Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Why aren't there two orders of magnitude more Thiel fellowships?

Just this morning in my calendar every year, I rewatched this same video, which for me was the most impactful video I've ever seen from this technologist named Brett Victor.

And the name of the video is Inventing on Principle.

He's basically convincing you, you need a principle on which you're going to devote yourself to becoming an inventor.

Obviously, you're an inventor.

You seem like a very principled inventor to me.

If I was trying to understand you and your motivations and what drives you, is there one or more principles that you feel like lie at the root of things that you spend your time on?

fully immersive, haptic, vision, smell, everything.

What has it been like for you in this period?

We're recording this in the middle of October after the attack on Israel.

What's it been like operating in an environment like this when your company obviously is facing the military?

You're sort of in the world of defense.

Just talk me through what it's been like.

If you're in a classroom, big seminar, lecture room full of, let's say, a thousand people who all shared your interest in building something big in the way you articulated, but they had not yet done it.

You wanted to make the most impact on them that would benefit the odds of their success.

What would you teach them about?

What are the surprising things you've learned about effectively building something very big?

Is there been a most surprising thing about building now two things and more that are very big?

When you approach those problems, I have heard you talk about those other two, which is totally fascinating how you approach things.

Maybe even before I ask this question, I'm just curious what your method of invention is.