#048 Balaji’s Most Epic, Personal, In-Depth Interview Ever (Transhumanism, Investing, and more)

Topics:

(5:53) - Start of Balaji Interview
(6:24) - How would you introduce yourself to a stranger?
(8:19) - Do you think of your work as “whatever it takes” to advance your ideology?
(10:05) - What would you like to see most achieved?
(13:14) - What are the things you believe you are the best at?
(20:52) - What are the ideas you are most confident telling others that you know for certain?
(30:22) - Balaji’s upbringing & growing up in an age before the internet
(1:03:35) - Have you always been like this? Was there an inflection point that made you who you are today?
(1:11:41) - Are there any formative media, movie or books that really had an impact on you growing up?
(1:19:15) - Doing math as a hobby & philosophical frameworks
(1:29:19) - The Feynman Lectures & Magic the Gathering
(1:51:29) - Were there any inspirations you looked to in your transition into entrepreneurship?
(1:56:45) - What do you consider your career or body of work?
(2:07:20) - Where have you seen some of the bigger obstacles in your career?
(2:25:57) - Wealth, Burn Rate, and feeling “free to speak your mind”
(2:38:40) - How are you spending time and resources to have an impact according to your mission?
(2:50:56) - Are you trying to start your own network state or help people start theirs?
(2:55:06) - What’s your process with getting up to speed on new technologies?
(3:00:23) - What do you think about the trade-off between focusing on learning vs. when to start doing?
(3:03:50) - Countries that impacted Balaji’s philosophy
(3:08:33) - Balaji’s predictions on what Eric chose to have in the book
(3:13:13) - What are the mental models or heuristics you use most often?
(3:19:21) - Eric’s Themes of Balaji’s work
(3:28:14) - What is your definition of technology?
(3:36:09) - Do you believe a startup is synonymous with a great new technology?
(3:37:20) - The co-evolution of technology and humanity & Youth-Extension
(3:43:34) - The long-term battle for Network systems
(3:45:50) - What do you envision transhumanism looking like?
(3:53:05) - Wrap Up

Links:

Balaji on Twitter (twitter.com/balajis)
The Network State (thenetworkstate.com)
Feynman Lectures on Physics (feynmanlectures.caltech.edu)
From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew (amazon.com/Third-World-First-Singapore-1965-20…)
The Man Who Knew Infinity (imdb.com/title/tt0787524)
Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos (amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-…)
Howl's Moving Castle (youtube.com/watch?v=iwROgK94zcM)
Isaac Azmov (asimovonline.com/asimov_home_page.html)
Elements of Mathematical Modeling (amazon.com/Concepts-Mathematical-Modeling-Dove…)
Paul Tipler Physics books (amazon.com/Books-Paul-Tipler/s?rh=n%3A283155%2…)
Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham (amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Analysis-Tristan-Nee…)
One Thousand Exercises in Probability (amazon.com/Thousand-Exercises-Probability-Geof…)
fast.ai
Quantum.country (quantum.country)
Classical Electrodynamics by John Jackson (amazon.com/Classical-Electrodynamics-Third-Dav…)
The PERL Cookbook (amazon.com/Perl-Cookbook-Second-Tom-Christians…)
PLEAC (pleac.sourceforge.net)
Obey the Testing Goat (obeythetestinggoat.com)
Nobody cares by Ben Horowitz (a16z.com/2011/10/08/nobody-cares)
The Jewish State by Theodore Herzl (amazon.com/Jewish-State-Theodor-Herzl/dp/04862…)
How ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity (humanparts.medium.com/the-mtg-color-wheel-c970…)
Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence by Kellie Jackson (amazon.com/Force-Freedom-Abolitionists-Politic…)
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham (amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp…)
Limitless (youtube.com/watch?v=4TLppsfzQH8)

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