Eric Jorgenson

Do you think he's actually a genius, or is he just someone who's consistently applying a handful of sort of brutal principles over and over again?

I think it's both.

Bias for action and work rate, at least from what we've been talking about, those seem to be four of the big drivers.

So your first book is on my list of a hundred books to read.

And there's a top five at the top, which are the ones that everybody should start with.

And it's in that one of the other ones that's in there is the precipice by Toby Ord.

And that's all about existential risk, how humanity could go extinct from super volcanoes to supernova explosions to nanotechnology and engineered pandemics and natural pandemics and AI and all the rest of it.

But you did a section on X risk as well.

Yeah.

Why is that important?

Well, I think... What's fascinating to me is I wonder about...

People who are very singular in the modern world and what that person would have done in ancient times, I think is so funny.

Assuming that you weren't born a slave and you couldn't have raised out of anything, if there's some sort of egalitarian meritocracy and you can just like toss them into the Roman Empire or toss them into the middle of the War of the Roses or something, just watch what happens.

I don't know, man.

It certainly seems like it's the time to have somebody that's like that.

Regardless of what is going on personally, what you think about ethics and all the rest of it.

I remember he gave this interview, it was probably about three or four years ago, and he said something to the effect of, what I care about is doing good, not the appearance of it.

And there are a lot of people around who are doing bad while trying to appear good.

They have no interest in that.

And it's kind of the move fast, break things, I didn't give a fuck what you think of me type approach.