57 Comments

I legitimately can’t fathom being so well read. Both of you. Great interview.

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Stunning range and depth of opinion between the two of you. Nice interview. To Patrick's list of new technologies the world needs, I might add: faster-built, cheaper, and more resilient shelters.

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Mar 8, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

I wonder why Stripe succeeded so much more than Paypal

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Mar 8, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

Noah, I'm very impressed with your interviews with a host of brilliant people. It opens up my views of issues with current, little politicized, big pictures of where the world is going by some of the people bringing the world there. And of course shames me in my own ignorance, a good thing. :-)

I have only one little quibble with this one: "Solar electricity is asymptoting to near-free...": I don't see how that can happen. At the very least, cost of land and cost of infrastructure to hook up to, distribute, and load level will provide a lower limit, even if we reuse roofs to generate some of the electricity. What might be the lower limit?

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Mar 8, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

Amazing Interesting Inspiring ! Thanks

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We basically moved from a goal-oriented society (We're going to the moon!) to a status based society (high net worth individuals are also high status, regardless of psychopathic personality traits). And although much progress has been made in terms of social equality (among other things) since the 60's, this particular shift in mindset is a step down the development ladder.

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On Tacit knowledge. Has anybody else noticed there is nothing in the gap between DIY and years long apprenticeship programs? I checked at this website for Ireland. https://www.fetchcourses.ie

I wanted to learn 12v electronics to fit out a van for my work - and the choices are DIY learning from Youtube and reading - or start an apprenticeship. That is insane.

Most technology comes out of some skills used in a new domain - well this is the major barrier isn't it - it's sort of obvious.

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I've not heard the term "meta-maintenance" before when referring to cultural or societal debt if you will. Taking the analogy of tech startups further, I'm skeptical that the incumbent institution/city/etc is best equipped to accelerate innovation.

Fighters prepare using iPad software, Stripe started in payments (less regulated than say banking), and innovation generally happens at the margins where regulation is unclear or absent. So perhaps humanity is simply better suited in a perpetual state of creative-destruction — building new things and institutions rather than maintaining existing ones for too long. Perhaps creative-destruction is simply a dynamic meta-maintenance mode.

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I really enjoy these kind of conversations, but at the end I'm left wondering what the point of all this innovation is if the benefits are still so unevenly distributed. Maybe what I'm missing is the part of his discipline that "studies the history and determinants of technological advancement and how it feeds into social progress more generally."

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"But I think that our support for human rights and liberty should be somewhat closer to an absolute."

Only in China or also in Saudi Arabia?

"In his commencement address at Harvard in 1978, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn claimed that civic courage was in decline."

Well, alleged civic courage decline notwithstanding, America, then, supported human rights in the Soviet Union (including the Jews'right to emigrate), but not in Chile or South Africa.

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The level of sycopanthy is disgusting. You don't have to suck to PC just cause his NW is 36B. Also, none of his ideas seem to be particularly insightful. E.g. the link to pinterest of code viceo is just sad - stupider and stupider tools strip the last remnants of understanding from users instead of intelligence augmentation.

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Thank you both! I came here to be read to on both broad and focused subjects generated by thinking minds . I came here to have my mind nourished on a diet not usually offered by others. Bon appetit!

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You might be interested in my startup think tank (Good Science Project) with launch funding from Collison. https://goodscienceproject.org, or just check out my Substack.

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The Dominican Republic has more foreign investors than Haiti, this is due to his politically stability and it close relationships with the United States and Spain.

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The interview, which I translated into Japanese with your permission, had a great response in Japan, and executives of listed companies thought it was a numbingly good interview. (https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-marc-andreessen-vc-and)

If it is convenient for you, I would be happy to translate this article as well. I personally believe that Stripe will be a top tech company in the next generation, and I think it is very meaningful to deliver this interview in Japanese.

Of course, I will link back to the original post.

Thanks for your consideration.

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Wow! Absorbing, original, informed, challenging, edifying. And he's as cute as a button.

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