong starting point for the

12:55

question. I don't think it will necessarily

12:57

be easy. I'm not worried about

12:59

the Ilea's scenario where it just

13:01

kills us all. I just think any

13:03

technology that's super dynamic is

13:05

also disruptive, and yet

13:07

we have all these institutions geared

13:10

around stasis, including our politics.

13:12

And again, it's an open question

13:14

how well that's going to go. But

13:16

I would still rather confront

13:18

it with more intelligence than

13:20

less intelligence. That relates to

13:23

another topic that we discussed

13:25

the other week, which was

13:27

fertility and underpopulation, the population,

13:30

sort of demographic collapse.

13:32

My AI friends in San Francisco

13:34

will say, don't worry about that,

13:37

because the losses that you're forecasting

13:39

as a result of a lower

13:41

population will be offset by the

13:43

gains in productivity that AI will

13:46

bring. And in fact, If we have

13:48

too many people, we won't have enough things

13:50

for them. Although that you could make that

13:52

claim doesn't need to be part of

13:54

that argument for it to make sense. Do

13:57

you do you sympathize with that? The

13:59

implication is that's. we shouldn't worry

14:01

about population as much

14:03

because AI will take care of

14:05

it. Elon is right. I mean,

14:08

I'm optimistic about AI on the whole,

14:10

but you need people around to enjoy

14:12

what the AI will do for us.

14:14

So if South Korea has 17

14:16

people, an awesome AI, and those

14:19

17 only average half a kid,

14:21

they're done. Doesn't matter how

14:23

good the AI is. Now my hope, which

14:25

I'm, again, I'm not sure. I hold

14:27

this as a prediction, but if

14:30

AI raises productivity enough, we

14:32

can subsidize people having kids

14:35

to the tune of like three

14:37

or four hundred thousand dollars

14:39

per kid. And a subsidy that

14:41

large, I do think, would matter.

14:43

Maybe something like robots

14:45

or certain devices would make

14:47

rearing a child easier also. But

14:49

you just can't have a

14:52

shrinking population for too long.

14:54

We'll continue our interview in a moment

14:56

after a word from our sponsors. Even if

14:58

you think it's a bit overhyped, AI

15:00

is suddenly everywhere, from self-driving

15:03

cars to molecular medicine to business

15:05

efficiency. If it's not in your

15:07

industry yet, it's coming fast. But

15:09

AI needs a lot of speed

15:11

and computing power. So how do

15:13

you compete without costs spiraling out

15:15

of control? Time to upgrade to

15:17

the next generation of the cloud.

15:19

Oracle cloud infrastructure or OCI. OSI

15:21

is a blazing fast and secure

15:23

platform for your infrastructure, database, application

15:25

development, plus all your AI and

15:27

machine learning workloads. OSI cost 50%

15:29

less for compute and 80% less

15:31

for networking. So you're saving a

15:33

pile of money. Thousands of businesses

15:36

have already upgraded to OSI, including

15:38

Botafone, Thompson Reuters, and Suno AI.

15:40

Right now, Oracle is offering to

15:42

cut your current cloud bill in

15:44

half if you move to OSI

15:47

for new US customers with minimum

15:49

financial commitment. Offer ends March 31.

15:51

March 31. See if your company

15:53

qualifies for this special offer at

15:55

Oracle.com/Turpentine. That's Oracle.com/ Turpentine. Most

16:03

of you probably know how much the

16:05

turpentine team loves notion. The sponsor of

16:07

today's episode. We use it every day

16:09

for editorial planning, transcript markups, project managing,

16:11

knowledge sharing, and it's where I drop

16:13

random 3 AM ideas that turn into

16:15

episodes. Now it has the power of

16:17

AI, built right inside of notion and

16:19

woven across our entire workspace. It's been

16:21

a total game changer for our productivity

16:23

and focus. We just used it the

16:25

other day to architect the content

16:27

schedule for next month across our

16:30

network. Notion combines your notes, docs,

16:32

and projects into one space that's

16:34

simple and beautifully designed. The fully

16:36

integrated Notion AI helps you work

16:38

faster, write better, and think bigger.

16:40

Doing tasks that normally take you

16:42

hours in just seconds. Try Notion

16:45

for free when you go to

16:47

Notion.com/Upstream pod. That's all lower case

16:49

letters. Notion.com/Upstream pod. To try the

16:51

powerful, easy to use Notion AI

16:53

today. And when you use our

16:55

link, you're supporting our Show. Upstream

16:57

pod. We

17:01

talked about also how there have been

17:03

no policies that have seemed to make

17:06

a difference. The one idea I had

17:08

since then is what if there was

17:10

an equivalent of a DUI, but for

17:12

people who've had kids, i.e. in

17:14

order to progress in your career

17:16

or rise up within a company,

17:18

you have to have two kids.

17:21

Or kind of your preferential access

17:23

if you have that. Do you

17:25

think that could? Because we don't

17:27

just want to encourage anybody to

17:29

have kids who want to encourage

17:31

that. you know, most driving, you

17:33

know, most intelligent, most impressive people

17:35

as well. I would think that's hard

17:37

to enforce. There's going to be

17:40

plenty of exceptions. And a

17:42

simple cash subsidy appeals to my

17:44

background as an economist. But

17:46

whether it's a mandate or a subsidy, you

17:48

have to pay for it in some manner.

17:50

Yeah. So I think there's a race to find

17:52

a way to pay for it. And that's

17:55

one reason why just turning our back on

17:57

AI is not an option. Because it's

17:59

by far. the best chance we have of

18:01

being able to afford a lot

18:03

of other protections we're going to

18:06

need. Asteroid defense, whatever other

18:08

problems you think are there, just

18:10

having a more productive Walmart is not

18:13

going to pay for it. Yeah,

18:15

it is interesting. If we would have

18:17

said, you know, 20 years ago, 30

18:19

years ago, if we would have said,

18:21

hey, our goal is to have more

18:24

Latinos. Yeah, as a half Latino, I'll

18:26

use my example in represented in Big

18:28

Tech or something, we could have said,

18:30

hey, we should just, you know, give

18:33

Big Tech companies a subsidy. Or we

18:35

could have said, hey, let's put all

18:37

sort of cultural pressures on them in

18:39

order to do so. And it feels

18:42

like the cultural pressures, I guess, plus

18:44

some legal, you know, sort of civil

18:46

rights laws as well, sort of

18:48

emboldening those culture pressures. It feels

18:50

like those worked. Feel free to

18:52

let me know if you don't

18:54

agree with that characterization. But I

18:56

wonder if cultural pressures are underrated

18:58

as a force to encourage people

19:00

to do things. Well, cultural pressures

19:02

to have more kids. I do

19:05

see them coming back. That if someone

19:07

is somewhat well off, to me,

19:09

anecdotally, it seems much higher status

19:11

to have four kids now than it

19:13

did 10 years ago. That may not

19:16

be enough people to change matters.

19:18

But keep in mind, there's this

19:20

other evolutionary element of the

19:22

system that cultures that encourage

19:25

childbearing, Amish is the extreme

19:27

example, they will become

19:29

more important. as other people don't

19:32

have kids. If you think there's

19:34

something about East Asian culture

19:36

where people have especially low fertility,

19:38

well that will become less influential.

19:41

So that might work in our

19:43

favor, just a numbers game, through

19:45

social evolution. Again, I'm not

19:47

sure that's strong enough to overturn

19:49

it because it seems almost every

19:52

culture is headed for below 2.0.

19:54

And you actually need a bit higher

19:56

than 2.0 to maintain a population.

19:58

Except Israel. What can we

20:00

learn from, what can other countries learn

20:03

from, from Israel's situation? Some

20:05

of it is religion, but

20:07

even secular Israelis and Tel

20:09

Aviv, I believe, are above two. It

20:11

may be the sense of being threatened and

20:14

beleaguered, that if we don't have

20:16

children, like there won't be an Israel

20:18

at some point, an acute awareness of

20:20

numbers. So I think every Israeli

20:22

knows how many Jews were killed in

20:25

the Holocaust, and so if how many Jews

20:27

were back then, how many there are now.

20:29

It's too high a price to pay

20:31

for an awareness of numbers, but

20:33

that may be where it comes

20:36

from. Yeah. Are you with Robin

20:38

Hansen that we are likely

20:40

to have a dark age

20:42

as a result of global

20:44

population collapse? Or how bad

20:46

is this going to get? No,

20:48

I think AI has quite a good

20:50

chance of limiting or for stalling

20:53

or preventing that dark

20:55

age that the big gains will

20:57

arrive in time. But there's still

20:59

the stark age if there are

21:01

not many people around to enjoy

21:03

it. So in that sense, Robert

21:05

is broadly correct, but narrowly, I

21:08

would say incorrect. He thinks

21:10

when you have shrinking population,

21:12

just tech progress stops. That's

21:14

an interesting hypothesis, but

21:17

I don't think it's obviously

21:19

true, because you have more

21:21

brains through AI working for you. Why

21:23

don't you think there are more people

21:25

sort of... interested in

21:27

this or obsessed with this? We

21:29

had some hypotheses in our conversation,

21:32

but given sort of the scope

21:34

of this problem and the sort

21:36

of ambition of what it would

21:38

take to fix it, wouldn't it

21:40

make sense that we would have more

21:43

brilliant people focused on it? Why

21:45

don't you think that is? Well,

21:47

an awful lot of potential grandparents are

21:49

focused on it, right? And that's

21:51

a big chunk of America. and

21:54

a lot of smart people are

21:56

focused on it but they're afraid

21:58

to speak up in public. society

22:00

it's a little difficult to talk

22:02

about because it sounds at least

22:05

like you're suggesting women

22:07

should deprioritize career and

22:09

prioritize having three or four

22:11

children and that's just not a

22:14

popular thing to say or even hint

22:16

at. So the discourse is stunted

22:18

but I think Elon has really

22:20

shifted the Overton window as have

22:22

a number of other people and

22:24

there's so many potential or

22:27

current grandparents out there would

22:29

be parents. It's not going to

22:31

go away. So by focusing, I don't

22:34

just mean have have more than two

22:36

kids. I mean, identify the

22:38

bottlenecks, or whether they be reproductive

22:40

technology, whether they be child care,

22:42

whether they be housing, whatever it's

22:45

none of those. I know all

22:47

the imbies will make things cheaper.

22:49

Yeah. You know, I'm all for yimbi

22:52

and making things cheaper. But South

22:54

Korea is a super yimbi countries.

22:56

And there is 0.7. Japan is

22:58

a MB country. They're at 1.3.

23:00

I think the main bottleneck

23:03

is that to most people kids

23:05

aren't that much fun. And that's

23:07

a really tough bottleneck to

23:10

overcome. And women often are

23:12

the ones who have to put in

23:14

more work and who have a greater

23:16

say in the matter. So yeah, the

23:18

opportunity cost of women is too

23:21

high. So what you're saying is

23:23

the economics. If you paid people

23:25

$300, $300,000. lower the opportunity, you

23:27

know, that would increase the gains.

23:29

I also wonder if it would increase

23:31

the status somehow, or if there's a

23:33

way to increase the status where it

23:35

almost feels like you're not making a

23:37

tradeoff between career and mother, because mother

23:40

is a career that is both remunerative

23:42

and respected. That's right. We would

23:44

do that, but you know, there are

23:46

negative historical associations. So the Nazis

23:48

made a big point of paying people to

23:50

have kids and raising its status, and

23:52

that was part of something really

23:55

extremely unpleasant. And you might say,

23:57

well, there's some intrinsic reason

23:59

why. having the government pay for

24:02

kids and raise the status

24:04

of kids will lead to other bad

24:06

views. I don't think that's the

24:08

case, but again I don't dismiss

24:10

that argument. It is possibly

24:12

true and that maybe in

24:14

a lot of ways you don't

24:17

want to reverse the feminization of

24:19

society because it is more peaceful

24:21

and less fascistic in some

24:23

ways. So I don't dismiss that

24:26

argument. So like I've never made

24:28

it my personal mission. to go around

24:30

saying, oh, we need to like pay

24:32

400K for a kid. Because it's

24:35

very hard to foresee all

24:37

the levers and pulleys and

24:39

what you're really doing. But

24:41

I'll just say, you know, sort of

24:43

predictably, the societies that

24:46

do something like that will

24:48

in numbers outper the

24:50

societies that don't. Yeah. A

24:52

female friend who was talking to

24:54

about this, one thing that she

24:56

said, she loves the idea of

24:58

having kids. but she's more motivated

25:00

in her career. One of the

25:02

reasons is because she feels like

25:04

she can really differentiate in her

25:07

career. She can become the best

25:09

in the world at something and

25:11

really prove herself and gain sort

25:13

of respect from that. Where she

25:15

feels as a mother, she would

25:17

be kind of like everyone else.

25:19

It doesn't feel that there's distinct

25:21

ways to differentiate or become exceptional

25:23

in public societal recognized ways. So

25:25

then I said, well, if you have

25:27

20 kids, that would be exception. But

25:30

I didn't actually say that. But look,

25:32

as a mother or father, you are

25:34

truly exceptional to your own children, right?

25:36

There's no doubt about that. The question

25:39

is, how much is that worth to you? And

25:41

that gets into these deep cultural

25:44

issues about choice of audience.

25:46

And it does seem there's

25:48

something about the contemporary world that

25:50

gives you such a portfolio range of

25:52

choice of audience. And kids are still

25:54

there, but they've always been

25:57

there, and they're just another

25:59

possible audience. And they're

26:01

not necessarily winning out. Yeah.

26:03

If you were ahead of X-risk,

26:05

and you were given a

26:07

massive budget, where would sort

26:09

of population collapse be on

26:11

your priority list? Or what would

26:14

be, how would you kind of

26:16

pie chart your priority list if

26:18

you were ahead of existential risk

26:20

planning? Well, I don't think

26:22

it's a problem you solve well

26:25

by spending lots of money. So

26:27

I would in general. as I would for

26:29

a lot of problems and X-risk

26:31

problems, cultivate a lot of talent.

26:34

You don't know what your X-risk is

26:36

going to be, typically. Everyone thinks

26:38

they know. And I have my own

26:40

hypothesis about very cheap, very

26:42

powerful weapons. But if you don't know

26:45

in advance, you want to make these

26:47

very general investments. And in fact,

26:49

the work I do is geared

26:51

toward that end. So in a sense, I

26:53

do had a kind of X-risk fund. It

26:55

doesn't think of it. Yeah,

26:58

emergent ventures, it doesn't focus

27:00

on X-risk, but under the

27:03

surface it believes that a lot

27:05

of general talent being

27:07

mobilized is what's going to

27:09

do the trick. Yeah. So I

27:12

understand sort of fast grants

27:14

and how that ties to

27:16

it. Say more on emergent

27:18

ventures in terms of. your algorithm

27:20

for picking people and how you

27:22

think it ties to it? Because

27:24

my read from the outside in

27:26

is that you pick a number

27:28

of people are almost kind

27:31

of like mini Tyler's in

27:33

that they're very strong generalists,

27:35

you know, exceptionally curious, very

27:38

creative, very knowledgeable. Is

27:40

that too crude or how do

27:42

you think about your your algorithm

27:44

for what you're trying to do

27:46

with merchant ventures? Well, many

27:48

more of the winners are

27:50

specialists than generalists, but I think

27:52

given who and what you are, the

27:55

generalists are the ones you hear about

27:57

and read about. Just today, I made

27:59

an... to a 15-year-old young woman in

28:01

Canada who wants to study how

28:04

to make batteries last longer for

28:06

a variety of reasons, which are

28:08

mostly obvious. And she's extraordinarily impressive

28:10

whether she ends up working on

28:12

batteries. I wouldn't say I don't

28:14

care, but it's not an investment

28:16

in batteries. It's an investment in

28:19

her. She's an extraordinary writer, thinker,

28:21

full of energy. engages with a

28:23

lot of other very smart young

28:25

people. It just seemed obvious to

28:27

me we should make an award.

28:29

I wouldn't call that an algorithm.

28:31

This is some number of people

28:34

where it seems obvious to me

28:36

we should make them an award.

28:38

We now have over 500 winners,

28:40

noting that Shrudi and Rashid Griffith,

28:42

you know, do India and Africa

28:44

respectively. I do the rest of

28:46

the world. Yeah. So I see

28:49

how the battery technology present, but...

28:51

When you pick someone who's working

28:53

on some sort of liberal arts

28:55

thing, like how do you justify

28:57

that? Or like, what is the

28:59

scope of emergent ventures? If you

29:01

saw someone who was doing something

29:03

interesting in basketball analytics, would that

29:06

be, you personally found it interesting,

29:08

but would that be outside of

29:10

the scope of who wins? How

29:12

do you think about that? I

29:14

don't think it's outside of the

29:16

scope. I would be interested in

29:18

whether they work to draw broader

29:21

lessons from basketball analytics. I could

29:23

imagine supporting that. There's one woman

29:25

we supported, her original emphasis, which

29:27

she still does by the way,

29:29

and it's very good, but to

29:31

compose contemporary music and Azerbaijani traditions,

29:33

which is like beyond niche. Her

29:36

music is excellent. She's actually ended

29:38

up becoming an important figure in

29:40

the medicine science movement, super smart,

29:42

great work ethic. and will do

29:44

great things in both areas. Now

29:46

I had not at all foreseen,

29:48

she would end up working on

29:51

medicines in a significant way. but

29:53

I mean there you go so

29:55

I mean you know how venture

29:57

capital works you take a lot

29:59

of chances yet you've got to

30:01

look for things other people are

30:03

not looking for or what's the

30:05

point you can always find people

30:08

on the rise and fund them

30:10

and both that you are responsible

30:12

for it but that's a waste

30:14

of time like I'm not paid

30:16

to do this so I really

30:18

want to pick the people who

30:20

will have a marginal impact right

30:23

yeah the venture capital works is

30:25

Exactly described, but the result is

30:27

clear, the scoreboard is clear. They

30:29

either have a return or they

30:31

don't, whereas for what you're doing,

30:33

the return is a bit more

30:35

subjective, right? We need more non-legibility

30:38

in modern society is one of

30:40

my strongly held beliefs. And emergent

30:42

ventures is designed not to be

30:44

fully legible. Like does the person

30:46

believe passionately in what they're doing?

30:48

Like it probably can't be a

30:50

hair salon in Dayton, Ohio, but

30:53

an awful lot of different things

30:55

are eligible. Why do we need

30:57

more knowledgeability? What does that bring?

30:59

Well, so many different institutions are

31:01

being bureaucratized, right? So there's committees,

31:03

there's boards, there's letters of recommendation,

31:05

there's credentials, all mattering more and

31:07

more, too much. And someone who

31:10

wants either like a small grant

31:12

or something that's hard to explain

31:14

or justified to a committee. They're

31:16

the cases where maybe, I think,

31:18

my marginal return is highest. So

31:20

I'm attracted to those quite often.

31:22

The 15-year-old young woman, there's no

31:25

way she can just apply to

31:27

a foundation and sort of get

31:29

through the process for what is,

31:31

you know, a small grant and

31:33

part of it is the networking

31:35

opportunity and inspiration and chance to

31:37

consult with different people. And that's

31:40

what we're trying to provide. Yeah,

31:42

speaking of bureaucratization and you know

31:44

and ministrification, let's talk about Harvard

31:46

is what's happening at Harvard, a

31:48

sort of watershed moment for the

31:50

institution? Or is it kind of

31:52

new person, same, same, it feels

31:55

like Bill Ackman is conducting an

31:57

activist campaign to take over Harvard

31:59

in a similar way that Elon

32:01

maybe did to take over Twitter?

32:03

It turned out easier to take

32:05

over Twitter than then start a

32:07

new one, and it's really hard

32:09

to start a new Harvard. No

32:12

one has been able to do

32:14

anything like it in the last

32:16

few. you know, a few decades

32:18

maybe 100 years. Yeah, more than

32:20

a few decades. I think Harvard

32:22

will shift to the center and

32:24

change marginally and the next president

32:27

will be quite a safe choice,

32:29

probably too safe a choice, and

32:31

the worst outrages will slowly be

32:33

purged or downplayed, but Harvard will

32:35

not fundamentally change. And it's never

32:37

been fair or meritocratic. Now today

32:39

it's unfair and non-meritocratic. in quite

32:42

new and different ways, which many

32:44

people hate. And I'm not myself

32:46

fond of them. But don't be

32:48

too shocked. There's no idealized Harvard

32:50

in the background that we've strayed

32:52

from. So it was not designed

32:54

to be fair and meritocratic, and

32:57

it will continue to be Harvard.

32:59

So the Harvard of 2023 is

33:01

not that significantly different from the

33:03

Harvard of different decades in terms

33:05

of this idea of like pursuit

33:07

of truth people there are doing

33:09

real work that matters Well many

33:11

departments are better in that regard

33:14

than they used to be Maybe

33:16

not all of the humanities, but

33:18

a lot of the sciences are

33:20

much stronger and there's more funding

33:22

and stronger checks and better networking

33:24

So significant parts of Harvard have

33:26

never been better than they are

33:29

today It's important to realize that.

33:31

But within the administration, there's so

33:33

much rot and bad ideology and

33:35

lack of accountability and clueless people

33:37

living in bubbles, maybe even in

33:39

some cases having personality disorders. That

33:41

it's not very functional at some

33:44

of the macro levels. Yeah. Our

33:46

friend Mark Andreessen is famously much

33:48

more negative on the state of

33:50

current higher education. You know, we're

33:52

using Harvard as kind of a

33:54

placeholder for the elite education. But

33:56

even in the even in the

33:59

hard sciences, he thinks a lot

34:01

of it has been either politically

34:03

corrupted or or more just like

34:05

non reproducible or just. you know,

34:07

majority of what people are producing

34:09

doesn't, isn't real, doesn't matter. That's

34:11

always been the case. I would

34:13

stress that a lot of the

34:16

tech excitements that markets excited about

34:18

are in fact downstream of universities.

34:20

Even still, or like, I know,

34:22

maybe more. Got it. So when

34:24

you, when we look at the

34:26

future of higher education, let's say

34:28

we're having this conversation 40 years

34:31

from now, do we think that

34:33

higher education is going to look

34:35

pretty similar to how it does

34:37

today in the sense that there

34:39

will be Harvard there will be

34:41

Stanford there will be the major

34:43

players that exist will be the

34:46

ones that already exist and the

34:48

experience is not going to be

34:50

that different or how do we

34:52

think the experience will be quite

34:54

different I would still bet on

34:56

those to be the top schools

34:58

I think AI will change higher

35:01

education a great deal whether higher

35:03

ed likes it or not just

35:05

as the internet has changed it

35:07

a great deal So I'm not

35:09

predicting stasis. And I do think

35:11

at least half of these top

35:13

schools have truly terribly macro-level dysfunctional

35:15

administration in a way where something

35:18

does have to give. So the

35:20

critics are not wrong when they

35:22

talk about rot. But if they

35:24

think just like the quality of

35:26

what's coming out of MIT Stanford

35:28

Harvard is junk, it's just simply

35:30

not true. Again, you might think

35:33

it's true in some number of

35:35

fields. the less scientific ones, but

35:37

it's just flat out not true.

35:39

It's not true in economics. Smart

35:41

people still want to go to

35:43

those places. It's not true for

35:45

biomedicine. All the vaccines and other

35:48

innovations we're getting, largely downstream of

35:50

universities. We'll continue our interview in

35:52

a moment after a word from

35:54

our sponsors. Every time I hop

35:56

on the 101 freeway in SF,

35:58

I look up at the various

36:00

tech billboards and think, damn, turpentine

36:02

should definitely be up there. And

36:05

I bet I'm not alone. In

36:07

a world of endless scrolling and

36:09

ad blockers, sometimes the most powerful

36:11

way to reach people is in

36:13

the real world. That's where Adquic

36:15

comes in. The easiest way to

36:17

book out-of-home ads, like billboards, vehicle

36:20

wraps, and airport displays, the same

36:22

way you would order an Uber.

36:24

Started by Instacard Alums, Adquic was

36:26

born from their own personal struggles,

36:28

to book and measure ad success.

36:30

Adquix audience targeting, campaign management, and

36:32

analytics, bringing the precision and efficiency

36:35

of digital to the real world.

36:37

Ready to get your brand the

36:39

attention it deserves? Visit adquick.com today

36:41

to start reaching your customers in

36:43

the real world. Again, that's AD,

36:45

QUICK.com. Hey everyone, Eric here. In

36:47

this environment, founders need to become

36:50

profitable faster and do more with

36:52

smaller teams, especially when it comes

36:54

to engineering. That's why Sean Lanahan

36:56

started squad. A specialized global talent

36:58

firm for top engineers that will

37:00

seamlessly integrate with your org. Squad

37:02

offers rigorously vetted top 1% talent

37:04

that will actually work hard for

37:07

you every day. Their engineers work

37:09

in your time zone, follow your

37:11

processes, and use your tools. Squad

37:13

has front-end engineers, excelling in typescript,

37:15

react, and NextGS, ready to onboard

37:17

to your team today. For back-end,

37:19

Squad engineers are experts at NojS,

37:22

Python, Python, Java, and a range

37:24

of other languages and frameworks. While

37:26

it may cost more than the

37:28

freelancer on Upwork billing you for

37:30

40 hours, but working only two,

37:32

Squad offers premium quality at a

37:34

fraction of the typical cost, without

37:37

the headache of assessing for skills

37:39

and culture fit. Squad takes care

37:41

of sourcing, legal compliance. and local

37:43

HR for global talent. Increase your

37:45

velocity without amping up burn. Visit

37:47

choose squad.com and mention turpentine to

37:49

skip the wait list. Would you

37:52

agree that Elon taking over Twitter

37:54

has had a massive culture shift?

37:56

Absolutely, and positive. I think he

37:58

just had the stones to say,

38:00

I'm willing to lose, what, 30

38:02

billion? I don't know the number,

38:04

30 billion. Whatever hell end up

38:06

losing. What he paid 44 billion,

38:09

it'll be worth something. willing to

38:11

lose 30 billion to steer this

38:13

beast in one direction because he

38:15

understood how much is downstream of

38:17

Twitter and it was brilliant and

38:19

for all the critics he's basically

38:21

pulling it off of course he's

38:24

going to lose the money though

38:26

yeah is is that possible could

38:28

something similar happened to Harvard well

38:30

you can't buy Harvard so someone

38:32

could in some sneaky way try

38:34

to take over the board of

38:36

directors I don't know what their

38:39

bylaws are like Typically that's very

38:41

very hard and I would be

38:43

very surprised if that were a

38:45

realistic option Have you been following

38:47

Bill Ackman's Twitter? He's of course

38:49

He's been extraordinarily effective, but I

38:51

think he will find it much

38:54

harder to get broader reform than

38:56

to get a few scalps Yeah,

38:58

I'm very glad he did what

39:00

he did my kudos to him

39:02

But at some point you just

39:04

have systems filled with people of

39:06

particular points of view, and they

39:08

have tenure, I just don't see

39:11

how that budgets. There's this narrative

39:13

some people have where they basically

39:15

say that the US is so

39:17

much of downstream, you mentioned of

39:19

Twitter, but also, but between academia,

39:21

you know, between Harvard, the New

39:23

York Times, and government, there's what

39:26

some people call the cathedral, this

39:28

gated institutional complex, the sort of

39:30

like web of relationships and kind

39:32

of self reinforcing. kind of power

39:34

generators. I'm using pretty like vague

39:36

terms, but you You kind of

39:38

get what I'm getting at. Sure,

39:41

of course. You agree with that

39:43

sort of narrative? Like, what would

39:45

be the, if someone were able

39:47

to take over Harvard, would it

39:49

have a similar culture shift to

39:51

what Elon has done for Twitter?

39:53

I don't think so, because you're

39:56

not changing the research that's done,

39:58

what's taught in the classroom. So

40:00

I think the people who talk

40:02

about the cathedral, in general, they

40:04

underrate the quality of the establishment.

40:06

They underrate the degree of dissent

40:08

within the establishment, and they underrate

40:10

the degree to which the establishment

40:13

can reform itself. And to think

40:15

that the outsiders will nudge the

40:17

establishment in a better direction, and

40:19

some of them will become part

40:21

of it, and will muddle through,

40:23

and a lot of things will

40:25

continue, is to me by far

40:28

the best bet. Yeah. It's interesting,

40:30

right now as we're communicating, Richard

40:32

Anania and Bronze Age pervert. are

40:34

getting in a feud on the

40:36

internet about sort of this. And

40:38

if people don't know who those

40:40

are, God bless you, these are,

40:43

you know, sort of Twitter, public

40:45

intellectuals on the right. Richmond is

40:47

a part of a merchant and,

40:49

you know, an emergent winner and

40:51

his fascinating thinker and broad age

40:53

pervert is a, you know, Yale

40:55

PhD philosopher turned a non, you

40:58

know, book author and Twitter personality,

41:00

and they are getting in an

41:02

argument over how to explain to

41:04

the public why there are differences

41:06

in outcomes among people's. And the

41:08

reason we're having that conversation is

41:10

because DEA is kind of being

41:12

questioned in a way that it

41:15

hasn't been questioned for a long

41:17

time because it was happening at

41:19

Harvard. the logic that some people

41:21

say is Amy Wax is proposing

41:23

this view and others is it

41:25

takes a theory to beat a

41:27

theory. And the reason why D.

41:30

I was able to or affirmative

41:32

action was able to be implemented

41:34

so effectively is because people look

41:36

at disparities and they say, hey,

41:38

this must be explained by racism

41:40

or prejudice or systemic discrimination or

41:42

whatever. And if you don't have

41:45

a response to that then you

41:47

have to give into that framing.

41:49

Thomas Sol, of course, wrote books

41:51

trying to explain how culture matters

41:53

and history matters and and explain

41:55

how all groups are different, whether

41:57

it's the French or Russians or

42:00

Italians, like every group is going

42:02

to have different outcomes. And so

42:04

Charles Murray, of course, has been

42:06

on this kick for a recently

42:08

and also a long time, if

42:10

there's a question as to how

42:12

honest society should be about things

42:14

that are maybe ugly or not

42:17

flattering or could lead people to

42:19

take the wrong interpretations of them

42:21

when we think about why outcomes

42:23

are different outcomes are different. How

42:25

do you react to this debate?

42:27

Either on the meta-conversation of how

42:29

honest should we be as a

42:32

society or how should we think

42:34

about inequalities as a society between

42:36

people? Should we think that, hey,

42:38

that's just a natural outcome? Should

42:40

we try to mitigate it within

42:42

certain constraints? Where do you net

42:44

out? There's a lot of different

42:47

questions packed into there. I think

42:49

a lot of that current debate,

42:51

I haven't seen all of it,

42:53

but it seems to me, Karen

42:55

are productive. It's people talking to

42:57

themselves, going in circles. And what

42:59

people really should be working on

43:02

is innovations and whatever space that

43:04

will help groups that have been

43:06

at a disadvantage do better. So

43:08

I think we should all admit

43:10

racism has had a huge impact

43:12

in the American past. It is

43:14

by no means gone. There are

43:16

some markers that it's coming back,

43:19

at least in significant corners, even

43:21

maybe if not at the median.

43:23

And that's a bad thing. And

43:25

yeah, we need to be. more

43:27

you know more positive looking more

43:29

forward looking and more positive some

43:31

that probably puts me closest to

43:34

Seoul. Some people say that Bronze

43:36

Age pervert and we don't have

43:38

to talk about him specifically but

43:40

just has popularized this idea of

43:42

kind of like a you know

43:44

I think Christianity as a blog

43:46

post around sort of a mythos

43:49

for the non-Christian right as as

43:51

sort of a nichean liberalism or

43:53

something, but like emphasis on the

43:55

niche and or sort of revitalizing,

43:57

reviving niche for a kind of

43:59

online, memetic, you know, Twitter, Twitter

44:01

era. It seems like, you know,

44:04

we talked about how earlier the

44:06

culture is, it's pretty, pretty feminized,

44:08

pretty, you know, I mean, it's

44:10

a pretty Christian. Do you also

44:12

see sort of this rise of,

44:14

of kind of a new niche

44:16

inism? And what do you, what

44:18

do you make, make sense of

44:21

it? So there's a corner of

44:23

the right wing that has made

44:25

it their thing as a kind

44:27

of active rebellion I'm not Bronze

44:29

Age pervert understands Nietzsche. I'm not

44:31

sure how many of the others

44:33

do It's not going anywhere So

44:36

I mean to look at it

44:38

very concretely, you know to take

44:40

the world of Latin America, which

44:42

you and I are Both reasonably

44:44

familiar with what really changes people's

44:46

people's people's people's people's people's people's

44:48

people's people's people's people's people's people's

44:51

people's people's people's people's people's people's

44:53

people's people's people's people's people's people's

44:55

people's people's people's people's people's people's

44:57

So now Panama and Dominican Republic

44:59

and Chile are doing pretty well.

45:01

And there's different things you can

45:03

do to encourage them to do

45:05

better or have more cases like

45:08

that. I hope Colombia joins that

45:10

group. They have the potential to,

45:12

but they haven't yet. I hope

45:14

Argentina does. And if those things

45:16

can go better, you're going to

45:18

get much better outcomes. And not

45:20

like, don't worry too much about

45:23

Nietzsche or whatever. That's where the

45:25

action is. So you're less excited

45:27

about any sort of post- liberalism

45:29

or the people? who talk about

45:31

how liberalism has atomized us or

45:33

continued to lead to sort of

45:35

a lot of these cultural problems

45:38

because the economic growth suffered? Migrants

45:40

want to live in the liberal

45:42

countries, right? The liberal countries are

45:44

at risk of losing some of

45:46

that liberalism. We should all fight

45:48

to defend it and make it

45:50

better to be clear. Liberalism, by

45:53

its nature, never claimed to be

45:55

perfect or close to perfect. It

45:57

ought to focus on self-improvement in

45:59

a way that a lot of

46:01

these intellectual discourses do not. Do

46:03

you think that Patrick Dine kind

46:05

of, I can't remember, the book

46:07

is called Why did liberalism fail

46:10

or are you familiar with that?

46:12

Yeah. Do you think he's kind

46:14

of misguided? Yes, sure. He's misguided.

46:16

Where does he want to move?

46:18

I've never met him that I

46:20

can recall, but I would just

46:22

ask him. Patrick, where do you

46:25

want to go? And we do

46:27

have 50 states. I know there's

46:29

common elements. But there's a lot

46:31

of countries in the world, and

46:33

I know where I want to

46:35

be. And if I had to

46:37

leave my own country, I'd be

46:40

looking at places like Canada, Australia,

46:42

Denmark, UK, Ireland, right? Nothing that

46:44

would surprise you. Yeah. And speaking

46:46

of, or kind of adjacent, I

46:48

remember we had a conversation a

46:50

long time ago, offline, and you

46:52

mentioned how you were a, you

46:55

thought that the rolls sort of.

46:57

veil of ignorance was highly overrated

46:59

or not a great view. Can

47:01

you can you explain that? Well,

47:03

Rawls asks, you know, if you

47:05

were stripped of a lot of

47:07

features of your identity and you

47:09

would be randomly born into a

47:12

particular place, what kind of institutional

47:14

rules would you want and what

47:16

kinds of decision procedures would you

47:18

favor for evaluating outcomes? And I

47:20

think what he came up with

47:22

in a principle of liberty, parade

47:24

of improvements, difference principle. Some I

47:27

like, some I don't like, but

47:29

there are all things he stuffed

47:31

into the choice. to begin with.

47:33

He's not really proving or generating

47:35

anything. It's you put a bunch

47:37

of things in and you get

47:39

a bunch of things out and

47:42

it's just his, excuse me, his

47:44

personal recipe. So there's no derivation.

47:46

I don't think there's a case

47:48

based on reflective equilibrium. There's not

47:50

enough history. I would start with

47:52

what are the countries people actually

47:54

want to live in and concretely

47:57

how can we improve them? And

47:59

roles for me is far too

48:01

much of a foundationalist and not

48:03

enough of a historically minded thinker,

48:05

at least in theory of justice.

48:07

Now there's other roles books and

48:09

articles that are fairly different and

48:11

that's a more complicated story. But

48:14

that would be my response to

48:16

the roles that people mean when

48:18

they usually talk about roles. I'm

48:20

curious to learn more about how

48:22

you think about sort of career

48:24

or how you spend your time

48:26

in a whatever reason. conversations over

48:29

the years, I asked if you

48:31

would want to start a venture

48:33

fund, giving you so much great

48:35

access and relationships in the industry,

48:37

and especially because of what, you

48:39

know, what emergent is doing, but

48:41

also other relationships. And you mentioned,

48:44

you kind of said, hey, why

48:46

would I do that? I kind

48:48

of have the life and the

48:50

relationships and the respect and the

48:52

ability to do things that I,

48:54

that I have what I want

48:56

right now. I don't need to

48:59

do that. And it feels like

49:01

you've been able to build up

49:03

this influence. in a, or those

49:05

assets in a non, or in

49:07

a kind of a circuitous way,

49:09

in ways that other people haven't,

49:11

or couldn't emulate. How do you

49:13

explain that? Or how would you

49:16

edit my characterization? And what you

49:18

say sounds true to me, and

49:20

I think some of it you

49:22

repeated from what I said to

49:24

you. So it's no surprise I

49:26

like it. How did I do

49:28

it? I guess that means I'm

49:31

really skilled in some ways. That's

49:33

the immodest answer. But I think

49:35

people who act modest are actually

49:37

not modest, and one of my

49:39

New Year's resolutions is to not

49:41

try to be modest unless I

49:43

really mean it. So I think

49:46

that's something where I've had a

49:48

lot of luck and other people

49:50

have treated me very well, but

49:52

I've been really good at it.

49:54

Is the algorithm of how you

49:56

spend your time, what are you

49:58

really good at and what do

50:01

you enjoy and where you think

50:03

you can make the biggest impact?

50:05

I guess I'm in, I asked

50:07

today, I'm undergoing a career transition

50:09

and thinking about how to best

50:11

utilize my talents and interests, what

50:13

questions do you think I should

50:15

be asking? Well, what's worked for

50:18

me, I'm not saying it works

50:20

for everyone or for you, but

50:22

congratulations, by the way, is to

50:24

always pursue compounding returns in learning.

50:26

And I think that will work

50:28

for a lot of people, but

50:30

I'm in academia, that's a special

50:33

setting, there's a thing called tenure

50:35

you can get, and you can

50:37

be granted long-time horizons if you're

50:39

willing to take short-run reputational lumps.

50:41

A lot of other kinds of

50:43

projects have budget constraints that don't

50:45

allow that. And I'm not sure

50:48

where you're going to fall on

50:50

that spectrum. But that would be

50:52

my starting point. Compounding returns through

50:54

learning. You wrote a book going

50:56

full circle here. Your book is

50:58

on the legacy of economists. You,

51:00

of course, are also an economist

51:03

and a broader public intellectual and

51:05

have your own legacy. Do you

51:07

think that the legacy is the...

51:09

both the depth and the breadth

51:11

that you've been able to go

51:13

into not just economics but also

51:15

you know multiple fields and in

51:17

public and kind of in the

51:20

community built with marginal revolution or

51:22

do you do you say no

51:24

I actually wanted to be these

51:26

core ideas around the great stagnation

51:28

or complacent class or or or

51:30

what else? I don't think I

51:32

have much of a legacy I'm

51:35

not even sure what it means.

51:37

I think the main thing I've

51:39

done is show people a certain

51:41

kind of intellectual life as possible.

51:43

and that it can be fun,

51:45

and that it can have some

51:47

influence. And I think people will

51:50

still think about that for 10

51:52

or 20 years after I die,

51:54

and then they won't think or

51:56

talk about it anymore, and my

51:58

legacy will be gone. I'm

52:01

still very happy I can reach

52:03

and influence a lot of people

52:05

now and for some time and

52:07

that's very meaningful to me. But

52:09

I see so many people who

52:11

don't have legacies and I think

52:14

I'll be another one of them.

52:16

Yeah. As you think about what

52:18

to spend time on, does part

52:20

of you think, hey, I should

52:22

go deeper in this and create

52:24

some sort of fundamental, you know,

52:26

insight that or contribution or I

52:29

should go broader or I should

52:31

just... pursue what interests me or

52:33

how bottoms up or stops down

52:35

is your sort of intellectual, you

52:37

know, research or curiosity or how

52:39

you spend time? I don't have

52:42

fundamental insights to offer. It's pretty

52:44

simple. I wish I did. If

52:46

I did, I would do it,

52:48

but I don't. So just like

52:50

I can be immodest on saying

52:52

I set this life up very

52:54

well. Maybe that makes me more

52:57

credible when I say I'm not

52:59

foregoing or even weighing some option.

53:01

to say these like new extra

53:03

profound things. It's like I'm empty

53:05

in a way. Like I take

53:07

stuff in and something comes out

53:10

of it. But you're not going

53:12

to get any more other than

53:14

like the flow will continue for

53:16

as long as I can. And

53:18

so when you say the precise

53:20

skill is this kind of unique

53:23

style of intellectual sort of exploration

53:25

and sharing. live life as an

53:27

infor, as I call it, but

53:29

also do well in doing things

53:31

practically and show people the two

53:33

can be integrated. I think that's

53:35

a big part of it. So

53:38

take on a lot of projects,

53:40

they will succeed to varying degrees,

53:42

but I've been happy with how

53:44

most of my projects have gone,

53:46

and they all have a practical

53:48

side. And that's part of the

53:51

vision of how to live life

53:53

in a particular way. If you

53:55

could clone yourself and we'll get

53:57

your towards closing here, what's another

53:59

project? intellectual or practical that you

54:01

would want to pick up or

54:04

put differently what's a for aspiring

54:06

Tyler aspiring emergent venture you know

54:08

candidate who's listening to this episode

54:10

what's a project that you want

54:12

them to pursue that isn't being

54:14

worked on to the degree that

54:16

it should be that would be

54:19

important or valuable? Well I don't

54:21

want them to listen to me

54:23

or for that matter to you

54:25

or any other particular person so

54:27

just that they can take some

54:29

inspiration from the fact that one

54:32

can be a thing or have

54:34

a role that's not like any

54:36

other previous role and that that's

54:38

really possible is I hope something

54:40

I communicate to a small number

54:42

of people and I don't want

54:44

them to like be my role

54:47

or pursue my priorities. So that's

54:49

another way to think about like

54:51

legacy for a short window of

54:53

time. you can show people that

54:55

non-mold models of life are possible

54:57

and rewarding. Yeah, that makes sense.

55:00

It's my belief that that University

55:02

of Austin is not going to

55:04

compete with Harvard or Stanford, although

55:06

I really respect the effort and

55:08

agreeing them the best, but that

55:10

if the TEO fellowship scaled up

55:13

and tried to compete with Harvard

55:15

and Stanford, I think they could

55:17

because the credential is so significant

55:19

based on the talent level who's

55:21

been inside of it. And I

55:23

believe that. Will you build with

55:25

the emergent ventures too? It has

55:28

an alumni so impressive on a

55:30

quantity or on a capital percentage

55:32

basis that it could also compete

55:34

if you want it to scale

55:36

up, but I suspect you don't

55:38

want to. It's not want to.

55:41

I don't think, you know, we

55:43

can. So we have myself, Shrudi

55:45

and Rashid as evaluators. They're both

55:47

great. If we had a mix

55:49

of more money, more evaluators, we

55:51

could scale a bit. But it's

55:53

the non-scaling, it's like saying, oh,

55:56

I... I love the music of

55:58

the Beatles. Those guys really need

56:00

to scale. Well, yes and no,

56:02

right? There's a lot of covers

56:04

of Beatles songs. It's a kind

56:06

of scaling. But at the end

56:09

of the day, you know, you

56:11

do your thing. I would add,

56:13

I am optimistic about University of

56:15

Austin. I'm on their advisory board

56:17

to be clear, but I don't

56:19

have a personal stake in it,

56:22

but I think they will get

56:24

very good applications. I think so

56:26

too. I think if what I

56:28

was saying with that is I

56:30

think someone who's picking between Harvard

56:32

or Stanford will likely have and

56:34

UATX doesn't yet have better career

56:37

opportunities if they go to UATX,

56:39

but if they're a TFLO they

56:41

probably do, at least in technologies,

56:43

or startup specifically. Yeah, sure, that's

56:45

true. But I think they'll get

56:47

people who are equally talented as

56:50

Harvard and Stanford students, who A,

56:52

A, want something different, B, were

56:54

unfairly rejected. or just rejected because

56:56

not enough students are taken. And

56:58

they just want a change of

57:00

pace and they're like anti-establishment in

57:02

some way and they'll go on

57:05

and do great things. And they

57:07

don't need that many people to

57:09

fill the ranks. It's like it's

57:11

one school. Like can you have

57:13

80 University of Austin's is a

57:15

much tougher question. I'm quite sure

57:18

you can have one, two, three.

57:20

When you get to 10, I'm

57:22

not so sure anymore. Yeah. Well,

57:24

we're over time, we'll wrap on

57:26

that. The book is, who is

57:28

the greatest economist of all time

57:31

and why does it matter? And

57:33

people can read it on Go

57:35

at Greatest Economist of All Time.a.

57:37

Tyler, always a pleasure. Thanks so

57:39

much for coming on the podcast.

57:41

Thank you very much, Eric. And

57:43

the simpler website is just econ

57:46

goat.a.i. Or Google Tyler Cowan Goat.

57:48

Thanks Eric. Great to chat. See

57:50

you next time. Upstream

57:55

with Eric Tormberg is a show from

57:57

turpentine, the podcast network behind moments. of

57:59

Zen and Cognitive Revolution. If

58:02

you like the episode, the please leave

58:04

a review in review in the Apple Store.