Alex Epstein
speaker
366 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 28 Apr
Alex Epstein’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So it's the fundamental risk model and the fundamental policymaking model are both broken. And so we need executive actions announcing that this needs to change and then the NRC needs to have a dramatic reform process and or the NRC needs to be scrapped and we need to have something new or put it out of the Department of Energy.
I think one benefit that I've had is the combination of being a fairly well-known public intellectual and interested in working in the details. Like, it's a very unusual thing. It's a very unusual thing because part of, at the beginning in particular, like, being a well-known public intellectual, particularly in energy... made it easy to get in the door and to talk to people.
But then, you know, if it's most other people, they have most other people, like their business is a sub stack or their business is like speaking or they're writing books. Like this is part of why I'm not writing a book right now. I'm trying to write, you know, a new American energy policy and eventually make a book, but I'm not thinking about
a book right now, because that's a really hard focus and it's a really distracting focus if you have a book deadline or a book contract and that kind of thing. But it's this unique position that I have where I'm well known for the ideas and they have a certain kind of trust and interest in me, but then I'm super interested in the weeds and I have a team that's interested in the weeds.
And so when I can talk to any congressman or senator and staffers, and we work with like 300 talking points, we have 500 staffers. like who get our stuff and are part of our group in one way or another. That's really, in case anyone else wants to try it, you have to have the motivation because it's hard. And there's a trade-off with, at least temporary, with public notoriety.
And it depends on how much pleasure one gets from the public notoriety. And there's a lot that's great about public notoriety, including you get to meet a lot of interesting people. But sort of my personal bent is I like the problem solving the most. So I'm quite happy. I like the public stuff too, but I'm kind of happiest doing the problem solving and figuring stuff out for myself.
So that for me works very well and it might work well for others. But I would just say that, yeah, if you're a well-known person publicly, there is this path of you can make a really big difference. And one of the differences I can make is I can make the market for
the best political ideas being adopted into policy much more efficient because it's been really easy for me to get to know a very large portion of the people in power and have a trusted relationship with them. And I think that would have been impossible if I were not publicly known. I think it would have been so hard.
And the second one is definitely still in progress, and I need to give a lot of credit to the people that I work with. But it is, I think that's, there are all these smart people out there that I have met, like these lawyers that I pay, or sometimes I don't pay them. These people have spent, you know, 30 or 40 years, and I'm the first person who's come to them
Not who's come to them, but who's come to them and said, you know what? There's a real chance that if you explain your really good idea to me, an exact solution, it might become policy. And it sometimes takes a while because they're so cynical because they've spent their whole life coming up with these good ideas and knowing that at least for some piece of the puzzle, they have the solution.
How are they going to get it to them? It's not like Senator X will talk to them or whatever, but Senator X will usually talk to me, A, because they knew me, and then now I and my team are a resource. That's part of what I'm excited about is the ability to be like a clearinghouse for the best ideas.
And once you have that reputation, then the smart people will say, like, oh, you should really talk to Alex. It's worth your time because he can really get...
the ideas here so i think that and so if policymakers and other interested people are watching well they can contact alexepstein.ia no no no sorry no no they could contact you know anyone can contact alexepstein.ia but if you really want to help contact alexepstein hi human intelligence which is alex at alexepstein.com that's just my uh my address what about on online resources apart from the ai system
Oh, so there's energytalkingpoints.com. And I would say the most important thing for people is just my... I was talking about Substacks. I just have a Substack. It's free. It's just to share my latest stuff. That's where they'll get this energy freedom platform. So alexepstein.substack.com. Okay, well, we'll put all that in the description as well.
Yeah, and I would just say one more thing, so in case it helps people and in case people want to join us. Like, one other benefit I have is that a few years ago, like... I switched from just a public intellectual model to for the political work.
I basically got it subsidized by creating a membership group where a bunch of people would contribute $25,000 a year, and they would like talking to each other and getting information from us, but they would agree to let me do whatever the hell I wanted with zero control. So we now have like 120 people in that group, so giving us a lot of resource.
And on their deal, it is no lobbying, no representation, no control. And that's a very fortunate arrangement to have. Because that's what allows me to pay for all these really smart people, like pay a lawyer $1,850 an hour.
because they think it's right, I think. And at this point, it's become... Also, these networks at a certain stage become a benefit just to be part of the network. And now we give them free access to our consulting, which nobody gets except politicians. They like the inside. Now it's sort of become like a profitable thing to be part of Energy Talking Points, like to give your $25,000 membership.
But at the beginning, it was... And I think this is why most people do it. It's just they believe in it. And by the way, these are... For half the people, they're contributing post-tax dollars, because it's not a 501c3, because we interact the hell with government. So we have no restrictions on our activity. But it's, yeah, people really believe it.
And then they see, like, this is a really efficient, like, it's an unusually effective group that we have. And it's like, I just think, I think at this point, people who see what we're doing are like, wow, you guys really are making it easy for pro-freedom politicians to adopt great energy policies.
Showing 341–360 of 366 · page 18 of 19
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