John Collison

I kind of imagine building a big model that understands how the physical world works and understands the important properties of what it means to drive, the social aspects of driving and what it means to be a good driver as opposed to a bad one.

I would say that we've clearly moved past the stage of scientific research and deep core technology development to this new phase of accelerated global scaling and deployment.

You grew up in Russia, right?

I grew up in Russia.

Then I was actually a Soviet Union.

Right, exactly.

My dad is a physicist, so the Soviet Union started falling apart, and then he had a visiting position in university, in Kyoto University for a year.

We moved there as a family, and then he went to Berkeley, and I kind of tagged along.

And then I graduated from high school.

I was thinking about the next thing I wanted to do, and I really liked that opportunity.

that technical school in Russia.

The Russians are serious about their physics.

They are, they are.

So I went back to Russia and I got my bachelor's and master's there.

It was, it was.

Yeah, yeah.

No, actually I remember

talking to my mom about it.

And, of course, my parents grew up in the Soviet Union.

They've seen it.