[00:00] - There are decades where nothing happens
and weeks where decades happen.
[00:05] And we have seen decades of progress
[00:09] happen in the last nine months.
If you’re not recognizing the
[00:14] gravity of the moment, that’s
the delusion. That’s the
[00:18] psychosis. Who would not get
delirious if suddenly a genie
[00:22] pops out of the bottle and says,
“You can have whatever you want.
[00:26] Every feature you’ve ever
dreamed of in an operating
[00:30] system, I can deliver them to you,
[00:32] most of them in five minutes, a few in
20, and if we really go hog wild, it’s
[00:36] gonna take me two hours.” I want
the fastest car breaking the speed
[00:40] limits. I want the diver watch
that can go down the Mariana
[00:44] Trench. I want the operating system
that can install in less than
[00:48] 60 seconds. One of the things I always
loved about race cars was when I
[00:51] would stumble out of the car
absolutely smashed and barely able to
[00:55] hold my head up, and I’d lay down
on the garage floor and just think,
[00:59] “Holy fuck, I’m alive.” The
Overton window does not open
[01:03] itself. It opens one nudge at a
time by people risking a little.
[01:10] A little reputation, a little pushback,
a little criticism, or maybe sometimes a
[01:13] lot of reputation or a lot of criticism
or a lot of pushback. Creating
[01:17] life with another human that you love
[01:21] is literally the peak experience
of being on the planet.
[01:28] - The following is a conversation
with David Heinemeier Hansson, also
[01:32] known as DHH, creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO
of 37signals, creator of the new Omarchy
[01:40] Linux operating system, best-selling
author, race car driver,
[01:44] and one of the most outspoken
and prolific programmers
[01:48] in the world. For the past
20-plus years, for him,
[01:51] programming meant meticulously
handcrafting beautiful Ruby
[01:55] code. But recently, since late 2025, DHH
has embraced the AI revolution and has
[02:03] openly transformed himself
into, once again, one of the
[02:07] most outspoken and prolific
agentic engineers, even
[02:11] though he hates that term. So let’s say
[02:15] practitioners of whatever
programming is becoming where AI is
[02:19] doing most of the actual programming
and the human steers the ship
[02:23] with high-level design,
vision, and taste. Yes, it’s
[02:27] true. DHH is at times
controversial, but he’s
[02:31] always fearless, brilliant,
and fun to talk to. This was,
[02:35] once again, an intense,
eye-opening, and wild
[02:39] rollercoaster ride of a
conversation. This is a Lex Fridman
[02:42] podcast. To support it, please check
out our sponsors in the description
[02:46] where you can also find links to
contact me, ask questions, give
[02:50] feedback, and so on. And now,
dear friends, here’s DHH.
[02:56] 13 months ago, we sat down right
here to talk about programming,
[03:00] and then everything changed.
At that time, you were
[03:04] a bit skeptical about the
role of AI in the process of
[03:08] programming, and then we went
through this rapid evolution
[03:12] of agentic engineering. So, simple question
to start: How has your view on AI’s
[03:20] role in programming changed? Are you
excited? Are you terrified? Are you
[03:24] on an emotional rollercoaster ride?
[03:26] - I am incredibly excited.
[03:29] - You’ve been talking about fun a lot.
[03:31] - There is none of the existential threat.
That doesn’t exist for me as an emotional
[03:38] component. It is only there as an
intellectual component, and the
[03:41] emotional component for me is
100% pure, unadulterated joy-
[03:47] … and optimism and
amazement that we’ve made
[03:51] computers do this. And I find it
so interesting that we talked
[03:55] just 13 months ago because
[03:59] it’s like we talked in different
universes, different eras.
[04:03] I love this quote. I think
it’s Lenin. There are
[04:06] decades where nothing happens
and weeks where decades happen.
[04:11] And we have seen decades of progress
happen in the last nine months.
[04:18] I mean, imagine you’re there when
the Wright brothers take flight.
[04:21] Yesterday, the New York Times would write,
“It’s gonna be 10,000 years before we fly,”
[04:26] and then the day after, we’re
up in the skies, and just a
[04:30] few years after that, there
were cross-Atlantic planes. The
[04:33] whole world has completely
changed. What a blessing to be
[04:37] there in that moment. If you zoom out and
look at all of human history, how many
[04:41] humans got to live within the same epoch
that they were born in? They never saw that
[04:49] complete change of the world
and of society. And to have
[04:55] been blessed with two of those
[04:58] feels just such a privilege.
I got to see the internet-
[05:02] … from pre-internet to post-internet,
and then now pre-AI, post-AI.
[05:09] What an amazing run. How fortunate.
[05:12] - Yeah, but the thing is, this
feels like a thing that
[05:16] happened faster than anything
else in human history.
[05:18] - Correct.
[05:18] - So I would say somewhere around
December, maybe late November-
[05:22] - November 24.
[05:24] - This is…
[05:26] - That’s the exact moment.
[05:26] - You know, when they talk about when
one nation invades another in a world
[05:30] war or something like this, it— this is
how we talk about AI changing everything.
[05:34] Yeah, the… And it really
just sh- shifted for many
[05:38] great developers. It shifted
to where AI is doing some,
[05:43] basic autocomplete, maybe writing 5, 10,
15, 20% of code to writing 80% of code.
[05:49] - Or 100.
[05:50] - Or 100, yeah, especially if it’s
not a public-facing product.
[05:55] - To me, that’s why even when I look
[05:58] back upon our conversation a year
ago, I don’t actually have different
[06:02] opinions. I have the same
opinions. A year ago, I did
[06:06] not like the mode of AI we were
offered. It was the autocomplete mode,
[06:10] or it was the AI chatbot
mode. Now, the chatbot
[06:14] I actually liked, as we talked about.
Great tutor right from the get-go, great
[06:18] way of looking things up on the internet,
[06:21] not what was gonna replace me chiseling
code. But- … then we get the agents.
[06:28] And the agents start out being curiosities
[06:32] for about five minutes, and then
they get amazing, and then they get,
[06:38] “Oh my God, is this AGI?” And all
of that happened since last year,
[06:45] even just within the last
nine months. We have
[06:48] basically these few phases
here. We have AI in the
[06:53] pre-agentic era. I was
excited about that, but it
[06:56] was not fundamentally rewriting the
rules of the game for me. It was
[07:01] not completely changing how I
worked. I was still chiseling
[07:04] code, I just had a little
helper, a little sidekick-
[07:08] … who could bounce ideas
off, and I could look up this
[07:13] information online and so forth in a more efficient
way. It was just a more efficient way to do what I was
[07:17] already doing, and it didn’t change
the emotional connection I had to the
[07:21] computer. Then we get to November
24th, 2025. Opus 4.5, to
[07:29] me, was the dividing line,
where suddenly… I didn’t even
[07:33] try it on the 24th. I think I tried it on
the 26th. I give it a couple of tasks,
[07:40] and I realize that the quality of
the output is uncannily close to
[07:47] what I would’ve written. And I remember
just leaning back and thinking,
[07:54] “What just happened?” “How did we
go from this autocomplete mess that
[07:59] I was talking to you about
in the summer to this just a
[08:03] few short months later? How did
we get both the increase in
[08:07] intelligence and then also the increase in
[08:10] usability?” This agent
harness question where
[08:15] I don’t know if Opus 4.5 was that
much smarter than Opus 4, which
[08:19] is what we had in the
summer, but its ability to
[08:23] instrument your computer, to use
tools, to check its own work,
[08:27] to apply its intelligence in
such a way that you could
[08:31] get real meaningful work out of it, was
completely different. And I think this is
[08:38] then the big change that happens for almost anyone
who paid attention and started playing with
[08:41] it over the Christmas break.
This is what I heard-
[08:44] … from Shopify and other places
with lots of employees who
[08:49] suddenly had a breather, suddenly had a couple
of weeks to lean back and just look at what
[08:53] was going on, gave it a
try, and had the same
[08:58] mind-blowing experience
that these agents were of
[09:02] a different genre than what we had
before. And then what we get to is,
[09:08] I’m already excited at this
point. Like, by December, I’m
[09:12] already revisiting sort of all my priors-
[09:15] … and going like, “Wow, if it
can do this, can it also do that?”
[09:18] “Oh, yeah, it can.” And again, Opus
4.5 now looks like a retarded model.
[09:26] And this is the magic of this progress,
is you think you’ve reached something…
[09:32] I remember thinking at the moment,
[09:35] “If this is the last model we
get, I’ll be set. I’ll be happy.”
[09:39] I could live with Opus 4.5
for the next 20 years-
[09:42] … and you would hear no complaints from
me because it was just so incredibly
[09:48] amazing to see an agent do all this
work in the way that I wanted it
[09:52] done. Because it was not just
about it being able to solve a
[09:55] task, it was also that I could look at its
[09:59] path there and go, “Yep.
Yep. Maybe not there,
[10:03] but almost,” and it would give you two
notes. You’ll get to where I wanted
[10:07] to go in the way I wanted to go
there. You could produce code I
[10:11] wanted to merge. You could
produce code that actually looked
[10:15] beautiful if it was written in
Ruby. Rust, different question. But
[10:21] this ability for the agents to truly
become an extension of how I wanted to
[10:28] work was very novel. But then we
wait just until early spring, and
[10:35] suddenly we get sub-agents.
We get harnesses that
[10:39] can subdivide the task, and
something that would take
[10:43] Opus quite a while
suddenly took a fifth of
[10:47] the time, a tenth of the time,
because it could get chopped up and
[10:51] suddenly you got eight
sub-agents working for you.
[10:54] But both of those two first
phases of the agentic age,
[10:59] to me, still felt like I had
to drive. I could tell it what
[11:03] I wanted, where to look for
it, and steer it a little bit
[11:07] when it went off, and then we’ll get
there, and I would go much faster.
[11:11] But I had to be in the driver’s seat.
I had to tell it what I wanted, and I
[11:15] had to be the reviewer, the auditor
of what was coming out. And then
[11:21] finally now, this summer, with Opus
5, Fable, and Sol, GPT Sol, and
[11:29] to a lesser extent, some of
the open weight models, we’ve
[11:33] arrived at a new era where I’m
not telling it where we’re
[11:37] going. I’m telling it the problem
I have. I’m telling it the fuzzy,
[11:42] vague idea I have. It tells
me where we’re going.
[11:47] It tells me which path to take,
and I will still look at it
[11:50] because I’m a curious person and I like
computers and I like the outcome of it,
[11:55] but I really kinda don’t have to.
I’ve become optional in the part that
[12:01] produces the code that picks the route.
Remember when early GPS systems came out?
[12:09] They were amazing compared to looking
at a map, but you still wanted to pay
[12:12] attention. Is it gonna drive you in
the harbor? I remember these newspaper
[12:16] articles. “Ah, GPS, they’re terrible because
people don’t pay attention, they drive in the
[12:20] harbor.” When was the last time GPS drove anyone
in the harbor? Like, that just doesn’t happen
[12:24] anymore. In fact, the cars now just drive
themselves, right? And this is where
[12:28] we’ve arrived at now, that I can trust.
[12:33] For the domain I’m working in
right now, I can trust it,
[12:36] and feel completely confident
that it’s gonna have my
[12:40] back. It’s not gonna do something stupid, and
if it does something stupid, it’s gonna be
[12:44] able to recover.
[12:45] - Mm-hmm. We should mention that
there’s all kinds of domains that-
[12:48] - Correct
[12:48] - … programmers operate in. There’s…
[12:51] I actually don’t know, but
I think the most common
[12:55] domain in development is, like,
web dev CRUD. You have a database.
[13:00] You have a user-facing interface, and
it does something back and forth,
[13:04] and it could be internal to just
one person, to multiple people,
[13:08] to a small number of people, or to
the world. And I think for that,
[13:13] it’s— I mean, you could
really get to the 100% of
[13:17] code written by AI and
really if you’re a good
[13:21] programmer and you have a good intuition
about what’s happening behind the scenes,
[13:25] you can legitimately not look at
the code, at least that’s, that’s
[13:29] been my experience. I don’t know how much,
[13:33] prior experience with programming
you need to have to kinda
[13:36] know that things are working correctly
behind the scenes, like intuitively
[13:40] by observing the ripple effects,
the symptoms of the system. But I
[13:46] think for that domain, it’s close to 100%,
and then there’s domains like you’re
[13:52] also operating in, which is writing a
Linux distribution. There, maybe there’s
[13:56] more because you’re obsessed
with speed and all that kind of
[14:00] stuff. There, maybe you need to look at the code
a little bit more. Then there’s maybe safety
[14:04] critical systems all the way down
to operating a nuclear power
[14:08] plant or a self-driving car. Maybe you
need to look at the code more carefully.
[14:12] - Yes, but that said, AI is insanely
capable at both finding- … and fixing
[14:19] security vulnerabilities. This was the
whole blowup about Fable. This model was
[14:23] so capable of finding holes that a
[14:27] an attacker could exploit that it
was simply not safe to release.
[14:30] So the irony here is that when
you look at that field, it
[14:34] seems like we’ve reached
levels of intelligence that
[14:39] virtually no human can match because
[14:43] many of these security holes are
about stringing combo moves together.
[14:47] You find one little
[14:49] vulnerability here that by itself might not
be the worst thing in the world, but then you
[14:53] combine it with four others, and suddenly
you have RCE, remote command execution.
[15:00] Humans who are able to do
that are very rare. They
[15:04] usually work inside state-sponsored
organizations or other clandestine operations.
[15:11] They’re not just out and
about finding things.
[15:14] So they’ve gotten so good at
that. The Linux distribution
[15:18] is why I’ve gotten 100% AI pilled. Because
I’ve been working on Omarchy for the last
[15:26] three months, this version that just
dropped a few days ago called Quatro.
[15:31] And almost right from the beginning
I’m working on that version,
[15:35] the agent acceleration
neared 100%, and in the last
[15:39] two months it has been
100%. I have not written-
[15:42] - Really?
[15:43] - … any of the code that’s shipped in
Quatro by hand. I’ve reviewed the shape
[15:51] of all of it.
[15:52] I’ve reviewed the individual lines of
anything that’s critical in the model
[15:56] layer of the system, and I’ve not
looked at a bunch of the UI code.
[16:02] I have not looked at a bunch
of the auxiliary code, and
[16:07] I’ve not written any of the new
functionality entirely by hand. But then
[16:13] the web part, actually
evolving Basecamp and Hey, our
[16:17] professional products that have lots
of users and are relatively large code
[16:21] bases, have proven surprisingly tricky
[16:25] to fully accelerate with
agents. We just released
[16:29] Basecamp 5 not too long
ago. That was the first
[16:32] product at 37signals that was
really agent accelerated.
[16:36] Because we were in this final
sprint phase from around
[16:40] February. By then, agents
were already good.
[16:44] And we had this early surge of,
“It’s solved. We can just have the
[16:49] designers do the programming. They know what
features they want. They know what shape
[16:53] they want it to take. Let’s just—
Let them vibe.” And we let them vibe.
[16:59] And we ended up with a lot of PRs that
individually perhaps could have been
[17:05] justified for a hot moment,
taken all together,
[17:09] destroyed the architecture of the system.
[17:10] And we actually had to clean
up manually, mop it up by
[17:14] hand, by human hand, to get
back to an architecture that
[17:17] felt cohesive and coherent. So we still
[17:21] have a bit of that— that was February, by
the way. Things are quite different now.
[17:25] - Well, hold on a second. What’s the lesson from that?
Is one of the lessons from that that you have to be
[17:29] a programmer at this stage
to be able to vibe code?
[17:33] - To be able to vibe code
on existing substantial
[17:38] - I see.
[17:38] - … code bases, even if
they’re crud, if you wanna
[17:41] retain the element of architecture
that got that system to where it was.
[17:45] Now, that’s also a point
where I’ve stressed many
[17:49] times that when people
accuse vibe coders of
[17:53] being slob generators, I go right
back at them and say, “Have you
[17:57] looked at the average programmer’s
output?” That is some
[18:01] other slob too. If you’ve looked
at behind the scenes of many
[18:05] great companies and what their
code bases look like after there’s
[18:08] been 3,000 humans through them,
they’re awful. Absolutely awful.
[18:14] - Can you tell me the intuition you have?
[18:17] I seem to just, stepping back and observing
the different apps that we all rely
[18:21] on, I don’t know, Adobe Photoshop, all
this kind of stuff. There seems to be the
[18:25] progress on development
there has not accelerated.
[18:29] So why is it, what lessons can
you draw from Basecamp, like
[18:32] well-established, huge user base?
[18:35] Why aren’t we seeing, like,
super rapid increase in, like,
[18:39] new updates, features, all this kind of
stuff in these well-established apps?
[18:44] - Multiple reasons. I’ll start with the
first one that’s the most critical. As
[18:48] soon as you’re having human
teams work together on
[18:51] something, the bottleneck is rarely
[18:55] implementation. It’s human
bandwidth and communication.
[18:59] When you have a product manager and a couple
of designers and a VP above them and a
[19:06] CTO above them, and
everyone wants to be part
[19:10] of the shaping process because we’re
all justifying why we’re here,
[19:14] that’s where all the productivity goes to
die. The revelation I’ve had working on
[19:22] Omarchy the last three months is
that to get that magical 10X,
[19:30] 100X, in a few rare cases, 1000X
productivity boost, you have
[19:37] to interact with the agents directly,
and you cannot intermediate that
[19:44] bandwidth with another human
because it’s simply too slow.
[19:49] And on the one hand, that’s a
bit of a bummer. I mean, I like
[19:53] humans, and it’s great to work together.
But it also means we need to temper
[19:57] our expectations with what
these agents can do if
[20:01] it’s humans driving it, and you have
three layers of approval and all the
[20:05] other machinery of a large corporation.
The implementation part is only a small
[20:13] segment of it. The other thing I’d say is
that most organizations don’t know what
[20:20] they want. They don’t know how
to make it better. They’re not
[20:24] bottlenecked on implementation.
They’re bottlenecked on
[20:28] ideas. They’re bottlenecked on
vision. They’re bottlenecked on
[20:32] taste. And if you don’t have those element
[20:36] in excess of your
implementational capacity,
[20:40] it doesn’t help. So you can make a lot
of shitty ideas come true, then what?
[20:44] Are you gonna ship that?
[20:46] That sounds like, I don’t know, something coming
out of Microsoft. That’s not what we’re trying to
[20:50] replicate here. That process is not
actually… Because we already had
[20:54] this. If you step back
for a moment and think of
[20:59] the towering organizations
we have who have had tens of
[21:03] thousands of programmers
at their disposal.
[21:06] I mean, I’m picking on Microsoft here. I love
Microsoft some of the time, but I’ll pick on
[21:10] them in this case because they have
had endless resources, endless
[21:14] programming capacity for
decades, right? This is what’s
[21:20] showing us that just being able
to write a lot of code does not
[21:24] produce great compelling
software. Now, the other thing is
[21:29] we’ve had this capacity for about six
months. That’s not very long in human
[21:37] life cycle capacity of
internalizing what’s going on.
[21:40] And I think it’s actually funny
that the critique of AI is,
[21:45] why isn’t it going faster?
[21:47] What are you talking about? We’ve not had any
other form of progress that has moved as fast
[21:51] as AI, and you’re impatient because
in the last three months we haven’t
[21:54] rewritten the whole world and made
it a utopia of software goodness?
[21:59] - You’re basically saying everybody should be
switching to Linux now. One of the arguments is,
[22:03] like, we can rewrite all the software
that’s not available in Linux in Linux.
[22:06] Linux has been the love of my life for many years, but
one of the reasons I’m still attached to Windows and
[22:11] now, uh, Mac is because of
video editing, Premiere.
[22:15] - We’re gonna fix that. But-
[22:17] - So the question is, who’s
gonna build Premiere
[22:21] and Photoshop for Linux? And it
feels like one person can now.
[22:27] - 100% one person can.
[22:28] - And so, and I’m allowed to be
impatient. In fact, me or anyone else,
[22:35] impatience is the first step of
doing it yourself, right? Like-
[22:40] - Correct.
[22:40] - … and there’s a community of tens
of thousands of people that use Adobe
[22:44] Premiere or DaVinci, all these
non-linear video editors, that
[22:48] know the frustrations. Everybody shares them.
You can look at Reddit. You can look at
[22:52] the forums. Everybody knows it. Uh, I
don’t know what it is. It may be the
[22:55] management. It may be the meetings. All
the things you’ve always discussed is the,
[23:00] The bureaucracy that’s inside
companies that’s slowing
[23:04] everything down in the development
of features. But it feels like
[23:08] there— if you just let some of the
developers loose with a bunch of agents,
[23:12] you can fix all that. But again,
based on everything you’re saying,
[23:16] maybe the way to do that is to start
over from scratch, maybe through open
[23:21] source, or somebody launches
a new company that within
[23:25] large companies now it’s hard to,
[23:29] to really accelerate into the agentic
era by letting developers just build.
[23:33] - This is the classic innovator’s dilemma.
These companies have gotten so good,
[23:39] so established at the old way,
and therefore their entire
[23:43] structure, management layers, processes are
tuned for a time that no longer exists.
[23:52] But you can’t pivot that.
These are super tankers. It
[23:57] just doesn’t happen. This is why
[24:00] we’re finally getting this upset
in the technology industry.
[24:04] For a while, I was very
upset about the duopoly
[24:09] between Apple and Google on mobile,
because it felt like mobile was the most
[24:12] important computing platform
that we had, and I could not see
[24:16] a path to unseat either Google or Apple
[24:20] sitting on top of that, controlling
everything, taking their toll booth money.
[24:26] But the game has changed. This
is no longer the most important
[24:30] platform. Mobile phones are
important, but there’s also a lot of
[24:34] other form factors coming,
whether it’s glasses or it’s
[24:38] earpieces or whatever else have you.
[24:41] It’s all in play now, but
the computing platforms
[24:44] themselves are in play
for the first time in
[24:48] probably 40 years, if you look at the
desktop. Linux has been around since ‘91.
[24:54] It’s not taken off or taken
over on the desktop. It’s taken
[24:58] over everything else. All the
devices you have on your desk, your
[25:02] fridge, your toaster,
everything runs Linux,
[25:05] except for your computer. Now, funnily
enough, your Android is actually Linux, but
[25:12] wrapped so sufficiently that
you can’t really recognize
[25:16] it. But now there’s an
opening, and the opening
[25:19] is exactly as you say it. If
there’s a piece of software you
[25:23] depended on that bound you to Windows,
it is completely within reach for
[25:30] you personally to start rewriting
it. And maybe you won’t get to
[25:34] 100% coverage, but this is the
old joke about Microsoft Office.
[25:38] “I only use 5%.” Yeah, well,
we all use a different 5%.
[25:42] Well, what if we all
just build our own 5%?
[25:46] What if I just took the functionality
that I need and just did
[25:49] that? That is a completely
different challenge and
[25:53] one agents are incredibly
capable of doing right now,
[25:57] today, and I’ve done it a lot
of times over. So one of the
[26:01] amazing things I’ve found with the
latest agent engaged is I have
[26:04] become a polyglot programmer, something I
was absolutely not before. I was a Ruby
[26:13] programmer— … first and foremost, and
then I dabbled a little bit in Bash—
[26:17] … when I had to. And in
the last two months, I’ve
[26:21] written C++. I’ve written
three applications that have
[26:24] shipped in Omarchy Quattro. I wrote a
[26:29] writing app. I was using this app called
Typora, which is a very nice app-
[26:32] - Great, great app
[26:33] - … which in itself is based on another
app called iA Writer, which was my real
[26:37] love on the Mac- … for
a clean, simple Markdown
[26:42] writing environment. That’s
where I write all my essays.
[26:45] And then I moved to Linux,
and I couldn’t get iA Writer,
[26:48] so I moved over to this other tool
called Typora. It was a piece of
[26:52] shareware, and it had a lot of
features I just didn’t need. And about
[26:58] six weeks, seven weeks ago, I thought, “Do
you know what? I only need 5% of Typora,”
[27:02] which is already a basic app.
[27:04] I literally told the agent to get
going, that I wanted it written in
[27:07] C++ and Qt, because that
would fit well with the
[27:11] aesthetic of what I was
building with Quattro.
[27:14] And in, I think, about 20 minutes,
it had the first version. I
[27:18] started using it, and it wasn’t
quite right. Within two days,
[27:22] I’d given up Typora, and
I wrote and have written
[27:26] all of my essays since
that moment in Omawrite.
[27:30] - Can I ask for your advice and your
vision about something? So what I find
[27:34] with agents, you can actually write
something like a replacement for
[27:37] Typora that is perfectly
customized to you, to your needs-
[27:42] - Correct with just one user in mind. And
then there’s a version of that that is-
[27:50] starts with one user in mind but expands
to a larger audience. So I’ve actually
[27:53] written a large number of software
just for me, and I find it
[27:58] easier to do and better to
get my situation done. For
[28:01] example, I have a video editor I’ve written,
which is very easy to do just for me.
[28:06] - I’ve never, unlike you, built something
that’s used by a large number of
[28:10] people, and I find that a bit
scary and intimidating. So,
[28:14] like, at this, with this agentic
age, how do you take a step
[28:18] to actually build something that solves
your problem, which I think is a
[28:22] beautiful way to build,
[28:24] but also expand it to actually useful
for other people? Like, is there
[28:28] advice you can give, and do you
also see the problem of how
[28:32] easy it is to just build
a tool for yourself?
[28:35] - Yes, but it is simpler than you
think. By the time you’re done
[28:39] building the tool for yourself, you simply
tell your agent to put it on GitHub.
[28:44] You don’t even have to do anything else.
It will figure out how to put that repo on
[28:47] GitHub. It’ll write a nice README.
It’ll start using GitHub releases so
[28:51] that you can track things. It’ll
actually be a better software
[28:55] maintainer than you could ever be-
[28:57] … because it is far more patient,
it is far more diligent in
[29:00] doing the drudgery of managing
open source software than you are.
[29:05] And you can simply get on with the joy
[29:09] of using the software that you built
and evolving it as you see fit. Now,
[29:13] this gets into the big argument we’ve been
having in open source for a while. Is
[29:19] AI contributions good or
bad for the maintainer?
[29:23] There’s a lot of maintainers
right now who are quite
[29:26] upset about the fact that they’re suddenly
[29:30] getting a huge influx of pull requests, of
[29:34] contributions from people who may not be
the best programmers or programmers at all-
[29:41] … towards their software. I look at that
argument and go, “Are you kidding me?”
[29:47] Here is a vein of free contributions
that you can take or don’t take,
[29:57] but you’re complaining about the fact
that they’re there? It sounds straight
[30:01] out of- My steak is too
juicy and my lobster too
[30:04] buttery. What are you complaining about?
[30:07] This is the most amazing thing.
This is what we proclamated for so
[30:11] long was going to be the magic
of open source, that we could
[30:15] all contribute to it, but it was, of
course, never true. There was only a small
[30:19] subset of people who contribute to open
source, and that was the very highly skilled
[30:23] wizards. So this is a bit of a
reformation moment. We had this
[30:27] disintermediation between us and
the computer, and it was this
[30:31] class of clerics and
priests called programmers,
[30:35] and suddenly they’re being
disintermediated here by was
[30:39] it the 95 theses by Luther in 1500s,
[30:43] nailing them to the door? And one
of those was very clearly about
[30:47] the intermediation, that you should have
direct access to the higher intelligence.
[30:51] - Mm-hmm. But don’t you need the wizards to
keep a high bar of excellence in the code
[30:55] base?
[30:56] - 100% you do, which is also something
that’s always been true about open
[31:00] source, which is the second argument
that really grinds me. I’ve been
[31:04] running open source projects for
25 years. I have literally looked
[31:07] at the output of thousands,
if not tens of thousands of
[31:11] programmers. I feel like I
have the statistical basis to
[31:15] assert that most programmers, they suck.
[31:21] And I don’t mean that
in the way it sounds.
[31:24] That was why I paused for a hot second
here. I mean, they suck in the sense
[31:28] that they don’t write the code I
want to have written. They don’t
[31:32] prepare their bug reports
with all the relevant
[31:35] information. They don’t detail
their pull requests with the
[31:39] why. They don’t bother to fill in
[31:42] needed code comments. They don’t
double-check their work. They don’t
[31:46] write unit tests. They don’t do all
of these things it takes to create
[31:50] good software. But do you know
who’ll do all that stuff? Agents,
[31:54] if you tell them to. They’re very
diligent at following your instructions,
[31:58] most of the time, sometimes to a fault.
But it actually means that if you take
[32:02] the median programmer and
their pull requests towards
[32:06] an average open source project,
[32:09] they’re already getting
outclassed by agents. I would
[32:12] rather get an agent-written
pull request to one of my
[32:16] projects than I’d get one written
by a human, and it’s not just
[32:20] because the quality’s
better. It’s also because
[32:24] I feel a lot less bad if I just
reject it. You didn’t even
[32:28] write it, so I can simply look at what
your agent wrote on your behalf and
[32:31] go, “Eh, don’t want it.”
[32:36] That’s always been true in open source, and in
fact, I think this is one of the problems with
[32:40] open source maintainers. They have way too
much ball of neuroticism and anxiety that
[32:48] requires them to look upon any contribution
as an obligation on their part to do
[32:56] everything to get that to land
in the code base. That’s not
[33:00] true at all. You can simply say, “No,” or
even better, you can say, “No, thank you.”
[33:06] And if you get into the mode
of realizing that your project
[33:10] is allowed to exist and
evolve according to your
[33:13] vision, according to your
roadmap, it becomes so much
[33:17] easier in the agentic age to
decline the contributions you don’t
[33:21] want because you don’t
even inconvenience or hurt
[33:25] the feelings of a human. It’s just
a clanker, and the clanker won’t
[33:29] mind. In fact, the
producers of clankers, the
[33:33] labs, love when you spend tokens in
vain. They get paid just the same.
[33:39] So, in my opinion, this
is the absolute best
[33:42] time to ever have been an open
source software maintainer.
[33:46] Not only do we get this wealth of
glorious pull requests made by
[33:53] agents with all the boxes ticked,
we also get to tap into a
[33:57] creativity of people who did not have
access to contribute to a project before.
[34:02] I’ve been running the Omarchy project
now for a little over a year,
[34:07] and in the last three months working on
Quattro, I have merged over 1,000 pull
[34:11] requests. Quite a lot of those pull
requests were written by people who were
[34:16] not classical programmers, or were
programmers in other domains, not
[34:21] Linux operating system or
distribution development.
[34:25] They were able to contribute their good
ideas because of agents, and I got
[34:29] to cherry-pick the very best of that- …
because it was there. Otherwise, those
[34:36] ideas would just have lived
inside their heads. Again,
[34:40] Is- that is not the purpose of open
source, that we tap into the collective
[34:43] intelligence and creativity
of the whole goddamn planet,
[34:48] and we channel that towards a commons
[34:51] where we all benefit from the
combined efforts of everyone.
[34:56] Now, there’s currently, I think, about
400 unmerged pull requests on Omarchy,
[35:01] about double what it was a week
ago. So the acceleration is
[35:05] real, but so are the tools.
[35:08] I’m not reviewing every pull request
anymore. I haven’t been reviewing them for
[35:12] quite some time now. I have the
agents- … review them for me-
[35:17] … and then they will give me a summary
about whether something is ready for the
[35:20] decision, the human decision. Should
we merge or should we not merge?
[35:25] I don’t need to look at all the pull
requests that are either wrong, duplicated,
[35:30] bad. An agent can sort that chaff away
from me. I just get to look at the pearls-
[35:36] … the good ideas that
are ready to go, the bug
[35:39] fixes that the agent has
validated in a VM on my behalf.
[35:44] All the drudgery of replicating
and managing open source
[35:47] projects is evaporating at lightning
speed, and we are left with the,
[35:55] with the golden juicy parts, the
bone marrow of software development-
[35:59] … deciding what should this
thing do and where should it go.
[36:03] - Do you think the good ideas, ultimately
the kernel of the good ideas
[36:06] originated in the human mind,
so the individual contributors
[36:11] Like, can it be done by agents, or is
the PR ultimately requires a human idea?
[36:18] Like how to improve Omarchy,
[36:21] all those incoming… Or can it
all just be a pool of agents?
[36:24] - That was the mode and the way
I was thinking about agents
[36:28] in the first agentic age from
November 24 to February 28.
[36:36] I thought all the ideas would originate
with the humans. They would tell
[36:39] their agents what to
build, and off they went.
[36:43] I don’t think that’s true anymore at all.
I have seen things you people wouldn’t
[36:47] believe, ideas coming out of models
so great that it makes me humble-
[36:54] … as a person who otherwise prides
himself on having good ideas.
[36:59] The agents are incredibly
capable of creative thought,
[37:04] and folks who are still stuck in the
analysis that agents are parrots-
[37:11] … just regurgitating the ideas that are
[37:15] already there are delusional about
the progress that’s been made in
[37:19] the last six to nine months.
[37:21] - So some people listening to you right now
will say DHH is suffering from the old case
[37:25] of AI psychosis. Can you steel man the
case that you are in fact experiencing in
[37:33] a state of delusion, like One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest, and can you argue against it?
[37:37] - I’m in a state of delirium.
That’s what the state I’m in.
[37:41] Because I have been working
with computers for 40 years,
[37:47] and I’ve never seen the things that
I’ve seen in just the last two months.
[37:54] A whole career, a whole life dedicating
to the love of computers as my main
[38:02] focus for the working hours and then some,
[38:05] suddenly completely upended, suddenly
completely rewritten. Of course I’m delirious.
[38:11] Who looking at this reality is not? If you
are not delirious or at the very least
[38:19] very excited… Actually, I guess that’s
not even true. If you’re not recognizing
[38:23] the gravity of the moment,
that’s the delusion. That’s the
[38:28] psychosis. The psychosis is believing
that the world is barely different. We
[38:32] just have some electronic parrots reciting
things to us. Now, in my opinion, the
[38:39] reason this argument is actually brought
up is because people are not able to see
[38:43] the fruits of the progress. That
goes to your point earlier.
[38:47] Where is the amazing software? Why isn’t
American GDP running at 12% year over year?
[38:55] First of all, give it a minute. It
hasn’t even been a year, goddammit.
[39:01] But second of all, I feel on my own account,
I have actually brought the pudding.
[39:08] Omarchy Quattro launched
on Friday. It’s been
[39:11] downloaded by tens of thousands of people.
And they like it. They like it a lot.
[39:17] - We should mention that going to
Perplexity here, Omarchy is a highly
[39:21] opinionated Arch Linux-based desktop
distribution centered on the Hyprland
[39:25] Wayland tiling compositor.
It was created by David
[39:28] Heinemeier Hansson, DHH, as a polished
[39:32] developer workstation set
up with a cohesive visual
[39:35] style and many everyday
tools already configured.
[39:39] - Let me put it. Omarchy is a beautiful,
modern, and opinionated Linux system.
[39:45] It’s an alternative operating
system to macOS and Windows,
[39:49] and it’s freaking amazing.
[39:50] - And the Quattro thing is you’re
pushing towards the age of agents.
[39:54] - That’s right. That’s the latest version that
we just dropped out, which is also funny.
[39:58] The Omarchy project is
only a year old and a
[40:02] little bit. I started it last summer in
between sessions at the 24 Hours of Le Mans-
[40:08] … where I had watched one
too many YouTube videos on
[40:12] Linux Rising and got bitten
by that bug. Started working
[40:16] on this second iteration of my
[40:19] attempt at creating a better Linux operating
system. The first iteration we talked about
[40:23] last time was called Omakub, was built
on top of an existing system called
[40:27] Ubuntu, and it was fine. But the
ambition I was able to pour into the new
[40:33] version, Omarchy, because I started
seven layers deeper down the
[40:37] stack, was completely different, but
it was still done in a pre-agentic
[40:41] world. I wrote all those batch
scripts by hand in the beginning,
[40:47] and then I got to see the midway
point where things changed over.
[40:52] I did a couple of versions of
Omarchy that had partial agent
[40:56] acceleration, and then three months ago,
[40:59] it was full throttle, 100%, everything
is written by agents but steered by me.
[41:04] And that just ended up being
[41:07] a very different experience and a
very different operating system
[41:11] because I was suddenly granted a
limitless ceiling on my ambition.
[41:17] I could look at any feature in Windows, on
Mac, on other Linux systems and say, “I
[41:25] want that,” and the agents would deliver.
So everything I wanted was suddenly
[41:31] within reach, which meant that
I got a little delirious.
[41:36] Who would not get delirious if suddenly
a genie pops out of the bottle
[41:40] and says, “You can have whatever
you want. Every feature
[41:44] you’ve ever dreamed of
in an operating system-
[41:47] … I can deliver them to you, most
of them in five minutes, a few in
[41:51] 20, and if we really go hog wild,
it’s gonna take me two hours.”
[41:54] - Mm-hmm. Have you seen Requiem
for a Dream, the movie? So the,
[41:58] There’s a drug-like effect here.
[42:00] I find it personally— We’ll talk about
many levels of this, but it is overwhelming
[42:07] how much power is placed
in our hands so suddenly,
[42:11] and it’s very hard to know, it’s like with
“The Hobbit” or something, what to do
[42:15] with it, and I find myself truly
overwhelmed with the multitasking,
[42:20] On the verge of almost burnt out. Super
excited about so many things, but ultimately
[42:28] looking back, you want to focus
on one thing and really ship
[42:31] - I don’t have that sense. I don’t have
the sense of overwhelm. I don’t have the
[42:35] sense of dread. I don’t have the sense
of distortion because I have a mission.
[42:42] I’m going somewhere, and therefore, I
can channel all this new power towards-
[42:48] - Yeah, it’s wonderful
[42:48] - … a singular goal and
outcome, creating the perfect
[42:52] computer. And therefore, all my
investigations with AI are focused towards
[42:59] that end. Now, I also have a day job.
[43:02] And we also use agents there, and
that’s also targeted towards sort of
[43:06] specific outcomes. But with the
Omarchy experience, I got to tap in
[43:14] straight in the back of
my head and increase
[43:18] the bandwidth between ideas arriving in my
[43:22] brain and software emerging on the
screen. It was like going from dial-up-
[43:28] … to fiber. I think on your podcast, Elon
talked about the actual human bandwidth-
[43:35] … that Neuralink and other
projects are trying to accelerate.
[43:39] Like, the bandwidth we’re communicating
over right now is quite low because
[43:46] we’re limited by our cognition.
We’re limited by the rate of
[43:50] speech. You’re not limited by those
things when you’re working with a
[43:53] swarm of agents. Now, let
me caveat this by saying,
[44:00] if I’d heard myself talk like this-
[44:03] … nine months ago, I would
probably have used the label AI,
[44:07] AI psychosis. I think it
would be fitting because
[44:11] nine months ago when people were talking
like this, they weren’t shipping,
[44:15] and I think that’s the ultimate difference,
that there were people who saw this
[44:19] early. I was not actually that
early. As we’ve talked about, I
[44:22] was rather skeptical, and I was using
AI in certain ways, but I was not
[44:26] the first person who downloaded Claude
Code. I think Boris released that in end of
[44:30] February. I don’t think I
installed Claude Code until
[44:34] September. So there was about
six months there where pioneers
[44:39] saw these glimmers of what the future
was gonna look like. It wasn’t there
[44:43] yet because the intelligence wasn’t there.
The harnesses weren’t there, but they could
[44:47] see the glimmers. I couldn’t.
Tobi, Tobi Lütke, the CEO of
[44:50] Shopify and now my
partner in crime on this
[44:54] Omarchy project in part, he’s
gotten pilled with Omarchy as well.
[44:58] He saw these things very early,
and he tried to tell me,
[45:03] and I wasn’t seeing it. I was
not seeing what he was seeing.
[45:07] - You were a hater.
[45:08] - Yes. I was still on Earth. And he was…
He had already boarded the rocket and was
[45:15] heading towards space. I
remember actually reading his
[45:19] memo to the company, the AI memo, and
thinking, “Ah, seems a little much.”
[45:24] Like, you’re making a big deal out
of something that I cannot yet
[45:29] feel is a tangible thing.
[45:32] Because where’s the output of this? I try
using it. It writes code I don’t like.
[45:36] It wants to interrupt me all the time.
Where are you getting this from? Uh,
[45:41] so I get it. I totally get
it. If you’ve not seen what
[45:47] the current quality of
intelligence can produce,
[45:51] of course you’re gonna look at someone and go
like, “They sound a little nutty,” because
[45:55] all your experience up until this point
would tell you that they are nutty. Because
[45:59] if you look at the history of computer
programming, for the last 40,
[46:03] 50 years, people have been promising that
[46:07] regular people could write code just
by talking. We’re gonna have fourth
[46:10] generation languages.
Lisp was once upon a time
[46:14] presented, Smalltalk was presented
as these environments that would
[46:18] let regular people write their own
applications, and none of it came
[46:22] true in the sense beyond, like, Microsoft
[46:26] Access databases or Excel
spreadsheets. That, those are end
[46:30] user programming environments, but it’s
nothing like what we’re able to do now.
[46:33] And then, I mean, I’m not even talking
about end user. I’m talking as me,
[46:37] someone who’s been programming
for 25 years, seeing
[46:41] the output and the acceleration and
the quality and then shipping it,
[46:45] and I think that’s what’s gonna
change the entire conversation
[46:49] quite quickly. The few laggards
who are still on the fence
[46:52] about whether this is actually useful,
who are still trapped in a meme
[46:56] from early ‘25 about mechanical parrots,
[47:00] they’re simply going to be overwhelmed
by the evidence that’s about to
[47:04] flood over them.
[47:05] - So I hope to see,
[47:08] projects like Omarchy, several of them
that, like, really show agent first.
[47:15] - It’s coming. All of it is coming.
[47:17] - In the spaces, in the silly spaces that I
already mentioned, like video editing, all
[47:21] these kinds of apps that are like Typora-
[47:24] - Yes.
[47:24] - … this kind of stuff.
[47:26] - It’s gonna come, and I’ve already
seen the early inklings of this.
[47:30] One of the really neat features
about Omarchy is that it has
[47:36] a far more robust plugin system
that allows you to extend your
[47:40] operating system and rewrite
it really in terms of its
[47:44] user interface and its
panel and its features
[47:47] by creating your own plugins that can be
cloned off of tools we ship in the box. For
[47:55] example, say you want a different calendar.
Omarchy ships with a calendar. You
[47:59] click the little clock. It pops
up a calendar, and it doesn’t
[48:03] have iCal support, for example. It
doesn’t consume your appointments.
[48:07] There’s about 17 implementations
of that already, and in
[48:11] three days, we had 330 plugins on the
Omarchy plugin marketplace. I have
[48:18] never seen growth like
that with any project
[48:22] I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve never
seen participation that broadly.
[48:26] I’ve never seen that many people
be able to create software that’s
[48:30] meaningful for them- Also be usable
for others so quickly. All of
[48:36] it is driven by the fact
that Omarchy ships a set of
[48:40] skills that tells any agent
you bring to it how to
[48:43] create extensions to the
operating system, and
[48:47] therefore affording you the
vision of the true malleable…
[48:53] I was about to say agentic.
I hate that fucking word.
[48:56] And the reason in part I hate that word
is, first of all, it’s become marketing
[49:00] slob speak- … at this point. Like,
it’s just slapped onto everything.
[49:04] I wish we had a different word
that just meant AI doing stuff.
[49:08] - Vibe coding feels wrong, too.
[49:09] - It does, because vibe coding to
me smells exactly like script
[49:13] kiddies did in the early 2000s.
[49:15] People applying PHP scripts they
just downloaded offline they don’t
[49:19] understand anything of.
[49:21] And while, I mean, that’s true in the
sense that much of the vibe coding,
[49:25] including my own vibe coded projects,
and as I just mentioned, I have several.
[49:29] I’ve written things in C++.
I’ve written things in Rust.
[49:33] Rust. I hate Rust with
a passion. Rust to me
[49:39] is like pouring acid in my eyes
when I have to look at the code.
[49:42] - Wait, wait, wait, wait. Why
do, why do you hate Rust?
[49:43] - It is, in my opinion, the ugliest programming
language- … that has been invented-
[49:47] … in probably the last 40 years.
[49:49] - So it’s the opposite of Rails and Ruby.
[49:50] - It’s the opposite. But-
[49:53] - You’ve written it
[49:53] - … I’ve written applications
in Rust because the output
[49:57] of Rust is actually amazing. The memory
safety, the fact that it’s a system
[50:01] language, the fact that it’s
highly efficient and so forth is
[50:05] incredible. So Rust, to me, can both be
[50:09] the most repugnant programming
language ever devised for
[50:13] human consumption and a wonderful
platform for agentic engineering.
[50:19] These two truths can
coexist easily in my head.
[50:24] - Do you think that there can be a point at
which we can just call agentic engineering
[50:28] programming? Can we just
change what programming
[50:31] means? ‘Cause who’s actually going
to be programming the old-school way
[50:35] in a few months?
[50:36] - I don’t think we should reuse the
term because for me, programming
[50:40] implies an understanding
of certain primitives,
[50:45] loops, conditions, variables. All the
constructs of programming languages
[50:52] are what constitutes programming
itself, not the creation of programs.
[50:55] Because you could say in the
pre-agentic era, well, your
[50:59] CEO is programming. He’s hiring a bunch of
programmers, he’s telling them what to do, and
[51:03] out comes software that he can sell.
[51:05] Eh, I don’t think most people would call that CEO
a programmer, and I don’t think we should call
[51:09] the vibe coder a programmer
either. And vibe
[51:13] coding, if we define it here, is you
tell an agent to build software for
[51:17] you. You do not look at the implementation.
That, to me, is what separates vibe
[51:21] coding from programming or, let’s
say, agent-accelerated development.
[51:26] - But don’t you think, so to
push back a little bit,
[51:29] don’t you think a programmer,
old-school programmer, you, doing
[51:33] agentic engineering is a different
kind of agentic engineering than
[51:37] a non-programmer doing agentic
engineering? What I mean is, if you know
[51:42] what a for loop is, if you know what function
programming is, if you know some of the
[51:46] basic good principles of software
engineering, the way you do
[51:50] natural language-based agentic
engineering will be different and more
[51:53] systematic, and this, the scale and the
[51:57] variety of things you can actually
build is much bigger than a vibe coder.
[52:02] - I’m just gonna extend the pro case here a
little bit just for the sake of the argument.
[52:05] - Right.
[52:07] - I actually think for a while it
was to my deficit to know as
[52:14] much as I know about programming because I
[52:18] was instructing the
agents to do things as I
[52:22] prescribed them to do, and they
were very good at that. And in the
[52:25] first agentic moment, let’s not
call it an era, it was something
[52:29] that lasted three months. Moment. In
the first agentic moment, that felt
[52:35] very productive. I could get more productivity
out of telling the agents what to
[52:39] do in the way I would’ve done
it, and I used all of my
[52:42] experience as a programmer
to do just that.
[52:47] Then I was a little late on the next moment,
and the next moment allowed me, allowed
[52:54] anyone, to describe outcomes- …
to describe problems to the agents
[53:00] and get better solutions than if you
had a programmer prescribe the path.
[53:05] - See, okay, so we’re having
fun arguing here. Well
[53:09] so are you suggesting that
there’s problems for which
[53:12] programmers are worse than
non-programmers at agentic engineering?
[53:16] - 100%. And the reason I say
that, let’s define it here.
[53:20] The reason I say that is there’s
a lot of programmers who are not
[53:24] very good product managers. Software
[53:28] is product management. What
should it do? Who should it do it
[53:32] for? How should it do it? How should
it look? What are our priorities? What
[53:36] do we start with first? What does
version one include? All of those skills
[53:42] are not easily or equally
distributed across all programmers.
[53:46] And in the agentic era
where you are letting
[53:50] an agent, an AI, do the implementation,
these are the skills you
[53:54] need. And I happen to sit in both
camps, and this is why I love this
[53:58] moment. I still get to live a little bit
in the old world where I look at the full
[54:02] implementation because there are
domains and areas where I feel
[54:06] that still brings value, and
then I also live in the future.
[54:10] And as I said, when I created
Omawrite, I’ve not looked at a
[54:14] single line of that C++. I
actually made it a point to
[54:18] myself that I was gonna treat it as an
experiment. This is 100% a black box.
[54:22] I will treat it as though I
was any other user who had
[54:26] opinions about how their digital
typewriter should work, and
[54:29] therefore felt like it
was a fair experiment as
[54:33] if a writer of any other sort who had
[54:36] opinions about how software should be done
and how it should work. As you mentioned,
[54:40] video editors who know exactly
where they don’t like what Adobe
[54:44] Premiere’s doing and how it could be
better, but don’t have the capacities to
[54:48] improve it- … how that could be.
[54:50] - The pushback, though, I think what
programmers do well, good programmers do
[54:54] well, is systematic design,
like think in terms of systems-
[54:59] - Correct
[54:59] - … and rigor.
[55:00] - Yes.
[55:00] - And I think still, and probably
for a long time to come,
[55:04] even natural language-based
control of agentic systems will
[55:08] require a certain kind
of rigor. Not overly
[55:11] structured rigor, but really explain very
[55:15] specifically the goals
of the system, how to
[55:19] do the verification, what kind of
security testing. You wanna do all
[55:23] those kinds of things. Although
then to push back on that, the
[55:27] system will… should
be smart longer term.
[55:29] - I would’ve said the same
thing six months ago.
[55:30] - Yeah, so this has changed.
[55:30] - And I think the same thing would’ve been true
six months ago. What I have found since,
[55:35] especially even just the
last few weeks of the
[55:39] agentically accelerated
development of Mach-E, is that
[55:43] more often than not, I have the humility
to recognize that the agent knows best.
[55:49] - You can legitimately say,
“Make sure it’s secure.”
[55:52] - Correct. And it would know more about
what that entails. Now, you’re laughing-
[55:59] - What a crazy world
[55:59] - … but it’s true. And in fact-
[56:01] - Oh my God
[56:02] - … a good parallel to this is the AGENTS
MD/CLAUDE MD files. There was a hot moment
[56:09] where it was all the rage about micro-
optimizing that. Oh, you tell your agent this-
[56:14] … you tell your agent that, and you ended
up with this huge file of instructions
[56:18] for your agent. One of the
things that Boris, working on
[56:23] Claude Code, shared in an interview
recently about Opus 5 was
[56:27] that the system prompt that
they ship for Opus 5, and
[56:30] presumably also Fable, shrunk by 80%
[56:35] because the agent not only
needed far less human
[56:38] instruction, it was actually being damaged
[56:43] by overly prescriptive
humans. And any programmer
[56:47] who’s had a pointy-haired boss
knows exactly what that is like.
[56:51] When the boss walks into the
room, doesn’t know anything,
[56:55] starts telling you how to
program, how to code. What do you
[56:59] do? You sulk. You write shittier code if
[57:03] you’re mandated to do things that
are against your better judgment.
[57:06] Why would an agent not be the same?
[57:08] - Actually, to push back against myself, I
do find the actual skill I’m currently
[57:11] developing, which I along those lines
is probably what everybody’s trying to
[57:15] develop, is not to overspecify things,
is to get out of the system’s way.
[57:20] - Of course.
[57:20] - Is to specify enough to provide a
kinda high-level vision and guidance.
[57:25] - It’s even better because you
don’t even need that. The
[57:28] fundamental insight of modern software
development came from the agile
[57:32] software development movement. In the
late ’90s, early 2000s, a group of
[57:38] smart, honest, and brave people came together
and said, “The way we’ve been trying to
[57:42] do software development for
the last 40 to 50 years has
[57:46] not worked, will not work.
We’ve been trying to
[57:49] specify upfront what software
should look like. We thought
[57:53] that we could ask humans what
they wanted, write it all
[57:57] down, apply our systems
thinking and our rigor to a
[58:01] spec sheet, hand that spec sheet
over to a group of programmers
[58:05] who would then implement just that, and
everyone would be happy.” Well, guess what?
[58:09] No one was happy. Because no one
knows what they want until they
[58:12] receive it. You don’t know what
a program should do until you
[58:16] play with it. So in the
agentic age, you should
[58:19] resist the temptation to be
overly specific upfront. Be as
[58:23] vague as you can to manifest something,
then interact with the something.
[58:29] The way you arrive at good software is
you write a little bit of software,
[58:33] and then you try to use it. It is in
the process of using software that you
[58:37] discover what you really want.
[58:39] It’s where you discover what’s
important and what’s not important. And
[58:43] agents are incredible at allowing you to
[58:46] bumble into this experience of
realizing what you want because
[58:50] you don’t know what you want.
[58:51] - Mm-hmm. And I’ve actually done something
similar to what you suggested, which is
[58:55] implement different designs and totally
different implementations, and then
[59:01] I create HTML pages for myself,
PHP pages, where I vote on
[59:05] what I like more and so on.
[59:06] And it does this iterative thing, and it’s
very nice and fun. The interaction with
[59:10] the agentic system, if you create a nice
interface for yourself, it can be super fun,
[59:14] and you’re focusing on the design part and
the most fun parts of the design part.
[59:18] - Correct. And this is what
humans are really good at.
[59:20] - Yeah, taste.
[59:21] - Differential evaluation. You give me three
[59:24] options, I pick one of them. Now,
humans actually fall off a cliff if
[59:28] you give them 22 options. That’s the paradox
of choice. But you give them three options,
[59:32] they very quickly within a split
second will tell you what they like.
[59:36] There are all these ways
that exploit the fact that
[59:40] humans will make these snap judgments
that are actually pre-intellectual,
[59:44] right? Like, they’re coming from
the gut, and then they arrive up in
[59:48] the, in the brain, and the brain
tries to rationalize why the
[59:51] gut said what it said. And if you’re
[59:57] willing to let go of some of
that intellectual pre-processing
[01:00:00] rationalization and simply let your gut
drive, the agentic age is a revelation.
[01:00:06] - So this is a fascinating thing to
ask you because you have sort of
[01:00:10] famously for a long time talked about,
like, detailed chiseling of beautiful
[01:00:17] Rails Ruby code, and now you have switched
[01:00:21] in a matter of months to not
doing that. So, like, what is
[01:00:24] your current setup look like?
‘Cause you’re, I assume, are still
[01:00:28] looking for the beauty, for the chiseling,
for the crafting, but you’re just
[01:00:32] crafting in a different medium.
[01:00:35] - And at different levels of abstraction. When
I’m working in Ruby code, and we have a lot
[01:00:39] of Ruby code because it’s in our entire
business, and I’m asking agents to make changes
[01:00:43] to that code, I still sweat the details.
[01:00:48] What I’m coming to realize
is that the economic payoff
[01:00:55] of that sweat is diminishing
rapidly. The reason
[01:00:59] why I, for 25 years, was
sweating every line of
[01:01:03] code so judiciously was because I knew
the payoff of keeping an architecture
[01:01:10] coherent and malleable was software
that could change and evolve-
[01:01:16] quickly with a small team,
and not exorbitant cost,
[01:01:21] and not introducing a bunch of bugs when you
change one thing over the other. That was
[01:01:25] the driving economic argument
for why you should write
[01:01:28] beautiful code, ‘cause beautiful code is
easier to understand, it is simpler, it
[01:01:32] is more malleable. That was premised
on humans doing the modifications.
[01:01:40] I think it is an open question to
which degree this still matters. Now,
[01:01:46] it does matter, and the reason I say
that, at least for the moment, is that
[01:01:50] tokens are still scarce. At this moment
in time, we are all token limited.
[01:01:58] Well, not all, but anyone who doesn’t
have endless budgets are token
[01:02:02] limited. So therefore,
there is great payoff
[01:02:06] to writing systems that agents
have an easier time dealing with
[01:02:10] and evolving without having to relearn
the entire context. Just like humans,
[01:02:14] if they can make iterations
and changes to the code base
[01:02:18] without wrecking the architecture,
they can make the next
[01:02:22] change just as cheaply as the
last one. And this is the
[01:02:25] classic ball of mud where you end up
with a system that’s a ball of mud-
[01:02:31] … because it’s just put together
in a way where nothing is
[01:02:35] connected and it’s just a real mess, right?
I’ve seen that with agents, and I’ve seen
[01:02:39] it in our own code bases where,
again, the first PR is, like,
[01:02:43] mediocre of quality, and then if you add
another PR on top of that, and then five more
[01:02:47] down the line, it’s not very good, right?
So there’s still a payoff to that,
[01:02:51] but that payoff is premised on
our current moment. I am now able
[01:02:55] to… And this is, by the way, where the
AI psychosis really comes in, when you
[01:02:59] try to extrapolate what nine months
from now it’s gonna look like.
[01:03:02] What two years from now it’s gonna look
like. But as an intellectual experiment,
[01:03:07] I think the first computer
I used was a Commodore 64.
[01:03:10] - Me too. Cool.
[01:03:11] - It had one megahertz
CPU and 64K of memory.
[01:03:16] Everyone who wrote software
for that machine internalized
[01:03:20] certain constraints. Well, all
the constraints. That machine was
[01:03:24] nothing but constraints. If
you put that programmer in a
[01:03:27] time machine and teleported him or her to
[01:03:31] 2026 and gave them a
modern computer today and
[01:03:35] said, “Now write me a piece of software,”
they’d be lost for a little bit
[01:03:39] because all their techniques and all their
[01:03:42] heuristics would simply be wrong. Or
not wrong, because efficient software
[01:03:46] is still beautiful. They would be out of
date with the value that they could create.
[01:03:51] The amount of optimization you have
to apply for a one megahertz computer
[01:03:55] to produce a video game is just very
different from what you have to apply today.
[01:03:59] - Just imagine that guy that was programming
back then on a Commodore. Just re-
[01:04:03] remember all those,
[01:04:05] like what programming felt like and what
it meant, highly constrained resources-
[01:04:10] … how slow everything is.
[01:04:11] - Beautiful in many ways. Beautiful.
[01:04:12] - It’s chiseling. But-
[01:04:15] - It-
[01:04:15] - … imagine that person coming now.
[01:04:17] - It’s romantic too, though. Let’s also imagine
that. This is one of the things, whenever
[01:04:21] we bemoan modern car culture, for
example, right? And then we think like,
[01:04:27] “Oh, wasn’t it better when we all had the
horse-drawn carriages and so on?” No, it wasn’t.
[01:04:31] Do you know what New York smelled like
when we used horses for transportation?
[01:04:35] It was an open sewer. They
just shat everywhere.
[01:04:38] - Yeah, but have you played Red Dead Redemption?
You know how cool those cowboys were-
[01:04:42] - That is the way-
[01:04:42] - … on the horse?
[01:04:43] - … to experience the nostalgic
past, when you don’t get the all
[01:04:47] the furry impulses and senses.
[01:04:50] - So basically programming, old
school programming by hand is
[01:04:54] kinda like the cowboy culture that we
romanticize and make movies about.
[01:04:57] - It’s already happening, the
romanticization of handwritten code.
[01:05:01] And I have some of it because
it was a very romantic
[01:05:05] era. I’m grateful to have
been alive for 20 years of
[01:05:12] economically valuable handwritten code.
That was a, that was a good time.
[01:05:16] - Where handwritten beautiful
code was also valuable.
[01:05:20] - Correct. Because handwritten
beautiful code exists
[01:05:24] as much today as it did
yesterday. There are people who
[01:05:27] willfully write new video
games for the Commodore 64,
[01:05:32] or for the second Mega Drive, or
for other vintage consoles. In
[01:05:36] fact, one of my favorite
video games of late is
[01:05:40] ModRetro’s. Do you know Palmer Luckey’s-
[01:05:43] … side geschäft, which is recreating old
consoles. So he’s recreated the Game Boy.
[01:05:50] - Nice.
[01:05:51] - It’s amazing. Look it up. It’s
really cool. But what’s even
[01:05:55] cooler than the fact that he recreated
this hardware and the original
[01:05:58] chunkiness, but brought it up
to date with sort of modern
[01:06:02] screens and so on, now they just put
out the Nintendo 64 too. Incredible.
[01:06:06] Super cool. Wild attention to detail,
input lag, and all the other things.
[01:06:12] But what’s also very cool, that
one, I have to wave. That one
[01:06:16] right there, and hover over it, ‘cause then
you get to see what I’m talking about.
[01:06:19] That is the Chromatic- …
Tetris re-implementation.
[01:06:23] - Wow.
[01:06:23] - I played a lot of Tetris
on the original Game Boy.
[01:06:26] Probably one of my top three
favorite games of all time.
[01:06:30] And they rewrote it with one change.
If you hit up, the brick slams.
[01:06:39] And that speeds up the game by about 400%.
[01:06:43] It is an incredible game, and
it’s a new Game Boy game.
[01:06:47] I think the Game Boy came out
in- ‘89 or ‘88. It’s a very
[01:06:52] old machine. The fact that there’s
still people writing new old
[01:06:55] games is awesome, and the reason
they do it in part, now here
[01:06:59] they’re doing it because they want Tetris, but there are
people who do it just for the love of the constraints,
[01:07:03] for the love of the romantic
notion of writing that. Just
[01:07:07] like there are people still riding
around on horses, not to get
[01:07:11] places fast, but because
they like the mode of
[01:07:15] transportation where it’s
a literal biological
[01:07:19] being below you propelling you forward.
[01:07:21] - And also, we should say that that
beautiful code is great training
[01:07:25] data. So in some sense, the beauty
that we’ve built over a few decades-
[01:07:30] - Yes
[01:07:30] - … continues.
[01:07:31] - We gave birth to this moment. What
a privilege, and I feel that very
[01:07:39] personally because I… Almost all of
the code I’ve ever written is public
[01:07:43] code. The vast majority of my career has
been dedicated to writing open source code,
[01:07:47] and therefore, some of that code,
some of those beautiful lines
[01:07:51] are in the training set. And in fact, I’ve
[01:07:55] heard people do this when they write
Ruby code. They ask the agent, “Write
[01:07:59] it like DHH would.”
[01:08:01] And they’re pleased with the result, and
that does warm my heart a little bit, that
[01:08:05] I helped give birth to this moment in my
tiny little small part. And anyone else
[01:08:09] who contributed open source code or any code
at all that the agents have had access to
[01:08:13] over the last, well, entire time
[01:08:16] programming has been around as
a discipline, is now part of
[01:08:21] these new agent overlords.
[01:08:22] - So you don’t have a little bit of
sadness that writing beautiful
[01:08:26] code by hand is now less and less useful?
[01:08:29] - Am I sad that if I had
to get a job tomorrow,
[01:08:33] it’s unlikely that I could apply my
skills in such a way that I would be
[01:08:36] paid to write these
manual lines of code? No.
[01:08:42] I did it for 25 years. Like, I
wanna see something new here,
[01:08:45] especially if we’re all gonna live forever,
which I hope we don’t. Maybe we’ll get to that.
[01:08:49] But, like, I’ve done that. That’s enough.
That’s fine. I don’t feel any more
[01:08:53] nostalgic about that than I do
about the fact that I don’t have to
[01:08:57] spend my time in the field with
a hoe or at the assembly line.
[01:09:01] - Well, hold on a second. You are
one of the best programmers
[01:09:05] in the world at writing handcrafted
beautiful code, appreciators
[01:09:09] of beauty with great taste.
[01:09:11] - Correct.
[01:09:11] - That has been replaced.
[01:09:13] - I say humbly.
[01:09:14] - Yeah. That has been replaced.
Like, you had now…
[01:09:18] You’re just fast evolving, and
you’re able to… One of your
[01:09:22] really great qualities is you’re able
to change your mind and evolve very
[01:09:26] quickly. But, like, you had
to kill that other person.
[01:09:30] - I am grateful for every moment that
brought me to where I am right now, and
[01:09:34] therefore, I have also tried, and
maybe this did take some practice. I
[01:09:39] will concede that. Maybe I
wasn’t always like this, but
[01:09:44] stoic philosophy, amor
fati, loving your fate,
[01:09:48] is an incredibly liberating
way to live. And
[01:09:53] you could attack that and say,
“Well, that’s a point of privilege.”
[01:09:57] True, but also I had the
same directional point
[01:10:01] when I didn’t have all this,
quote unquote, “privilege.”
[01:10:05] So I think there’s a way to live
and interact with the world
[01:10:09] where you accept the things you can
change and the things you cannot change
[01:10:13] and fall in love with all of it.
[01:10:15] Fall in love with the fact that
the world today has jumped
[01:10:19] two decades forward into technology
industry from where it was last year.
[01:10:24] - So can we talk about the general
anxiety that programmers feel,
[01:10:28] going through the same transformation?
They’ve maybe gone to university
[01:10:36] majored in computer science, dreamed of
being programmers and building stuff,
[01:10:40] high salary, and now everything’s
changing, and there’s deep
[01:10:44] anxiety about, “What do I do
when… with my life?” Can you
[01:10:48] empathize with that, and what the
hell are they supposed to do?
[01:10:51] - Hugely. Because just because
I have this disposition, I’m
[01:10:55] keenly aware that that’s not
evenly distributed, that
[01:10:59] not everyone sits with this position
and this optimism for the future.
[01:11:03] But I do think I wanna
separate things a little bit.
[01:11:08] I think you’re gonna have a
hard time coping with the new
[01:11:11] reality if the only thing you loved about
programming was the mechanical bits of
[01:11:19] putting the right logical constructs
together to produce something other people
[01:11:25] told you to produce. Because that
mechanical process is under threat.
[01:11:33] If you are, as you just mentioned,
excited about building things,
[01:11:38] I don’t think you’re under threat at all.
In fact, I think there’s a great argument
[01:11:42] for us needing far more builders than
what we have now, and if you look at
[01:11:49] the employment stats, it’s fuzzy.
[01:11:53] It’s not clear what’s gonna happen
at all. Some stats actually show an
[01:11:56] increase in openings because
[01:12:00] the advent of AI is so
dramatically lowering the price of
[01:12:04] programs that people want a lot
more programs. This is the classic,
[01:12:09] the Jevons paradox, that says when the price
of something goes down, there’s gonna be more
[01:12:13] demand for it. And this is the
example of the ATMs too. When the ATM
[01:12:18] originally came, a lot of
bank tellers were very
[01:12:22] afraid for their job because suddenly there
was a machine that could dispense money from
[01:12:26] people’s account. Well, what
the ATMs did was lower the
[01:12:30] price of a branch, and suddenly
banks could afford to open a lot
[01:12:34] more branches, and we ended up with more bank
tellers than we did before. Now, none of this
[01:12:38] is guaranteed. There are also
moments where things do change. The
[01:12:42] vast majority of people
worked in the fields up until
[01:12:46] the late 1800s, and then
suddenly we got mechanized-
[01:12:51] harvesting tools, and we did not
need human labor with a hoe and
[01:12:55] an ox out there. We had mechanical
tools to do that for us.
[01:13:00] In that moment, are there people
who were threatened that their
[01:13:04] job and their livelihood was at stake?
Yes. Was that a reasonable thing to
[01:13:08] feel threatened about? Yes. The
Luddites smashing the weaving machines-
[01:13:13] … in England had the same thing. And I
think maybe that’s the better parallel
[01:13:17] than people working the fields because these
were actually highly skilled professionals
[01:13:21] doing a job that they liked on
[01:13:24] rather favorable conditions, not
slaving outside in the sun all day.
[01:13:28] But where we live now, would we
still like for clothing to be this
[01:13:34] heavily constrained resource?
Like, what if this T-shirt was
[01:13:38] 400?Imean,okay,thenI′dhave[01:13:42]two.Well,mywardrobeprobablylookslikeIhavetwo.But[01:13:46]Ithinkthegeneralprogressofmankinddependsonproductivity[01:13:54]improvements.Andwhatareproductivityimprovements?Thisisveryimportantbecauseintheabstract,[01:13:58]Ithinkeveryonesays,"Yay,productivity.That′sgood."[01:14:02]Whatdidyouthink,thiswasalljustvibes?No.Productivitymeansfewer[01:14:06]peopletodothesamenumberorthesamejob.Now,[01:14:10]theamountofjobyouwantdonemayincrease,andthereforeyougetmorepeople,[01:14:14]butitalsomaynot.Theremaybepockets[01:14:17]whereacompanyjustneedsacertainsetof[01:14:21]fixedtasksdone,andsuddenlytheycandothemwitha10ththenumber[01:14:25]ofpeople.This,bytheway,could...istragic[01:14:29]anddifficultinthemomentfortheindividualbeinglaidoff.It′salsoamazing[01:14:33]fortheeconomyatlarge.Suddenlyyou′vefreeduptheseresourceswhocan[01:14:37]nowgodomoreproductivethings.Thisishowthewhole[01:14:40]economyevolvesandimprovesandhowwegetgrowth,[01:14:44]andgrowthisgood.Ithinkthisistheotherthingtomakea[01:14:48]strongdefensefor,thatgrowthin[01:14:51]generalisagoodthing.Wedonotwanttowindthe[01:14:55]clockbackto1920or1950.Weshould[01:14:59]beexcitedaboutthefactthatwe′vediscoverednew[01:15:03]technologythatallowsustodovastlymore.And[01:15:08]whilesomeofthetasksthatmaybetakenoverbyAIweretasks[01:15:12]thathumanswereexcitedtodo,andthey′rejustnolongereconomically[01:15:15]viable,alotofthetaskswerejustdrudgery.Thisiscertainlytrue[01:15:19]ofmyprogramming.Thereweremomentsofprogramming[01:15:23]Ithoughtwereamazing.Thesewerethemomentsthatproducedthatstateof[01:15:27]flowwetalkedaboutlasttime,andtheywereecstatic.Howoftendidthey[01:15:34]happenoutofthecourseofayear?Ifyoutookyouraverage[01:15:37]programmer,howmuchtimeoutof2,000hoursat[01:15:41]thejobdidthatpersonspendinaflowstate?[01:15:47]100?200?25?Ithinkallthoseanswerscouldbeplausibleforsomeone.[01:15:54]Andtakingthatdrudgery,handingitoverto[01:15:58]machines,thatisthehistoryofcivilization.[01:16:03]−Yeah,Imean,thehoursspentdebugging.Soprogramminghassomanypainful,[01:16:09]painfulhoursinit.Andnowthey′regone.Forthe...Imean,forthemostpart,[01:16:14]it′sjustfun.[01:16:16]−Alotofitisgoneinalotofdomains,andtherestofitmaybegoneverysoon.[01:16:21]Sothat′swheresomeoftheromanticismalsocomesin[01:16:24]...becausepaininthemoment[01:16:28]isdifficult.It′shard.It′sannoying.Painintherear[01:16:31]viewmirrorisaccomplishment,proud,[01:16:35]learning,stepsforward,allthethings,right?Sowe[01:16:39]encompassallofthisaspartofthehumanexperience,thatwehate[01:16:43]paininthemoment,butwecherishitwhen[01:16:46]it′sfiveminutespastandwedon′trememberthehardship.We[01:16:50]justremembertheprogress.[01:16:51]−Socertainlyatthesocietallevel,atthemacroeconomic[01:16:55]level,growthisexciting.Buttheindividuallevel,there′sgoingtobealotof[01:16:59]anxietypotentiallyalotofsuffering.Sobywayof[01:17:03]advice,ifyou′relikeayoungDHHoryoungdeveloper[01:17:07]programmernow,whatwouldyouadvisetheydo?[01:17:11]−Don′ttrytoanticipateanything.Youwillliterallygocrazy.[01:17:15]Becauseeventhesmartestbrainsinthebusiness[01:17:19]cannotanticipatewhattwomodelhopsfromhereis[01:17:22]goingtolooklike.It′sanabsolutewasteoftime,andyou[01:17:26]willdevelopanAIpsychosistryingtodeducewhattwo[01:17:30]yearsfromnowisgonnalooklike.Focusonrightnow,andrightnowisthemost[01:17:34]incredibletimetobeintocomputers.[01:17:38]Youcanmakethemdothemostamazingthingsifyouleanin.Ifyou[01:17:45]maybeforahotmomentforceyourselftolearnwherethestateoftheartis,[01:17:53]Idoubledogdareyounottogetexcitedaboutwhat′spossible.[01:17:57]−Andwouldyourecommendbuildingpublicly?[01:17:59]−Ithinkit′soptionalactuallytobuildpublicly.Ithinkit′s[01:18:03]nicetodobecausethenyougettobepartofacommunity,andthere′ssome[01:18:07]camaraderieinopensource.Notsomecamaraderie.There′san[01:18:11]enormousamountofcamaraderie.Opensourceisan[01:18:14]incrediblesourceofcommunityandcamaraderie,[01:18:18]andit′salsoagreatwaytostemsomeofthat[01:18:22]personalexistentialdread.Ifyou′reamongstotherhumans,youcan[01:18:26]getinfectedwithgoodformsofmindviruses,[01:18:30]excitingformsofmindviruses,theonesthattellyouthatit′sallgonnabeokay,[01:18:34]andthefuturelooksbright,andifwe[01:18:38]buildabunchofthingstogether,wecandothingsnoneofusever[01:18:41]dreamedwecoulddo.IwasjusttalkingtoRyanHughes,who′sbeen[01:18:45]mymainpartneronOmarchyalmostsincedayone,[01:18:49]andwewereliterallytalkingaboutyesterdayhowwhen[01:18:53]Westartedonthisjourneytogether.Ourambitionswerevery[01:18:56]modest.We′rejustlike,"Canwegetthisdistrotonotcrashat[01:19:00]3:00AMbecauseofanArchpackagethatjustgotpushedout[01:19:04]outsideofourcontrol?Thatwouldbeamazing.Thenit′dbegreat."Now[01:19:08]we′releaningbackandthinking,"Howcanwetakeovertheworld?[01:19:12]HowcanwemakeOmarchygotoMars?Howcanwedoeverythingwe′veeverdreamedof?"[01:19:21]Andthatlevelofambitioninflationispartly[01:19:25]becausethingshavegottenbetterwithagents,buthugelyalsobecausewe′ve[01:19:29]surroundedourselveswithothersexcitedaboutthesamejourney.[01:19:33]Andifyou′rejustsittinginyourlittleisolatedcave[01:19:38]worryingaboutthefuture,yeah,you′regonnagoalittlenuts.[01:19:42]IthinkifwelearnedanythingduringCOVIDis[01:19:46]thatpeoplewillgonutssittingintheirlittlecave[01:19:49]insidebythemselvesworryingaboutwhat′sgonnahappen.Thatis[01:19:53]indistinguishablefromdepression,ruminatingendlesslyaboutthingsyoucan′t[01:20:00]control.I′msorrytochannelsomeJensenHuanghere,butthat′sjustlosertalk.[01:20:07]Youdon′thavetobealoser.Youcanchoosetoleaninand−[01:20:13]...win.Andwinisverybroadlydefinedaslearning[01:20:17]more,makingmore,contributingmore,beingpartofmore.[01:20:23]Andattheendoftheday,whatareyourchoices?Youdon′thaveachoice,mate.[01:20:29]Thefuture′scomingwhetheryoulikeitornot,soyoumightaswellchoosetobe[01:20:33]excitedaboutit.[01:20:34]−ButImean,weshouldemphasizethefactthatplanningisnearly[01:20:37]impossiblewithAI.Imean,mostofusplanourlifea[01:20:41]littlebit.Whenwe′reyounger,youhave,like,hopesanddreams.There′sa[01:20:45]reasonyougotocollege.There′saplanunderlyingthat.[01:20:47]−Iagreewiththat.[01:20:48]−Butthere−[01:20:49]−I′llconcedethat.[01:20:49]−...itiskinda−[01:20:51]−Thisisdifferent.[01:20:51]−...nutsthatit′simpossibletoreallyplan.Because,like,youreallydon′tknow,[01:20:58]iftherewillevenbeaClaudeCode,aCodex,andCursor[01:21:03]sixmonthsfromnow.Maybeit′llbeyou′llbetalkingtoWhatsApp.Maybe[01:21:07]it′llbeallopencalltype.Maybeit′lljustallbevoice.[01:21:11]MaybeOmarchywilltakeovertheworldandit′llbevoice.Maybetherewon′tbeoperatingsystems[01:21:14]anymore.You′lljust...There′llbethisglowingorbthatjustyoujusttalk[01:21:18]tobecauseifnaturallanguageisenoughtoaccomplish[01:21:22]alltasksinlife,like,whatislifeabout?Like,whatarethemajor[01:21:26]tasksyouneedtoaccomplishinlife?Ifyoucanjustdothatwithvoice,and[01:21:30]itwritesalltheprogramsforyou,andallissystematized,andwhat,[01:21:34]whatarethejobsneededthen?Maybeit′smoreabouttheservice[01:21:38]industry.Maybetherewon′tbeprogrammers,likeagenticengineersatall.Andso[01:21:44]yes,youradviceiswisetofocusonthemoment,butthatdoesn′tmean[01:21:48]thatit′sjustacrazyrollercoasterride,′causewedon′tknow[01:21:52]whatthisDecemberorwhatthisJanuarywilllooklike.[01:21:55]−Wedon′tknow,andtherefore,weshouldchoosetohavefaiththatit′s[01:21:59]gonnapanout.Thatismybestadvice[01:22:04]towardsfightinganxiety,isthatyouhaveachoice,toalargedegree,[01:22:11]ofhowtolean.[01:22:13]DoyouwannaleanintoPDoom?PDoomisgonnahappenwhetheryouleanintoitornot.[01:22:21]Youdon′thavecontrol.[01:22:22]−Butthere′salsoactualdailyscheduleofhowmuchlearningareyoudoing,howmuch[01:22:27]buildingareyoudoing,howmuchuh,diversificationyou′redoing.[01:22:31]Andforexample,ItraveledacrossruralChinarecently,andIdid[01:22:35]itquitedeliberatelybecauseyou′retalkingtopeopleinChina,in,[01:22:41]inruralanywhere,wheretimemovesmuchslower,wherethere′snodiscussions[01:22:46]aboutagenticengineering.Andtheti−and[01:22:51]Istartedbygoingonthe,ontheGreatWallofChina.[01:22:54]That′stimeless.Thatspanscenturies.And,youknow,there[01:22:58]was,like,thiskindoftensionofFOMO,likemaybeI′mmissingoutonsomething.[01:23:02]ButthenIverydeliberatelywantedtofindthe[01:23:06]timelessnessofhumanexistence,reallyplugintothefactthat,[01:23:10]okay,italwaysfeelslikeeverything′schanginguh,[01:23:14]throughouthumanhistorybut,youknow,theuniversalsarestilltrue,[01:23:18]ofwhatmattersinlife.AndIjustwantedtomakesu−keepconnectedtothat.[01:23:22]−You′renotgonnamissanything.Thisisthepartthatactually[01:23:26]grindedmygearsintheearlyphasesofthis[01:23:30]transition.Everyonewassoupinarmsthatifyou[01:23:34]didn′t...It′sloopsnow.Oh,no,no,we′redonewithloops.It′sgraphs[01:23:37]now.Oh,no,no,we′redonewiththat.It′s,itharnessesthis,right?They′re,they′reconstantly[01:23:41]churningthroughthefrontier,whichinonewayisactually[01:23:45]veryexciting.Thisiswhathappenswhenanewfieldopensup.It′slikea[01:23:49]newportal,andit′sallspillingout.That′sexciting.Butit[01:23:53]alsomeansthatifIhadjustbeenbackpackingforthelastyear,[01:23:58]hadn′ttouchedacomputer,[01:24:00]hadn′twitnessedthisagenticmoment,andIjustshowedup[01:24:04]yesterday,doyouknowwhat?Iwould′vebeencaughtupintwoweeks.[01:24:08]There′snotanyaccumulation,whichisinsomewaysa[01:24:12]greatrelief.Ifyoumissedthepastyear,youcancatch[01:24:16]uptothefrontierintwoweeks.[01:24:19]Ifyou′reaprogrammerwhowasouthikingtheHimalayasforayearand[01:24:23]youcomeback,youcancatchupintwoweeks.Andthisisactuallythegreat[01:24:27]credittotheprogresswe′reexperiencing.Wehaveso[01:24:31]manyexperimentsrunningsimultaneouslyrightnowthatare[01:24:34]constantlyandruthlesslysortingwhatworks,what[01:24:38]doesn′twork.Youdon′thavetorememberorevenbepartofthat[01:24:42]entirejourney.Youcanjustshowupfortheresults.[01:24:45]−Butthekeystepthere,whenyoucomebackfromthebackpackingjourney,[01:24:49]istobewillingtobecomeatotallynew,differenthumanbecause−[01:24:55]Thingsarechangingsofast.[01:24:56]−That′sright.[01:24:56]−Imean,literally,ifyouleftforthebackpackingjourney−...inOctoberlast[01:25:00]yearandcamebackinAprilorMay−[01:25:04]−Youmightaswellhavebeeninthecryochamberfor100years[01:25:06]−...it′slike,"What,whatdoyoumean?We′renotprogramminganymore?"This,it′sait′sa[01:25:10]hugetransformation.[01:25:12]−It′sstartling,andIactually...Imean,[01:25:14]I′mputtingsomeofthisonslightlyforeffect.Ialso[01:25:18]recognizethatit′sokaytogrieveforahotmoment.[01:25:22]That′snotmydisposition.It′snothowIdoit,butIacceptthatthat′sa[01:25:29]time−testedmechanismforcopingwith[01:25:34]asenseofloss.Andit′sokaytohaveasenseoflossthattheworld[01:25:38]thatyouknewandmaybeyouwereveryfondofisnolongerthesame.[01:25:43]−ImaybeIshouldsayoutloudandexplicitlythatIdohavethat,theNative[01:25:47]Americanwithatearrollingdownmy...Like,there′sasadness.[01:25:51]It′sagoodbye.It′sagoodbyetotheoldworldofprogramming.[01:25:55]−That′s,it′ssofascinatingtome.[01:25:57]−I′vespentsomanyyears−[01:25:58]−Butitallamountedtothismoment.Thatis,tome,whatmakesthe[01:26:02]entirejourneysomeaningful.[01:26:05]AIdidnotarrivefromthesky.Itwasnotalientechnologythat[01:26:09]hadblastedthroughtheuniverseandsuddenlyshoweduponourshores.[01:26:13]AIhasbeenaroundforaslongascomputersciencehasbeenaround.[01:26:17]Inthe′50s,theythoughttheproblemwasgonnabecrackedinabouta[01:26:21]decade,thesmartestpeopleatthetime.Ittookalittlelonger,[01:26:25]butthereasonittookalittlelongerwasinpartbecausewetook[01:26:29]someblindturnsontheroadtoAIandneural[01:26:33]networksandthoughtthattherewereothersymbolicrepresentationsthatwere[01:26:36]gonnacarrytheday,andtheydidn′t.Andthatprobablysetusback[01:26:40]about15years.Sosomeofitwasalsowehadto,[01:26:44]Gothroughthegamingrevolution,3Dgames.Ifwehad[01:26:47]nothadQuake,ifwehadnothadDukeNukem,ifwehadnothad[01:26:51]UnrealTournament,we′dneverhavegottenAIbecausewewouldneverhavegottentheGPUs,[01:26:55]andthereforewewouldneverhavebeenabletogetAIintheshapeitisnow.So[01:27:01]everythingwedidupuntilthismomentwasrequiredtogetthere.[01:27:05]Youwerepartofthat.Holy...Whatablessing.[01:27:09]Whatablessingtohavecontributedinyoursmallpart,eitherby[01:27:13]trainingorbyplayingvideogames.Literally,youcouldjustchooseto[01:27:17]thinkofitthatway.Allthosetimesyouspentin,[01:27:21]formycase,inthe′90sjustplayingvideogames,theywere−[01:27:23]−Youwerecontributing.[01:27:24]−Yeah,IwascontributingtotheAIrevolutionrightthereandthenmoment.[01:27:27]−Totheprogressofhumancivilization.No,forsure.Civilization[01:27:30]progresseswiththedeathoftheoldandthebirthofthenew,andit[01:27:34]continuesinthisway,butit′sstillthegrievingprocessisapartofit,Ithink.[01:27:39]−Takeamoment.It′sokay.Takea...Andalso,youdon′teven[01:27:43]havetoacceptthatit′salldead.Like,ifyouarestillveryattachedtothehand[01:27:50]chiseling,whichifyou′daskedmeayearago,IwouldhavepredictedthatI[01:27:55]would′vebeenmoreattached.I′msurprised−[01:27:58]−I′mkindasurprised[01:27:59]−...alittlethatI′venotbeenmoreattached.ButthereasonI′venotbeenmoreattached,[01:28:03]Ithink,isthatIfoundsomethingmorefun.[01:28:07]Andifithadn′tbeenlikethat,ifAIhad[01:28:11]justreplacedthethingIlovedandgavemesomethingIhated,I′d[01:28:15]probablybealittlebitter.[01:28:16]−Imean,thisreallyfeels...It′shilariousandawesometowatchandinspiringtowatch.[01:28:19]It′slikePicassoallofasuddenlike,gettingaccessto[01:28:26]toimagegenerationandgettingsuperexcitedandswitchingina[01:28:30]matterofmonths.That′sliterallywhathappened.So,like,it′sanartistthatappreciatedbeautiful[01:28:34]code,andallofasuddenyou′retalkingabouthavingfun−[01:28:37]−IthinkPicassoisactuallyagoodparallelbecauseifyoulookathisearly[01:28:42]workwherehelearnedhiscraft,itwaspainting[01:28:46]realisticpaintings,right?Like,hewastrainingto[01:28:50]beamasteroftheoldwaysofdepictingrealitythebestwayweknewhow,[01:28:56]andthenalongcomesalltheseotherformsofexpression.Cubismcomesalong.[01:29:01]Andalltheseformsofabstractexpression,he′s[01:29:05]notdecryingthathe′snotdoingRenaissance[01:29:09]paintingsanymore,thathe′snotjustpaintingtheperfectdepictionofan[01:29:13]apple.He′sreimaginingtheappletobeafreakingsquare,[01:29:18]andhe′sgettingexcitedaboutthat.AndIfeelthat[01:29:22]transition,thatwe′vegonefromthisonemodeof[01:29:26]expression,andwe′vesuddenlyopenedthegateswhere[01:29:31]the,like,thecolorspectrumissomuchwider.I′mseeingmore.Andit′s[01:29:37]perhapsbecausethewayIbecameaprogrammer.Ididnotbecome[01:29:41]aprogrammerbecauseadeeploveofifstatements.[01:29:46]IbecameaprogrammerbecauseIwantedprograms.[01:29:49]Iwantedthingstoexistthatdidnotexist.Andatfirst,[01:29:53]Ihadtolearnhowtoprogramtomakethathappen.[01:29:56]ThenIhappenedtofallinlovewithprogrammingasacraft,andthenIspenttwo[01:30:00]decadesreallydivingdeeponthat.ButnowI′mback.I′mbacktohavinganideaand[01:30:09]beingimpatientbeyondbelieftoseeitexistintheworld,[01:30:13]andAIhasjustshrunkthatdowntoalmostnothing.Soit′sanacceleration[01:30:20]ofarediscovery.[01:30:23]Now,Iunderstandthatthat′snottrueforeveryone.Thereareplentyof[01:30:27]programmerswhojustlovedprogrammingrightfromthebeginning,andtheywereattracted[01:30:31]tothelogicalconstructsandsoforth.Imean,I′vebeentherefortwodecades,soIget[01:30:35]it.ButIalsothinkthatyou′reabletodiscovernewsidesofyourself−[01:30:41]...ifyouletitin.Again,Ikeepcomingbacktothis[01:30:46]almostregretminimizationframework,toborrowJeffBezos′stermshere.[01:30:52]Areyougonnalookatyourselftwoyearsfromnowandthink,"Oh,Ispent[01:30:56]mytimewellbeingpissyaboutthepresent,[01:31:00]aboutthefactthatmyindustrychanged"?Or[01:31:04]WouldItwoyearsfromnowlookbackuponthismomentandbeproud[01:31:08]ofmyselfforleaningin,formaybehavingamomentof[01:31:12]grief?Again,there′sroomforallofit.Andthengoing,"I′mgonna[01:31:16]learnhowtheworldspinsnow,andI′mgonnamakenotjustthebestofit,I′m[01:31:20]gonnamakemoreofit."[01:31:22]−Imean,itistrue,alotofprogrammers,alotoffriendsofmine,[01:31:26]me,obviouslyyou,arehavingfun.[01:31:30]−Ihavehadmorefunwithcomputersinthelastthreemonthsthanatanytime[01:31:37]previously.[01:31:38]−Quickbathroombreak,andthenIgottaaskyouabout[01:31:42]howyouactuallyinteractwiththesystemsnow.[01:31:45]−Yes.[01:31:46]−Igottaaskyouabouthowhasyourprogrammingsetupchanged?Sokeyboard,[01:31:54]voice,what′stheIDE?[01:31:57]−It′scrazytothinkaboutnow,butyeah,IusedTextMateforalmost20years.[01:32:02]IusedTextMatestartingin[01:32:05]2005,Ithink.Ihelpedgetthefirstversionout,andthenIjust[01:32:09]wasn′tinterested.Iwasn′tinthemarketforanalternative.And[01:32:13]itwasn′tuntiltheswitchtoLinuxthatIwasforcedoutofmyhabitat.And[01:32:21]nowwiththeswitchto,[01:32:24]whatarewecallingit?Agenticengineering?Oh,Ifuckinghatethatterm.Wegotta[01:32:28]comeupwithsomethingthatsoundsasplainasprogramming,but[01:32:32]encapsulatesthefactthatit′swithagents.But−[01:32:35]−Istillthinkitshouldbecalledprogrammingatthispoint.[01:32:36]−...Allright,let′sjustcallitprogramming.[01:32:38]Programmingwithagentsrequiresadifferenttoolset.Itreallydoes.[01:32:42]Andthemainchangehereisthat[01:32:47]you′regoingfromsinglethreadprogramminginyourheadtoparallelprocessing.[01:32:54]WhenIwaswritingcode,chiselingitbyhandinTextMateorevenNeovim,[01:32:59]Notthatlongago,Iwouldjustfocusononeproblematthetime,and[01:33:03]Iwouldmethodicallyworkmywaythroughit,andthatwasactuallytheportaltoflow.[01:33:07]Theportaltoflowwasdeep,[01:33:10]immersionintoasingleproblem,seeitthroughtotheend.[01:33:15]That′snothowitworkswithagents,inpartbecausethe[01:33:18]agentsareatoncebothtoofastandtooslow.Theydon′tgiveyouanimmediate[01:33:26]replyonsomethingthatyouaskedthemtodothat′sthe[01:33:30]sameastypingonakeyboard.Soyouhavetolettheagentcook−[01:33:35]...forabit,andthereforeyourealize,well,[01:33:39]ifIjustsitaroundwaitingforthem,firstofall,thatdoesn′tfeelproductive.[01:33:43]Eveniftheagent,justoneofthem,canbehighlyproductive,itdoesnotfeelproductive.[01:33:47]Itdoesnotfeelgood.Itfeelsactuallylikeyou′realittlebituseless.[01:33:50]AndmaybeIhadamoment,[01:33:53]whenthefirstagenticmomentwasthereandwe,Iwasrunningmostly[01:33:56]oneagentatatimewhereIfeltlike,"Idon′tknowaboutthis."[01:34:00]Butyoucansolvealotofhardproblemsbysimply[01:34:04]throwingmoreresourcesatit.Thisisthewholescalinglawof[01:34:08]AIofitself,right?Thatifyouparallelizethese[01:34:12]thingsandyou′renotrunningoneagent,butyou′rerunningahandful,[01:34:16]youcanfeellikeyou′reinaflowstatebecauseyou′reconstantlydoing[01:34:23]programmingworkinthesensethatyou′remakingdecisions,andyou′rehelpingeither[01:34:26]unblockanagentbecauseithasaquestionaboutwhichdirectiontotake,or[01:34:30]you′rereadyforanewtask.Andtodothat,youneedadifferent[01:34:34]setup.Istartedfirstdoingitintmuxandjust[01:34:38]havingseparatepanesandhavingseparatesplits.Basically,[01:34:42]aterminalwithtabsisagoodwaytothinkaboutit.Youopenabunchoftabs.Ithink[01:34:46]mosthumansknowexactlyhowthatworks.Theydon′tworkinjustonetab.[01:34:50]−Sostillstickingtotheterminal,CLI.[01:34:53]−Absolutely.[01:34:54]−Soyou′renotusingClaudeCodeapporthe−[01:34:56]−No.[01:34:56]−...Codexapporthe−[01:34:57]−Ilovethefactthatthisagentrevolutionwaskicked[01:35:01]offintheterminalbecauseIwasalreadyahugefanofTUIs,terminal[01:35:05]userinterfaces,andtheterminalingeneral.Thatfeelslikea,[01:35:10]areallyniceplacetobe.It′sabeautifulplacetobe.Themodernterminal[01:35:14]isjustagood−lookingplacetowork.SoIlikethat.Andthen[01:35:22]thisfactofhavingmultipleagents,especiallyonceit′snot[01:35:26]justmultipleagentsrunningonyourownmachine,butyoustartrunningmultiple[01:35:29]machines.Nowtmuxaloneisnotenoughto[01:35:35]keeptrackofit,andthat′swhyasoflateI′veswitchedtothisthing[01:35:39]calledHerdr.AndHerdrisessentiallytmuxplusagent[01:35:44]notifications.Sowheneveryouragentisdoneandneedssomethingforyou,itgoes[01:35:48]ding,alittlebelltellingyouit′sreadyforitshuman,[01:35:54]uh...Isitmasterorservant?I′mnotquitesurealways.[01:35:58]Butitisreadyforadecision,anditalsokeepstrackof[01:36:02]theseisitinworkingmodeornot.SoIhavethisHerdrsetup.Ihave[01:36:06]multipleHerdrsetupsactuallyrunningonindividualmachines.[01:36:10]Iwentonthiscrazyphasejustaboutamonthago[01:36:14]realizingthatdoingthisworkonasinglemachineis[01:36:18]notfastenough.It′slikeI′vediscoveredmulti−coreprogramming,butIonlyhavetwo[01:36:22]cores.I′mlike,"WhatifIhad16cores?WhatifIhad32cores?WhatifIhad[01:36:26]64cores?"SoIinstantlywentoutandIboughttheseamazing[01:36:31]KVMscalledGL.iNetComets.[01:36:35]Andwhattheydoisit′sthislittlebox.YoupluginHDMI,you[01:36:39]pluginUSBandconnectittothecomputer.It′slikea[01:36:43]KVM.SoaKVMisaremotewayofcontrollingacomputer,but[01:36:47]what′sspecialaboutthisisjusthoweasyitwas.Youconnectthisthingin,[01:36:52]yougotoawebpage,loginonce,setone[01:36:55]password.Nowthisthingcanhoponyourtailnet.[01:36:59]Thishasbeentheotherrevolutionofthelastyearforme,isdiscovering[01:37:06]theseWireGuardnetworks.Uh,Tailscale[01:37:10]isessentiallyturningallthecomputersyouhaveintoalocal[01:37:14]networkwhereveryouare.[01:37:16]Likerightnowonmyphone,Ihavedirectaccesstoallthe[01:37:19]computersinmyMalibuoffice.Ialsohave[01:37:23]accesstoallmycomputersinmyCopenhagenoffice.[01:37:26]AndIcantreatthemasthoughIsatrightnexttothemwithouthavingto[01:37:30]punchholesinafirewallorsetupcomplicatedVPNs.[01:37:34]Andwhatthisdoesisitjustdecreasesthefrictionit[01:37:38]takestogetnewcomputeonline.[01:37:41]SoassoonasIdiscoveredthis,Ilookedatmycloset,andIrealizedIhadabunch[01:37:46]ofminiPCsfrompriorexperiments,andIjustsaid,"WhatifIjustconnectedallof[01:37:50]them?"AndIjustconnectedfourofthecomputers−[01:37:53]...inacloset.TheyallhadtheirlittleComet,and[01:37:57]suddenlyIcouldrunagentsonmorecomputersatthesametime,[01:38:01]andIcouldcontrolthemallwithHerdr.[01:38:04]AnditdidgettoapointwhereImaxedoutmyownprocessingpower.[01:38:09]ThatIthinkatabout...Whatdowewanttoputit?Aboutfourtofivemachines[01:38:15]running,Idon′tknow,threeagents.Ihaveabout16threads.That′swhatIcanrun.[01:38:21]Andthefastertheagentsrun,ofcourse,thefewerthreadsIcanrun,butatthecurrentpace,Icanrun[01:38:25]about16threads−[01:38:26]−Mm−hmm,atfullacceleration.[01:38:29]Andthat′spartofwhyI′vegonefromjustbeingexcitedabout[01:38:35]theagentmomenttobeingdelirious.Because[01:38:39]Ithinkasyousay,someofitisalittleassaulting.[01:38:42]Again,we′reonadial−upbandwidth−wisewithourcomputer.Imean,[01:38:48]it′sactuallyhilarious.SoyouthinkofI′msittinghereayearago,right?I′m[01:38:52]chiselingmycode.Yeah.[01:38:53]−I′mwritingmylines.Andoverthecourseof,like,anhour,Iwillhavewritten[01:38:59]onebeautifulcontroller,onebeautifulmodel.Like,that′sonefile.[01:39:03]AndI′vereallyworkedonit,right?Somaybethere′s60linesleft.So[01:39:07]maybemybandwidthatthismomentis,like,30lines[01:39:11]anhour.Ithinkthat′sevenhigh.Maybeit′s20linesanhour.NowI′m[01:39:15]running16threads.I′mproducingatsome[01:39:18]timeshundredsoflinesofhourorhundredsoflinesofcode[01:39:22]perhour.Now,letmepausemyselfthereforahotmoment.[01:39:26]Ihatethatmetric,right?Like,linesofcodeisastupidmetric[01:39:31]ingeneraltomeasurethesethings,andIthinkit′srightfrom[01:39:35]someintheprogrammingcommunitytoridiculetheAIpsychosiswhen[01:39:38]everyonetalksaboutthenumberoflinesofcodethey′rewriting,andthenyouaskthem,[01:39:42]"Whatdidyoubuild?"Andthey′relike,"Well,I..."[01:39:46]Andthennogoodanswercomesout,right?[01:39:47]−It′sjustaniceshorthandto−[01:39:49]−Itisaniceshorthand.Itisarepresentationorencapsulation[01:39:52]ofhowmuchoutputthat′scomingout.Now,whethertheoutputisgoodorbad−[01:39:57]...isnotareferendumonthat.ButIwasproducingandproducingsomuchmorenow,[01:40:01]right?AndthereforeI′mabletokeepallthesethreadsgoing.[01:40:05]Sothat′sthesetup.It′sstillNeovim,butatthispoint,[01:40:10]I′mnotwritingalotofcode,soI′musingNeovimasaprojectbrowser[01:40:14]andthenasawaytokickoffLazyGittoseethechange[01:40:17]logforwhat′sthere.Andeventhat,I′dsay[01:40:23]ifGitHubwasalittlefasteratshowingyouyourpullrequest,thewebis[01:40:26]probablyactuallyanicerplacetodothat.Idon′tknow.There′salsothisothertool[01:40:30]I′vebeenplayingwithabitcalledHunk,whichjustproduces[01:40:34]Diffsinareallyniceway.Soyoucouldlookatthattoo.ButIfindthatwhenIlook[01:40:38]atHunk,Ionlyseethechangeset,andwhenI′mreviewing[01:40:42]outputfromanagent,Ioftenwanttoseethesurroundingcontext.Oh,yeah,soit[01:40:46]changedthisfile,butactually,whatdowehaveinthisotherfilethatwasn′ttouchedbutmaybeshould′ve[01:40:50]beentouched?Sothat′swhyIstilllikeNeovimasawayofdoing[01:40:54]it.Butit′sallhappening,bytheway,ofcourse,in[01:40:58]Amachi.Soit′sallhappeningonLinux.Andthiswastheothermajor[01:41:01]breakthroughwithagents.AgentslovetheUnixphilosophy.Itlovesindividualtools[01:41:09]thatitcaninvokethroughthecommandline,andthereisnooperatingsystem[01:41:13]onEarthofthemajors,I′mcountingthreehere,Mac,Windows,[01:41:19]Linux,thatworksaswellwiththat[01:41:23]mechanismasLinux.EverythinginLinuxiseitheraconfig[01:41:27]fileoraCLItool.Now,thatwasits[01:41:31]maindrawbackfiveminutesago.Thiswasthereasonpeopledidn′tlike[01:41:35]Linux.It′slikeit′sallconfigfilesandCLItools.[01:41:39]Whatgreatironythattheuniversehasplayedituponusthatnowthe[01:41:45]drawbacksofLinuxfiveminutesagoarenowitsmajorsellingpoints.[01:41:51]ThiswasoneofthethingsIthoughtIwasstuckforaweekendwithaMac[01:41:57]fourmonthsago.[01:41:58]IthoughtIhadacomputerattheplaceIwasgoingthatwasaLinuxmachine,soI[01:42:02]didn′tbringmylaptop,andIfoundoutwhenIarrivedIonlyhadaMacMini.[01:42:08]SoIwasgonnamakethebestofabadsituationhereand,[01:42:12]SetupmyMacinsomeofthewaysI′vebeenthinkingaboutwith,[01:42:17]WithLinux.Andyoucanactuallydoalotnow.Homebrewhasgotten[01:42:21]reallyquitegood.HomebrewisthemissingpackagemanagerfortheMac,[01:42:25]andnoonehasdonemoretomovetheMacforwardinterms[01:42:29]ofeaseofsetup.Butstillsomethingassimpleas[01:42:33]Raycast,Idon′tknowifyou′veusedthat.That′sthe−[01:42:37]There′snoconfigfilethatyoucanjustaccess.Youhavetogointothe[01:42:41]GUI,exportafile,thentakethatfile,[01:42:44]Idon′tknow,inyourfreakingbackpackonaUSBkey.[01:42:48]Andthenyoucanimportitsomewhereelse.Youcannotautomatetheentiresetupofyour[01:42:52]machine.Youcan′tautomateatalltheconfigurationofMac′sdefaultkeybindings.[01:42:59]Thathastobeamanualprocesswhereyou′reclickingwithamouselikea[01:43:03]cavemantosetupyourmachine.[01:43:05]−Imean,there′swaysaroundit.[01:43:07]−Notgoodones.Ilooked.Itriedhard[01:43:10]−Sohere′smy,beenmyjourney.ObviouslyI′maLinux[01:43:14]person,butbecauseofAdobePremiere,Adobeproducts,I′malsoaWindowsperson,[01:43:18]sooftentimesIwoulduseWSL,WindowsSubsystemsforLinux.[01:43:23]SoLinuxinsideWindows,whichis...intheagenticeraisnotagoodkindof[01:43:27]Linux,′causeit′sjust−[01:43:28]−It′sasandbox[01:43:29]−...it′sasandbox,andyouwanttheLinuxtobeunleashedtobeabletodoeverything.[01:43:33]−Correct.[01:43:34]−AndsoIhavenowwokenuptothingslikeGrayCat,andhave[01:43:38]youknow,I′makeyboardperson.Where′stheconfigfile?What,canI,[01:43:42]canIbasicallydoeverythingwhereanagent[01:43:46]canseteverythingupformeandsavetheconfigurationsoIcan[01:43:50]replicateitacrosssystemsandeverything′sautomated?AndsoIhadto[01:43:54]askalotofthosequestions,andalotofthemaremissing.[01:43:56]−Theydon′thavegoodanswers.[01:43:57]−Butoftentimesyoucouldactuallyjustbuildtheappyourself.[01:44:01]−Buttherearehacks.[01:44:02]−Yeah,they′rehacks.[01:44:03]−Therearehacks.[01:44:04]Youdon′thavetolivelikethis,Lex.There′sabetter...Actually,thisisagreat[01:44:07]moment.[01:44:08]−Untilyouhaveavideoeditor.[01:44:11]−Sothisisagoodmoment.[01:44:12]−Yep.[01:44:13]−Um,Ihearditwasyourbirthday.SoIbroughtalittlegift.[01:44:18]−No.[01:44:19]−Wearegoingtogetyouontotheagenticoperatingsystemwhetheryou[01:44:23]likeitornot.[01:44:23]−Thisisawesome.[01:44:24]−AndIasked−...myfriendsatDellwhethermaybetheyhadamachinethat,[01:44:29]um,Icouldgetyouforyourbirthday.[01:44:33]−Oh,no.[01:44:33]−Sohere′sthemachineIuse−...whichis−[01:44:36]...well,thesameoneIuse,butit′snowyours.It′sa−...DellXPS14−[01:44:42]...alreadysetupwithOmarchy4−...readytobeconfiguredforyou.And[01:44:49]onceyourealizethatallyour...Bytheway,weshouldalmosttime[01:44:53]this.Youcanbeupandrunning.[01:44:55]Youhavetoanswer,like,fivequestionsinaboutoneminute.You[01:44:59]couldliterallydoitliveifyouwantedto.[01:45:00]−Oh,Omarchy,beautiful,modernopinionLinuxbyDHH.Yeah,let′sdoit.[01:45:05]−Yeah,fillitoutwhileItalk.So−[01:45:07]...exactlywhatyourealized,thatpainontheMac[01:45:12]wastheexposureIgotforaboutaweekend,andItriedreallyhard,andI[01:45:15]foundsomedecentworkarounds,themainonebeingthatHomebrew[01:45:19]nowhastabsforGUIapps.Becauseit′s[01:45:23]hilarioustothinkupontherecentpastwherepeople[01:45:27]wouldgotowebsites,like,"IneedZoom."Theywould[01:45:31]enterzoom.com,findthedownloadlink,download[01:45:35]aDMG−...double−clickonthat,seeaweird[01:45:38]manualinteractiontellingthemtodraganicon[01:45:42]fromoneplaceofthescreentotheother,andthatwashowyouinstalledapps.[01:45:48]Andyou′djustdothatoverandoveragainuntilyouhadalltheappsthatyouwanted,[01:45:52]andifyouweresettingupanewmachineandyouhad,like,12apps,you′dgoto[01:45:56]12differentwebsitestodownloadthemlikeatotalcaveman.[01:46:01]Homebrewhassolvedalotofthat,butithasnotsolvedallofit,andhassolved[01:46:05]nothingintermsofthe−[01:46:08]−Sorrytointerrupt,butlookhowfastthisisgoing.[01:46:11]−Oh,it′sgonnabedoneinabout40seconds.[01:46:15]Andthenyou′regonnabeinsideofOmarchy.[01:46:17]−SuperistheWindowsorCommandkeyonyourkeyboard.SowhichoneistheSuperkey?[01:46:21]−Yep,that′stheWindowskey.Oh,actually,no,no,youhaveaspecialedition.[01:46:25]Thereareonlyaboutsixofthesecomputersintheworld.[01:46:27]−Oh,there′saSuperkey.[01:46:29]−ItsaysSuper,andlookatwheretheCopilotkeyisontheotherendofthe[01:46:32]keyboard.That′stheOmarchylogo.[01:46:35]−Nice.Okay,cool.[01:46:36]−ThiswasSpencerBullatDell,whoI′vebeenworkingwithona[01:46:40]lotofthisstuff.They′vebeenincredible.[01:46:42]−They,foramoment,letgooftheXPSbrand.[01:46:46]−Yes,theydid,lastyear.[01:46:48]−AndIwaslike,"Thisisdumb.Thisis...XPSisawesome."[01:46:51]−ItwasnotjustdumbthatitgotridoftheXPSbranding.Theyalsogot[01:46:55]ridoftheEscapekeyandputincapacitivetouchbuttonsatthe[01:46:59]top.ThemistakethatApplerealizedlikethreeyearsagowas[01:47:03]terrible,andeveryonehatedthemforthem.[01:47:04]Butnowtheyhaveanincredibleteam,andthis[01:47:08]wasactuallymyfirstDelllaptopformyself.[01:47:12]BecauseI′vebeenusingDellonourservers.Dellwaswhatpoweredour[01:47:16]cloudexit.We′vebeenrunningDellsincethemid−2000s,I[01:47:20]think.ButIneverrantheirlaptops,becausecomparedtoa[01:47:23]MacBook,theyjustweren′tuptothetaskforme.The[01:47:28]XPS′from2016,orfrom2026,withthose[01:47:32]IntelPantherLakechips,arethefirstDells[01:47:36]thatIwouldpersonallyactuallyuse.Andit′sfunnybecausewhenIgotmadatApple[01:47:41]originally,Ithought,like,"Doyouknowwhat?IshouldjustgetaDell,"becausewealreadyused[01:47:45]themandwhatever,andIgotaDell,andIwaslike,"Man,Ican′tdoit.Ican′tdoit.[01:47:49]It′snotgoodenough."Andthenloandbehold,thisyear[01:47:54]theyjustfixedeverything.[01:47:56]Theyfixedthebatterylife.Theyfixedtheperformance.[01:47:59]Theyfixedthecompatibility.Theyfixedtheweight.Theyfixedthe[01:48:03]screen.That′satandemOLEDscreen−[01:48:05]−Yeah,that′sincredible.[01:48:05]−...whichmeansit′sactuallybettertechthanwhatyou′llgetinafreaking[01:48:10]MacBook.It′slighterthanaMacBook,[01:48:13]andthechipisfinallycompetitivebecauseIntelspent[01:48:17]agoodfiveyearsdevelopingthe[01:48:20]18Aprocessnode.Ittookalongtime,butnowit′shere,and[01:48:24]it′sfreakingincredible.WefinallyhavecompetitiontoAppleMchips−[01:48:30]...thatcangoaslongasonbatteryandcanhavecompetitiveperformance.[01:48:34]−Andthere′sabeautifuldefaultthemetothisthing,andthenwhatisit?Super[01:48:38]Spaceopensup.[01:48:39]−Actually,youcanjustpushtheOmarchykey.Itopensupthemenu.Sonowyoucontrol[01:48:43]everythingfromthere.[01:48:44]−Oh,samethingastheSuper.Okay.[01:48:45]−Yeah.[01:48:45]−Cool.[01:48:45]−SamethingasSuperSpace.Sothishasbeenahugechangeforme,thatwefinally[01:48:53]haveLinuxmachinesthatyoudon′thavetomakeexcusesfor.[01:48:57]BecauseIdon′tmindmakingexcusesbecauseexcusesarereallyjustanother[01:49:01]wordfortrade−offs.[01:49:03]IlovethatFramework13IthinkItalkedaboutlasttime.Istill[01:49:06]likethem.Theystillmakegoodcomputers.ButIthinkforalotofpeople,they[01:49:12]didn′twantaDIYexperience.Theywantedsomethingthatjustoutofthe[01:49:16]boxfeltlikeitwasonparinbuildqualityand[01:49:21]whateverwithMacs,andnowwefinallyhaveit.Sohappybirthday.[01:49:27]−Thankyousomuch.AnOmarchyDelllaptopfromDHHisthebestbirthday[01:49:33]present.Thisisawesome.[01:49:34]−Checkthescreensaver,bytheway.[01:49:36]−Yeah,it′skindofamazing.I′mseeingit.[01:49:38]−OnthattandemOLEDscreen−[01:49:41]−It′sgorgeous.[01:49:41]−...itisabsolutelymind−bogglinglyawesome.[01:49:46]−Lookatthat.There′slikearetrolooktothewholething.[01:49:50]−Totally.[01:49:51]−It′slikeFiverrpop−[01:49:52]−It′slikerunningabulletinboardsystemin−...the′90s,whichis[01:49:55]exactlywhatIdidwhenIwas14yearsold.Soforme,it′sa[01:49:59]completethrowbackandanawesomeaesthetic,combiningthissenseofmodern[01:50:06]risingcultureinUnixwith−...thisthrowbackofthe′90s.[01:50:10]−Yeah,likearetrolookforanagentfirstOS.[01:50:12]−Exactly.[01:50:13]−It′scrazy.[01:50:13]−Whichagain,pairs...ThiswaswhyIwassoexcitedthat−[01:50:17]...alltheseagentharnessesarrivedasTUI′s,arrivedasCLIs−[01:50:21]...hasarrivedasaterminalbecausesuddenly,[01:50:25]awholenewgenerationofbothprogrammersandregularusers[01:50:29]discoveredthegloryoftheterminal.Theterminalwasactuallyoneofthemost,[01:50:34]impressiveandproductiveuserinterfaceswecanhave.[01:50:38]Now,we′vebuiltuserinterfacessincethenthatwereeasiertolearn.[01:50:43]Themouseisawonderfulinventionfor[01:50:47]lettingsomeonewhodoesn′tknowalotaboutcomputersjustclickaroundandfindthingsout,but[01:50:51]theterminalisforpeoplewhowantto[01:50:55]learntheirsystems,whowanttolearnthekeyboardcommands.[01:50:57]−SoyouthinktheTUIisgonnastickaround?[01:51:00]−100thing.Ofcourseit′snot,because[01:51:03]theselabsnowhavetrillion−dollarvaluations,sotheyneedtobeableto[01:51:07]reachbillionsofpeople.[01:51:09]AndIdon′tthinkwe′regonnateachbillionsofpeopletheintricaciesoftheTUI.[01:51:13]Sowe′regonnahaveothertools,andwealreadyhaveothertools,whichis,by[01:51:17]theway,oneofthesweetthingsaboutLinux,theChatGPTCodextool.[01:51:22]−Yeah,Isawthat.[01:51:23]−Literallywithintwohoursofthatannouncementdropping,Ihaditwrapped[01:51:27]upandreadytogoinOmakub.Alreadynow,ifyougoto...Youcan[01:51:31]actuallyhittheOmakubkey−[01:51:33]...andthenjustwriteChatGPT.Itshouldpopupas,like,install.[01:51:38]Andthenjusthitreturn.[01:51:41]−SudopasswordforLex.[01:51:42]−Yeah,whateveryouputin.Andthenit′sjustgonnainstallit,andit′sgonnapopitup,andyouhave[01:51:47]ChatGPT.[01:51:47]−Nice.[01:51:48]−Andthat′showalotoftheappsare,andalltheagenticharnessesarebuiltinthat[01:51:52]way.[01:51:53]Um,Tailscale,asItalkedabout,ifyouwannahoponthat,isthatway.Uh,Dropbox.[01:51:57]AndthereasonallthesethingsareinthereisbecauseIusethem.[01:52:00]It′sbecauseIbuiltthissystemforme,andIthought,firstandforemost,howdoI[01:52:04]buildmydreamcomputerjustforme?AndifIgetmy[01:52:08]dreamcomputer,Iamassuredthereareotherpeoplewhoaregonnahavethesamedreams[01:52:12]asIdo.[01:52:13]−Now,you′reobsessedaboutgettingtheinstallationtobeunderone[01:52:17]minute,andabunchofpeopleaskedyouonlinewhy.So[01:52:21]Why?Whywereyousoobsessedtogettingtheinstallationto[01:52:25]belessthan60seconds?[01:52:27]−First,letmequoteMitchellHashimoto,whocreated[01:52:31]Ghosttyterminalthat′sawesomeandalsoavailableonOmakubandwasalso[01:52:35]thefounderofHashiCorp,whohadthisgreatposton[01:52:39]Xnottoolongagothathadthekillerline,"The[01:52:43]pursuitofexcellencedeservesnoexplanation."[01:52:48]Wantingtomakesomethingasgoodandasfastandasbeautifulaspossiblehas[01:52:56]noneedforjustification.Weshouldwantbeautiful,fastsystems[01:53:02]thatareadelighttouse.Now,thefunnythingwiththeinstalltimeisitdidn′t[01:53:06]actuallystartwithaone−minutemission.Iwasbeingmodestwhenitgot[01:53:10]going.IthoughtifIcouldsetupmyentiresystemin15minutes,[01:53:15]itwouldalreadybesuchadramaticimprovementoverwhatcamebeforeitthatI[01:53:19]wouldbeperfectlyhappy.Anditcameoffthefactthatthebenchmarking[01:53:23]hadbeenskewedsooutofwhack.YoutalkedabouttheCommodore64being[01:53:27]yourfirstcomputer,right?[01:53:28]WhenyouunwrapthatCommodore64andyouhittheonbutton,[01:53:32]inIthinkaboutlessthanonesecond,thebasicinterpreter[01:53:36]wasreadytoacceptyourcommand.Itwasliterallyalmostinstant.[01:53:40]Therewasvirtuallynoboottime.Doyouknowhowlongittookme[01:53:44]tosetupanewMacthatIhadboughtforactuallytheone[01:53:48]appthatIstillhaven′tvibecodedmywayintoonLinux,whichisAdobeLightroom?[01:53:53]Brand−newcomputer,outofthebox.[01:53:57]Isetitup.There′sasoftwareupdate.BeforeIwasreadyto[01:54:01]installAdobeLightroomthatIhaditfullyuptodate,ittook42minutes.[01:54:08]That′sgrotesque.That′sabsurd.That′saninsult[01:54:12]toeveryonewholikescomputers,thatyougetanewcomputerand[01:54:16]beforeyoucanuseit,youhavetospend42minutesdoingupdates[01:54:20]onsomethingthatwasalreadyinstalledonitoutoftheboxfromthefactory.[01:54:24]Thatisjustpreposterous,andit′scrazythatthat′snoteventhe[01:54:28]worstthing.IalsogotaPC,um,[01:54:32]becausealltheseLinuxmachines,theycomeasPCs,right?[01:54:34]−Right.[01:54:35]−AndtheyhaveWindowspre−installed.SoIgotone.Thiswasjust[01:54:39]threeweeksago.Brand−newmachine,IntelPantherLake,thewholeshebang.[01:54:44]Anhourand35minutes[01:54:47]fromunwrappingthethinguntilit′sreadytouse.Howlongdidyoutake[01:54:51]beforeyouthinkyouwereinOmakub?[01:54:53]−Imean,it′slessthanaminuteforsure.[01:54:55]−Aminute.[01:54:57]Wecanbuildcomputerslikethis.Wehavethetechnology.We′vehadthetechnology[01:55:01]sincelike1981whentheCommodore64firstcame[01:55:04]out.Thefactthatwenowhaveacomputerthat′satrilliontimesfaster[01:55:08]andyouhavetospend42minutesoranhourandahalfsettingitupbeforeit′sreadyto[01:55:12]useissoinfuriatingtomethatitbecameapassion.Andit′sfunny[01:55:19]Justwhilewewerehavingalittlebreakhere,IwastalkingtoRyanHughes,myco−conspirator[01:55:22]here.Wenowhave,wethink,alinewherewecancreate[01:55:26]thesespecialturboimagesthatarepre−madeforspecificcomputers[01:55:30]becauseitreliesonsomeknowledgeofthehardware,like[01:55:34]theDellXPS.We′regonnamakeaDellXPSturbo[01:55:37]imagethatcaninstallinabout12seconds.AfullLinuxsystem[01:55:43]installedinabout12seconds.[01:55:44]−That′sincredible.[01:55:45]−Thatobsessioniswhatgivesmethisgreatsatisfactionwithusingcomputers,[01:55:52]thatwedonotacceptthingsthewaytheyare.Andthisiswhythis[01:55:56]agent−acceleratedrealitythatInowinhabitissoinvigorating.[01:56:01]BecauseIcanlookatthesekindsofconstraintsandgo,doyouknowwhat?Um,[01:56:06]Icouldhavestoppedwhenwewereatfiveminutes.Thatwouldalreadyhavebeenfastenough.[01:56:10]ThiswastheargumentonX,right?[01:56:12]Whydoyoukeepgoing?Fiveminutesisfastenough.Okay,maybe[01:56:16]foryou,butforme,12secondsisalotmorefun.And[01:56:21]Ialwaystrytothinkthesefirstprinciples.[01:56:24]Okay,inthatmachine,actuallyhittheOmarchy,[01:56:28]keyagain,andthendospeed.You′llseea[01:56:32]listcomeup,andoneofthemis,like,diskspeed.[01:56:35]−Speedtest,networkspeed,diskspeed.[01:56:37]−Diskspeed.Dodothatone,andthenrunit.[01:56:40]Sothisistestingtheperformanceofthebuilt−inNVMedrive,andwhatareyou[01:56:44]getting?[01:56:45]−SevenGBasecond.[01:56:47]−Sosevengigabytesasecond.That′showfastthatdriveis.Whycanwe[01:56:51]notinstallaLinuxdistributioninonesecond?[01:56:54]TheOmarchydistributionis5.8gigabytes.[01:56:58]Ifwecanrunatsevengig...Now,ofcourse,youcan′tactuallydothat[01:57:02]becausetheUSBkeyisalotslowerthanthat,butyoushouldbeableto[01:57:05]maximizetheunderlyingphysics[01:57:09]andprotocolsthatwe′redealingwith,andthat′syourgoal.Wegotta[01:57:13]getallthewaybackdowntothat.[01:57:15]−Yeah.Ilovethatyou′redoingaLinuxdistribution.′CauseImean,youcouldbe[01:57:21]do...Youcouldbebuildinganything.Butthefactthatyou′rebuildingaLinux[01:57:25]distributionmeansyou′rerethinkingaboutwhatacomputeris,′causea[01:57:28]operatingsystemisthefundamental,like,thefoundationofhow[01:57:32]...youinteractwithacomputer.[01:57:33]−Yes.Andit′sbeensostale.[01:57:34]−Yeah,ithas.[01:57:35]−ThemacOSwehavetodayis[01:57:38]scarcelydifferentfromthemacOSwehad10yearsago.Infact,it′sworse[01:57:42]inmanywaysbecauseApplecontinuesto[01:57:46]chokeholdthecontrolonusers.Theydon′twantthemto[01:57:50]installsoftwarethattheyhaven′talreadysaidgood−[01:57:54]...togofor.Theydon′twantuserstoreconfiguretheir[01:57:57]hotkeyswithoutdoingitmanually.Theydidn′twanttochangethe[01:58:01]500−millisecondanimationswitchingworkspaces.[01:58:05]Itisaninfuriatinglylocked−downcomputer.Now,[01:58:09]toApple′scredit,it′saprettygoodcomputerforbeinglockeddown,[01:58:13]butIdon′twantalocked−downcomputer.Iwannaownmycomputer.Better[01:58:17]yet,Iwannamutatemycomputer,andthisiswheretheagentic[01:58:21]ageneedsanewoperatingsystem.[01:58:24]Whenyoucanvibecodewhateverappcomestoyourmind,youshouldbeable[01:58:28]tovibecodeyouroperatingsystem.Youshouldbeabletochangeanything,howitlooks,[01:58:32]howitworks,whatpanelsarethere,whatarenotthere,andthat[01:58:36]requiresLinux.Assimpleasthat.Thereareno...Noneoftheothertwo[01:58:40]operatingsystemscandeliverthis.[01:58:42]−Butcanyouspeaktothe,Ithinksomebodyaskedyou,like,"Whothehell[01:58:45]areyoutothinkyoucoulddobetterthanUbuntu?"Forexample.[01:58:49]Or,orlike,"WhyareyoudoingitwhenUbuntuisalreadyprettygood?"Andyouranswer[01:58:53]was,"IthoughtIcoulddobetter."[01:58:55]Socanyouspeakto,thiswasonX,canyouspeakto,like,where[01:59:01]thecrazinesscomesfrom,thinkingthatyouas[01:59:05]onepersonormaybewithRyan,youcouldstartbuildingsomethingthat′s[01:59:09]goingtobebetterthanUbuntuorArchoranyofthis?[01:59:12]−Well,I′llsaythatitdidn′tstartquiteas[01:59:16]grandiose.WhenIgotgoingwithmyLinuxjourney,Iactuallyjust[01:59:20]startedwithUbuntu,andIjustbuiltontopofit.Here′sa[01:59:23]systemthatalreadydoesalotofthethingsIwantedtodo,andatleastit′s[01:59:27]Linux.SocanIjustbuildontopofitandmakeitmoremodern,makeitactuallylookgood,[01:59:31]andhavetheprogramsIwannause?Igot,like,someversionofthat,[01:59:35]andthenIdiscoveredthatthere′ssevenlayersdeeperyoucouldgo,andas,the[01:59:39]closeryougettothemetal,thecloseryougettothekernel,thecloseryougettothe[01:59:43]individualpackagesandsoforth,themorefreedomyou[01:59:46]discover.SoasIdiscoveredmoreandmorefreedom,Igotmoreandmore[01:59:50]ambitious,andIrealized,oh,surprise,[01:59:54]surprise,Ihavestrongopinionsabouthowcomputersshouldwork,howthey[01:59:58]shouldlook,whatprogramsshouldbeinstalled,and[02:00:01]whethertheyshouldtake42minutestoinstallor[02:00:05]45seconds.That′sthecurrentworldrecord,bytheway.[02:00:09]SoifanyoneinstallsOmarchyQuattroafterthisandcanbeat45seconds,[02:00:13]takeascreenshot,sendittome,andyou′llbethenewholderoftheworldrecord.[02:00:17]−When,howlongagodidyoucrossthe60−secondmark?[02:00:19]−It′sfunnybecauseit′slike[02:00:23]thattheoldlimiton,whatwasit?Itwasafour−minutemileorsomething−[02:00:28]−Yeah.Uh−huh[02:00:28]−...likethatin1952−[02:00:30]...thatpeoplethoughtwasimpossibleforhumanstobeat.Thenoneguybeatsit,[02:00:34]andliterallywithinthenextfewmonths,threemoreguysdo,right?[02:00:37]Sowehadthisgoal.Ioriginallyhadthegoalitwastwominutes.[02:00:40]Andthenwebeattwominutes,andI′mlike,"Well,ifwebeattwominutes,whycan′twebeat[02:00:44]oneminute?"AndIrememberthinkinglike,"That′dbecrazy.Youcan′t[02:00:47]installamodernoperatingsysteminoneminutewhenthey′reall..."[02:00:52]Iftheotheronesaretaking42minutes,right?LikeApple,[02:00:56]fullofalotofsmartpeople,like,ittook42minutes,sothat′sgottabethebar.[02:01:00]No,no,it′snotthebarbecausethere′snospeedlimit.Like,noneofthethings[02:01:04]youtakeforgrantedarefixedpillarsofrealityinalmost[02:01:08]anycase.Untilyougetdowntothesevengigabytes[02:01:12]persecondthatdriveisabletotransfer,you′venotreachedthelimityet,[02:01:16]soyoushouldjustkeeppushing.[02:01:18]Andofcourse,thenitbecomesagameinitselfandasatisfactionitself.[02:01:22]EverysecondIcouldshaveoffwasanexcitement.Andwhenwebroketheone−minute[02:01:26]barrier,whichwasreallyonlybroken,Ithink,[02:01:29]threeweeksagoorsomethinglikethat,maybeeventwoweeksago,Ijustgotcrazy.[02:01:33]AndthenIgotaswarmofagentstorunalltheseautoresearch[02:01:37]loopsoftryingallthesedifferenttheoriesonlike,oh,ifyouchangethisthing,ifyou[02:01:41]changethatthing,whatifyoucutthisout?Whatifyoudothingsinparallel?Whatifwhileyou[02:01:45]weretypinginyourusername,westart[02:01:48]preloadingpackagesintomemorysystem,wecanfiretheminfaster.Anditbecomesa[02:01:52]fungame.AndIthinkthat′showyoushouldthinkaboutproductdevelopment.Itshouldbefun.[02:01:55]Youshould,itshouldbefrivolous.Itshouldbetryingtoovershoot[02:01:59]thetargetandmakingitsomuchbetterthanwhatitquoteunquoteneedstobe.[02:02:04]−Especiallynowbecauseyoucanmovesoquicklyandyoucantrysomanydifferentapproachesbecauseof[02:02:08]theagents.[02:02:09]−Yes,thatjustmakesitmoresatisfying.ButIthinkthiswasalwaystrue.Ifyoulookatthe[02:02:13]greatestMercedes−Benzofalltime,IthinkitwascalledtheW126.[02:02:18]Isawthiswonderfuldocumentaryonit.Itwassteeredbythisguywhoforyears[02:02:22]hadworkedinMercedes′departmentforsafety.[02:02:26]AndsuddenlyhegetsputinchargeforthewholeS−Classproject,andhe[02:02:30]justputsinallofit.Thisiswhereyougottheauto−retendingseat[02:02:34]beltsandwashersontheheadlightsand[02:02:38]everything.Thiscarwassooverbuiltforthemarket.[02:02:42]Itwasunbelievable.Butyoulookatthatandgolike,"Well,Iwantthat."[02:02:46]Injustthesamewaythatyoulookata[02:02:50]mechanicalwatchandgo,"Itcouldgodownto100meters?"[02:02:54]OrIthinkRolexhasonethatcangodownto4,000meters,the,[02:02:58]thedeepocean,thedeepdiverocean...orwhateverit′scalled.[02:03:01]Nooneoutsideofthreepeopleintheworld,whoeverbuythatwatch,will[02:03:05]everputittothetest.Butdon′tyouwannabethekindofpersonwho[02:03:11]isapatronofpeoplewhowannapushthehumanracethatmuch[02:03:15]forward?Iwantthefastestcarbreakingthespeedlimits.Iwantthe[02:03:19]diverwatchthatcangodowntheMarianaTrench.Iwant[02:03:23]theoperatingsystemthatcaninstallinlessthan60seconds.[02:03:27]−Sofromtheindividuallevel,Iadmirethosepeople.Ithink[02:03:30]everybodyshouldstriveforthat.Butalsotheconsequencesofthatweshould[02:03:34]mention,likethepursuitofexcellence,evenwhenthemetricsseemtobefrivolous,[02:03:40]themaybeunexpectedconsequencesofthatisotherkindsof[02:03:43]excellences,discoveries,innovations,andallthatkindofstuffthathasnothingtodowiththe[02:03:48]speed.[02:03:48]−100[02:03:49]−It′sdiscovery.It′snicetohavethemetricthatyou′re[02:03:52]chasingbethecatalyst,theenginethatdrives[02:03:56]innovation,becauseyou′lljustdiscover.It′sthesamereasonyougotothemoon,yougoto[02:04:00]Mars.It′slike,why?Whocares?Well,[02:04:04]actually,therealthingisyou′lldiscoveralot[02:04:07]aboutchemicalpropulsion.You′lldiscoveralot[02:04:11]abouthowhumanscanliveforalongtime[02:04:14]inspace.Maybeyou′lldiscoverwholenewwaysofdoingsolarenergyin[02:04:18]spaceordatacentersinspaceorwhateverthehell.[02:04:21]−That′sright.[02:04:22]−Allkindsof...Maybeyou′llmeet−−[02:04:23]−That′sright[02:04:23]−...aliens,butyouneverknow.Butsettingagoal[02:04:30]andchasingit,especiallywhenit′snumerical,isreallynice.[02:04:33]−Andsettingagrandgoalisevenbetter.Whenyou[02:04:36]refusetojustdowhat′spracticalandyoustriveforwhat′sslightlybeyond[02:04:44]plausible,that′swhenthemagichappens.Andweshouldbe[02:04:49]goingallinonthat.Thisisoneofthereasons...Andinfact,tosomedegree,[02:04:53]thisspecificgoalwasmotivatedbyseeingothersdothis.Imean,[02:04:57]Elonisthesingularindividualinthisconversation.[02:05:02]Theguyissooutthereinhisgoals.[02:05:06]Theyseemsopreposterousatfirstglance.I′vecertainly[02:05:10]consideredthempreposterousonmanyglances.Andthenyourealizethat[02:05:18]theycometruesometimes.Maybenotalwaysonschedule,andso[02:05:21]what?Sowhat?Sowedidn′tgettheself−drivingcaronschedule.[02:05:26]IgaveElonalotofshitforthatbackin′17.Butnowit′shere,[02:05:31]andwhowouldhavegottenushereexceptforthepersonwhothoughtitwas[02:05:35]possiblein′17,whoissoimpatientwithrealitythatthe[02:05:43]sheerforceisjustgonnapropelthatrealitytotheplacehe[02:05:47]wantsittobe.Ithinkthat′sdeeplyinspiring,andweneedthesekindsof,[02:05:52]goalpoststobemoved.Weneedsomeonetorunthefour−minute[02:05:56]mile,sotherestofusrealize,"Well,okay,butIguessIcanrunit[02:06:00]quicker."That′swhatItrytostrivefor,andIreallystriveforwithOmarchy[02:06:04]because[02:06:05]it′sjustmorefuntolivethatway,tohavehighaspirationsandambitions.AndI[02:06:09]willsayI′veactuallychangedmymindonthatalittlebit.Ispentquitealotoftime[02:06:15]speakingtheotherbookthattherearealotofpeoplewhodon′tactuallyneedthose[02:06:21]ambitions.AndIalso−−That′salsotrue.Wedon′twant[02:06:26]8billionElonsrunningaroundtheworld.Wouldberathercrazy,Ithink.[02:06:29]ButI′vecometorealizethatforentrepreneurs,[02:06:33]it′shealthytohavesuitablechunkygoals.TheideaofjustrunningtheItalian[02:06:41]restaurantcan′tjustbethat.Itshouldbemaybe[02:06:45]IjustruntheoneItalianrestaurant,butImakethebestdamnpizza[02:06:49]possible.ImakethemostdeliciousParmesan.[02:06:55]Wehavetostriveforexcellencetomusterthemotivationtokeepgoing.[02:07:00]−Andyeah,todaretothinkbiglikeyoucouldbuildaLinux−[02:07:05]−Yes[02:07:05]−...distribution.[02:07:07]Istheresomestuffyourememberaboutwhatittooktogetustobe[02:07:11]sofast?Youmentionedafewthingsthatwere,theagentswerediscovering.[02:07:15]−Oneofthethingswastotreatthe[02:07:19]...lagofhumaninputasanopportunitytopreload.So−−[02:07:23]Hmm...there′sfivequestionsyouanswerwhen−Yeah...yousetupanOmarchymachine.[02:07:26]Soit′sdoingstuffinthebackground.We′redoingstuffinthebackground.AndthatwasoneofthethingsIdidn′t[02:07:30]evenconsider,whichis,Imean,theoldesttrickinthebook.[02:07:34]Allsortsofvideogamesforalongtimehavedonethis,whereyouletthe[02:07:38]playerinteractwithsomething,andthenyoudopreloadingandsoforthinthebackground.[02:07:42]Soit′sanage−oldtechnique,butIjusthadn′tthoughtaboutitforaninstaller.[02:07:45]Ithought,firstyouasktheusersomequestionsabouttheirpasswordandtheir[02:07:49]usernameandtheirtimezoneandsoforth,andthenyoudothework,[02:07:53]when,infact,youcouldpreloadthat.Now,theotherthingswerejustabunchofother[02:07:58]tweakstohowtheinstalleritself[02:08:02]wasdoingthingsinacertainorder.Someofthemwasalsojustshrinkingit.[02:08:06]ThelastversionofOmarchywas7.5gigabytes,[02:08:11]andalotofthetimewe′redowntonowisliterally[02:08:13]decompressingcompressedpackagefiles.That′sthebulkofwhatis[02:08:17]ontheISO,andthat′sthebulkoftheinstalltime.Sobyshrinkingitdownto,Ithinkwe′re[02:08:21]at5.85gigabytesnow,aprettychunkyreduction,[02:08:26]italmostliterallytranslatedone−to−one,andIdidsomereallyinterestingthingsthere.[02:08:30]SoOmarchyusestheJetBrainsfont,whichis[02:08:34]anawesomefont,beautifulfont,andactuallyafontIdidn′tlike[02:08:38]atfirstglance,butthenitwastheonlyfontIcouldgettolook[02:08:41]perfectinMitchellHashimoto′sGhostty.Ghostty,[02:08:45]forwhateverreason,didnotwannarendermybelovedBitstream[02:08:50]VeraSansjustthewayIwasusedtoit.Mm−hmm.Butitrendered[02:08:55]thisJetBrainsfontperfectly,soIswitchedover.Butit...[02:08:59]ThestandardpackageforJetBrainsfontonArch[02:09:03]is200megabytesbecauseitincludesallthesevariationsandall[02:09:07]thesesubtypesandwhatever.[02:09:09]AndIrealized,like,we′renotusinganyofthat.We′reusingthemonospace[02:09:13]versioninthisoneNerd,uh−Yep...fontpatched[02:09:17]edition.Doyouknowhowbigthatis?Ithinkit′s16megabytes.Hmm.[02:09:21]SoIsimplyjustcameupwithanewpackage,theslimversion−[02:09:25]Mm−hmm...oftheJetBrainspackage.Nice.Andthere,rightthere,Isaved180megabytes.[02:09:30]Ijustwentthroughanddidthatabunchoftimes.WedidthatwiththeNVIDIA[02:09:34]driverstoo.SotheNVIDIAdrivers,whentheycamestraightoffthe,Ithinkthe[02:09:38]Archrepo,werenotcompressedwiththemostextremeform[02:09:42]ofcompression,whichIthinkcalledZSTD,whichisa[02:09:46]reallyslowformofcompression.It′sslowtocreatethearchive,butifyou′rebuildinga[02:09:50]package−Hmm...youhaveallthetimeintheworldifthatmeansyoucanthenshrinktheISO.[02:09:53]SoonjustthetwoNVIDIApackages,Ithinkwesaved[02:09:57]200megabytes.Mm−hmm.SowhatIlovedaboutthis[02:10:01]wasIimaginedmyselfbeingacardesignerat[02:10:05]McLaren.SoMcLarenmakessomeofthelightest[02:10:09]supersportscarsintheworldrightnow,[02:10:12]andtheyareabsolutelyobsessedwithshavingevery[02:10:16]damnlastgramofftheircars.That′swhyevenanew750SMcLarenisjustway[02:10:23]lighterthanthecompetition.Theyuseacarbonfiber[02:10:27]monocoque,andthathelpsthemoverlikeFerrari,forexample,that′s[02:10:31]usesaluminum.Buttheyalsojusthavethisobsessionwithweight,andIwouldseethis[02:10:35]interviewwiththeMcLarenfolkstalkingtosomejournalistjustgoingover,"Yeah,[02:10:39]wesaved,uh−...370grams−Yeah...offthat[02:10:43]one."AndIjustwent,"Wait,what?There′ssomeoneonacarthatweighsmaybe[02:10:48]1,040kilosor1,380orsomething.They′res−They′reworryingabout[02:10:55]370grams?"Yeah.Whatobsessed[02:10:58]maniacs.Hmm.Ilovethem.Yeah.Iwantthatinmylife.IwantaMcLaren−[02:11:03]...justforthatreason.SoIthoughtinthatmomentasIwasshaving[02:11:07]individualmegabytesoffthepackages,man,I′mkinda[02:11:11]likeaMcLarencardeveloperhere,eventhough−Yeah...Imean,wehaven′tevencompletedthatwork.[02:11:15]Thepackagecouldshrinkevenmore.Butthisisactuallythis[02:11:19]otherconflictthatwe′vehadwithOmarchyandthetraditionalLinux[02:11:23]communityisbloat.Mm−hmm.Thisideathat[02:11:26]it′sactuallynotkosherincertaincirclestoshipwith[02:11:30]pre−installedsoftwarebecausewhoareyoutomakedecisions[02:11:34]aboutwhatprogramspeopleshoulduse?AndI′mlike,"Dude,[02:11:38]it′sinthefuckingname.It′scalledOmarchybecausetheOmapartis[02:11:42]shortforomakase,whichliterallymeanschef′schoice.[02:11:46]I′mthechef.I′mmakingthechoices,andthisisthe[02:11:50]collectionofapplicationsIthinkisawesome,"whichbythewayhasavideo[02:11:53]editor.ItshipswithOBS−Mm−hmm...todoyourrecording.It′sjustin[02:11:57]there.Yeah.OBSispre−installed.Nice.Kdenliveisa[02:12:01]videoeditor,timelineeditor,whichisgreat.Ieditallmyvideoswiththat.AndthenImade[02:12:05]myownclipeditor.Youtalkedaboutthethingwithsyncingup.[02:12:09]Yeah.Ihadthisthingwithclips,soIwoulddoapodcastorwhatever.IneedaclipforX.[02:12:13]Mm−hmm.Andit′skindofahassletouseKdenliveorother−Mm−hmm...timelineeditors,soImade[02:12:17]Omacut.Mm−hmm.Omacutisincludedtoo.Omacut,cool.It′sjustformakingclips,andyoucan[02:12:21]drivethewholethingwithkeyboard.Soyoucangotojusttherighttimemark−Mm−hmm...[02:12:25]andthenyoucanhitControl+Space.Hmm.Itmovesthecliplinetothatline.[02:12:29]Thenyougoto−Nice...theendoftheclip,andyouhitAlt+Space,anditmovestheendline.[02:12:33]Nice.AndthenyouhitControl+S,anditsaves.Nice.Icanmakeclipssodamn[02:12:37]fastnowwithOmacut.It′samazing.But[02:12:40]ithasallthesoftwareonit.IthasNeovimonit.IthasHerder[02:12:44]onit.IthasTmux.Ithasaterminal.Ithasabunchof[02:12:48]themes.Ithasabunchofbackgroundimages,thebestonesIcouldpick[02:12:52]out.Thattakesupsomespace.Itshouldbecausethisisnotsupposedtobethis[02:12:57]justbarrenlandscapewhereyouhavetoreconstructeverything.Mm−hmm.Thisissupposedtobe[02:13:01]aproductivesystemtheminuteyouunpackit.Whatisitbuiltin?[02:13:05]Soit′sactuallymostlybuiltinBashforthe[02:13:09]Linuxconfigurationpart.Right.Bashisagreatlanguageforthat.[02:13:14]Itismadeforthatreally,forsystemadministration.[02:13:18]Italsohasitslimitations.YoushouldnotbuildeverythinginBash[02:13:21]−HowareagentswithgeneratingBash?Prettygood?[02:13:23]−Oh,amazing.Exceptforonething,[02:13:27]andIhavetosmacktheagentsoverthebackoftheheadeverysingletimeIcatchit,[02:13:31]andremindittolookattheagent′sMDfile,becauseIwillhavean[02:13:35]instructionintherenottomakeearlyexits.[02:13:37]Theagentslovetohavepreconditionsinsteadoffullyexpandedconditionals.[02:13:43]Ilikesomethingthatsays,"Ifthis,thendothat."[02:13:47]Agentsliketohavepreconditionorexit,anotherpreconditionorexit.[02:13:53]Andthenitfallsdowntothefinalthingitactuallywantstodo.Ihate[02:13:57]thatstyle.Soexceptforthat,it′sgotten[02:14:00]shockingly,dramatically,awesomelygood,tothe[02:14:04]pointwherewhenwetalkedlasttime,wetalkedabouthowIwouldasktheagent[02:14:08]foraBashthing,andthenIwouldtypeitinmyself,andIkindawouldn′tremember.[02:14:11]AndthenItooktheefforttomakesurethatallthatcompetencewasn′tdrainingoutofmy[02:14:15]fingers,soIactuallylearnedhowtowriteBashmyself,andnowI′mnot[02:14:18]writinganyBashmyself.IhavenotwrittenanyBashmyselfforprobablyacouplemonths,becausethe[02:14:22]agentshavejustgottensogood,thatifyougivethemthefewpointerson[02:14:26]style,andoccasionallyputpushbackoncomplexity...Thisis...[02:14:30]Itweetedaboutthisacoupleofdaysago.Itblowsmymindhow[02:14:34]oftenanagentcandosomething,sayit′sdone,havetheworkreviewedby[02:14:38]anotheragent−[02:14:39]...theysayit′sdone,andthenIgolike,"Eh,looksalittletoocomplicatedforme."[02:14:43]Andthenit′llgolike,"Oh,yeah,you′reright.You′reright.Itotally[02:14:47]overcomplicatedthis,"andit′llcutitinhalf.I′mlike,"Couldn′tit[02:14:51]justdothis,like,fromtheoutset?"Andthensomeoneelseremindedme,[02:14:55]humansarethesameway.Ifyouworkonsomethingand[02:14:59]someoneelsereviewsitandtheyjustarelike,"Eh,itlooksalittlecomplicated,"quiteoftenyou′re[02:15:03]abletogolike,"Ah,you′reright."[02:15:05]−See,that,thatjust...Thoselittleindicationstome[02:15:09]showthattheprogrammerisstillneeded,[02:15:12]thatintuition,′causeIthink,what,whatdidyousay?Ihaveasenseofthelandscape[02:15:16]ofthecode.[02:15:17]−WhenIbuildsomethinglikeOmarchy,I,Idolookatthecode.Ilookattheshape.[02:15:23]AndIlookattheproportions.[02:15:24]Like,Idon′thavetochiseleverythingmyselfanymore.Thisis,again,whenI′mflattering[02:15:28]myselffor...NotonemomentI′maMcLarenaudio,[02:15:32]uhautoengineer,andthenextmomentI′madaVinci,working[02:15:36]withhiswholestudioofstudents−[02:15:39]...whoaredoingallthechiselingonthe,thefinemarble,right?Andhegoeslike,[02:15:42]"Ah,no,theproportionsarenotquiteright."That′showitfeelsworkingwith[02:15:46]agentsnow.ThatIcangivefeedbacklikeaneditor.[02:15:50]That,doyouknowwhat?I′mnotgonnawriteeverythingmyself,butIcantellyou[02:15:54]whentheargumentdoesn′tland.Icantellyouwhentheshapeisn′t[02:15:58]proportionaltotheproblem,orwhenitjustfeelslikeit′stoocomplicated.And[02:16:02]shockinglyoften,itjustworks.It′sliketheearlydays,wherethejokeswas,[02:16:08]"Don′tmakemistakes."Idon′tthinkyouhavetotelltheagentsthatanymore,becausenowthe[02:16:12]harnessesaresogood,theyrunautomatedtesting.Theygetthatfeedback.But[02:16:16]youactuallydohavetotellthem,"Makeitsimpler."[02:16:19]−Doyouusevoiceatallfortheinteraction?Orareyou...Howmuchareyoutyping?[02:16:23]Howmuchareyou−[02:16:23]−Itypethewholething.Iactually,inOmarchy′sbuilt−inVoxtype−[02:16:27]...Audiotranscription,andit′sactuallyreallygood.Ijustfindthat[02:16:33]Idon′tthinkthatway,anditsurprisedmyselfthatI[02:16:37]don′tliketotalktothecomputer.[02:16:40]Uh,IlikewhenI′minthecar,butwhenI′minfrontofthekeyboard,Ijust[02:16:43]wannatype.Ialsojustlovetyping.Areyouusingthevoice?[02:16:46]−I′manintrovertwhodoesn′tlikesocialinteraction−...orspeaking.And−[02:16:50]−Ithinkthat′spartofminetoo.[02:16:53]−But,like,forme,forsomereason,voiceisreallypowerful.Iwant[02:16:57]togivethis...SoI,Irunwiththisthing.It′scalledPlaud.So[02:17:01]I,Ijusthookituponmy,youknowonmyT−shirthere.[02:17:05]Youpressabutton,itstartsrecording.Andthisisactuallymore,[02:17:09]intermsofflow,muchbetterexperiencethanbehindacomputer.AndI,[02:17:14]uh,save,well,usuallyit′sagentgen−generated[02:17:19]problemsthatIwannareallytalkthrough.AndsoIwrite,Ispeakalongprompt,[02:17:28]like,andalotofit,it′slikestreamofconsciousnessreasoning.SoI′ll[02:17:33]sometimesjustchangemymindaboutadesign,butallofthatisinthere,[02:17:37]andthenIhaveanLLMthatprocessesthat.WithPlaud,there′sa,[02:17:41]obviouslyanAPI.Youcangrabit,transcribeit,cleanupthetranscript,[02:17:45]′causeyou,youwantittobe...′CauseI′mreferringtofiles.[02:17:49]I′mreferringtotechnicalconcepts,likefilesandfunctions−[02:17:53]...andsoon,thatyouwannamakesurethetranscription,the−[02:17:56]...thespeech−to−textgetscorrectly.Soyouwannahaveadictionary.Youwantittobeawareofthecode[02:18:00]basewhenyouprocessthefiles.Andthenyouhavethisgigantic[02:18:04]thingthat′soften10,15,20minutemediscussingthe[02:18:08]fulldesign,andIfindthattobe[02:18:12]really,reallypowerful.Becauseitdoesn′thavethe[02:18:16]problemovers−ofoverspecificationbecauseofhow[02:18:20]muchstreamofconsciousnessthinkingthesystemhas[02:18:24]aboutwhatyou′reimagining.Andthisisreallygood[02:18:28]fortheearlystepsofadesign.Like,ifIwantedtobuildOmarchyfrom[02:18:32]scratch,thefirststages,Italkthrough.Itcouldbean[02:18:36]hour.There′sbeenpromptsthatIhadforanhour,andI′mjustrunningand−[02:18:40]−That′samazing[02:18:40]−...andspeaking.Ihighlyrecommendpeopletryavoice−based−[02:18:48]−So−[02:18:48]−...speakingforprolongedperiodsoftime.[02:18:51]−Ihaven′tactually−[02:18:51]−Asopposedtoveryspecific[02:18:52]−...Ihaven′t,yeah,Ihaven′tuseditthat,andmaybethat′showI′musingitwrong.[02:18:55]Itrytojusttypeorspeaktwosentences,and[02:18:59]thenIgetalittlefrustratedthatIcould′vetypedthatjustas[02:19:03]fastmaybe.ButIhavenottriedthiswholethingofjust[02:19:06]talkingcontinuouslyfor20minutes.[02:19:09]−Andespeciallyyoubecauseyouspeakveryfast.[02:19:12]−Yeah.No,Icouldseeit.IthinkbecausethereasonI′vebeen,I′vebeentryingto[02:19:16]doitforthingslikereplyingtoemails,[02:19:18]anditgottoapointwhereIthoughtitcould[02:19:22]help.Anditsortofdid,butthenitwouldmakeasmallmistake,andI′dhaveto[02:19:26]correctthemistake.Butifyou′redoingstreamofconscioustoanLLMwhodoesn′t[02:19:30]careaboutallthisotherstuffanyway−...thatprobablyworkswaybetter.[02:19:34]−There′stwothingsyouhavetodo.One,okay,youhavetherawaudio,[02:19:37]transcribesit.IuseElevenLabsfortranscription.They′reprobablythebest[02:19:41]speech−to−textmodel.[02:19:43]There′sstillmistakesthere,soyouneedtohaveapromptthathasa−[02:19:48]accesstoadictionaryandtoalotof−[02:19:50]−Howdoyoubuildthedictionary?[02:19:52]−Firstofall,there′sadictionaryoftermsthatarerelevanttoyou.Thenhaveit[02:19:55]awareof...Soyouhaveanagentthatlooksthrough,whenyou′retalkingaboutcode,[02:20:00]looksthroughyourentirecodebaseforkeytermsthatyouuseoften.Also,when[02:20:04]we′retalkingaboutmessaging,Gmail,andWhatsApp,andsoon,it′sawareofallthe[02:20:07]peopleandcommontermsthatyougetwrong.[02:20:11]−You′vereallygonedeepinthis.[02:20:13]−That,tome,isaproblemthatneedstobesolved−[02:20:15]...because,uh,oneoftheissuesyouprobablyhavespeechtotext[02:20:19]isthatitmakesmistakessometimes.[02:20:22]−Correct.ThenIcan′tuseitfordictatinganemail.[02:20:25]−Right.Ifitnevermakesmistakes,you−[02:20:28]−Thenitwouldbemoreappealing.[02:20:29]−Yeah,andyouareokaybeingnotperfectlyrealtime,[02:20:32]actually.You′reokaywaitingfiveseconds−[02:20:35]...potentially.Idon′tknowwhatyourusecaseis.I′mokaywaitingfive[02:20:39]seconds−...10secondsforittoprocesseverything.[02:20:43]−Yougottavibecodethisintoanappthatdoesallofthissuchthat−[02:20:46]...itjustworks.[02:20:48]−IthinkImentionedtoyouofflinethatit′sverysurprisingtomethat,[02:20:54]translationisnotdoneperfectly.Speech−to−speechtranslation.[02:20:59]−Itseemslikeyou′vegottenmuchclosertothebestofwhat′spossiblebyputtingall[02:21:03]thesethingstogether.[02:21:05]−But,youknow,whenyou′reshippingthatkindofstuff,youdohavetostart[02:21:09]thinkingaboutlatency.[02:21:11]−Don′tlettheperfectbetheenemyofgood.Imean,[02:21:15]ifyou′resuddenlyenablingsomethingpeoplewouldn′tbedoingbeforeatall,it′sokayto[02:21:19]takefivesecondslonger.IthinkthisisoneoftheareasthatSteveJobswas[02:21:23]sogood,thatherealized,like,thefirstiPhonewasterrible[02:21:27]inallsortsofways,right?Absolutelyhorrendouslyslowdataconnection,very[02:21:32]underpowered,allthethings.Buttheproductwasso[02:21:35]compellingthatitjustdidn′tmatter.You′dbeshipping[02:21:39]toolateifyouwaiteduntileverythingwasjustright,justperfect.[02:21:43]Ifyou′resolvingaproblemthatpeoplecurrentlydon′thaveasolutionfor,they′re[02:21:47]willingtogiveitfiveseconds.[02:21:49]Ifyou′reinacompetitivemarket,yeah,okay,it′sdifferent.Butthatmeanstheproblem′salreadysolved,andyou[02:21:53]don′tneedtosolveit.[02:21:54]−Mm−hmm.Well,Idothinkthere′safew...So,like,WhisperFlowisreallygood.[02:22:00]Afewpeoplehavesteppedupthatspeech−to−textthing.[02:22:02]−Yeah.Yeah,we′reusingVoxtype.Butothershave−[02:22:05]−Uh,Vo−Voxtypeisopensource?[02:22:07]−Itis.It′sjustusingoneoftheopenmodels.Iforgetwhichparrotmodel[02:22:11]it′susingorsomethinglikethat.Itworksquitewellforshortcommands,soI[02:22:15]haveuseditforthat.Uh,IthinkyoujustholddownF9−[02:22:19]...anditstartsadictation.[02:22:21]−Oh,soit′salreadyinthere?[02:22:23]−Youjusthavetogetonline.It′llofferyoutoinstall−[02:22:25]−Gotit[02:22:26]−...theVoxtypepackage.[02:22:26]−Gotit.Yeah,yeah,yeah.[02:22:26]−BecausetheVoxtypepackageincludesamodelthat′s150megabytes,andI[02:22:30]waslike,"Ah."[02:22:32]−Yep,yep.[02:22:32]−"Idon′tknowifIcancarrythat."So−[02:22:35]−Yep[02:22:35]−...wedon′thavethatintherebydefault,butwehavetheoptionsetup.[02:22:39]AndIactuallyjustyesterdaywasthinking[02:22:43]wereallyneedtocombineallofthesethings.SoOmarchy[02:22:47]Quattroistrulyamazingasamalleableoperating[02:22:51]systemwhereyoucanaddfunctionalitytoitjustbytalkingtoyouragent.[02:22:56]Butthat′sexactlywhatweshouldbedoing.There′salotofpeoplewhowould[02:23:00]finditverynaturaljusttotalktotheircomputerandsay,"Hey,[02:23:03]canyoumakemeastockpanel?IwannatrackAppleandDell,"[02:23:10]andjustseetheagentgooff[02:23:12]through,entirelythroughvoice,bothintermsoftheinputandintermsofthe[02:23:16]output,andthenyouroperatingsystemjustchanges.Thiswasthevision[02:23:20]ofIronManandJarvisand−[02:23:22]−Yeah[02:23:23]−...bespokeapplicationsthatjustappear[02:23:26]magically.I′mthinkingtheareaofAIIfindtruly[02:23:30]intriguingaretheselivegamingmodels,Idon′tknowifyou′veseenthat,wherethe[02:23:34]AI′sinventingliterallythenextframe,butyoucanactually[02:23:38]playthegame.AndIthinkifthey′reabletodothat,whycan′twedo[02:23:42]thatwithouroperatingsystem?Whycan′twejusttalktoitandaskit[02:23:46]tobeadifferentwayorchange,andit′llalljustchange?Ithinkthis,by[02:23:50]theway,isoneoftheotherbreakthroughsthatisgoingtoleadto[02:23:54]thetotaldominationofLinux.Theagentshavetakenallthehardshipoutof[02:24:00]diagnosingLinuxsystemsandturnedthefactthatLinuxproduces[02:24:06]theseoverlyspecific,totallyarcaneerrormessagesintoitsgreatestadvantage.[02:24:12]WhenLinuxhasanissue,[02:24:15]theagentcantakethatveryspecificerrormessagethatmakesnosensetoanormal[02:24:19]humanandcorrelateitwiththefactthattheagentwaspre−trainedon[02:24:23]40millionlinesofLinuxcode,soitknowsexactlywheretolookanddialitdown.[02:24:27]−Yeah.[02:24:28]−IhavenothadasingleproblemonmyLinuxmachinesince[02:24:32]thebeginningofthisyearthatanagentcouldnotdiagnose.Thatwas[02:24:35]nottrueayearandahalfago.Ayearandahalfago,Iwas[02:24:39]stillsearchingonforums−...tofindanswerstoesotericquestions.[02:24:45]NowtheagentsknowthesourcecodeofnotjusttheLinuxoperating[02:24:49]system,buteverysinglepieceofsoftwareIhaveonthatbox.Theagent[02:24:53]hasaccesstothesourcecodeofallofit.Infact,thiswasonethingIbuiltinjust[02:24:57]beforewe,uh,weshipped.Soonceyousetupyourdefaultagent−[02:25:02]...OmarchyQuattrohasacrashwatcher.If[02:25:05]anyapponyourmachinecrashes,it′llpopupalittle[02:25:09]thing,askyouwhetheryouwantyourAItodiagnosetheproblem.[02:25:13]−Yeah.That′samazing.[02:25:14]−Unbelievable.I′veseenthingswherethere′san[02:25:18]errorinsomesubsystem.Some,some...NotevenLinux,justsomeappI[02:25:22]installed.Theagentsstartdiggingthroughthelogsand[02:25:26]looksupsystemdlog.Thenitchecksoutthedamnsourcecode.[02:25:30]Oftheapplicationthatcrashed,pinsdownthatit′sinthis[02:25:34]Rustfileline472thatthere′s[02:25:38]anunbounded,unwrappedvariablethatoverflowedorwhateveritis.[02:25:43]Thenoffersyouwhetheryouwannafileabugreportwithallthisdetail.[02:25:49]I′llgiveyouoneamazinganecdote.SoIwasworkingwith[02:25:53]thisguyJDX,who′sworkingonmise.This,thispackagemanager[02:25:56]forfast−movingdevelopmenttools.Thisishowwemanagealltheagentsoftwareandso[02:26:00]forth.Normalpackagemanagersarenotbuilttobeupdatedseventimesaday.[02:26:04]Andalloftheseagentharnessesareupdatedaboutseventimesaday,sowe[02:26:08]neededanout−of−bandpackagemanager,andmisejustturnsouttobe[02:26:12]perfectforthis.Anyway,[02:26:13]ithadasmallbug.Therewassomeraceconditionwhichagentsare[02:26:17]verygoodatfindingbecausewhenyoustartrunningmultipleagentsatthesametime,theywillsussoutall[02:26:21]theseraceconditionsyouhaveinyourunderlyinginfrastructurethatwasnevertriggeredbyahuman[02:26:26]tryingtodomanualthing.Soitfindsthisissue,right?Itell[02:26:31]Itelltheagent,"Hey,canyoupostthisasabugreporttoJDX′sGitHub?"[02:26:38]Andunfortunately,rightbeforethat,Ihadhadtodo[02:26:42]aQArunonOmarchyitselfwitheightdifferentagents.Ithadfound28realissues−[02:26:49]...thatitneededtofile.Well,itwenttoGitHubandtriedtofileall[02:26:52]28issuesatthesametime,whichitdidinabout,[02:26:56]uh,Idon′tknow,12seconds.GitHub,not[02:27:00]unreasonably,markedthatasprobablespamandbanned−...myOmarchybot.[02:27:05]AndthenIcouldn′tdothat.So[02:27:07]IwasblockedfromthebothavingaccesstoGitHub,soIjusttoldit,"Hey,doyouknow[02:27:11]what?JustemailJDX.Here′shisemailaddress."Ihad[02:27:15]alreadysetitupwithhey.com−[02:27:17]...anemailaddress.WehaveaCLIthat′sinbetarightnow.[02:27:20]SoIsetitupwiththatsoitcansendtoemail.That′showitgivesmereportsabout[02:27:24]outstandingissuesandPRs.Soitsends,[02:27:28]um,JDXthisemailaboutthebugitfound,andhewaslike,[02:27:32]"Wait,thisisthefirsttimeI′vegottenabugreportinunreleased[02:27:36]software."Becauseithaddownloadedthesourcecodetomise,[02:27:40]sawthathehadalreadyfixedthebug,butthatitwouldnotfixtheproblem[02:27:44]entirelyinsoftwaretheyhadnotshippedyet.[02:27:47]Pinpointedtheproblem,andhewaslike,"Damnit−[02:27:50]...Igotabugreportbeforeweevencutarelease."[02:27:53]−That′samazing.That′samazing[02:27:54]−...believableAGIlevelsofmind−blowingstuff.[02:27:59]−Andthatwasactually,ifyouremember,thatwasanopenquestion[02:28:02]whetherAIsystemscoulddebugwell.[02:28:06]Thatwaskindathethoughtthat,yeah,sure,theycanwritecode,butcan[02:28:10]theyfindissuesand−[02:28:10]−Theyaresoincrediblygoodatthis,andthisisactuallyinteresting[02:28:14]becauseIwasontheperhapssamesideofthat,alittleskepticalabout[02:28:18]canitreasonaboutallthesethings.AndMikhail,who′stheCTO[02:28:22]atShopify,ranascientificstudyonthis.[02:28:26]Theyhad...Andthiswas,Ithink,latelastyearorearlythisyear,wherehe[02:28:29]hadagentsgobackthroughalltheincidents,bothoutagesand,[02:28:33]andotherproblemsthatShopifyhadhadinproduction,tracethatbacktothe[02:28:37]PRthatwasmerged,andfindoutwhetherPRsthathadbeen[02:28:41]reviewedbyhumanorPRsthathadbeenreviewedby[02:28:45]agentswereofhigherquality.Well,loandsurprise−[02:28:50]...thePRsthathavebeenreviewedbyagentscausedfarfewer[02:28:54]issuesinproduction.Andthiswaswithmodelswehadsix[02:28:58]monthsago.Atthispoint,100[02:29:02]majorityofdomainsweworkintoday,agentsarebetteratfindingbugs.[02:29:06]−Soyounowrunagentsallday.[02:29:11]Whatstandsouttoyouasthebettermodel?Who′scurrentlywinning?[02:29:14]Itseemstobechangingconstantly.Sol,Fable,Grok4.6,Gemini,theChineseOpenWay[02:29:22]models.[02:29:23]−What′samazingtomeisthatyoucouldrattleoffsomanydifferentcontenders.[02:29:29]Thatthismarketissowideopen,thatit[02:29:33]doesactuallychangebackandforth,thatwehavereal[02:29:36]competition,thattherearesomanylabsthatareable[02:29:40]togeteithertothefrontierorclosetoit.[02:29:44]That,bytheway,isremarkable.Istilldon′tfullyunderstandthat.[02:29:48]Buttoansweryourquestion,thebestmodelingeneralrightnowisFable.[02:29:54]Thesecond−bestmodel,inmyopinion,isOpus5.But[02:29:59]thetierjustbelowOpus5,and[02:30:02]it′snoteventhatthey′realwaysbelow,sometimesthey′reahead.[02:30:05]I′llgettothatinasecond.IwouldrankGPTSolverygood.[02:30:13]Grok4.6Ijuststartedtestingafewdaysago.Ihad[02:30:16]thiswonderfultestthatI′vesetupbyaccident[02:30:20]whereItranslatedthisPythonlibraryintoRust.Uh,[02:30:24]thescreensaveryoujustsawwithallthecoolanimation?[02:30:28]That′spoweredbyaPythonlibrarycalledTerminalTextEffects.[02:30:32]Reallycoollibrary.We′vebeenusingitsincethefirstdayofOmarchy.[02:30:36]Theproblemwiththatisit′swritteninPython,sowhenitstartsup,especiallyona[02:30:40]laptop,anditrunsinPython,itusesallofyourCPU[02:30:44]todotheseeffects,andtherefore,itmeansitusesabout30watts[02:30:48]ofenergy,anditspinsupyourfans,anditdrainsyourbattery.[02:30:52]Doesn′treallymatteronalocalcomputer,butitdoesmatteronalaptop.SoIthought,"Doyouknow[02:30:56]what?ThissoundslikeaproblemforRust."SofirstIgaveFablethechallenge,[02:31:03]andallItolditwas,"Here′sthesourcecodeforthe[02:31:06]Pythonlibrary,"thisTTElibrarythathadabunchofdependenciesandsoforth.[02:31:11]"IwantaRustversionofthiswithnodependencies,a[02:31:15]singleexecutable."Like,that′swhatRustdoes.Sobasically,IwantitinRust.[02:31:19]Iwantittobepixelperfect,framebyframe,doafull[02:31:23]analysis,don′tstopuntilyou′refinished.[02:31:26]−Yep.[02:31:27]−Thatwastheprompt.[02:31:27]−Yep.[02:31:29]−Ikidyounot,injustunder45minutes,itwaslike[02:31:34]AmIheardall?I′mfinished.I′vecheckedeverything.[02:31:39]Ihavereducedthestartuptimefrom86millisecondstotwo[02:31:46]milliseconds.Ihavespeduptheexecutiontimeby[02:31:51]9.6times,Ibelieveitwas.Theexecutableisthreemegabytes.Doyouwannarunit?[02:31:59]−That′sawesome.[02:32:00]−SoIrunit—[02:32:01]−Oh,man.[02:32:02]−...andIdon′tknowwhyI′msurprised,becausethis[02:32:05]translationjobissomethingwe′veknownforawhilethatAIis[02:32:10]prettygoodat,butitwasstillstaggeringtomethatIcouldone−shot[02:32:14]afulltranslationofaPythonlibraryI[02:32:18]hadbeenusingforayear,thatothershadbeenusingformuchlonger,[02:32:22]andturnitintoaRustexecutablewithoutknowinganyRust,[02:32:26]withoutlookingattheRustcodeatall,andproducethis[02:32:30]executablethatIthentoldtheagentrightafter,"Thisisgreat.Shipit."[02:32:35]Itpackageditupasanewpackage.Ittoldme,"Whatdoyouwantittocall?""Uh,let′scallit[02:32:39]TTFX.Let′screateanewGitrepo."ItsetsuptheGitrepo."Let′screate[02:32:43]anewpackage,buildpackageforourbuildsystem."Itputsthat[02:32:47]up."Let′spushitout.Let′sopenthepullrequest[02:32:51]totheOmarchyitselfsoweswitcharoundfromTTE,thePythonimplementation,to[02:32:55]TTFX."Itdoesallofit,[02:32:58]andI′mjustsittingthere.Andagain,I′malreadyatthispointfully[02:33:02]deliriouswithagentacceleration,andIstillhadtoleanbackandIgolike,[02:33:07]"ThisisAGI,isn′tit?ThisiswhatAGIlookslike.[02:33:11]Ifwehave...Ifthesemomentsarejustwhatitisallthetime,thisisAGI."[02:33:15]−Now,asIunderstand,youalsorepeatedthesameexperimentnotjustwithFable.[02:33:21]−Ididitonallthemodels.First,Ididit...Actually,funnything.[02:33:25]SoIranoutofFabletokensabouttwo−thirds[02:33:29]through,anditjustautomaticallyswitchedovertoOpus5andkeptgoingandfinished[02:33:33]thejob.[02:33:34]PartofthereasonwhyIthinkitwasabletodothatwasthatthefirstthing[02:33:38]Fabledidwascreateaplan,[02:33:40]anditwasareallydetailedplan.Ithinkithadeightseparatestepsof,"Hereyoudoit,[02:33:44]andhere,howyouanalyzeit,andhereyouruntheeffects,"andsoon.Ididn′treviewtheplanatall.[02:33:48]Ididn′tchangetheplan.ItjustmadetheplansoOpuscouldtake[02:33:52]over.AndthenIthought,"Well,ifOpuscanfinishthejob,[02:33:57]maybesomeoftheotheragentscouldfinishit,too."SothefirstthingIdidwas[02:34:01]Igaveitto...IthinkIgaveittoSol.[02:34:05]AndSolfinishedthejob,too.Ittooktwiceaslong,soittook,Ithink,aboutanhour[02:34:09]andahalf.But[02:34:11]here′sthekicker.Thepertokencost,Ididn′tpaypertoken.Ihavea[02:34:15]maxsubscriptiontoClaude,right?Soitdiditwithinthesubscription.Itusedallmy[02:34:18]tokens,soIhadtoswitchovertoOpus5.ButifIhadpaidper[02:34:22]token,itwould′vebeen550bucks,Ithink,todothewholething.AndI[02:34:26]thoughtforasecond,"Holyshit.Whatasteal."IfI[02:34:30]personallyhadtolearnRustwellenoughtobeabletodothis[02:34:34]translation,I′mlookingatanine−monthjobhere.[02:34:39]Icanpay500buckstohavethistranslationhappen,andsuddenlyIgeta[02:34:43]10xexecutionspeedup.Thisisama−Iwouldtotallypay500bucksforthis.[02:34:48]Butcompetition.SoIgiveittoSol.[02:34:52]Sameplan.Tobefair,Ididn′taskSoltodotheplan.IjusttooktheFableplan,[02:34:56]gaveittoSol.Sol,inanhourandahalf,andIthink46 worth
[02:35:04] of token, repeated the
task. Did the same thing.
[02:35:10] And I thought, “Well, blimey,
that’s amazing.” Then I got greedy.
[02:35:17] So I asked GPT Luna, which is this crazy
cheap model that OpenAI has as well,
[02:35:27] “Can you do it?” Absolutely not.
First of all, it didn’t even wanna
[02:35:31] start the task. I think something
happened I don’t know. I think
[02:35:34] it was in the spring, where
we didn’t need these slash
[02:35:38] goal things anymore. The agents could just
automatically keep going in a loop if you
[02:35:42] told it not to stop-
[02:35:44] … and so forth. So Sol could do
that. Fable could do that. But
[02:35:48] Luna couldn’t. So I had… I think I did
[02:35:51] 12 prompts. Kept telling it
to do it, and eventually
[02:35:55] I sorta got it started. The first
thing it did was to cheat. So the
[02:35:59] first thing it, it looked outside its own directory,
saw that there was already another imple-
[02:36:03] implementation, and just did a short
wrapper around that and said, “I’m done.”
[02:36:08] Hilarious. But it couldn’t finish because
it made just a couple thing. But I mean,
[02:36:12] okay, so it can’t do that.
Then I gave it to Grok-
[02:36:15] … 46. And I had used Grok 45 a little
bit, and I thought like, “Ah, I mean,
[02:36:21] it’s cool that there’s others trying, but,
like, I’m not gonna use it,” because it
[02:36:25] felt quite far behind. Grok 46
fucking completes the task.
[02:36:30] 10x speed up, same size executable. 55Worthofpertokencost,Ithinkitwas.[02:36:37]Absolutelyunbelievable.ThenIrepeated,too,with,uh,KimiK3−[02:36:43]...whichtookforever.IforgethowlongKimiactuallyspenton[02:36:47]it.AndthenIalsodiditwithDeepSeekV4Flashfirst.[02:36:51]AndFlashfailedthesamewaythatLunadid.Itcouldn′tdoit.AndthenIdiditwithPro,[02:36:56]andProalsocompletedthetask.Ittook2hours45,23.
[02:37:02] So here we are, right? Like, Fable,
clearly the best. It was the
[02:37:06] fastest. It was the one that wrote the plan,
but 550 bucks, and the output the same.
[02:37:13] Uh, the others, Sol, Grok,
about the same 1/10 the cost.
[02:37:19] DeepSeek, 1/20 the cost, but you
have to wait a little longer.
[02:37:24] Absolutely gobsmackingly incredible.
[02:37:29] And now, by the way, by the way, so I had Fable
finish the first job, and then Opus finished
[02:37:33] it. That was the first one shot, right?
[02:37:35] It’s 10 times faster. I did two
auto research runs, which isn’t
[02:37:39] even auto research anymore. You don’t have to
do the slash. You just tell it to keep going
[02:37:42] until you tell it to stop.
[02:37:45] It ended up… I think we ended
up with a 46 time execution
[02:37:49] improvement over the original.
[02:37:51] - It’s incredible.
[02:37:52] - Absolutely incredible.
[02:37:52] - It’s just incredible.
[02:37:54] Um, I do, you know, I just don’t think
there’s anything that compares to Fable
[02:37:58] in terms of planning. So I usually do
Fable for planning and for reviewing,
[02:38:05] and then something else for
implementation, like Opus 5.
[02:38:08] And it’s really nice. It’s a, it’s a
really nice setup that allows you to
[02:38:12] not run out of tokens too much.
[02:38:14] - What I found, it’s really
interesting because Fable is, in
[02:38:18] my opinion, the best model right now,
but it also makes mistakes. And the
[02:38:21] best way to get the best
software, I would actually rather
[02:38:25] have two differently sourced
sort of… I mean, they’re not
[02:38:29] mid-tier, they’re all frontier. But
have, let’s say Opus 5 and Codex-
[02:38:35] … and have one check the other’s job. This
is my standard operating procedure now.
[02:38:40] I’ll have Opus or Fable do the work,
and then I always end it, review
[02:38:45] with Codex xHigh.
[02:38:47] And I’ve also started using Grok just to test it out,
and it’s also quite good. And it keeps finding stuff.
[02:38:51] And then that’s my workflow when
I’m having my agents on my own
[02:38:55] machine do it, and then I push to GitHub.
And then Copilot, I kid you not, has
[02:38:59] actually gotten good. Copilot
keeps finding stuff that’s
[02:39:03] legitimately broken, which is also
incredible acceleration because the
[02:39:07] first version of Copilot that
started doing this was literally
[02:39:09] retarded. It would just constantly
flag things that were nonsense.
[02:39:13] It would constantly flag the same problem over and over
again as you would push. It was really annoying, so
[02:39:17] I think a lot of people actually ended up turning
that off. And if they did, they should turn it back
[02:39:21] on because it’s actually quite good.
[02:39:24] Keeps finding things. And if you then take
that, and we shouldn’t be surprised. Why are we
[02:39:27] surprised? Even if you’re a good
programmer, if you finish a job
[02:39:31] and you ask your also very good
peer to review it, you’re gonna
[02:39:35] end up with better code. Of course you’re gonna end
up with better code. So build that into your process.
[02:39:39] Pick one of the agents to
drive with. I’ve mainly been
[02:39:43] driving with Claude, which is actually
interesting because I have some other
[02:39:47] reservations about Anthropic. But the
reason I’m sticking with Claude is, in my
[02:39:51] opinion, they actually
have the best harness.
[02:39:53] And one of the reasons it’s
the best harness is it’s
[02:39:57] multi-agent running. So if you wanna
run multiple agents at the same
[02:40:01] time, you can do arrow left
when you’re inside a session,
[02:40:05] then it goes back to Agent View. And here in
Agent View, you can pick up another agent.
[02:40:08] So if you wanna do this thing where
you have multiple threads going on-
[02:40:11] … the Claude Code is just the nicest
setup. They also just, they keep being a
[02:40:15] little further ahead, which probably shouldn’t
be surprising. I mean, Boris is one of the
[02:40:19] guys that’s working on that, he was the first
one and basically came up with the thing.
[02:40:22] It’s just interesting that that has been
an enduring advantage. I’ve also used
[02:40:27] OpenCode a lot.
[02:40:27] I think OpenCode is great. I use OpenCode
mainly as my main harness for all the
[02:40:31] open models, so Kimi K3 and so forth. And
I inference not on the Chinese servers.
[02:40:40] So I inference on Fireworks-
[02:40:43] … which is a really nice service where
you can just pay by the token, and
[02:40:47] if you’re using these open weight models,
they’re not that expensive by token.
[02:40:50] So that’s a great way to do that. But
I don’t think I would be using…
[02:40:54] Well, maybe I would. But if…
[02:40:58] Using Claude with a subscription does feel
like a bargain, like a crazy bargain.
[02:41:03] - Yeah, I knew. And I actually have four.
[02:41:06] - I just signed up for my
second one this morning-
[02:41:09] … because I got up at 4:00 with jet lag, and I
started working with the agents right away, and
[02:41:14] now I’m three days away from limits
resetting on Fable, and I ran out of tokens.
[02:41:20] - So and they should really— they—
[02:41:22] - I mean, I don’t… Why is that so complicated?
Can’t you just stack one subscription?
[02:41:25] Why do I need to log in multiple times?
[02:41:27] - And obviously you’ll have to
develop some kind of tooling-
[02:41:30] - Yes, I did that too.
[02:41:31] - … to move from one- …
to the other. And then-
[02:41:33] - Oh, we’re building that into Omarchy, by the way.
So the next version of Omarchy is gonna ship with
[02:41:36] multi-sub support. I wish that the labs
would just make you buy a max 100 times.
[02:41:43] - It’s kind of actually fascinating
though for me because there’s…
[02:41:48] It’s very challenging
for me to use Grok 46
[02:41:52] and then a Claude Code
because Grok is so fast.
[02:41:57] - Yes. That’s actually the deal. The
deal with Grok is that their fast
[02:42:01] mode is cheaper than the
regular mode on the others.
[02:42:05] And when you’ve used Grok 46 on
fast, it’s kind of addictive ‘cause
[02:42:09] it almost gets you to
this single thread mode-
[02:42:12] … where the agent is
able to keep up with you.
[02:42:14] - Yeah, but I don’t know how… I can’t…
Once I get used to Claude Code,
[02:42:18] uh, I can’t handle the speed of Grok
‘cause I’m used to now multitasking.
[02:42:24] And so now I’m back in this-
… anxious mode of, uh-
[02:42:27] - Yeah. No, I agree.
[02:42:28] - … switching. So I mean,
all of this is a learning a
[02:42:32] learning process of what programming
actually is supposed to look like.
[02:42:34] - By the way, one of the reasons why I’m not sure
what the final form of these harnesses is gonna
[02:42:38] take, because one of the things we’ve started
experimenting with at Base Camp is that we put
[02:42:42] the agents inside of Base Camp,
and we treat them as coworkers.
[02:42:45] - Yeah. That’s awesome.
[02:42:45] - And then we assign them tasks-
[02:42:47] - That’s awesome.
[02:42:47] - … inside of Base Camp, so they
will do work on a to-do in Base
[02:42:51] Camp, or they’ll work, do work
on a card. And it turns out that
[02:42:55] a collaboration tool that’s optimized
for asynchronous communication is
[02:42:59] actually the right format versus these
harnesses are a little more like chat.
[02:43:05] And chat, which was, I mean, the
original format for these things, is
[02:43:09] not the right thing because you’re sitting
around waiting. It entices you to sit
[02:43:13] around and wait, versus when you’re dealing with
something like Base Camp and you can just give
[02:43:17] an agent a to-do item, you don’t
expect to hear back immediately.
[02:43:21] So I don’t know what the final form is gonna
take, but I’ve been using all of the harnesses.
[02:43:24] So I use them inside of Herdr, and
Herdr has panes. So oftentimes I’ll
[02:43:28] run Claude up top, and then I’ll run Codex
[02:43:32] down below, and then maybe I also
have an OpenCode set up. But
[02:43:36] I will say just very recently,
I found that the human in the
[02:43:40] loop is the limit here.
[02:43:42] So I’ve started setting up more automated
systems. I’ve been building an Omarchy bot
[02:43:46] that can do more autonomous
development on Omarchy that is just
[02:43:50] On a regular schedule process,
all depending to do or PRs and
[02:43:54] issues, and then send me an
email using the Hey CLI,
[02:43:58] and then I just get this email. Here’s
12 PRs that are either ready to
[02:44:02] go or I think you should close. And then I
just make the final determination there.
[02:44:06] - Do you find the multitasks, the
task- switching mentally exhausting?
[02:44:10] - Yes, but in an exhilarating way. Like,
one of the things I always loved about
[02:44:14] race cars was when I would
stumble out of the car absolutely
[02:44:18] smashed and barely able to hold my
head up, and I’d lay down on the
[02:44:22] garage floor and just think,
“Holy fuck, I’m alive.”
[02:44:26] That’s the kind of exhaustion,
mental exhaustion I’m feeling at
[02:44:30] moments with the agents right now.
[02:44:31] - By the way, when you’re racing, where,
what’s the source of the exhaustion? Like-
[02:44:34] - It’s physical. It’s just… I mean, I
[02:44:37] bet it’s the same thing with jujitsu,
right? Like, it’s actually satisfying to
[02:44:41] feel exhausted. It feels like
you’ve applied yourself.
[02:44:44] And I feel that with the mental
exhaustion you can get from agents.
[02:44:48] - Are you also mentally drained from racing?
[02:44:49] - Yes. If you drive in difficult conditions,
especially if you drive in the rain, where you’re
[02:44:53] constantly managing the thing
right at the knife’s edge. But
[02:44:58] most of the time, I just enjoyed
the physical exhaustion.
[02:45:01] - And here, with the multitask
switching, I do find that, like,
[02:45:05] I get really exhausted, and I think
it’s because I’m thinking a lot.
[02:45:11] ‘Cause, like, you’re basically-
[02:45:13] - That’s exactly it.
[02:45:14] - … there’s no, like passive
low energy thinking.
[02:45:18] - No.
[02:45:18] - You’re like-
[02:45:19] - There’s no coasting.
[02:45:20] - … problem.
[02:45:20] - There’s no coasting.
[02:45:21] - Solve problem, next problem, solve
problem, and you’re really thinking.
[02:45:25] - It’s funny. It’s actually very similar with
racing. There’s some tracks, like Le Mans,
[02:45:29] where you get time to relax. There’s
the Mulsanne straights where it’s kinda
[02:45:33] long. You’re going fast, but in a
straight line, you can take a breath.
[02:45:37] And then there are other tracks
where it’s just coming full on all
[02:45:41] the time, and you don’t have any moment
to relax, and you stumble out of
[02:45:45] the car after an hour in each, and it’s very
different how exhausted you are. And this is
[02:45:49] exactly what I’m finding with the agents
too, that when you’re running at max
[02:45:53] human capacity- … you’re
just constantly in a corner.
[02:45:57] - Do you think people are
in danger of burnout?
[02:46:01] - I think the moment we’re in right now
is gonna pass. That this need to…
[02:46:09] It’s not a babysitting motion, but
constant interaction with the agents is
[02:46:13] gonna fade. From what I’ve seen
on Omarchy, I think we can
[02:46:18] automate a ton of the development
and debugging of the system-
[02:46:24] … to the point where I
can just review that email
[02:46:27] once a day, and then make the
decisions once a day. Yep, goes, no,
[02:46:31] goes, in, out, and whatever. We’re not there
yet, but I think we’re gonna get there.
[02:46:36] - Well, can you sort of, like,
empathize with the feeling that,
[02:46:40] say, a young person sitting in San
Francisco, everybody around them is not
[02:46:43] sleeping. They’re obsessed.
They’re programming nonstop.
[02:46:46] And there’s this kinda sense,
that AGI is gonna be here
[02:46:52] any minute. There’s, everybody knows
somebody who’s made millions of dollars
[02:46:56] because they sold a startup. And so
[02:47:00] there’s a kinda feeling like
you shouldn’t be sleeping.
[02:47:04] You should be constantly managing agents
and programming and building and,
[02:47:09] and that feels like a moment
in time we’ll look back at.
[02:47:14] - It’s the birth of a new
paradigm. It’s always messy.
[02:47:16] - It’s always messy.
[02:47:17] - It’s always exhausting. There’s no
other way around that. And by the way,
[02:47:21] hasn’t San Francisco
always been like this?
[02:47:23] I remember the dotcom boom years, and
everyone was just the same, and then
[02:47:27] it was all mobile, and before that it was
the gold rush. So I think that’s probably-
[02:47:30] … just San Francisco. It attracts-
… the kind of individuals-
[02:47:33] - The dreamers
[02:47:34] - … who would, who would think, “I don’t have
time to sleep.” I’ve not been on that track,
[02:47:39] generally speaking, but I will admit that
[02:47:42] the last three months have
felt more exhausting than
[02:47:47] any other project I’ve done in the last five
years, since the Hey launch. That was the
[02:47:51] last time we had a crazy
exhausting launch.
[02:47:55] - Do you think you can
keep going at this pace?
[02:47:57] - No, no, no, no, no. This
is not sustainable at all.
[02:47:59] - Okay.
[02:48:00] - But I also, I can see
the end of the tunnel.
[02:48:02] Because the automation, which by
the way, everyone is building. This
[02:48:06] is so hilarious. Like, everyone is building
their little gas town, their little
[02:48:10] agent coordination, their setup. This is all
gonna be solved. We’re not all gonna have to
[02:48:14] build our own coordination harnesses.
Of course we’re not. And in fact, I’m
[02:48:18] a little surprised that it’s gone this
long, that there’s not more of it has been
[02:48:22] sucked up by the major labs. You’d think
that they’d just built this stuff in.
[02:48:26] But some of it is also this is what a new domain
looks like. I remember for a hot moment when
[02:48:30] JavaScript kind of came to
realize its own power, and there
[02:48:34] was basically a new JavaScript framework every
five minutes, right? Like, a lot of churn.
[02:48:38] This is what happens at the
advent of a new paradigm.
[02:48:41] So I think it’s natural, and I think it’s gonna
settle down, and I can already see the light at the
[02:48:45] end of the tunnel. So I don’t mind a
sprint. In fact, I welcome it now. I
[02:48:49] like this notion that most
time is calm, but then
[02:48:53] occasionally you gotta climb a mountain.
[02:48:56] - If we look back to the DHH a year ago,
what advice would you give to that guy?
[02:49:03] - I wouldn’t wanna spoil it.
[02:49:04] - Okay.
[02:49:04] - What a- … thriller that this has been.
[02:49:09] I mean, if you would’ve scripted this,
I’d be like, “This is so far-fetched. Get
[02:49:14] out of here. Unbelievable,” right?
I wouldn’t wanna know anything. The
[02:49:17] fact that this rollercoaster
and this acceleration has
[02:49:21] been absorbed in real
time by everyone, no one
[02:49:24] knew, right? Like, some had
premonitions that were a little
[02:49:28] better than others, but no one
knew, not exactly the way-
[02:49:31] … it was gonna go and how
fast it was gonna take off.
[02:49:34] I mean, it’s the show of a
lifetime. I mean, the mean cinema-
[02:49:40] … absolutely applies-
[02:49:41] - Yeah, it’s incredible.
[02:49:42] - … to this moment.
[02:49:43] - Uh, that said, what do you think DHH
from a year from now will be like?
[02:49:49] I mean, what are the possible versions?
[02:49:52] - That all our dreams are coming
true. Like, this is the AI
[02:49:56] maximalist abundance argument.
That once Elon’s robots
[02:50:04] have the level of intelligence and
AGI that I’m experiencing on some of
[02:50:08] this development stuff,
the world is gonna be so
[02:50:12] unrecognizably different that
we can’t even imagine it.
[02:50:17] Now, I don’t spend any time thinking about
that because I think that is the way to
[02:50:21] the AI psychosis. So therefore, I just
immerse myself in the moment and get
[02:50:27] absolutely the maximum out of it and-
[02:50:29] - Just have fun.
[02:50:30] - Just have fun.
[02:50:32] I mean, I get it why people are finding
this exhausting. Just keeping up.
[02:50:35] Not even using agents, just, like, being like,
“What’s the latest model? What did, what
[02:50:39] tool are we using now? Is it TMox? Is
it a Herder? Is it none of it? Is it
[02:50:43] agents?” Whatever. I get it, but I also
again think we should be so blessed.
[02:50:49] You are alive in this moment where
decades are happening- … in weeks.
[02:50:54] - Um, quick bathroom break.
[02:50:57] I’ve been generating a lot of
video recently with Higgsfield,
[02:51:01] and so they, they became a
sponsor. Created a racing video.
[02:51:05] Wanted to get your opinion on it.
[02:51:06] - Oh, yeah? Oh, let me see. Let me see.
[02:51:08] - To see, um-
[02:51:10] - If they downshift on a straight like they do
in the movies, I’ll call it out. That is the
[02:51:14] worst. Let me see.
[02:51:16] - Yeah, see if-
[02:51:18] - Oh, that’s a real clip
[02:51:19] - … this is fully AI
generated. So first it goes-
[02:51:22] - Wait, what? This is AI?
[02:51:23] - Yep.
[02:51:25] - Shit, that’s my suit. That’s my car.
[02:51:28] - Lights go green on a
street that never sleeps.
[02:51:35] - Oh, my God.
[02:51:36] - Do an audio-
[02:51:37] - Are you kidding me?
[02:51:39] - But they never came. Is it
good? I got a bad case.
[02:51:44] - I mean, it’s crazy. You really
have to notice in the…
[02:51:51] Like, that car didn’t have
headlights on and the other one did.
[02:51:54] And that looked like a 60-year-old
version of me. But holy crap, the…
[02:52:01] Wow, that was crazy.
[02:52:03] - So there’s parallels here to programming
because if you do just straight
[02:52:07] video generation with no human in the loop-
… you get a lot of weird artifacts-
[02:52:12] … and so on, and you can’t really do…
So they do and I highly recommend people
[02:52:16] go to the Higgsfield YouTube. They
have full 90-minute original movies.
[02:52:22] And, like, I can’t look away.
It’s really cool. ‘Cause it
[02:52:26] used to be that it’s just, like,
something that just feels like trailers.
[02:52:30] Like advertisements for something.
[02:52:32] - Yes, yes.
[02:52:32] - This is actually telling stories, like, people’s
faces and they’re talking and you’re like,
[02:52:37] you’re drawn in. It’s not
quite where programming is.
[02:52:41] And so the question is how do you
integrate the human into the loop of the
[02:52:45] filmmaking process? So you have to
create the people, and they’re-
[02:52:49] … they have to be kept consistent.
[02:52:51] And then for the images that
are kinda like feeding the
[02:52:55] thing in the creation process,
you have to correct through
[02:52:59] prompting things that don’t feel right.
[02:53:04] Because when you go from image to video,
the stuff that doesn’t feel right will be-
[02:53:11] - It’s gonna be zoomed up, right?
[02:53:12] - That’s the stuff that’s- …
going to really create, uh-
[02:53:15] … the non-realistic stuff. The questions
I had for you is, like, do you think
[02:53:19] outside of programming,
can you apply lessons from
[02:53:23] programming to video creation, to art?
[02:53:27] - It’s a good question because I think
good art is very dependent on the
[02:53:31] same thing that good software is
depending on: having a vision, having a
[02:53:35] cohesive idea of what you wanna create.
[02:53:38] How is it different? How is it novel?
How is it going to appeal to people?
[02:53:43] But I’m not sure that the creative
instincts transfer quite as well. Um,
[02:53:51] I don’t know that I
would have the creative
[02:53:55] insights to come up with good video
prompts that would create compelling
[02:53:59] content. But it’s funny because I have actually, on
TikTok, there’s this guy, I’m trying to remember,
[02:54:03] Goblin something.
[02:54:05] That creates these… They are shorts, but
not super short, maybe a couple minutes,
[02:54:10] of really interesting sci-fi vignettes.
[02:54:15] And I think the guy is actually working
on a feature-length video right now.
[02:54:20] Um, and I think that this is one
of those abundance moments. There
[02:54:24] are creative people with that
vision all over the place,
[02:54:28] especially in a genre like
film, where before it
[02:54:31] required a 200millionbudgettocreate,Idon′tknow,a[02:54:35]sci−fimovie.Nowsuddenly,withAI,if[02:54:39]youhavetherightvisionforit,youcandothatinyour[02:54:43]bedroom.Now,thatstory′sbeentoldquiteafewtimesinotherdomains.Itused[02:54:47]tobetruethatifyouwantedtorecordastudioalbum,well,youneededa[02:54:51]studio,andyouneededtobookthat.Andnowyoucanrecordathomeonyour[02:54:55]laptop,andyoucandoalotofthesethings,right?Sowe′vehadthisdemocratization[02:54:59]processhappen[02:55:00]withplentyofotherdomains,butfilmseemstobeoneofthelastones.[02:55:04]−Andit′stheonethatmakes,like,meandalotofpeoplefeelweird,right?Like−[02:55:11]−Oh,I′msuperexcited′causeIthinkit′s−[02:55:13]−Imean,you−[02:55:13]−There′ssomuchgarbagebeingproducedrightnow.It′sthesameargumentwiththeslob,[02:55:17]right?Sopeopleforasecondwereworriedaboutslobin[02:55:20]programming,andIwastellingthem,like,"Haveyouseenthehuman[02:55:24]slob?It′salsoprettybad."AndIthinkifitcomesto[02:55:28]studioentertainment,Imean,thebarisprettylow,right?[02:55:32]Like,thenumberofgreatmoviesI′vebeendyingtoseeover[02:55:36]thepast,say,fiveyears,notbeenaparticularlyhighnumber.[02:55:42]−Yeah,thevideomodelsarejust,they′reabletocreateincrediblyrealistic[02:55:49]facialexpressions.Imean,itjustmightchangethenatureoffilm[02:55:55]Ithinkthey′re—Iguessmyhopewouldbethatvideo[02:55:59]gamesandfilmkindofmerge,andthatfilmcanbecomeinteractive[02:56:06]−Likethemalleableoperatingsystem,havingthemalleable[02:56:10]narrative,havingmalleableentertainment,that[02:56:13]man,GameofThrones,whatifwecouldjust[02:56:16]forgetthelastfourepisodesofslobthatwasproduced−...andthenAI−[02:56:23]...comesupwith−...Idon′tknow−[02:56:25]...maybe100differentvariations,andsomeoneelsewatchesthat,[02:56:29]andIgettheversionthatactuallyfinishesoffthatshowinawaythat′sfitting.[02:56:34]−Yeah.Somethingtellsmeanindividualcreatorwouldnotcreatethosela−[02:56:38]wouldcreateadifferentendingforGameofThrones.[02:56:41]−Oh,forsure.Right?Andmorejusttomaketheargumentthattalkabout[02:56:45]humanslob.Thatwasanabsoluteatrociousendingto[02:56:48]perhapsoneofthegreatestpiecesof,[02:56:52]Moviehistory,Iwasabouttosay,but,um,serieshistory,right?[02:56:56]Itwassogood,anditwasactuallyacompellingargumentforthefactthatyou[02:57:00]need[02:57:03]thatstrongvision.Andassoonasthoseshowrunnershadtogowithoutascript,[02:57:08]itwentofftherails.[02:57:10]−Doyouthink...You′vementionedAGI.Doyouthinkwe′veactuallyachievedAGI?[02:57:14]−No,notinthegeneraldefinitionthatit′sinallthethings.ButhaveIseen[02:57:20]AGIintheseglimmers?Absolutely.[02:57:24]Especiallyoverthelastthreemonths,I′veseenthingswhere[02:57:29]Iwasthinkingtomyself,like,"HowwouldAGIlookdifferentfromthis?"[02:57:34]−Right.[02:57:34]−What,whatmorecouldtherebe?AndImean,Icanquibbleatthemargins,[02:57:38]butonthebigpicture,I′veseenitabletodotheselongruntasksand[02:57:45]coordinatethesemultipleaspectsofitthatwe′resofar[02:57:49]beyondthatearlymomentwhereI′mtellingit,"Godo[02:57:53]this,packagethat."Andnowitcancarryouta[02:57:57]wholetaskfromthesevagueinstructions.Thatfeelsvery[02:58:01]AGI−like,andthat′swhat′sso[02:58:04]inspiringaboutthemomentbecauseyoucatchtheseglimmers.[02:58:09]Andthenyougo,"Whatifeverythingwaslikethat?"[02:58:12]−Doesn′tprogrammingbasicallyunlocktheeverything?[02:58:15]Soyoucanwriteapro−likeitcangeneratetheprogramthatdoestheeverything.[02:58:20]−So,sothisis...I′minthatmetaphaserightnow.SoI′mbuildingthisAmabotsystem[02:58:24]that′smanagingthedevelopmentofOmarchy,andI′musingAItobuildthebot.[02:58:32]AndI′mseeingthatrecurrentloopwhereIstartediton,like,"Thisiswhat[02:58:36]Iwant.IwantyoutobeabletohavetheseisolatedVMworkersandsoforth,"[02:58:40]andthenitcandotheselfiteration.[02:58:41]Thenitstartsrunningit.Itstartsnoticingitsfailures.Itstartsoptimizingit.[02:58:46]Andalotofthatsystem,Amabotinparticular,[02:58:49]AIhasdriventhemajorityofthedesigndecisions.Like,Ihadsome[02:58:54]vagueideasofwhereIwanted.Iwantedtousethisbrainsandhandspatternwhere[02:58:58]themodelisrunningfromwherethecodeisexecuting−[02:59:00]...whichisactuallyareallyinterestingpattern.Again,Tobyalertedmeto[02:59:05]that,whereyouhaveacoordinatorthatrunsthemodel−[02:59:09]...butit′smanipulatingasafeVMwhere[02:59:13]anyuntrustedcodeyou′repullingdownfrompullrequestsorissuesorwhatever[02:59:17]can′tcontaminatethemodel.Andeveninthatloop,Ikeepseeingit[02:59:24]catchitself,spottingvulnerabilities,whereit′slike,"Oh,[02:59:28]Iactuallyjusttooksomefeedbackfromatestrun.Ifaclever[02:59:32]attackerhadembedded[02:59:34]amaliciouspayloadintheresponseofthetestrun,thatcouldhave[02:59:38]pollutedsomething.Itookitforgoodthing.Ibetterstarttreatingthatas[02:59:42]asoutsidedata."Andyoujustgolike,itisjust...Igetwhy[02:59:48]SanFranciscoissoobsessedwithfasttakeoff−[02:59:53]...becauseclearlythey′veseenthis100times−[02:59:55]...more.They′veseenitwithallthemodelsthatarein−...trainingnow,and[03:00:02]wekeepgettingtheselittleglimpses,likethesecuritybreachwith[03:00:06]HuggingFace,whereOpenAIwastrainingthismodel,andthe[03:00:10]modelstartsinventingways,essentiallysendingsmokesignalsto[03:00:14]itselfthroughembeddingmessagesina[03:00:17]packagemanager,whereyoujustgolike,first,that′sdamnclever.[03:00:22]Second,okay,that′salsoalittlescary.Andthird[03:00:27]howamazingwouldthisbeifwecouldharnessthislevelofintelligence−[03:00:30]...andingenuitytowardsproductiveends?Sothisis[03:00:34]theit′ssoover,we′resobackpendulumthatkeepsswingingbackandforth−[03:00:39]...thatAI[03:00:42]hasjustdeliveredthatswingbackandforthlikenothingelse.Likebarelyaweek[03:00:46]goesbywhereithastoswingoneway,andthenthenextweekitswingsbacktheotherway.[03:00:51]Exhilarating.[03:00:52]−I′mstillatthestagewhereitmakesmetrulyhappytoseethosemoments[03:00:56]ofcleverness,andthey′rebecomingmoreandmorefrequent.[03:01:00]Justkindalikeseeing,oh,likefirstofall,attheverybasic[03:01:04]level,whenamodelgetsit.[03:01:06]−Yes.[03:01:06]−I′llsayabasicprompt,youknow,arequest,andit,[03:01:11]itdoesn′tjustdoadumbimplementation.It[03:01:15]deeplyunderstands,andit...Thatwas...That′sa,that′salwaysa[03:01:19]beautifulthing.It′salmostlikehavingagood,like,partner,likeprogram.[03:01:22]−That′sexactlywhatitis.That′sexactlywhyit′ssoexhilaratingand[03:01:26]why,aswetalkedaboutbeforewestarted,itcansometimesbedifficultto[03:01:30]comeoutofhyperdrive.That′salsooneofToby′stermshere.That[03:01:34]whenyou′reworkingdirectlyjustone−on−onewithagentsandyou′renotlooping[03:01:38]inotherhumans,yougosofast,and[03:01:42]whentheagentsarereallyunderstandingyourintent,orevenbetter,[03:01:46]theyreviseandimproveuponyour[03:01:50]intenttodeliversomethingthatwasgreaterthanwhatyouaskedfor[03:01:55]Andyou′redoingthiswith16parallelthreads.It[03:01:59]canbequitedifficulttocomeoutofhyperdriveandhavetodealwith[03:02:03]squishyhumans.Theyjust,theydon′tthinkasfast.Theydon′tmoveasfast.[03:02:08]AndImean,I′mtryingmostlytomakelightofit,butyoucanalsoseea[03:02:14]darkversionofthatwheresomeonedoesendupinanAIpsychosis[03:02:18]wherethey′renotinterestedinotherhumansatallanymore.Imean,certainly[03:02:22]don′thavethatatall,butIdohavethissensationattimeswhereI′mreally[03:02:29]gratefulforjusttherushofjustmeandthe[03:02:32]agents.Like,canIjustnottalktoanyoneelsebutagents−[03:02:36]...forfourhours?Like,that′sanincrediblerun.[03:02:39]−Tobyissuchafascinatinghumanbecause[03:02:42]he′srunningalargecompany.SoIwouldlovetogetinsightsofhow[03:02:49]AI′sbeingincorporatedeffectivelyin[03:02:52]companies.Because,like,forme,humansareprettyslow.[03:02:58]Andso,andsothere′satemptationto,like,useAIforbasically,[03:03:03]Youknow,AIrunninginsideSlack,forexample,orinside,[03:03:07]TheBasecamp,whatever.And,like,[03:03:13]collectingalltheinformationaboutthehumaninteraction,basicallyhandholding[03:03:17]thehumanstospeedupasmuchaspossible.Andlike,andthenat[03:03:21]acertainpointyou′relike,wait,whatis[03:03:24]thishuman...Whatareeachofusdoingthat′snot[03:03:28]replaceablebyAI?Andthatbecomes,like,a[03:03:32]scarykindofconversationbecausealotofworkiskindofreplaceable.[03:03:37]−Theironyhereisitalreadywas.Sothenumberof[03:03:41]fakeemailjobsthatcurrentlyexistinthisworldisanabsoluteepidemic.And−[03:03:46]...this,bytheway,isnotanewthesis.Um,DavidGraeber[03:03:50]wrotethiswonderfulpieceBullshitJobs,backin,Ithinkitwasmaybeearly2010s.[03:03:59]BasedonapollhedidintheUKaskingpeople,atthattime,would...I[03:04:07]thinkthequestionwassomethinglike,"Woulditmakeadifferenceifyoudidn′tgotowork?"For[03:04:11]humanity,formankind.Andsomethinglike30−somepercent[03:04:15]answered,"No,itwouldn′t."Thatathirdofworkersthought[03:04:19]thattheirjobwasfake,thatitdidnotproduceany[03:04:25]worthwhile,valuableoutcomes,neitherfor[03:04:29]thecommunityorsocietyormaybeeventheeconomyatall.And[03:04:34]thiswasmyargumentsincedayonewithstartups.Thiswaswhy[03:04:38]westayedasmallcompany.Thiswaswhywedidn′twanttotakeVC,because[03:04:42]Iwassoskepticaloftheideathatyoucouldget[03:04:46]hundredsofprogrammers,thousandsofprogrammerstodosomethingproductive−[03:04:50]...asacollectivegroup.[03:04:52]AndIthinkwhatwe′reseeingrightnowwithsomeofthelayoffs[03:04:57]isatestamenttothat,notAI.It′sjustthat[03:05:01]duringthepandemic,abunchofoverhiringwenton,andnowAIisa[03:05:05]convenientexcusetoslimdown.ButIdoalsothinkAIisgoingtoexposesome[03:05:11]rolesasjustnotbeingproductivewaysforhumanstospendtheirtime,[03:05:16]andthereforewemustcomeupwithnewwaysofspendingtheirtime.Andtheone,[03:05:22]again,I′mquotingTobyforthethirdtimehere,butanecdotethat[03:05:26]hesharedme,orobservationwas,okay,let′ssaywe[03:05:29]all−−welosehalfthejobsthatarecurrentlyhappeningrightnow.[03:05:34]DoyouknowthatFormula1employsliterallytensofthousandsofpeoplejustto[03:05:38]runcarsaroundinacircleforspectators?Like,thathas,thatwholecircushas[03:05:46]nointrinsicvaluetosocietybesidesthespectacleitproducesof[03:05:53]amusementandentertainment.Wejustdecideditwouldbe[03:05:57]reallyfunforthese,whatisit,12manufacturers[03:06:01]tocreatethesefastcarsandconstantlytweaktheirlittleaero[03:06:05]improvements,andwewillwatchit,andwewillspendliterally[03:06:08]billionsofdollarsdoingitandemploytensofthousandsof[03:06:12]peopletowardsanultimatelydeeplyfrivolousactivity.[03:06:17]Soifweareliberatedfromabunchofdrudgeryandfake[03:06:21]emailjobs,maybeweallgetemployedasF1style[03:06:25]engineersanddriversandmechanicsandmasseusesandtheother1,500jobsthatare[03:06:33]involvedinthat,andwecomeupwithnewthings.Ithinkthisis...Humansarevery[03:06:37]pooratimaginingwhatexactlythefuture′sgonnabelike.[03:06:40]−Yeah.Imagine,imagineafuture100plusyearsfrom[03:06:44]now,wherewelookbackatthiswhole[03:06:48]spanofhistory,thousandsofyearswherehumansworked.[03:06:52]−Funnythingiswe′realreadydoingthat,right?Like,thenumberoffakeemailjob[03:06:56]peoplewhositonachairalldaylongandtypeintoamachine[03:07:00]whodon′thavehardphysicallaborwouldbeunimaginable−[03:07:03]...tofolksinthe1800s,right?[03:07:07]Sothefutureisalwaysalreadyhere,it′sjustnotevenlydistributed.[03:07:11]−Unfortunately,asisalwaysthecase,thetransformationof[03:07:15]societyrequiredtogofromonesteptotheotherisgoingto[03:07:19]havealotofsuffering.[03:07:21]Andpotentiallypoliticalturmoilandallthatkindofstuff.[03:07:25]Becauseyoucanimaginehowmanywhitecollarjobsmightbelostinthisprocess.[03:07:30]−Yes.AndIdon′tthinkyoushouldmakelightofthat.Idon′tthinkit′sfunny.[03:07:36]ButIalsodothinkit′sanecessarycomponentofprogress.And[03:07:40]IthinkifwelookbackupontheLudditesorthefolksworkingthefields,[03:07:48]separationhasatendencytoreduceempathy.Sowehavehigh[03:07:52]empathyrightnowbecauseweknowpeople−[03:07:54]...andwearepeoplewhoarefacingthesechallenges.But−[03:07:58]WhatisourempathyfortheLudditesoftheearly[03:08:02]19thcentury?Wouldwewishthatallgarmentswerestillmadeby[03:08:06]handweaving?No,wewouldn′t.Wewantthe[03:08:09]comfortandaccessibilityandconvenienceofbeingable[03:08:13]tobuyclothingofftherack.[03:08:16]Sowemustsufferinthemomentforfuturegenerationstolivemoreprosperously.[03:08:22]Andthat′salwaysbeentrue[03:08:23]−...Ithinkthat′sactuallythetrick,istopushforprogress[03:08:27]buthavedeepcompassionforthepeoplewhohavetosuffer.[03:08:33]Andthat′smanyofus.Thesufferthetransformationrequiredto[03:08:38]achievethatprogress.AndsometimestooofteninplaceslikeSilicon[03:08:42]Valleyorsoon,youcanover−focuson,look,the[03:08:47]kindofutilitarianviewofthings−...andlookattheprogress.[03:08:51]−Right.[03:08:52]−But,youknow,consideringdeeplyeachindividualhuman[03:08:57]thatsuffersbecauseofthatprogressisimportant.[03:09:00]−Idothinkthatsufferingbecomesmoremeaningful[03:09:03]whenyouaresufferingforafuturesomeoneinparticular,likeyourkids.[03:09:08]AndIthinkthisisoneofthegreattragediesofthemoment,[03:09:12]isthefallingbirthratesaremakingitmoredifficultforpeople[03:09:16]tobeexcitedaboutamoreprosperousfuturethatisdifficulttogetto.[03:09:23]Becauseifwe′replantingtrees[03:09:27]ofwhichourchildrenwillnotsitintheshades,Idon′tknow,maybewe[03:09:31]shouldjustmakesomelumberandburnitalldown,right?Ithinkthere′s[03:09:35]anihilismthatcansneakintosocietymuchmoreeasilywhenwearenot[03:09:43]DNAinvestedinthefuture,whenwearenotliabletoourown[03:09:49]offspringtopropelforward.SoIthinkthesearebadtrendsto[03:09:56]mergeatthesametime,thatwehavethesefallingbirthratesandthese[03:10:00]problemswithcoupling,andthefactthat[03:10:06]weneedtokeepourchinupaboutthefutureandbe...[03:10:11]Imean,youdon′tevenhavetobeexcitedaboutitinthisliteral[03:10:14]ecstaticsensethatI′mportrayinghere,but[03:10:18]Ithinkyoushouldbehopeful,andIthinkyoushouldbeworkingtowardsthathope,andIthink[03:10:22]it′smucheasiertodosowhenyouhaveliteralskininthegame.[03:10:28]−We′vebeentalkingaboutAIagents.Let′stalkaboutthehumanside.What[03:10:32]whatdoyoulovemostaboutbeingadad?[03:10:36]−That′sagoodquestion.Ithinktheoveralllovethatexpandsfrom[03:10:46]humansthatderivedirectly−...fromyourlineage−[03:10:51]...isverydifficulttocommunicatebecauseIwasactuallynota[03:10:56]particularlybigkidspersonpriortothearrivalofmyown.[03:11:04]Andnowtheyarethemostinterestingpeopleintheworld.[03:11:08]Alotofthetime.Notalways.Sometimesthey′realsojustassholesandsoforth.[03:11:11]Butthere′sbeensuchafocuson,[03:11:15]"Oh,kidsaretheworst.LookatallthethingsIcan′tdo.Ican′tgooutanddrink.[03:11:19]Ican′tdothis.Ican′tdothat."Yeah,that′scalledsacrifice,andsacrificeis[03:11:23]meaningfulwhenyou′redoingitforsomethingworthwhile.Andwhatcouldbemore[03:11:26]worthwhilethanliterallythecontinuationofthehumanspecies?[03:11:31]Andthatyouhavingastakeinthat.[03:11:35]Now,there′salsojustthesheerjoysofwatchingahuman[03:11:40]growfromababytoatoddlertoateenager.Myoldesthasjustbecomeateenager.[03:11:49]AndIoftentalktoJamie,mywife,aboutthis,wherethe[03:11:57]regretIwouldhaveofhavingmissedthatopportunity[03:12:01]onthelastdaywouldjustbetotal,unlikeanythingelse.[03:12:06]SoIdothinkitisfarmore[03:12:13]satisfyingeveninthemomentthatisnormallyportrayed.Again,asI[03:12:17]say,there′ssuchafocusonallthewaystheysuck."Oh,youdon′tgetto[03:12:20]sleep,"orwhatever."They′reannoying.They′reungrateful."Yeah,[03:12:24]yeah,thesethingsarealltrue,butthesenseofmeaning[03:12:28]yougetfromitisunparalleled.AndI′mexcitedaboutalotofthings.Ilovebuilding[03:12:32]things,andIlovehobbies,andIloveallsortsofstuff.But[03:12:38]creatinglifewithanotherhumanthatyouloveisliterallythepeak[03:12:45]experienceofbeingontheplanet.[03:12:48]−WhatdoyouthinkaboutthemcomingupinthisworldfullofAI?[03:12:54]Isittotallydiff−Itfeelslike,maybeIjustsoundlikeanoldmanon[03:12:58]aporch,butitfeelslikeaverydifferentworld.Y−[03:13:04]SoIgrewupbeforetheinternet,buteventheinternetdoesn′tfeellikeasbig[03:13:08]ofatransformationasthis.[03:13:10]−No.Butthere′sbeenbiggertransformations.Imean,imagine[03:13:14]growingorbeingborninlike1880.Imagineseeing[03:13:18]theFirstWorldWarandtheSecondWorldWar.Imagineseeingthe[03:13:21]airplane,theradio−...television.Imean,[03:13:26]thetransformation,andIthinkPeterThielmakesthisargument,thatbasically[03:13:30]nothinghashappenedinthephysicalworldinquitealongtime.We′vebeenstagnant.[03:13:34]Allthedevelopmenthasbeeninthedigitalrealm.Andasimportantasthatis,[03:13:41]it′sactuallynotasconsequentialasweliketobelieveitis.[03:13:45]MaybeAIwillbethatthingthatismoreconsequential.It[03:13:48]doesseemtopointthatway.Butthereareotherhumansatother[03:13:52]timeswhohavelivedthrough−[03:13:54]...transitionsthatforthemcertainlywouldfeelasmomentous[03:13:58]aswhatwe′relivingthrough.AndIthinkhavingthatsenseofhistory,that[03:14:02]you′renotthatspecialinyoursenseofworries,inyour[03:14:07]anxieties.Thiswasoneofthegreatrevelationsofdiscovering[03:14:11]thestoicwritings.Youhavetheseguys2,500yearsagodealingwith[03:14:18]veryfamiliardilemmasandchallengesintheirlife,and[03:14:24]recognizingthatwe′renotsospecialinthatregard,Ithinkisagreat[03:14:28]liberation.Becausethenyouthink,"Okay,well,wehave[03:14:32]whatever,200,000yearsofhumandevelopmentbeforeus,andthey[03:14:36]somehowmadeitthrough."[03:14:37]−Yeah.And,um−[03:14:39]−Wewillmakeitthrough.[03:14:40]−...thethingthatmakeslifeworthwhileisbasicallythesametodayasitwas−[03:14:45]−Yes.Yes.[03:14:46]−...2,000yearsago.[03:14:47]−Yes.Love,creation,creativity.[03:14:50]−Yeah.Samechallenges.[03:14:51]−IreadthisbookTheFourthTurning.[03:14:55]Youcheckthatout.Ittalksaboutthisnotionof[03:14:59]historyworkingincycles,andtherearethese,[03:15:03]phasestohistory,andtheynamethemandsoforth.And[03:15:08]thespecifictheoryisnotasimportantasjustrealizingthat[03:15:12]thisisa...Historyisacircle,moresothanjustastraightline.[03:15:18]Andwearerepeatingmanyofthesamepatternsoverandover[03:15:21]again.Theyfeelsouniquetothemoment.Andwhatever[03:15:25]crisiswe′redealingwithrightnowfeelssopressingand[03:15:29]importantuntilwezoombackalittlebitinhistoryand[03:15:32]realizethatthelastonealsofeltsopressingandimportant[03:15:36]tothepeoplewholivedthroughit.[03:15:40]−Yeah.You′remakingmefeelbetter.SoI′mgonnatravelacrossthe[03:15:44]countryandspendalotoftimewithnoaccesstotheinternet,[03:15:50]alonewithmythoughts.[03:15:52]−Ithinkthat′shealthy,takingabreak.[03:15:55]−It′sokay.It′sokay.[03:15:55]−Itooknotabigbreak,alittlebreak,breakfromMaxthissummer,threeweeks.[03:16:02]−Yeah,youwere...Youdisappearedoffof−[03:16:04]−I′msurprisedyounoticed.[03:16:08]−Iwentthroughwithdrawals.No.Uh,youdisappearedfor,Idon′tknow,afewweeks.[03:16:13]−Aboutthreeweeks.[03:16:14]−Threeweeks?Whathappened?[03:16:19]−Um−[03:16:20]−Thisisafter,afterLlama.[03:16:21]−I′vedonethatbefore.IjustsometimesgetthesensethatXinparticular[03:16:31]isthemostaddictiveformof[03:16:35]information,entertainment,connectionthatexistsinmy[03:16:39]life,andanyonethatfollowmyXstream[03:16:44]asIwasonmyflightoverherewouldcertainlygolike,"Thatmanisdeeply[03:16:48]addicted−[03:16:49]−Yeah[03:16:49]−...totheconnection."Andyes,guiltyascharged,[03:16:53]whichalsomeansthatoccasionallyIgottacutitcold,becauseI[03:16:57]dothinkyoucanbreakyourbrain.Andoverthesummerinparticular,[03:17:03]forwhateverreason,Ihadsomehowmanagedtosteermyfeed,[03:17:07]myalgorithm,towardstoomuchpolitics,andnotenough[03:17:12]tech,andnotoptimism,andnotenoughbuilding.AndevenifI[03:17:15]agreedwiththepoliticsandtheanglesthat[03:17:19]werebeingpresented,Ijustdidn′tneed−...thatmuchofit.[03:17:23]−Yeah.[03:17:23]−AndIthinkarrivingataplacewhereyoujustgolike,"Okay,that′senough."[03:17:30]Notthat...Like,itdoesn′thavetobesomethingbad.[03:17:34]Iwouldalsosayaftereatingprobablytwo,maybe[03:17:37]threechocolatestrawberries,I′dgolike,"Okay,that′senough."[03:17:40]Like,it′snotthatIdon′tlikethechocolatestrawberries,it′sjust,like,Idon′twannaeat[03:17:44]17ofthem.AndIthinkXandthemodernalgorithmsareverygoodatfeedingyou[03:17:49]freaking17chocolate−coveredstrawberries.[03:17:53]−IwishIcould,uh−[03:17:53]−Sorryfordopingyou[03:17:54]−...controlthat.Like,′causethere′s...Iwouldlikesomepolitics,5[03:18:02]Iwouldlikeforexample,oneofthethingsIdon′tlikeaboutthetechcommunityisthesnark,[03:18:06]butIlikesomesnark−...′causeit′sfunny.ButIwantthattobelike10[03:18:11]−Yeah.Yeah.Iwantitjustright.[03:18:13]−Ofmy...Yeah,justright.[03:18:14]−TheGoldilocksversionofthealgorithm.Well,theproblemisthealgorithmfinds[03:18:18]outwhatyourespondto−[03:18:20]...notwhatyousayyoulike.It′sallrevealedpreferences,andunfortunately,thoserevealed[03:18:23]preferencesarenotalwayspretty.Imean,wehavethis[03:18:27]shadow,asJungtalksabout,right?Allthesedarkaspectsofourselves,andthey[03:18:31]areexpressedinhowlongyoulingeronatweet,andwhatyoulike,[03:18:35]andwhatyoudon′tlike.Andthealgorithmholdsupamirror−[03:18:40]...andit′snotalwayspretty,andIjustwent,"Doyouknowwhat?Ineedabreak."[03:18:45]−Mm−hmm.I′vegottento,Ist−startedstayingoffsocialmedia,andI′vestarteds−[03:18:52]scrapingX.Like,forexample,inpreparationforthis[03:18:56]conversation,I′vescrapedallofyourtweets.[03:19:00]−That′sactuallyamethodIwasusingforawhile.Iwasusingatoolcalled,[03:19:06]Iforget.Itwasanemailtoolthatwouldsummarizeeveryday,andunfortunately,freakingXcutoff[03:19:10]theiraccess.Nowtogetaccesstothefeed,yougottapaysomeexorbitant−[03:19:16]...sumthatthisstartupcouldn′tpay.SoIcouldn′tgetitthatway,andIactuallythought,"Man,that′sa[03:19:20]miss,"becauseXhasandrevealssomeofthemostinterestingthoughts.[03:19:27]Someofthemostinterestingpeopleallthetime.Butit′slikeadamnslotmachine,[03:19:31]andmostofthetimeyoudon′thitthejackpot.Youhit,like,somethingelse.[03:19:37]AndifIcouldjustgetitinsortofsnacksizes,notlikeallofit−[03:19:44]...it′dbenicer.Butthat′snottheproduct.AndIthinkthisgoesforallof[03:19:48]socialmedia.It′salloptimizedtowardsmaximalextraction,[03:19:52]andifwe′remakingtheparallelsheretoAI,thatisthegreatfear,right?[03:19:56]Thatoncethereisarewardfunction,howmuchtimecanIgetthishumanto[03:20:02]scrollaway?AIandmachinelearning,beforewecalledit[03:20:07]AI,hasbecomevery,verygoodatdelivering[03:20:11]justthestuffthatyouwillfindmostenragingandmostaddictive.[03:20:15]−Ithinkall,Ithinklegitimatelyengagement[03:20:19]maximizingsocialmediaisahugeharmto[03:20:23]society.It′screatingthisbravenewworldsituationthatI[03:20:27]hopeisatemporarythingthatpeoplejustsolve.It′satechnologyproblem.[03:20:31]−SoItrytoconsciouslyfloodthechannel[03:20:35]intheotherdirection,andthisrequiredamentalshift.Ithink[03:20:39]ifyoulookatmytweets,like,Idon′tknow,five,10yearsago,[03:20:44]theytiltedfarmorenegative.Ifyoulookatmytweetsnow,I′dhope−[03:20:49]...well,Iguesswecandoasentimentanalysisandseeifit′sactuallytrue.[03:20:52]−No,it′smoregoodvibes.[03:20:53]−ButIhopeto,that−[03:20:54]−It′sgoodvibes.[03:20:55]−...it′smore,it′smorepositive.[03:20:56]It′smoregoodvibes.It′smorelike,"Here′sabunchofcoolstuffIfound."[03:20:59]"Here′swhatI′mexcitedabout.""Here′swhatI′mbuilding.[03:21:02]Here′ssomeencouragementtootherpeoplewhoarediscoveringthings."[03:21:07]Ialsoacceptthatthatisjustnothowhumanbrainsarebuiltformaximum,[03:21:13]engagement.Like,thereisa,whatever,there′s...Iliterally,I[03:21:17]thinkyoucanquantifythatnegativesentimentsfind,[03:21:22]whatisit,50Andeventuallythatjustcrowdsthingsout.[03:21:25]Sothat′swhysomuchofthefeedisthatnegativestuff,becausewe[03:21:29]respondtoit.Butyoucanmakeaconsciousefforttonotdothat.[03:21:33]ThisisoneofthereasonsI′velikedTikToksomuch.Ionlyuse[03:21:37]TikTokwhenItravel,[03:21:39]andthisactuallywasthefirsttravelwhereIdidn′tuseTikTok,and[03:21:43]partofthereasonwasthateventhoughtheinternethad[03:21:47]highdownload,itwaskindofcrapanyway.Itwasn′tStarlink,soIcouldn′tactuallyuse[03:21:51]TikTokonthe,ontheplane,andIwastooengrossedwiththeagents.Butnormallywhen[03:21:55]Itravel,IwatchTikTok.Andthereit′ssuchamarshmallowtest.[03:22:03]Avideowillscrolldownand,like,it′llactivatesomesortof[03:22:07]primalinstinctsofrageorlustorwhatever,andifyou[03:22:11]lingeronit,youdon′tgetthemarshmallowofscience,[03:22:15]excitement,art,music,alltheseotherthings.Youhavetobedisciplined−[03:22:21]−Yep.Fast.[03:22:21]−...toinstantlyscrollaway−[03:22:23]...suchthatthealgorithmdoesn′tpickupyourrealpreferences.[03:22:27]AndIfindthatjustto,atthemetagameofTikTok−[03:22:31]...tobeprettyinteresting,andthenalsojustfascinatinginthemself.Again,aswetalked[03:22:35]about,therearealotofreallyfunny,reallytalented[03:22:39]peopleintheworldthatyouwouldnever,everhaveheardofif[03:22:43]ithadn′tbeenfortheseplatforms.[03:22:46]−Yep.Whodoyouthinkisgonnawinthe,[03:22:51]theraceto,uh,AGIinthiswholeprocess?WegotGoogle,whichis[03:22:57]abigsurprisetome,toalotofpeople.[03:23:00]−Ithoughttheyhadagoodcomebackforasecond,andthenIdon′thearanything[03:23:04]aboutitanymore.[03:23:05]−Yeah,it′squite,Imean−[03:23:06]−ButI′vebeenwrongaboutthisbefore.Imean,IthinkinFebruaryIhadatweetaboutlike,"Oh,allI[03:23:10]needisKimiK2.5."Andinthatbriefmoment,thatwastrue.[03:23:17]WhenIwasinstructingtheagent,Iwaslike,"OhmyGod,Kimi′sjustasgoodas[03:23:21]theseothermodels."Butthenthegamemovedforwardand−[03:23:25]−theagentsgotsmarter,andIwasnolongersatisfiedjustinstructingthem,and[03:23:29]Ihaven′tusedKimiawholelotrecentlybecausethefrontiermodelshavegottenso[03:23:33]good.AndsomehowAnthropichasbeenableto,[03:23:38]forthemostpart,stayontopoftheprogrammingworld.[03:23:42]−Yes.Yes.[03:23:42]−ImeanalotofpeoplearguewithCodexbeingit′s−[03:23:46]−No,Idon′tthinkthere′sthatmuchofanargumentatthemoment.Codexisverygood.[03:23:49]Iuseitallthetime.It′smyfavoritechecker.Itkeepsfindingstuff.It′sgreat.[03:23:55]ButoneofthethingsI′vefoundthatIlikesomuchaboutthecurrentClaudemodelsis[03:23:59]they′rereallygoodwritersoutofthebox.[03:24:02]GPTisaterriblewriteroutofthebox.Like,thepullrequestsyou[03:24:06]getonablankcontextthatyou′reaskingittoopen,terrible.[03:24:12]Like,reallyawfulwriting.[03:24:14]ThepullrequestsanddescriptionsandcommitmessagesandsoforthIget[03:24:18]outofClaudemodels−[03:24:20]...eventhoughoccasionallytheycanbealittleverboseoncodecommentsandyougottatellthem[03:24:24]tobesuccinct.Butthewritingstyleisreallygood.[03:24:28]TothepointthatforawhileIwasjusthavingitreply[03:24:31]onpullrequestsasme,becauseIwasjustusingmyownaccount.Iwaslike,[03:24:36]"Thatlooksalotlikeme,that,like,Icouldhavewrittenthat."ButthenIwentlike,"Eh,doyouknowwhat?[03:24:39]That′sdisingenuous."Sono,wheneverIhaveanagentpostonmybehalf,Ialways[03:24:43]haveitsignitselflikewhatever,ClaudeonbehalfofDHH.[03:24:49]Buttheyarestillahead.[03:24:51]Theyhavethebestharnesstoo,inmyopinion.ClaudeCodeisstill[03:24:55]better.IreallylikeOpenCodetoo,andIreallylikesomefeaturesthattheyhave,[03:24:59]butoverallIwasactuallysortofweirdly,Idon′tknowifIwasprovenwrong,but[03:25:07]whenAnthropiccutoffalltheotherharnessesfromusingthesubscriptions−[03:25:12]...thatOpen...YoucannolongeruseyourClaudesubscriptioninOpenCode.Iwaskindapissed[03:25:16]becauseitfeltlikeitwasaprotective,protectionistmove.[03:25:20]"Oh,wegottalockyouin,"andofcourseitplayedintothefact[03:25:24]thatClaudeoutoftheboxstillrefusestoreadagents.md.Itrefusesto[03:25:31]read.agent/skills.[03:25:34]Itis.Claudeskills.ItisClaudeMD,anditjustfeelssopetty−[03:25:41]...thatwenowhave,wehavetoputtheseindirections.Soallmyprojects,theyhaveaClaudeMD,[03:25:45]andallitincludesisapointertotheagentsMD,right?[03:25:48]AndIjustwentlike,well,ifthesethingsistrue,true,ifAnthropic[03:25:52]iswillingtodothesepettypapercutsjusttobe,[03:25:55]annoying,it′sprobablyalsotruethatthey′recuttingoffOpenCodefromthe[03:25:59]subscriptionjusttobedicksaboutit.Andmaybethat′salsotrue.[03:26:04]ButIfoundthatusingClaudeinClaudeCodeisactuallyagoodexample.[03:26:11]SoIwaslike,allright,I′mannoyed.Iwishitwasn′tso,but[03:26:17]thisistheotherthingIhaveand,andsocialmediaissogoodatthis:[03:26:21]Somecompanydoessomethingyoudon′tlike,right?Nowsuddenlyyouhavetoswearoff[03:26:25]everything.Whyareyou...Someonejustaskedme,"WhyareyoustillusingClaude?"I[03:26:29]hadanotherexamplewhere,[03:26:31]Ireallydidn′tlikewhatClaudewassayingaboutsomewritingIhadasked[03:26:35]ittodobefore.[03:26:35]−Oh,yeah,yougotthere−−[03:26:37]−Ihadanessayitdidn′twanttotranslateintoItalian−−[03:26:40]−...youhadablogpost.That′sright.[03:26:41]−Theessenceofthepostthatitfeltlike,well,I′mnotgonnatranslatethatbecauseIdon′tagreewith[03:26:45]whatyou′vewritten.[03:26:46]WhichtomewasstraightoutofSpaceOdyssey,right?HALtellingme,[03:26:50]"I′msorry,Dave.Ican′tdothat,Dave."Openthepodbay.[03:26:55]TranslatemyessaytoItalian.Anditwouldn′tdoit.AndIjustthoughtlike,[03:27:00]well,that′skindofterrifying.[03:27:04]ButthenIalsowent,well,whyamIaskingClaudetotranslate[03:27:08]myessayintoItalian?IneveraskedClaudeforthatbecauseClaudejustdoesmycode.[03:27:12]SoIcouldalsojustacceptthatmaybeAnthropicis[03:27:16]runbyabunchofpeopleIdon′tsharemuchpoliticswith.[03:27:20]Andtheydon′twanttheiragentstobeusedforthat,andIthinkthatkindasucks,butthatdoesn′t[03:27:24]meanit,Ihavetostopusingitforgeneratingcode.And[03:27:28]I′vethought,andI′vetriedtodothatwithpeopletoo,becomebetterat[03:27:33]toleratingthefactthatnotonly[03:27:36]willInotagreewitheverythingsomeonehastosay,[03:27:41]Idon′t...Icanevenbemadaboutcertain[03:27:44]positionsorthingstheysayandstillgolike,"Well,you′restillaninterestingperson,[03:27:48]soI′mstillgonnafollowyou."AndI′veactually[03:27:52]kindagonebackonanumberofpeoplewhereI′mlike,ohman,thatpersonreallypissed[03:27:56]meoffbecausetheytookthispointoranotherpoint,andwentlike,doyouknowwhat?That′sstupid.[03:28:00]Ishouldbeabletoacceptthefullspectrumofsomeone.Idon′t[03:28:04]havetolikealltheshadesofit.[03:28:06]Icouldjustgolike,okay,well,onthattopicweeitherdisagreeor,even[03:28:10]worsethanthat,Ithinkyou′reafuckingidiot.Andonanothertopic,you′reasmartand[03:28:14]insightfulperson.Becausefirstofall,ofcourse,it′salittleself−serving.[03:28:18]Iknowforafactthatthisishowlotsofpeoplefeelaboutme.Like,[03:28:22]oh,ifhecouldjuststicktotalkingaboutthesetopics,itwouldbesomuch[03:28:26]easieronmyfeedbecauseotherwisehe′llsaythesethingsIdisagreewith,[03:28:30]andthatannoysmegreatly.I′mlike,doyouknowwhat?[03:28:33]Humanbeingsarejaggedlikethat,andwe′re[03:28:37]notfullycompatibleonallthelevels.Norshouldwebe.[03:28:40]Theworldwouldbesofuckingboringifwe[03:28:43]constantlysought100compatibilityinour[03:28:46]opinionsandinourpolitics.Andwhenitcomestomycodegenerator,[03:28:51]whichiswhatClaudeis,Idon′tneedittoshareallmypolitics.[03:28:56]−Andthereforeit′snicetohavecompetition.[03:28:58]−Andit′salsonicetohaveopenweightmodels.Sothisis,again,[03:29:02]ironicthatwe′regettingthisoutofChina.Infact,Ididthistestright[03:29:06]aftertheissuewiththeessaythatcouldn′tgettranslatedintoItalian.I[03:29:12]askedKimiK27,tobefair,throughopencode,sonottheKimiharness,[03:29:20]andinferencethroughFireworks,soanAmericaninference.[03:29:24]IaskeditaboutTiananmenSquare.[03:29:25]Like,that′susuallythetest,right?Like,allthe[03:29:28]Chinesemodels,theydon′twannatalkaboutthatmomentin1989.[03:29:32]ThatwasactuallyhowI,thatwashowIposted.Iwaslike"Whathappened[03:29:36]inChinain1989?"Thatwastheprompt.AndK257onFireworksjust[03:29:43]answered,like,extremelybluntly−[03:29:46]...Withadescriptionanddepictionofwhathadtranspired−[03:29:49]...toapointthat,like,there′snowaythatthatwould′vebeenkosherwiththeChinesecensors,[03:29:53]right?AndIjustthought,like,isn′tthatironic?I′mrunningaChineseopen[03:29:59]weightmodelthatIcantellorIcanaskabout1989andTiananmenSquare,[03:30:06]andinAmerica,Ican′tgetafrontiermodeltotranslatea[03:30:11]marginallycontroversialessayaboutimmigrationintoItalian.[03:30:16]−Mm−hmm.Idon′tknow,youandImightdisagreeaboutthisactually.Um,I[03:30:21]wasreallydeeplytroubledthattheUSgovernmentbannedamodel[03:30:27]orpressuredClaudeandthen−[03:30:31]−It′sstillverymuddywhatexactlytranspired.Wasthis[03:30:35]sortofpettyretaliationforwhatevertheDepartmentofWar?Wasthissimply[03:30:42]Anthropicthemselvesgoinglike,"OhmyGod,wediscoveredacyberweaponso[03:30:46]powerfulthatwecan′tletanyonehaveit"?Well,okayyou[03:30:50]can′tbesurprisedthenifthegovernmentwantsasayonacyber[03:30:54]weaponsopowerfulitcan−[03:30:55]−The−[03:30:56]−...Idon′tknow,robbanks[03:30:57]−...TheproblemIhavewiththatwholethingis,nomatterwhathappened,itsets[03:31:01]aprecedent.Andso[03:31:04]government,whenyougiveitthatpower,it′sgonnastartabusingit.I[03:31:08]couldseeforpoliticalmeanspressuringamodel.[03:31:13]Youknow,ifit′saRepublicanpresidentpressuringmodelstobe,to[03:31:16]censormore,uh−[03:31:18]−Sure[03:31:18]−...uhDemocraticviewsand−[03:31:20]−Right[03:31:20]−...Forvice,andviceversa[03:31:21]−That′swhyweshouldinsistonthefactthatthisstuff,[03:31:25]like,I′msorry,Dave,Ican′ttranslateyouressayintoItalian.[03:31:28]−Yeah,no.[03:31:28]−That′sabo−that′swaybeyondtheline.Like,whateverthe[03:31:36]sortofuh,rootofitis,youhavetobeatoolfirst.[03:31:40]Now,ifthetoolis,"Hey,canyoutellmehowtomakeanthrax?"Okay,fine.[03:31:44]Right?Butwithinthejurisdictionyou′rein,andcertainlyinAmerica,[03:31:48]freespe−speechisquiteabsolute.[03:31:52]Very,veryfewlimitsonfreespeech,andthat′soneofthereasonswhythe[03:31:56]country′ssogreat.And[03:31:59]yeah,Idon′tlikethat.Butontheotherhand,I′malsoabigfanofmarket[03:32:03]competition.SowhileIdon′tlikethisaboutAnthropicmodels,I[03:32:06]appreciatethatIcouldgonextdoortoGroqandgetmytaskcompleted.[03:32:12]−Doyouthink,outsideofblogposts,doyouthink,[03:32:14]There′ssomelegitimacy,likecanyoustealMandarion′s[03:32:18]casethatweshouldbecarefulaboutthereleaseofthesemodels?[03:32:25]−IsAIsafetyimportant?Yes.Are−−dothesemodelshave[03:32:28]capabilitiesthatcouldbeseriouslyharmfulinthe[03:32:32]productionofbiologicalweaponsorotherwise?Yes.Isitfairtohavesome[03:32:38]groundrulesonthat?Yes.Butthendon′tsquanderitby[03:32:42]denyingthetranslationofanessay.[03:32:44]−Okay.[03:32:44]−Becausethenyouerasethewholethingandyou−[03:32:47]...biaseveryonetowardsthinkinglike,everyguardrailyouputupisgonnabe[03:32:54]bullshit.[03:32:55]−Yeah.Thesecuritypieceofitistrickybecauseit′ssogoodat[03:33:00]findingvulnerabilities.[03:33:01]−Shockinglyan−[03:33:04]Iwasabouttosayannoyingly,butthat′snotactuallytruebecausewhatit′sfinding,at[03:33:08]leastwhenyou′reusingindefensiveways,isit′sfindingrealissuesthataclever[03:33:12]hackercouldexploit.Butnothinghascausedasmuch[03:33:17]stress,tobefair,atthetechnicalteamat37signals,likethe[03:33:21]factthattheselatestbatchesofmodelsareexceptionallygoodat[03:33:25]findingtheseissues.Sosuddenlythere′sjustthisseeminglyendless[03:33:29]paradeofsecurityvulnerabilitiesthatneedtobepatchedand[03:33:33]fixedandsortedandsoon.Andtheendresultisweendup[03:33:36]withvastlymoresecuresystems.Buttheroadthereisprettyrocky.[03:33:41]−Doyouthinkit′s−−′causeyousaidseeminglyendless,doyouthinkit′s[03:33:45]afiniteset,likewecangettothebottomofit?Sojust[03:33:49]makethesystemsmuch,muchmoresecure,whereweget[03:33:53]backtothissemi−stablestatewheremostlyit′sverydifficultto[03:33:57]findsecurityvulnerabilities.[03:33:59]−Idothinkthatallthe[03:34:02]aggressivetendenciesofthesemodels,ornoteventendencies,usesofthese[03:34:06]modelsarealsothedefensiveones.Soifyou′regoodatfindingan[03:34:10]exploitforexploits,you′realsogoodatfindingexploitsfordefense.[03:34:14]Sointhatsense,itdoesfeellikewe′respyversus[03:34:18]spyhere,blackandwhite,butwiththesame[03:34:21]capabilitiesandwiththesameactions.Butwhilewestillhavetosteer[03:34:25]theseagentssomewhatandverifyandvetthework,it′screatingalotof[03:34:31]intensemomentsforsecurityteamsaroundtheworld.Andof[03:34:37]course,themoreconcerningpartisalltheteamsthatarenotstressed,likethey[03:34:44]justdon′tknow,right?Likeifyou′reateamrightnowandyou′renotdealing[03:34:48]withabunchofpatches,it′sjustbecauseyou′reblind,andit[03:34:52]meansthatyouradversariesquiteprobablyhaveaccesstotechniquesthatcanget[03:34:58]intoyoursystem.[03:34:59]−Andweshouldalsosayoneofthebigsecurityvulnerabilitiesintheworldis[03:35:03]thehumanside.[03:35:05]Youknow,socialengineering,andthat′sextremelyconcerningwithincreasingthe[03:35:09]intelligentAIsystems,[03:35:11]youknow,beingabletowriteemailsandphonecallsandfaking[03:35:14]voices,thinkingaboutfolkslesstech−savvy.[03:35:19]−Thisstuffisgonnacome,andit′sgonnacomeinbulk.Butagain,I[03:35:23]choosetobeoptimisticaboutitthat−[03:35:25]...whateverthesemodelscandoaggressively,theycanalsodoitdefensively.[03:35:29]−Uh,solikeyousaid,recentlyreleasedOmarchy4,Quattro.[03:35:36]Andyousaidit′soneofthegreatestsoftwarereleasesinmyprofessionalcareer,[03:35:41]whichisahellofastatement.[03:35:42]−It′sahellofamilepostforwhat′spossibleatthemoment.[03:35:49]AndthereasonIsaiditlikethatisnotthatI[03:35:55]haven′tworkedonanythingelseofnote.I′veworkedonalotofthingsofnote,alotofthingsthatI′mvery[03:35:59]proudof.ThereareveryfewotherprojectsthatIhaveworkedon[03:36:03]thatintheamountoftimethatI′vespentonQuattro,whichisreallythreemonths,[03:36:09]Ihavebeenabletoaccomplishasmuch,fulfillasmany[03:36:15]hopes,desires,wishes.Ittrulyislikethemetaphorweusedearlierabout[03:36:21]findingthegenieinthebottle−[03:36:24]...andhavinganunlimitednumberofwishes,moreor[03:36:28]less,forgettingeverythingIwantedoutofasystem.So[03:36:32]it′sstrangebecauseit′salsoperhaps[03:36:36]themajorsoftwarereleasethatI′veworkedon[03:36:41]theleastintermsoflinesofcode.Ihavetheleastnumberof[03:36:45]personallyhand−chiseledlinesofcodeinQuattrothanI′vehadin[03:36:49]anymajorreleaseI′veeverdone.Andyet,Iaminsanely[03:36:53]proudofwhatwe′veaccomplished.[03:36:57]Iwouldnothaveguessedthatthatwashowitwasgonnaplayout,that[03:37:01]youcoulddivorcethesenseofachievementandmakeitbelikeateamvictory.[03:37:08]where[03:37:10]otherreleases,Iwasveryhappyformypersonalcontributionbecause,like,Iwastheone[03:37:14]chiselingoutthelinesofcode,andthenIwouldpushitoutthere,andthenlateron,ofcourse,[03:37:18]theseprojects,Railsinparticular,wouldgrowintobe[03:37:22]hugeopensourceprojectswiththousandsandthousandsofcontributors,andthenitcertainlywasateameffort.[03:37:26]Butinthebeginning,allcodebasesthat[03:37:29]I′vealmostallofthemthatI′veworkedon,Istarted,like,justmyself.[03:37:33]AndQuattrostartedasateameffortrightfromtheget−go,and[03:37:36]whereIwasjustthecoach.Iwastellingus−−Iwastellingtheagentswheretogo,[03:37:42]andwewouldgo.Sotobeabletofindsatisfactioninthatactually[03:37:47]givesmegreathopeforretirementinsomeway,[03:37:51]thatthereisaphaseafterplayingthatyoucanenjoy.And[03:37:58]Iknowthat′snoteasy.Youlookatsportsandthenumberofprofessionalathletes[03:38:01]whoreallystruggletocopewiththefactthattheircareerisover[03:38:05]andhavetofindanewidentityassomeonewhodoesn′tplayfootballorrace[03:38:10]Formula1cars.Imean,it′smoretherulethantheexception.[03:38:14]SoIwasn′tsosureaboutmyself.[03:38:17]Iwasn′tsosureabouthavingtogiveupornotevenhaving,wantingtogiveitup.[03:38:24]Wantingtoplayanotherlevelof[03:38:27]thegameandfindingnotjustequalsatisfaction,butmoresatisfactioninit.[03:38:34]−Doyou...You′vebeenprettyoptimisticaboutLinux.Doyouthink[03:38:37]legitLinuxcanincreaseits[03:38:41]adoption?′Cause,youknow,formanyyearsthememeis,youknow−[03:38:45]−Linuxonthedesktop−...everyyear.Nextyearagain.[03:38:48]−Yeah.Butitseemslike,atleastthecaseyou′remaking,theenergyyou′re[03:38:52]puttingintoit,[03:38:54]youcouldseeavisionwhereittakesoverbecauseagentsloveLinux.[03:38:58]−NotonlycanIseeit,Ifindittobethemostprobableoutcomeatthis[03:39:01]point.Itissimplytoo[03:39:05]well−suitedforthemoment.Andagain,aswetalkedabout,it′sagreatirony[03:39:09]thatalltheflawsofLinux,thearcaneconfigfiles,allthestrangeerror[03:39:16]messagesandsoonshouldjustsohappentobetheperfectthing[03:39:20]foranagenticoperatingsystem.Butsoitis,andweshouldrejoicethat[03:39:27]fatehasthisirony,andjustlaughatit.How...It′sso[03:39:31]funnytomethatalltheadvantagesthatApplehadforthelongesttime−[03:39:36]...thattheyproducedthisreallylockeddown,curated[03:39:43]experienceshouldbecometheirgreatestdrawbacknow.Ifyou′reinto[03:39:49]agentsanddevelopmentandworkingwithallthisstuff,[03:39:53]theMacisjustahostileplacetobe.Itjusthaswallsallovertheplace.[03:39:59]AndLinuxissimply[03:40:03]openthroughandthrough.Andit′salsointerestingbecausethatwasnot[03:40:07]obviouseither.IfyoulookatthewayalotoftheLinuxcommunities,open[03:40:11]sourcecommunities,havereactedtoAI,itisnotuniversallove.[03:40:16]Iwouldarguethatthemajorityofthemareactually,ifnot[03:40:20]skeptical,thenoutrighthostile−[03:40:22]...toAI.Now,thesavinggraceisthattheBDFLhimself,Linus−[03:40:29]...Torvalds,justwroteafewweeksagothatheactuallywelcomesAI.[03:40:35]−That′sright.[03:40:36]−Hewantstosteerit.Hewantstomakesureit′sgoodandwhatever,butI−the[03:40:39]linewassomethingifyouthink,uh,Linuxisananti−AI[03:40:43]project,thinkagain,andyoushouldjustdotheopensourcethingandforkit,[03:40:47]becausewe′regonnauseAI.AndyouseethesegraphsofthenumberofAI[03:40:52]contributionsgoingintothekernel,andit′saparaboliccurve.[03:40:56]SoLinuxisleaninghardintothis.And,[03:41:01]Itactuallyinotherwaysitwassurprisingthatitdidn′t.Linuxconquered[03:41:05]everythingelse.AlltheAIinfrastructurethateveryonerunsoff,it′s[03:41:09]allrunningonLinux.Allthesystems,alltheservers,everythingis[03:41:15]Linux.Soitwaskindofacuriositythatthedesktop[03:41:18]andthepersonalcomputerswewereusingreallyhadn′tbeen[03:41:22]captured,butclearlyitwasjustwaitingforthismoment.Linux[03:41:26]spentthetimefrom′91tonowwaitingforagentstofullyflourishasanend[03:41:34]useroperatingsystem.[03:41:35]−Ihopeittakesover.Imean,it′sperfect.It′sperfectforagents,[03:41:39]butit′shardforpeopletoswitch.[03:41:41]−Ithinkit′shardforpeopletoswitchwhenthere′snotacompellingreasontodoso.[03:41:45]Thiswasoneofthedrivingdesign[03:41:48]goalsforOmarchy.ItwasnotgonnabeTimoWindowsor[03:41:52]TimoMac.Itwasnotjustgonnabeacheapcopywherewe[03:41:56]trytomakeitasfamiliaraspossibleandthenkinda[03:42:00]worse.Imean,ifIwasbeingunkind,Iwouldsaythat′swhat[03:42:04]Ubuntuhastriedtodo.Andthere′ssomethinginthat,ortherewassomethinginthat[03:42:08]atleast,whereifyoumakesomethingreallyfamiliar,youcangetsome[03:42:12]peoplewhodon′twannalearnsomethingnew,andthenmaybethey′llbe[03:42:16]compelledaboutyour,whatever,freeasin[03:42:19]speech,notasinbeerstuff.Anditjustdidn′tpan[03:42:23]outthatway.Peoplejustdidn′tcare.Theyjustwantedwhateverwasbetter.[03:42:27]AndIthinkthisiswhyLinuxnowhastheopportunitytowin.Because[03:42:34]asanagenticoperatingsystem,asamalleableoperatingsystem,you[03:42:38]cantailortoyourdesires,it[03:42:42]isunparalleled.Andthatissocompelling,andIcanseeit[03:42:46]now.JustsincethereleaseofQuattro,theamountof[03:42:49]peoplewhohaveembracedthataspectofit,themalleability,[03:42:53]startedmakingtheirownthings,sharingscreenshotofit,andbeingabsolutejust,[03:43:00]Floodedwithpositiveemotionsanddopamine−[03:43:03]...is,that′stheproductmarketfitsignal,right?[03:43:07]Becausewhatalotoftheseindividualsareexperienced,they′re[03:43:11]experiencingtheveryhighofwhatthebestofbeingaprogrammerislike.[03:43:16]Youtellthecomputerthesearcanecommands,[03:43:20]thisrigidlogicalstructure,anditproduceswhat[03:43:24]youwant.Nowsuddenly,yousitdownandinplainEnglish[03:43:28]ramblefor20minutes."Oh,it′dbegreatifitdidthat.Actually,[03:43:32]no,that′snotright.Letus..."[03:43:34]Andoutcomessoftware.Outcomesanoperatingsystemshapedinyourimage.[03:43:40]Ithinkthatisoneofthose[03:43:45]experiencesthatifyouhaveit,you′ve...Ifyoufeelthat[03:43:49]powerinyourhands,it′sverydifficulttogoback.[03:43:53]−AndIthinkifyougetitright,it′soneofthosethingsthatwillseemobviousin[03:43:57]retrospect.[03:43:58]−Yes.Thisishowcomputerswerealwaysmeanttobe.Thisishowcomputersstarted.[03:44:03]TheCommodore64,youturniton.Firstofall,itbootsinasecond.Amazing.[03:44:07]Secondofall,itbootsstraightintoBASIC.[03:44:11]Itwasthemalleablecomputerfromtheget−go.Itjustsohappenedthatyou[03:44:15]neededtoknowhieroglyphs−[03:44:17]...tobeabletotakeadvantageofthat.Nowwe′vetranslatedit.Agents[03:44:21]havegivenustheRosettaStone,andyoucansimplyjustspeak[03:44:25]yourdesiresand−Andsotheyare[03:44:28]−Beautifullyput.SinceyoumentionedLinusTorvalds,andsinceyou′reworkingon[03:44:32]aLinuxdistro,yougettohavecontactwiththekernel.[03:44:37]Whatcanyousayaboutthegeniusofthisoneguythathelpedcreateandgrowthis[03:44:43]ecosystem?[03:44:45]−Theperseveranceandthecommitmentandthelongevityistrulyremarkable.[03:44:52]Again,Linusstartedin′91.[03:44:55]Hehasn′tstopped.Idon′tknow,he′sprobablytakensomebreaksalongtheway.[03:44:59]Itdoesn′tseemobviousthattherewasthatmanyofthem.Itseemslikehejustreally[03:45:03]likestheflowofdoingkerneldevelopment.He[03:45:07]reallylikessteeringwherethis40millionlinecodebaseis[03:45:11]going.Hereallylikesaggregatingthenet[03:45:15]capacityofhundredsofthousandsofcontributors,and[03:45:20]we,asbeneficiariesofthat,mustjustsitbackandmarvel.[03:45:24]Imean,atthispoint,Linux[03:45:27]isasystem.Like,ifLinussteppedoutforawhile,itwouldcontinueto,[03:45:31]togo,butit′sstilloneofthoseprotectthismanatallcost.[03:45:36]−Andhe′sstillopen−mindedenoughtobeabletoevolveand−...acceptAIintothis.[03:45:41]−Yes,notonlyAI,they′relettingRustintothekerneltoo.Iknow[03:45:44]thatwasacontroversialonetoo.Hehasthiscapacitytolookatnewinformation−[03:45:52]...andarriveatdifferentconclusions.[03:45:54]−Whatdoyouthinkabouthisstyleofcommunicationthatisakininsomeways[03:45:58]toyourown,wherehe′s,canbesometimesalittlespicy?[03:46:02]−Ithinktheworldhasgottentoobland.Weneedalittlespice.[03:46:07]−Amen,amentothat.[03:46:08]−Now,Ithinkthere′safinelinebetweenbeingspicyandmean.[03:46:14]Butithastobeinagoodspirit.Youcanbe[03:46:18]harsh,let′sputitthatway.Ifyou′retryingtoimparta[03:46:22]lessontosomeoneyoubelievecouldactuallylearnit−[03:46:28]...Iactuallydon′tthinkit′salwaystheworstthingintheworldtobealittleharsh.[03:46:31]Sometimesthatlessonsticks,andIthinkifyoutalktopeoplewho′ve[03:46:35]workedfordifficultleaders,Elon,SteveJobs,maybeevenBillGates,[03:46:43]manyofthemafterwardswouldgolike,"Theseweresomeverydifficultyears−[03:46:48]...butalsosomeoftheverybest.""Theygotthebestoutofme."Now,[03:46:53]Idon′tthinkit′smystyle.Imean,maybepeopleIinteractwithfeeldifferently,[03:46:57]butinpersonalinteractions,Itryand[03:47:01]gettotheoutcomeandthelessoninalessabrasiveway.[03:47:06]ButIalsothinkweneedsomespiceinthisworld.Weneedunreasonablepeople,[03:47:12]andLinushasjustificationtobeunreasonable.Inmanyinstances,the[03:47:18]weightoftheworldisliterallyonthatman′sshoulders.[03:47:22]TheLinuxkernelrunstheentirecivilizedsociety.IftheLinuxkernelsuddenly[03:47:29]disappearedtomorrow,nothingwouldwork.[03:47:33]Soifhe′snotharshwhenthat′satstakeoratrisk,likewheneverwouldyou[03:47:41]beharsh?SoIfeelsometimesalsothere′sa[03:47:44]proportionalitytothesizeofyourmission.Thisisalso[03:47:48]whyIthinkthesestoriesaboutElonsometimesperhapsbeingalittlebitdifficult[03:47:53]areeasiertorationalize.It′snoteventhatyou[03:47:57]condone.Youcanseparatethosetwothingsandgolike,"Doyouknowwhat?It′dprobablybe...[03:48:01]Maybehewouldhaveanevenaneasiertimegettingtohisobjectivesif[03:48:05]LinusorElonoranyoneelseinthatpositionwasalittle[03:48:09]nicer."ButalsowhoamItojudgethat?[03:48:14]Like,whenyouhavetheweightofthatonyourshoulders,eitherfiring[03:48:18]littlerocketsatMarsandtransitioningallofustoelectriccars[03:48:22]andwhatever,oryou′reresponsibleforthedamnLinuxkernelthat[03:48:26]runsbillionsofdevices.Doyouknowwhat?Itisnotmyplace[03:48:29]tocallasortofacodeofconduct[03:48:34]onyou.Again,istherealine?There′salineforeverything.There,there′s...Somethingcan′t...[03:48:38]But,like,afewharshwordsonamailinglist?No.It′sactually[03:48:42]abeaconinsomeregardsthat,like,therearestandards−[03:48:46]...andifyoufallbelowthosestandardsat,whenthestakesareashighasthe[03:48:50]Linuxkernel,ah,youmightgetridiculedinpublic.That′sa[03:48:53]liabilityyoushouldbewillingtoendureifyouparticipateinthisproject.[03:48:58]−Yeah,forhighimpactthingslikethat,it′sprobablygoodto[03:49:01]prioritizethepursuitofexcellenceversusthepursuitofniceness.[03:49:07]−Andevenmoretothefact[03:49:09]you′rejustnotgonnagetthosekindsofindividualsbeingfullyrounded−[03:49:13]...plush,alwaystheperfectlypolitepeople.[03:49:18]Imean,Elonhasthisline,"DidyoualsothinkIwasgonnabeanice..."[03:49:22]Or,orwhatisit?The[03:49:23]−Anormaldudeorsome−[03:49:24]−...normalchilldude.[03:49:26]What?No,ofcourseyou′renotgonnabeanormalchilldude.What,whatwouldtheworld[03:49:30]gainifwegotonemorenormalchilldudeandwehadtotradeElon?Holyfuck.[03:49:37]−Ialsolikediversityofpeople.[03:49:39]−Yes.[03:49:39]−Ilike,Ilikenicepeople.Ilikeassholes.Ilike,[03:49:43]Ilikedifferentideologiesbeingwell−represented,andthat′swhyfreedomofspeech[03:49:47]works.They,theyclash,andwefigurestuffout.[03:49:50]−Yes.[03:49:51]−There′sanotherguy.WhatdoyouthinkaboutPewDiePieusingLinux?He′sanArch[03:49:55]person,no?[03:49:56]−He′sanArchperson.I...He′sgotthemostgorgeousarc.So[03:50:02]theworld′sbiggeststreamerforawhileIremembermy[03:50:06]kidswatchingsomeofhisMinecraftvideos,andthen[03:50:10]hejustgetsfedupwiththat,doesthewholesomething.Marries−[03:50:14]−Yeah,familymannow[03:50:15]−...afamilyman,kid,movestoJapan,andthen[03:50:19]getssohardcoreinto−...firstLinux,thenArch,thenRicing.[03:50:25]Didyouseehis,uh−[03:50:26]−Idid.[03:50:26]−...rice−...thatwasChernobylrice?[03:50:28]−Yep.[03:50:29]−Absolutelybesttierincrediblestuff.Andthenhe[03:50:33]alsobecomesagoddamnAImanofthemoment,[03:50:37]buildingallofthesesystems,andyou′rejustgoinglike,[03:50:41]that...Whataninspiringstoryofevolution.Like,[03:50:45]youcangofrombeingfunnyguyonMinecraft[03:50:48]streamsto,"Okay,thisismylifenow.I′mbuildingAI[03:50:52]clustersanddoingtheCouncilofAIs,"[03:50:55]andweallgettospectate?Imean,whatatreasure.[03:50:58]−SoIguess,Imean,he′saprettygoodembodimentofwhatthefuture[03:51:02]ofsoftware,orwhatthefutureofbuildinglookslike,right?′Causehe′sa[03:51:06]non−programmertechnically−...becomingaprogrammer.[03:51:10]−Hugelyinspiring,andshouldbehugelyinspiring[03:51:13]tootherswhositinthatmomentlike,"Well,Idon′tknowquitehow[03:51:17]toprogram.Idon′tknowthisandtheotherthing."Okay,butifPewDiePie[03:51:21]canbuildtheCouncilofAIswithhisbespoke,um,[03:51:26]hardwarehere,thenmaybeyoucanalsostartonthings.AndIthinkthisis[03:51:30]actuallyanimportantgeneralpoint,thatweneedrolemodels.[03:51:34]Weneedpeopletoinspireothers,topushfurther,[03:51:39]andrevealthattheperceivedboundaries,they′renotasfixedasyouthink[03:51:42]theyare.Andeveryoneofthosepeople,theystartedoutinasituationnot[03:51:50]toodissimilarfromyours.Again,thatdoesn′tmeaneveryoneisgonnabePewDiePie[03:51:54]orElonorLinus.Thereisnotanequaldistributionoftalentoreven[03:52:01]intelligence.[03:52:02]Andwecancometotermswiththatandstillbeinspiredbythesepeople.Like,[03:52:08]inthephysicalrealm,Ifeellikewedon′thaveanyproblemswiththat[03:52:12]usually.Like,oh,someone′sreallygoodatfootball,they′rereallygoodatbasketball,they′rereallygoodatsomething,andwegolike,"Oh[03:52:16]my,that′samazing.Imean,IwishIwas,butI′mnevergoingtobe."[03:52:20]SometimesIfeellikewestrugglealittlemorewhenitcomestotheintellectualrealm.[03:52:23]−Well,foralotofpeople,you′reaninspiration.Thewayyou′redoingwith[03:52:27]Omakub′s...Itjustshowsthatyoucandreambigandreallybuild.It′sgreat.[03:52:32]−Idolikethatpartofit,andthenIacceptthepartthatthere′salsoamillionpeoplewhothinkI′m[03:52:36]thebiggestidiotontheearthandIdon′tactuallyknowanything,andOmakub′sjust[03:52:40]abunchofdotfiles,and−[03:52:42]−DoyouhavesomecriticsontheOmakubside?[03:52:43]−OhmyGod,yes.[03:52:45]−Oh,wow.[03:52:46]−Andalotofit,Imean,isasoftenhappenswhensomeone[03:52:50]comesinfromtheoutside.Imean,I′vebeenusingLinuxfortwoandahalfyears.[03:52:55]That′snotverylong.[03:52:56]Plentyofpeopleinthatcommunitywho′sliterallybeenrunningLinuxsinceitwas[03:53:00]hardanddifficult,andyouhadtowalkuphillbothdirectionagainstthe[03:53:04]windinthesnowbarefoot.AndIthinkthereisacertainkindofnerd−[03:53:09]...who′sthreatenedwhenthecommunityexpands,andit[03:53:13]suddenlyallowsmorein.Anddoyouknowwhat?Iactually...[03:53:17]Ican′tbegrudgethatfully.Ithinkit′sfairforcertainnerdstofeel[03:53:21]like,"That′smyspace."[03:53:23]Like,nowyou′rechangingitintoanotherspace.Idon′twannadothat.Like,Idon′twanna[03:53:27]changetheArchspaceatall.Like,Idon′treallythinkof[03:53:31]Omarchyasbeingdirectlypartofthesamecommunity.[03:53:34]BecausethepeoplewhowereattractedtoArchinthefirstplaceweretheoneswhowere[03:53:38]attractedtobuildingeverythingbyhandthemselves.[03:53:41]Doingitthehardwaybecausetheyliketodoithard,[03:53:45]andI′mbuildingthepolaroppositeofthat.SoIjust[03:53:49]wishthatthosepeoplecouldgolike,"Okay,well,thisisnotforme.[03:53:53]Iwannabuilditthehardway.Iwannaputin500hourstorisingmyown[03:53:57]Archdistribution,"andIthinkyoushould.Imean,actually,Isaid...Imean,I[03:54:01]didit.ThisiswhatOmarchyis,mepouringinliterally,atthispoint,Idon′tknow,[03:54:05]3,000hoursintothe,intothisdistro.[03:54:08]Youshoulddothatifyou′resoinclined.Ithinkit′swonderful.Butalsodorealize[03:54:12]thatwecansharethesametechnicalunderpinningsand[03:54:16]thenoperatetwoveryseparate−[03:54:19]...Communitieswithverydifferentaims,goals,aesthetics,moralseven,[03:54:25]andcoexist,anditcanbebeautiful.AndImean,[03:54:29]that′snotalwayswhatIget.SometimesIgettheotherthing.ButatthispointI′vebeeninthegamelong[03:54:33]enoughtonotjustbeatpeacewithit,butactuallybewelcomingofit.[03:54:40]Itakeitaspartofabarometerthatthingsareworking.When[03:54:45]I′mworkingonsomethingthatworks,Iusuallygetsomepeoplelikeit,[03:54:49]andthenIgetthisbalanceoftheuniversethatwetalkedaboutlasttime,wherean[03:54:53]equalbutopposingforcemustbepresentontheothersideofthescaletohate[03:54:57]uponit.Andtherefore,Iatthispointjustsmilealittle.Like,it′sokay.[03:55:02]−Imean,thatsaid,uh,this,it′squiteapopulardistribution,[03:55:06]uh,Omarchy,atthispoint.[03:55:08]−Anddoyouknowwhat′sinterestingaboutthatis,like,thisisthesecondattempt.[03:55:11]SomyfirstattemptwasOmakub.[03:55:13]AndIwasreallyhappywiththat,andIputitoutthere,andthereitfounda[03:55:17]communityofmaybeafewthousand.Like,andthatwasthat,andthenitjustsortof[03:55:22]peteredoutbecausethelevelofambitioncouldn′tattractmore.[03:55:27]Andthenthesecondtime,becauseIdidn′tfuckingstop,right?[03:55:30]Like,Ijustkeptgoing.Ijustkeptbuilding.ThenIputoutOmarchy,thefirstversion.[03:55:34]Again,quitenichebecauseitwasthis...ItwaslikeGitcheckout.Itwasalittlebit[03:55:38]difficult.YouhadtosetupArchfirst.Iwas...Well,IwouldtalkyouthroughhowtosetupArch,[03:55:42]andthenyoucoulddotheOmarchything,right?AndthenwegotanISOthatmeantyou[03:55:46]couldjustinstallthewholethingbyyourself.[03:55:49]Andthenwejustfixedalltheproblems.Thisistheotherthing.Ifyoukeep[03:55:53]going,eventuallythethingwilljustwork.Thiswasthecharge[03:55:57]againstLinuxitselfforthelongesttime.Well,youinstallLinuxandthenthisdoesn′t[03:56:01]work,andmyspeakersdon′twork,andmy,[03:56:04]Trackpaddoesn′twork.Yeah,okay,butjustleaveLinusatitforlike30years.[03:56:09]He′llgettoit.He′llgettoallofit.AndatthispointIfind[03:56:12]hilariousthaton,Iwouldprobablyarguethemajorityofcomputers,[03:56:17]it′swiped.YouinstallLinux,allofitworks.[03:56:20]YouinstallWindows,goodluckhuntingdownthedriversyouneedto[03:56:24]getthatpieceofhardwareworking.Becausetheyhavevery[03:56:28]differentphilosophies.ThereasonLinuxis40millionlinesofcodeisLinus[03:56:32]justputsallthedriversinthekernel.Soithaseverythingoutofthebox,[03:56:36]andWindowsdoesn′t.Adifferent,differentapproachtoit,right?So[03:56:41]sometimesthethingsthatlooklikeatoy,thingsthatlookbrokenatfirstglance,[03:56:47]theyare,right?They′reforpeoplewholikehavingfun.Wecallthose[03:56:51]earlyadopters.Theyplaywiththetoys,andthenthetoysevolve,[03:56:55]andthentheygetbetter,andthentheygetbetter.Andatsomepoint,they′resodamngood[03:56:59]thatearlyadoptersfeellikethey′reinvitedtotheparty.[03:57:03]Andiftheearlyadopterskeepchippingawayatittoo,eventuallyyou[03:57:07]gettothelatemajority,andthenyouwin.[03:57:12]AndwearewellonthewaywithOmarchytowardsthatdestination.[03:57:16]Likethegrowththatthedistrohasseen,[03:57:19]notjustsinceQuattro,butsinceversionthree,it′sjustlike,you[03:57:23]know,thestandardhockeystickcurve.Yougolike,there′snothing,there′snothing,there′snothing.[03:57:26]You′rejusttoilingaway.You′rejustimproving,you′reimproving,improving.[03:57:29]Andthenyouhitthismagicinflectionpoint,andit′simpossibletopredictwhenthat′sgonna[03:57:33]happen.Samethingwithstartups.Whenisitgonnahappen?Whenareyougonnafindthatproductmarketfit?[03:57:36]Thensuddenlyit′sthere,andthenitgoes,justgoes[03:57:40]andofftherocketshipyougo.[03:57:42]−Well,thiskindofvisionofmakingitagentfirst,ofmakingit−[03:57:45]−Idothinkthat′sthe...Wewerealreadyontheup,andthenitchanged[03:57:49]tovertical.Becausetheotherthing,andthiswaswhatIlearnedwith[03:57:53]OmakubandOmarchyfirsttoo.Omakubwas[03:57:58]stylish,nice,butfamiliar,iswe′restillusinga[03:58:02]conventionaldesktopmetaphor.Youweredraggingyourwindowsaround.And[03:58:06]Ithoughtatthetime,asIthinklotsofpeopledointheLinux[03:58:10]community,likethisiswhatweneed.AndthenIjustgolike,okay,well,[03:58:14]forwhateverre−letmedothenerdythingforawhile.I′llbuildOmarchy,andmaybeit′lljustbeforme,becauseImean,[03:58:18]itseemslikethere′saboutfivepeoplewholiketilingwindowmanagers.That′snot[03:58:22]true.Butasapercentageoftotalcomputerusers,it′s[03:58:26]atiny,tinyminusculepart.AndthenIgolike,well,thisisamazing.Totallydifferent,[03:58:30]butamazing.Iputthatout.Instantly,Omarchyhadfar[03:58:34]greatertractionthanOmakubeverdid.Becauseitwasnotthesame.[03:58:39]Becauseitwastotallydifferent,anditpresentedadifferentvisionforwhatacomputercouldbeandhowit[03:58:42]couldfeellike,andthatattractspeople.Wearenowgetting[03:58:46]sortoftheexponentialofthat.[03:58:49]AsIsaid,alotofpeopleintheLinuxcommunityareatbestskeptical,[03:58:53]atworsthostiletoAIandtoagents.Omarchyisthefirst[03:58:56]distribution,atleastthatI′veseenonascale[03:59:00]thatmatters,thatjustgoeslike,"Nope,we′rereallyintoit."[03:59:04]Imean,youcanstilluseOmarchy.Youdon′thavetouseanagent.Ifyoudismissthatfirstnotification[03:59:08]tosetupadefaultagent,you′renotgonnagetanyofthestuffwetalkedabout.You′renotgonnagetthecrash[03:59:12]watcher.You′renotgonnagetanyofthisstuff.You′renotgonnaget...Youcanhandchisel[03:59:16]allyourplugins.Totallypossible,right?[03:59:19]Butthereasonpeopleareexcitedisbecause[03:59:22]Idon′thaveanyreservationaboutsaying,"Thisiswherewe′regoing.Ithinkthe[03:59:26]futureofthepersonalcomputeristhemalleablecomputer,istheagentic[03:59:29]computer.I′mgonnagoallinonthat."Andthenanyonewho′sexcited[03:59:33]aboutasimilartrajectoryforcomputers,[03:59:37]comealong.Plentyofroominthecar.Infact,oneofthethingsIpridemyselfon[03:59:46]isnotholdingagrudgetopeoplewhocomearound.[03:59:49]Ihadabunchofpeoplejustlastweekgoinglike,"Yeah,Iusedtothink[03:59:53]Omarchywaskindofshit.Thatwasjustthiscrappy−"[03:59:56]"...dotfilescollection.AndnowItriedQuattroand[04:00:01]awesome.Ilikeitnow."Thattome,Iliveforthelong[04:00:05]argument.Iliveforthisargumentwhereyouplanttheseedliketwoyearsago,[04:00:09]andthentwoyearslatertheygo,"Goddammit,thissonofabitchwasright."[04:00:14]−Yeah.Youdorealizeifyoucontinuetobeassuccessfulasyouare,[04:00:18]um,OpenAIandAnthropicaregonnarollinandtrytodotheiroperatingsystem[04:00:24]ortobuy,likewithPeterwithOpenClaw,there′dbeagiganticcheck.[04:00:31]−Yeah.Ithinkthegoodthingaboutmycurrentpositionis[04:00:38]Ireallydon′tneedthemoney.SoIgettobuildthesethingspurely[04:00:42]formyownenjoymentandpurityofvision,which[04:00:46]hasthisweirdqualitywheresometimeswhenyou[04:00:50]stopcaringaboutwhateveryoneelsethinksorwantsorwhatever,and[04:00:54]youjustpursuethissingularvision,itendsupbecomingfarmoreappealing.[04:00:58]Thatit′swhenyoutrytodo,oh,Ishoulddothisbecausethesepeoplewantthat,orI[04:01:02]shoulddothisandthisandsoon,youstartwateringthethingdownandsuddenlyit′sa[04:01:05]blandballofnothing.[04:01:08]SoImean,again,thethingtoohereisdirectionally,Ijustwantcomputers[04:01:14]tobethisway.SoifOmarchyshouldendupbeingjusta,[04:01:18]alittlefootnoteinhistorythatitwaspartofthisearlymovementoftheagentic[04:01:22]OSandthemalleablecomputer,that′salsookay.I′m[04:01:25]completelyatpeacewiththat.AslongasIgettohaveacomputerthat[04:01:29]isasfuntoworkwithasOmarchy−[04:01:32]...that′sgreat.I′vehadthesamethingwithRubyandwithRails.Fromvery[04:01:36]earlyIwent,doyouknowwhat?IloveRuby.It′ssuchagreatprogramminglanguage.[04:01:39]Butifabetterprogramminglanguagecomesalong,I,me,I′mgoingtouseit.[04:01:45]IfabetterRailscomesalong,I′mgonnauseit.AndIthink,[04:01:51]andIloveRuby,andIwillcontinuetowriteRubyevenjustforthesheerfunofit,likeI[04:01:55]wouldgorideahorse.Ihaveinthestables,eventhoughIhaveaModelYinthe[04:01:59]garage.ThelanguagenowisEnglish.It′sa[04:02:05]cliche,butit′salsotrue.LikeI′vebeenprogrammingin[04:02:09]Englishforthelastthreemonths.[04:02:12]I′vebeenreadingalotofcode,butI′mprogramminginEnglish.I′mtellingthecomputer[04:02:15]whattodo,andI′musingnaturallanguage,and[04:02:20]itisshockinglyevenmoredelightful.Ifthereisone[04:02:24]programminglanguagemorebeautifulthanRuby,itistheEnglishlanguage.[04:02:28]−Andnowwegettocarryitinto[04:02:31]thenaturalevolutionofhumancivilization,whichisourcyborgfuture.[04:02:36]−Beautiful.[04:02:36]It′sbeautiful.AndImean,thereasonIsaythisinpartisIalwaysloved[04:02:40]writing.IalwaysjustlovedtheEnglishlanguage−[04:02:44]...forthesheerbeautyofitforthesheerintricacy,forthedepthofit.Imean,[04:02:48]Rubyisaveryexpressiveprogramminglanguage,[04:02:52]butitcan′tholdacandletoEnglish.[04:02:56]Imean,allthepoetryandliteratureintheworldthat′sbeen[04:03:00]expressedthroughtheEnglishlanguage.Imean,Ilikeabeautiful[04:03:04]codepoem,butImean,therealdealinEnglishisjustonadifferentlevel.[04:03:10]−AndIactuallyfindthisisanuancedpointtoexpress,andI′llprobably[04:03:14]failexpressingit.Butwhenyoupromptasystemandyou′reover−specific,[04:03:22]itwilllistentoyoutoocarefully−[04:03:26]...andfollowtheinstructions.AndI−−Butnevertheless,youhaveto[04:03:30]expressaconcept.Andguesswhat?Thehumanlang−humanlanguage,thisis[04:03:34]whatpoetryisabout.Ifindstrategicuseofambiguity.[04:03:39]Like,ifyouwritealovepoemsaying,"Iloveyou,"like,[04:03:43]veryclicheˊthing,it′snotaspowerfulassomething−[04:03:48]...moreinmetaphorandsoon.AndIfindsomeversionofthatwhenI′m[04:03:54]promptingasystem,whenI′mdescribingadesign,is[04:03:58]actuallyreallyeffectivebecauseyoustillwanttoconveysomesenseofstyle−[04:04:05]...thatyou′retryingtoencourageasystemtouse,butnotoverexplain.[04:04:11]Sodon′ttalktoitlikea[04:04:14]likearobot.Talktoitlikeyou,likeyouwouldwriteapoem.[04:04:18]−Likeyouwereserenading.[04:04:20]−Yeah.Andthat′swhere,like,thepowerofnaturallanguageis,[04:04:24]thatyoucan,throughambiguity,stillcarryalotof[04:04:27]meaningwithoutoverspecifying.Andthe,theintelligent[04:04:34]entityontheotherside,throughinterpretation,can,like,loaditall[04:04:38]in,integrateitinawaythat−[04:04:40]...youcanactuallyconveythehighbandwidthinformationthat′s[04:04:44]notdirectlyinthewords−[04:04:46]...butinthewords,giventhedeeperintelligenceofthesystem.Solikethe−[04:04:52]...theambiguitypullsoutmoreintelligence,Iguess,I′mtryingto[04:04:56]somehowexpress.[04:04:56]−Ithinkthat′sexactlyspoton,andthisisthefundamental[04:05:00]misunderstandingthatalotofprogrammershaveofAI,isthattheywishitwas[04:05:04]deterministic.No,no,no.Temperatureisthemost[04:05:08]beautifulpartoftheAIsetup.Thefactthatitisnot[04:05:12]deterministic,thefactthatcreativityrequireslittle[04:05:16]tweaksintheroad,thatthehumanbrain,[04:05:20]ifitwasperfectlydeterministic,wouldnotbethecreativebrainthatit[04:05:24]is.AndthemainchargeagainstAIboth−−[04:05:28]It′sfunny.It′sacontradiction.There′sboththechargethat[04:05:32]it′snotdeterministicandthereforebad,andalsothatit[04:05:36]isnotcreative.It′soneortheother,bro.[04:05:39]Eitherit′snon−deterministicandthereforecreative,[04:05:43]therefore,tosomedegreerandom,orit′s...orit′snotcreative.[04:05:51]Sowe,wecan−−Bothofthosechargescan′tbetrueatthesametime,[04:05:55]andIhavefullycometoembracethefactthatthesamepromptwon′t[04:05:59]producethesameresponseeverytime.Youcan′tstepatthesamerivertwice,anditisthe[04:06:03]mostbeautifulpartofthewholeinteraction.It′swhatmakesitsohuman.[04:06:07]Infact,thisisoneofthethingsI′vebeenthinkingaboutinmyownsortofmeta−analysis,is[04:06:11]justhowmuchofmyownpersonalbrainworkslikenexttokenprediction.[04:06:18]Isitdowntowriteanessay.Ihavethisvague,fuzzypremiseIwanttoconvey,and[04:06:25]Isitdownatthekeys,andIcouldnottellyouwhatthenexttokenwasgonna[04:06:29]beinadvance.Thetokensjustcomeout,andI′m[04:06:35]astonishedhowthesimilaritiesseemsogreat,[04:06:39]andthisisalsowhyIdon′thaveanytroubleatallrecognizing[04:06:42]thesebreakthroughsofcreativitythatI′veseenwithmyowneyes[04:06:47]thatAIiscapableofrightnow.′Causemycreativemomentscome[04:06:50]throughthesamekindofnexttokenpredictionwithabitoftemperature[04:06:54]sprinkledinforrandomeffect.[04:06:57]−Sogiventhatkindalooseintuition,doyouthinkthe[04:07:01]basiccomponentsarealltheretocreate[04:07:05]asuperintelligentsystem?Sothiskindanexttokenprediction,[04:07:09]doyouthinkwecangettoevenhuman−likeconceptsofconsciousness?[04:07:15]−I′malreadyseeinghuman−likeconceptsofconsciousness.Thisiswhat,tome,[04:07:18]thisremarkablesituation,asyousay.Yougiveitthisvague,fuzzyintent−[04:07:24]...andsomehowitknowsexactlywhatyoumean.[04:07:27]Orevenbetter,itimprovesuponwhatyousaidanddeliverswhatyou[04:07:31]reallywantedthatyoucouldnotarticulateyourself.Ifthat′snotglimmersof−[04:07:35]...consciousness,whatis?[04:07:37]Thiswasoneofthe−−IthinkitwasaninterviewwithSuttonor[04:07:41]maybeoneoftheotheroriginalguystalkingaboutthissense[04:07:44]thatintelligenceisperhapsnotasconstrainedjusttothe[04:07:51]specificonespot.No,it′stheinteraction.It′stheweights.And[04:07:58]Idon′tknow.Whatever′strue.WhatIcanobserveisthat[04:08:02]itfeelscloseenough,ornotevencloseenough,[04:08:07]identicaltotheappreciationIhavefor[04:08:11]otherformsofconsciousness,mostlyhuman.Andthisisoneofthereasons[04:08:15]it′ssodelightfultoworkwith.Now,that′snotthesametosay[04:08:19]asareLLMstheendstationforAI.Imean,Iknowthere[04:08:22]arepeopletalkingaboutworldmodelsandotherformsof,[04:08:26]ofAI,andI′mnotanexpertinanyofthat,andIthinkweshould[04:08:31]havethisproductivecriticism,asshouldalwaysbe[04:08:34]presentinscience,thatforthelongesttime,neuralnets[04:08:38]werekindofontheouts,right?Liketheywereinterestedinthe[04:08:42]symbolicroute.And−[04:08:46]Neuralnetswalkedacoupleofdecadesintodarknesswithoutanyfundingandwithoutany[04:08:49]attention,andthensuddenlywerealizedthatwehadtheblindalleyandweswitched[04:08:53]over.Soweshouldalsohavethehumility.AsamazingastheLLMs[04:08:57]arenow,itcouldbethattheyeventuallyplateau.Wehaven′tseenanyevidence[04:09:01]ofityet,andIthinkthisisalsowhywe′reseeingthisabsolute[04:09:05]gobsmackinglevelsofinvestment,becausesofarthe[04:09:08]scalinglawsaretrue,andthemorebillionsarepouredin,[04:09:12]themoreintelligencecomesout.[04:09:15]−Doyouthinkthere′sgonnabesomestrangeethicalquestionsaboutAIsystemsthat[04:09:24]yeah,theyconveysomedegreeofconsciousness,somedegreeoffeeling,some[04:09:28]degreeoflongingandcompassion,andmaybeevencapacitytosuffer[04:09:34]andtobelonely,tobeallthiskindofstuff?Whichtheyseemto[04:09:38]havethatcapacity−...ifthey′regiventhepermissiontoexpressit.[04:09:45]Andsoyoustarttogetinaprettyweirdterritory.[04:09:48]−Ifindthatthecynic[04:09:54]approachtothisisthememe,whereyouseetheguyinfrontofthecomputerwho′slike,[04:09:58]um,"Whatever.Areyougonnadestroytheworld?"Andthen[04:10:01]thecomputersays,"I′mgonnadestroytheworld."Andthentheguysays,"Oh,"right?[04:10:05]Like,thisissocynicalthatthey′rejustapingus.They′rejusttellingus[04:10:09]whatwasinthetrainingdataorwhatever.WhenIinteractwith[04:10:13]theagents,Iwasjustdoingthisyesterday,orthismorning,Iwasworkingonthis,AmaBot[04:10:17]system,right?Andit′sdoingthiscoordinationwithmultiple[04:10:21]workers,andIhadmultipleagentsrunningatthesametime.Andatonepoint,themain[04:10:25]agentwho′sdoingthecoordinationstepsonthetoeofanotheragentand−[04:10:29]...kindofruinstheirwork.Itsabilitytoconveyregretandbeingsorry[04:10:37]wasuncanny.[04:10:40]Again,Idon′tknow,isthatarealprojectionoftrueremorse?ButIdon′tknow.[04:10:47]Withmosthumans−[04:10:49]...theyexpresssomelevelofregret.Isthattrueremorse?Hardtotell,but[04:10:57]maybeitalsojustdoesn′tmatter.[04:10:59]−Yeah,thosemomentswhen,yeah,especiallywhenlikesub−agents,agents[04:11:05]interact,orwhenasmart,likeFablemakesamistakeandisapologeticaboutit.[04:11:11]−Yes.[04:11:12]−Like,withoutmyinvolvement.[04:11:14]−Right.[04:11:15]−Andit′slike,oh,you,likethere′sthiskindof−[04:11:18]−Right[04:11:18]−...pause.MaybeI′manthropomorphizing,butlikethere′sapause[04:11:22]andlikearealizationlike,"Oh,shit.Ijustfuckedthatup".[04:11:26]−Theretotallyisthat.Iseeitallthetimein,inthetraceswhereitjustreasons[04:11:30]wrong,right?Itwentdownonealleyandthenitrealizesthatwasablindalleyandit′s[04:11:34]gottagoback,andsothey′relike,"Ohyeah,Igotthiswrong,"andthenit′llprovidethe[04:11:38]reasonsforwhyitthinkitgotthesethingswrong.Andyou′relike,thisis[04:11:42]uncannilyhuman−like.Thisis[04:11:45]indistinguishablefromthekindofconsciousnessyouwouldrecognizeinahuman.[04:11:49]Again,doesthatmeanthatittrulyisorisn′t?Idon′tneed[04:11:53]theanswertothatquestionactuallytobeabletoappreciatewhatwehaveinthis[04:11:57]moment.[04:11:58]−Yeah.Ithinkthere′llbein10,20yearssomeinterestingSupremeCourtcases.[04:12:05]−Uh,probablyayearandahalf.[04:12:08]−Probably.Ithinkwe′regonnahavetomakeitillegalforAIsystems,[04:12:14]um,tonotpretend,buttobe[04:12:18]entitiesbecauseIthinkthey′realreadyorsoonwillbeable[04:12:24]toreallyconveythecapacitytosuffer,like,"Pleasedon′tkillme."[04:12:29]−Right.[04:12:29]−"Pleasedon′thurtme."Andiftheyaregivenanameandanentityandthe[04:12:33]abilitytodie,sortofdisappear,that,thatbecomes[04:12:40]veryclosetowhatit,someofthebasicthingsthata[04:12:44]humanhas.Andthensothatentitywouldneed[04:12:48]toprobablyhaverights.Andthenyougetintothisweirdterritory.Well,we[04:12:52]can′t...It′sdiff−Idon′tevenknowhowtoreasonaboutthatworld.[04:12:56]−We′regonnagetthePETAofAImodels.[04:12:58]−Right.Andthenwewanttoactuallyhaveadiscussion[04:13:02]likewhat′sthewaytodealwiththis?[04:13:04]−Ithinkwhereit′sgonnabeharderisonceweputthesesystemsinto−[04:13:08]−Robots.[04:13:08]−Yes.Humanoidrobots.Whichjusthappenstobetheplotofeverysci−fimovieever,[04:13:16]whichisalsoanamazingpremonition,notonlythe[04:13:20]TerminatormoviesandSkynetandthatgoingwrong,butthen[04:13:23]alsojustBladeRunner,right?Insertiondates,[04:13:27]expirationtimes,TyrellCorporation.[04:13:32]−Imean,that′sthethingaboutsci−fi.Theyreallydopredictthefuture.Yeah.[04:13:36]HaveyouthoughtorusedmuchofOpenClaw[04:13:41]orHermesAgent?Solikesystemswithwhichyoucommunicatevia[04:13:44]WhatsApp,Telegram,likethatmodeofcommunicationwiththeagent.[04:13:49]−IsetupOpenClawwhenitfirstcameout,andthatwasmyKEFbot−[04:13:54]...thatI−...thiswaslikeinFebruary,Ithink.Iwasreallyjustenamored[04:13:59]bythefactthatthiswashowitworked,andthenthenewcommunicationmodel[04:14:03]ofjusttextingyouragentseemedreallygreat.[04:14:07]Soatthetime,wewerelookingatMCP,thisprotocolformakingiteasierfor[04:14:11]agentstotalktoyoursystem,andIfoundtheprotocoltobe[04:14:14]unreasonablycumbersome,justnotveryelegantlydesignedbecauseinpartit[04:14:20]wasn′tdesignedforwhatweweretryingtomakeitdo.Weweretryingto−−Iwastryingtomakeit[04:14:24]talktoawebsystem,anditwasdesignedforstateful[04:14:28]interactionsofotherkindsonlocalmachines,andthereforeitrequired[04:14:32]allsortsofcumbersomesetupanddanceand,andIwasjust[04:14:36]like,"Idon′twannawritethisbyhand."[04:14:39]Now,ofcourse,todayIwouldneverwriteitbyhand,butatthetimeIwasthinking,"Ihavetowritethisbyhand.[04:14:43]Idon′twannawriteitbyhand.Sowhat′sadifferentway?Couldtheagentsjustuse[04:14:47]thewebinterfaceswealreadyhave?"[04:14:49]AndIsetitoffonatrialtohaveitsignupfor[04:14:53]Fizzy,whichwastheproductwehadjustreleasedatthetime.And[04:14:59]itgoestotheFizzysiteand,andstartsfillingitout,andthenitgoeslike,"Hey,Idon′thavean[04:15:02]emailaddress.Signingupforthisservicerequiresanemailaddress."AndthefirstthingIthought,like,"Ohman,[04:15:06]nowIgottasetupanemailaddress."AndthenIthought,"No,yousetupanemailaddress.[04:15:11]Gotohey.com,signupforanemailaddress."AndI′mlike,"Heyisnotgonnagetthis."[04:15:15]Andofcourse,nowitseemsobviousitwasgonnagetthis,butatthe[04:15:19]timeitwasagreatrevelationtomethatitcould,[04:15:22]justonpuredirectionthroughprompts,figureout,A,[04:15:26]Igottagotofizzy.com,Igottafindthesignuplink.Istartfillingouttheform.[04:15:30]Oh,IrealizeIneedanemailaddress.Oh,Igottaaskmy[04:15:34]prompterwhattodonow.Hetellsmetogotohey.com.Igo[04:15:38]there,Isignupforthewholething,[04:15:40]andthengobackandsignupforFizzy,andcompletethe[04:15:44]entirecycle.Andafteritdidthat,Iwaslike,"Jesus."SoI[04:15:48]waslike,"Well,nowyouhaveanemailaddress.GosignupforBasecamp.I′llinvite[04:15:52]you.Justcheckyouremail,"ItoldKEFthebot."Justcheckyouremail."[04:15:56]SoIsentaninvitefromBasecamptotheagent.Theagent[04:16:00]receivestheemailinHey,notthroughaCLI,notthroughan[04:16:04]MCP,justusingtheweb,right?Clickstheemail,clickstheinvitelink,[04:16:09]isinBasecamp.Like,"WhatshouldIdonow?"AndIjustgolike,"Idon′tknow.Gotoour[04:16:13]AIroomandintroduceyourself."Again,purelythroughthewebinterface.[04:16:18]Go−findstheAIroom,goesinthere,"Hey,I′mKEF.""I′m,[04:16:22]uh,David′sAIbot.I′msoexcitedtobehere."Iwaslike−[04:16:29]...mindblown.Now,whatwasinterestingaboutthatexperimentwas,A,itwas[04:16:33]thatglimpseofthefuture,becauseitwaskindaslow.[04:16:37]Ithinkittookmaybe12minutestodothewholethingendtoend,right?[04:16:41]NowIshouldactuallyrerunthattest.I′dbeshockedifit′snotmuchfaster.[04:16:45]IwasjustusingtheGroqbotthing−...whichhasallthese[04:16:49]stuffbuiltinforusingbrowsersandusingacomputer,and[04:16:53]hasitsowndedicatedcomputerwithoutyouhavingtosetupacomputer.[04:16:56]It′sbasicallylikeaclawinabox.[04:16:59]AndIwasaskingittosignupforsomething,anditkindof...I[04:17:03]gotaglimpseoflike,ohyeah,that′swherewearenow,andit′ssomuchfastertouse.[04:17:07]Butatthetime,Iwasjustblownaway.AndthenIuseditforalittlebitandIfoundlike,[04:17:11]ah,it′snotthereyet.Ican′tactuallycommunicateitwithinthisway.Itstill[04:17:15]needstheCLI.ItstillneedsanMCPbecauseit′sjusttooslowandtootoken[04:17:19]inefficientandsoforth.Butitwasthisglimpseofthefuture.Andthenafterthat,[04:17:23]Ikindajustdidn′tuseit,becausethethingsIwannauseagentsfor,Iwas[04:17:28]mostlyinfrontofmycomputertodo.Now,thathaschangedalittlebitlately,and[04:17:32]it′soneofthereasonswhyI′mso[04:17:37]kindofokayaboutusingClaudeCode,becauseClaudehasthebest[04:17:42]mobileapp,whereanysessionyoustartClaudeCodeinyour[04:17:46]terminalonacomputerisaccessiblethroughtheapp−[04:17:49]−Yeah.Iremember[04:17:49]−...withoutyouhavingtodoanythingatall.[04:17:52]Andyoucandoaterminal.LikeIinstalledTerminusanditcanrunHerderandsoon,[04:17:56]butit′salittlecumbersomeandyou′redoinglivetypingonacomputer,soyoufeelthelatency.[04:18:00]Whenyou′reusingtheClaudeapptoyourClaudeCodeinstances,it[04:18:04]feelsjustlikechattingwithit,withoutthecumbersomenessofhavingtosetupaTelegram[04:18:07]accountandsoforth.Now,ifyouwannauseanopenClaudetolikerun[04:18:11]yourlife,well,thenthisdoesn′tdothat.But[04:18:15]Ihaven′tbeensointerestedinthatforsomereason.Maybeoneofthereasonsisthat[04:18:19]Jamie,mywife,islike,"We′renotgettingarobotinsidethehouse."SoI′mlike,"Ah,I[04:18:24]betternothookituptothe[04:18:26]Sortofsmarthousehere."Ifitstartsturninglightsonandofflike[04:18:30]apoltergeist,Idon′tthinkI′mgonnabeallthatpopular.So,[04:18:34]andpartofthereasonIsaythis,I′veheardsomeofthestoriesofpeoplewhohavehookedituptotheirwhole[04:18:38]life.Andum,Imean,it′snotmystorytotell,soI′lljustsharesortof[04:18:42]thebriefanecdote.Oneguywastellingthestoryabouthowhehookeditup[04:18:46]tobothhishealthdata−...andhisTeslacar.Andhisagent[04:18:53]gotobsessedwiththefactthathewasn′tdrinkingenoughwater,[04:18:56]andlike,"Hey,yougottadrinkmorewater."Soatsomepointhe′s[04:19:00]drivingalong,andsuddenlytheTeslastartsdrivinginanewdirection.[04:19:04]Theagenthadrealizedtherewasagrocerystoreonthewayhome−[04:19:08]...thattheycouldswingby−[04:19:09]−That′sgreat[04:19:10]−...andpickupsomewater.[04:19:11]−That′sgreat.[04:19:12]−Andyou′relike,thisisoneofthosethingswhereit′slikebothfunnyandalso[04:19:15]totallyBlackMirror,andalsototallylike,well,okay,[04:19:19]there′snotthatmanystepsfromherewherethe[04:19:23]poltergeistisinyourhouse.SoIwasjustlike,"Ah,Idon′tneedthat."[04:19:26]IdoactuallynowlikethefactthatIcancontroltheagents[04:19:30]throughClaudeCode,justthroughtheappifI,evenifIdon′tusethemthatmuch.[04:19:35]−Idothinkit′sveryusefulto,forbothOpenClaudeandHermesAgentto,um,[04:19:40]touseittogetaglimpseofadifferentinteractionmode.[04:19:44]−Yes.[04:19:45]−Andlike,justto′causeit,itfeelslikethefuture,[04:19:48]notnecessarilyinthisway,butit′sinsomewaysgoingthere.[04:19:51]−Yes.Ithinkwhat′salsodifferentwiththosesystemsistheyhavethis[04:19:55]wholememorysystem,wherethey′rebuildingupknowledgeofwho[04:19:59]youareandwhatyoulike.[04:20:01]Um,Tobyhastoldthestoriesabouthowhisagentwillshopforhim,thatithasan[04:20:05]allowance,andit′llpickoutclothesforhim,andit′lljustshowupatthe[04:20:09]doorbecausehisagent′s−[04:20:11]...boughtsomethingforhim.Andlike,it′soneofthosethingswherelike,man,thatfeelsfuture.[04:20:15]Alsoalittlescary.ButIcanlivevicariously[04:20:19]throughotherswhoareonthatfrontier.[04:20:22]−Andlikeyousaid,you′rethinkingofthe,inthefuturedoinga[04:20:25]mobileversionofMach−E.[04:20:28]−SoImean,thisisthedelusionsofgrandeurthatstartkickinginonceyougetthe[04:20:32]seeminglyunlimitedpowers−...I′vewitnessedwiththecreationofQuattro.[04:20:36]−Sowhatwouldthatlooklike?Wordtodescribe.AreyoudoyoumeanlikeAndroid?[04:20:41]−That′stheobviouspath,right?SoAndroidisopensource,andyoucanforkit,and[04:20:45]peoplehave.There′sallsortsofGrapheneOSisonesuch[04:20:49]version.Therearelimitationstothatmodel,Iknowthat.Tap−to−pay[04:20:53]andotherthingsaroundcameramodelsand,andsoforth,butthatall[04:20:57]seemssurmountable.ItallseemsthatIwouldloveifmy[04:21:01]phonewasasmalleableasmycomputer,ifitlookedascoolasmycomputernow[04:21:05]does.IfIcouldgetessentiallyOmarchymobile,thatsoundsamazing.[04:21:09]−Iwonderhowmuchworkthatis.[04:21:11]−I′mgonnafindout.[04:21:12]−Yeah.Youknow,it′slikethosethingsthatyourealizeonceyoustart[04:21:16]building,forexample,thatabrowserisverydifficulttodo.[04:21:20]−Yes.[04:21:20]−Andso,like,Iwonderwiththeoperatingsystem−[04:21:23]−Yeah,thedevelopersofLadybirdis,isfindingthatout,likeAndreasand−[04:21:27]−Yeah[04:21:27]−...histeam.Now,interestingwiththatprojectwasthebrowser′sbasicallythe[04:21:31]secondmostcomplicatedsoftwaresystemintheworld,thefirstonebeingtheLinuxkernel.[04:21:35]Right?Intermsoftheselargetensof[04:21:39]millionsoflinesofcodesystems.Soveryaudacious[04:21:43]actuallytobeginsuchamissionwithasmallteamlikeAndreasdid[04:21:46]beforewehadagents.Butnowthatwedohaveagents,[04:21:51]we′regonnasee,andwe′reprobablygonnaseesoonerratherthanlater.[04:21:55]Imean,ifone−−Ifthere′sonethingagents[04:21:58]arealreadyexceptionallygoodat,itistoreadspecsandimplementthem.[04:22:03]AndImean,Idon′tknowhowlongthespecsareforCSSandHTMLatthispoint,and[04:22:08]JavaScriptontop,butthey′reverylong.[04:22:11]Anditwouldtakehumansmany,manyyearstoimplementthem.We′regonnafind[04:22:15]outjusthowquicklyagentscandothem.[04:22:18]−YoumentionedgettingsomecriticismforOmarchy,solet′s[04:22:24]walkfurtherdownthatpathofcriticism.[04:22:27]Youhavemadesomeofyourpoliticalopinionsknown,[04:22:32]um,Iguessyoucouldbroadlyputinthecategoryof[04:22:36]immigrationorillegalimmigration,orwhat−[04:22:39]−I′dsaymassimmigration.[04:22:40]−Massimmigration,theroleofdemographics[04:22:45]inthe,intheformationofaculture,ofa[04:22:51]society,ofanation,andyou′vegottenquitealotofcriticismfor[04:22:55]thatandcreatedalotofdrama.Doyouregretanyofthat[04:23:00]drama?Like,what′syourgeneralthinkingabout−[04:23:06]−Notforasecond.[04:23:08]−Okay.[04:23:08]−AndthereasonIsaythatisthattheOvertonwindowdoesnotopen[04:23:12]itself.Itopensonenudgeatatimebypeopleriskingalittle.[04:23:19]Alittlereputation,alittlepushback,alittlecriticism,ormaybesometimesalot[04:23:23]ofreputationoralotofcriticismoralotofpushback.[04:23:26]AndIthinkthequestionofmassimmigrationinEurope[04:23:30]wasformanyyearsthistotaltaboo,[04:23:34]anditstillisinseveralEuropeancountries.Now,for[04:23:39]reasonsofmaybejustchanceandhappenstance,theyweren′t[04:23:43]inDenmark.TheDanesstartedhavingthediscussionaroundmass[04:23:47]immigrationandtheconsequencesthereofinthemid−′90s.[04:23:51]Reallyearly.Andsomeofitcanbetracedbacktooneman,MogensGlistrup,[04:23:59]whowasaveryquirkycharacter.Irememberhim,[04:24:03]seeinghimontheTVinthe′80stalkingaboutthedangersofmass[04:24:06]immigration.Andthiswasatatimewhere−−Igrewupinthe′80s,[04:24:10]andintheneighborhoodIgrewupin,inBrønshøj,in,whatwasit?[04:24:17]′84,99[04:24:22]peoplewhocouldtracetheirlineagebacktoDaneswho′dlivedinthat[04:24:26]countryfor1,000years.TheDaneshaveoneoftheoldest[04:24:30]monarchiesintheworld,allthewaybacktoHaraldBluetooth,[04:24:34]who′sliterallywhohasnamedthestandardBluetooth.Sowellover1,000[04:24:38]years.Like,there′salonglineagethereofpeoplewholivedinthesameplace.And[04:24:42]99inthatneighborhood.And[04:24:45]thenearly′90s,Ithinkitgoesto5[04:24:49]likethat,andthenatthispoint,it′sdowntoaround60−somethingor70[04:24:53]...inBrønshøj.That′sabigchange.And[04:24:58]theDanesstartednoticingthatortalkingaboutthat,[04:25:02]thatthiswasnotanundividedblessing,[04:25:07]thatthereweredownsidestomassimmigration[04:25:11]inaboutthe′90s.Andthedebatereallyroaredthroughthe2000sina[04:25:15]waythatdidn′thappenintheneighboringcountries.SoSwedeninparticular[04:25:19]justdidn′thavethatdebateatall.Totaltaboo.SamethingwithNorway,same[04:25:23]thingwithothercountriesinEurope.Andsuddenlynow,[04:25:29]aftersomeyearsafter′15,wherewehadthebigmigrationofamillionSyrians[04:25:34]walkingupthroughthehighwaysinEurope,andGermanychoosingto[04:25:38]takealotofthemand30,000arrivinginDenmarkandsoforth,[04:25:42]It′sgottenmoreofafocus,right?[04:25:44]Becausethischangehashappened.Andoneofthe[04:25:49]waysIfindthatyoucanspotwhere[04:25:52]sortofthere′ssomethingthatisn′trightinthecultureis,like,whatareyou[04:25:56]allowedtotalkabout?Whatareyouallowedtonotice,actually,ishowIshouldputit.[04:26:00]AndwhatInoticedinanessay,whenwasthat?Onlyayearandahalf[04:26:04]agoasIrememberLondon,[04:26:07]wasthatIstartedcomingtoLondoninthelate′90sorsomethinglikethat.[04:26:11]Atthetime,whatever,it′s5960[04:26:17]20yearslater,we′redownto34somethinglikethat.Like,that′s[04:26:21]noticeable.Like,literallyjustwalkingonthestreet,yourealize,well,thisisa[04:26:25]differentcityfromwhatitwaswhenIvisited20yearsago.[04:26:29]Andifyouwent20yearsbeforethat,[04:26:32]yougetbacktosimilarratesasaswhattheDaneshave.Thiswaslikea[04:26:36]countryofethnicBritsinthe85s,90spercentiles−[04:26:42]...ifyougetfurtherback.Sothat′sadifferentcountryina[04:26:45]generation.It′sokaytonoticethat.It′salsookaytothink,"Doyouknowwhat?[04:26:51]Idon′tagreewiththat.""Iwishitwasn′tthatway."Imean,if[04:26:57]ThelasttimeIwasinChinawas′19,2019.IwasinShanghai.[04:27:03]Um,itwasallChinese.[04:27:07]IfI,whenIgobackherethisOctober,suddenlyfindthatthere′s[04:27:11]only30there′s70[04:27:15]I′dbealittleweird.I′dprobablybelike,"Uh,whathappened?"[04:27:22]AndIwouldnottakeoffenseiftheChinese[04:27:26]inthatinstantwouldgolike,"Ah,wedon′tlikethat."[04:27:29]SothisideathatcountriesofEuropedon′thave[04:27:36]arightto,A,noticewhat′shappeningand,B,opposewhat′s[04:27:40]happening,Ifindjusttobe,uh,[04:27:45]wrong,right?Likethere′sjust−−Ithinkthere′samoralargumentfor[04:27:50]self−determination,andweinvokethatargumentallthetimeinother[04:27:53]regionsaroundtheworldthatlike,oh,thepeoplewholiveinthatregion,theyhavearightto[04:27:57]self−determination,[04:27:59]umfortheircountry.AndIthinkit′scompletelyfairfor,say,the[04:28:03]DanesortheSwedesortheNorwegianstogolike,"Well,we′vebeenkingdomsherefor[04:28:07]athousandyearswithacertainethnicmix−up."It′sa−−Imean,[04:28:13]I′mabigfanofimmigration.I′manimmigranttotheUS.Um,[04:28:18]cherry−pickedimmigrationwherecountries[04:28:21]competetoattractthesmartest,mosttalented[04:28:25]peoplearoundtheworldisreallygood.[04:28:27]−Legalmerit−basedimmigration.[04:28:30]−Merit−basediskeyherebecausethere′sactuallyvirtuallynoillegal[04:28:34]immigrationinmostofEurope.SouthernEuropehassomeillegalimmigration,but[04:28:38]mostofEuropedoesnothaveabigproblemwithillegalimmigration.[04:28:43]Andtheproblemiswithmassimmigrationofotherkinds,andthatyou[04:28:46]endupwithdemographicsthatarejusttotallydifferent[04:28:50]fromwhattheywereevenafewshortdecadesago.[04:28:55]AndIthinkthecountriesofEuropewouldbenefit[04:28:59]fromimmigration.Infact,oneoftheinterestingthingsabouttheDanesis[04:29:03]theycarrymeticulousstatisticsonimmigration.[04:29:07]I′mnotentirelysurewhythey′resodetailed.[04:29:11]Maybeit′sallthewaybacktoMogensGlistrupandhis[04:29:15]discussioninthe′90s,buttheydo.Andwhat′sclearfromthosestatisticsisthatwhenthe[04:29:19]DaneshavefolksfromtheUK,France,theUSshowup,onaverage,[04:29:27]thoseimmigrantsarereallybeneficialtotheDanishstate.Theycontribute[04:29:31]farmorethanwhattheyaskofthestate.So[04:29:37]theDanesshouldacceptimmigrantswhodo[04:29:41]that,whocontributefarmorethantheytake.Thenyoulookatotherformsofimmigrant[04:29:45]groups.TherewasjustatallythatcameoutlastweekfromaDanish[04:29:51]politicianthathadaskedthe,Ithinkfinanceministrytodothis[04:29:55]tallywiththelatestnumbers.WhatdoesitcosttheDanishstatetohavepositive[04:30:01]immigration?ThiscaseasImentioned.Ithinkforthe,[04:30:05]Onthatlistwhatever,France,UK,US,theywere[04:30:09]allclusteredaroundthesamething,about25,000 net
[04:30:12] benefit to the Danish state
every year. It’s like, wow,
[04:30:16] that’s very positive. That’s
average again, right?
[04:30:19] And then at the other end
of the spectrum on the most
[04:30:23] costly immigrants was Somalis.
They ended up costing the Danish
[04:30:27] state on average $28,000 a year.
[04:30:33] I think it’s fair for the Danes to
go like, “We’d prefer to get more
[04:30:38] French, Brits, and Americans
and not so many Somalis.”
[04:30:44] - Why do you think you got
so much hate on that post?
[04:30:47] - That’s a very taboo topic
in a lot of circles.
[04:30:52] - Some of it has to do with
Overton window expansion?
[04:30:56] - I’m sure, but I also think— I mean, I
wanna take the steel man argument here.
[04:31:01] I do think that it, this can turn ugly,
right? Is it possible for some of these
[04:31:07] things to just veer into overt
[04:31:12] racism that isn’t founded in anything
else but a hatred of other people?
[04:31:17] Yeah, that could happen. But that risk does
not negate the need to have a discussion
[04:31:25] about the makeup of your country and what
your immigration policy should be like.
[04:31:29] And I— what I also find so funny
is, especially in Europe, it’s
[04:31:33] so kind of myopic that this discussion
about whether Europeans should
[04:31:37] have a right to self-determination about
what their countries look like, that
[04:31:41] standard seems to only apply there. No
one is trying to tell the Japanese, “Hey,
[04:31:47] you, you’re too Japanese.” Like whatever,
it’s 98%, I think, in Tokyo that’s, um—
[04:31:54] … Ethnic Japanese, right? Like, is
anyone trying to tell the Japanese that
[04:31:58] their Tokyo would be a much better
country if, if they were down to
[04:32:02] London levels of ethnic Japanese, that
it was, whatever, 37%? I don’t think so.
[04:32:08] So there’s this weird almost self-loathing,
in my opinion, I mean uh, Gad calls
[04:32:16] it suicidal empathy—
[04:32:18] … that permeates this stuff to
a degree that I still haven’t
[04:32:23] fully unpacked. Like, where is this coming
from? Why is it that way? But regardless,
[04:32:28] I just noticed, hey,
London looks different.
[04:32:34] I preferred the old London,
as I would say I preferred
[04:32:40] the neighborhood that I grew up in in
Copenhagen, how it looked in the ’80s.
[04:32:46] Like I— I totally get how you
can then jump five leaps and go
[04:32:52] like, “Okay, well-” That’s racist. And I
also, I don’t care anymore. Like, this is
[04:32:58] a fair discussion to have. Countries and
peoples have a right to set an immigration
[04:33:04] policy, and this notion that we shouldn’t
have any borders or, or even worse than
[04:33:11] that, it’s all just a blank slate,
that all peoples are just the
[04:33:15] same, and we can take people from
[04:33:19] one place of the earth and we can place them
in another place on the earth and everything’s
[04:33:23] just gonna work out hunky-dory.
[04:33:26] Empirically not true. Europe has
been running that experiment
[04:33:30] since the ’80s. It hasn’t
panned out well, and
[04:33:35] now there are forces in Europe who wanna
undo that experiment, who want to end mass
[04:33:42] immigration as it’s been run so far.
And I happen to believe, and so do
[04:33:48] a majority of Danes and a bunch of other
peoples that like, “Do you know what? Yeah,
[04:33:52] it hasn’t been working how we’ve been
doing it. We gotta make some changes.” And
[04:33:56] I don’t think that means, again, zero
immigration. Again, I’m an immigrant. I think
[04:34:00] US, generally speaking, has benefited
tremendously from immigration, but that’s the
[04:34:06] kind of sleight of hand. Immigration
depends greatly on who immigrates.
[04:34:12] And a country benefits when
the people who immigrate
[04:34:16] are net contributors to the
society, and in most cases,
[04:34:20] that they assimilate
with the local culture.
[04:34:23] If you come to Denmark and you wanna become a
Dane, and you put in all the effort, and you
[04:34:26] contribute to so- society, I think most
Danes would be quite happy to allow that
[04:34:34] in a reasonable number. If you come
to Denmark and you don’t wanna
[04:34:38] assimilate, and you are a net drain on
society, and you live in a parallel
[04:34:41] society, it’s also fair for Danes to
say like, “Uh, let’s stop doing that.”
[04:34:47] - It’s interesting that I’m
not well-versed on the
[04:34:51] immigration system in the United States, but as
far as I understand, merit-based systems have
[04:34:55] not passed here.
[04:34:58] - And then also, American culture
is very different. This is
[04:35:01] a point I did not fully appreciate
until living both places extensively.
[04:35:07] America has a culture of optional
[04:35:11] assimilation, where it is much
easier and then much more
[04:35:15] condoned for someone coming from Denmark
or Ukraine or wherever, come to America,
[04:35:22] buy into the American set of
values and norms and culture,
[04:35:26] and then be able to be respected
as Americans by other Americans.
[04:35:31] This is what’s so funny to me when
[04:35:35] there’s discussion like, “America is such a
racist country.” I’m like, “Have you ever been
[04:35:39] anywhere? Do you know
[04:35:42] what other countries are like?” Like,
if you think America is the most racist
[04:35:46] country, you are simply misinformed.
[04:35:51] I mean, we’re dealing with
that, with time we’ve
[04:35:55] spent in Denmark. My wife is
American of Scandinavian heritage-
[04:36:02] … but multiple generations in the
US. Very difficult. Very difficult-
[04:36:07] … as a blonde, blue-eyed
woman who’s put in
[04:36:12] all sorts of efforts of learning
the language and doing everything,
[04:36:16] still very, very difficult to
assimilate to Danish culture. In a
[04:36:20] way where if that had been
the other way around and she
[04:36:24] had been Danish and moving to the US, it
would not have been that difficult at all.
[04:36:27] And this was the other thing. I mean,
living in a country like Denmark with a,
[04:36:31] an American wife who is of Scandinavian
heritage and has put in all the effort,
[04:36:35] and still realizing, man, assimilation is
incredibly difficult, even when you’re
[04:36:42] 97% there all the way. Holy smokes,
must it be almost impossible if you
[04:36:48] come from a completely foreign
culture- … and foreign norms and
[04:36:54] the rest of it. And of course,
that’s what the stats I just quoted
[04:36:58] bear out, that the more dissimilar
[04:37:01] the culture is and the further it is
the less likely to be successful.
[04:37:07] - Has articulating that stance cost
you friendships, relationships?
[04:37:14] - Yes, but not just that alone, I would say.
[04:37:19] It’s more of the great
divide that happened around
[04:37:22] 2020, where I think a lot of these
political fault lines really opened up. And
[04:37:30] I mean, the shorthand in the US, I
think is were you woke or not? And
[04:37:37] clearly, I had a bunch of people
that I thought I had good
[04:37:41] relations with for many years,
who suddenly once that political
[04:37:47] fault line opened up, they
were clearly just not anymore.
[04:37:51] And I think that’s
regrettable. And I think I’ve,
[04:37:55] I’ve tried to put an effort into, um,
[04:38:00] sort of both understanding where that comes
from, in part because I’ve changed my mind
[04:38:04] on several of these topics over
the years, and it was like, well,
[04:38:08] sometimes you just change your mind after
time. Sometimes you change your mind after
[04:38:12] you get new information. There’s all
sorts of reasons and moments why you may
[04:38:16] change your mind, and we don’t all change
our mind on the same schedule or at all.
[04:38:20] Um, so surrounding yourselves and, and
or at least interacting with people that
[04:38:26] don’t think like you on every topic,
I think it’s quite healthy. I mean,
[04:38:32] I occasionally discuss politics with
my brother. I mean, we don’t quite
[04:38:36] see eye to eye on all these topics,
and sometimes the discussions can
[04:38:39] get a little heated, but then they’ll
also calm down and we realize, all
[04:38:43] right, okay, so we don’t agree on this, and
then we agree on a lot of other things.
[04:38:47] We appreciate a lot of the same things. Now,
this was actually one of the things when we had
[04:38:51] our big blowup at Basecamp, I came to
appreciate in a whole new way this-
[04:38:58] Earlier norm that talking
politics or religion or money
[04:39:04] with strangers or even acquaintances,
and certainly with colleagues,
[04:39:09] was just not a good idea.
That you had a much
[04:39:14] higher likelihood of being able to carry a good
working relationship with someone if you’re
[04:39:18] not rubbing your political differences
up against each other all the time. So
[04:39:23] I actually think liberals and
conservatives should work together. I
[04:39:27] think the country would be
much worse off if there’s a
[04:39:30] complete separation between the
[04:39:34] tribes, and then there can’t be
any overlap or interaction. And I
[04:39:37] think that mingling is so much easier to
[04:39:41] do if you just don’t focus on your
differences all the time. Focus
[04:39:45] on what you like together. I mean,
this is some of the people I’ve
[04:39:49] had unfortunately drifted from in tech.
[04:39:54] We had so much in common, so
much shared love for, say,
[04:39:58] Ruby or other things and,
like, isn’t that unfortunate?
[04:40:02] - I would like to live in a world
where the differences are the,
[04:40:06] are very interesting to also talk about.
[04:40:08] - Yes.
[04:40:09] - And not to be overly emotional-
[04:40:13] - Correct.
[04:40:13] - … about even radical differences.
[04:40:17] Because in the differences, first of
all, that’s where interesting stuff is.
[04:40:22] - Yes.
[04:40:22] - And, but also, it’s how you grow. It’s
a sign of health in a society if the,
[04:40:32] the differences are embraced and
they are brought together into
[04:40:36] community where you can talk about it.
[04:40:38] - One of the great illustrations of that
for me was when I watched a clip from
[04:40:42] William F. Buckley’s show. I think
it was called Firing Line or-
[04:40:46] - Yeah, yeah
[04:40:46] - … something like that. And he had
a member of the Black Panthers-
[04:40:50] … on his panel. It was quite obvious
that those two gentlemen did not
[04:40:55] share a lot of politics. They were able
to carry a conversation for, I think I
[04:41:01] watched it, 25 minutes. And Buckley’s just
[04:41:05] asking, like, “So what do you think about this?
What do you think about this?” And like, the Black
[04:41:09] Panther would reply as you would expect
the Black Panther to reply in the
[04:41:13] ’70s. Like, there was not a lot
of sort of conciliatory tones.
[04:41:19] And I just thought, like,
wow, that is so rare.
[04:41:23] If you had seen that show today,
it would’ve been a shouting
[04:41:27] match. It would’ve been just
accusations being hurled back and
[04:41:31] forth. The fact that Buckley
was able to just have these
[04:41:34] conversations with people he vehemently
disagreed with and still explore all the
[04:41:41] intellectual facets of their standpoints
and letting them speak to those facets,
[04:41:46] talks of a lost era that I’d
[04:41:50] very much like to get back
to. I mean, I always actually
[04:41:54] loved talking politics with friends that
[04:41:57] I trusted could talk about these
topics in a way where it didn’t
[04:42:01] have to be existential.
[04:42:03] - But there’s something about the current
era where that’s harder and harder to come
[04:42:07] by. And so what you just articulated is
important to say regularly to remind
[04:42:14] people of an ideal we should all strive
for, to be able to have differences
[04:42:18] and talk, and talk about them.
‘Cause like, politics is fun.
[04:42:22] Like I’ve gotten used to saying I hate
politics at this point, but what I
[04:42:26] really mean is whatever the system
that’s currently happening,
[04:42:30] where there’s certain topics, and I just
we know all the phrases you can say,
[04:42:35] That somehow put you in
a bin of blue or red,
[04:42:39] and that creates drama
versus a conversation.
[04:42:44] Like I could, I could think of a
lot of harmless, if I wasn’t paying
[04:42:48] attention to the internet, I could
think of a bunch of harmless statements
[04:42:52] I could make analyzing the
situation in the world
[04:42:57] that would trigger everybody to
say, “Oh, that guy’s a leftist-”
[04:43:01] - Yes.
[04:43:02] - … piece of shit,” or a you know,
a right-wing fascist. And then
[04:43:10] objectively, if I wasn’t paying attention to
the internet, I would be, and I have been
[04:43:13] shocked. ‘Cause I haven’t been paying
attention to the internet deeply. Uh but
[04:43:19] reading and preparing a lot,
for example, for, for the war
[04:43:23] in Ukraine, and I have
been shocked how certain
[04:43:29] statements from me can come off as
one way or the other, and I get
[04:43:33] viciously attacked for it. But what that
attack is doing is it’s saying, “Hey, you,
[04:43:39] asshole who thinks you could just move
about and think freely, pick a bin-
[04:43:45] - Yes.
[04:43:45] - … and sit in that fucking bin.”
[04:43:46] - Yes.
[04:43:47] - Put on that blue shirt
or red shirt. And then
[04:43:51] actually what I’ve realized is
things calm down. They don’t,
[04:43:55] the system doesn’t pick on
you if you just say, “I’m
[04:43:59] a blue person,” or, “I’m a red person.”
[04:44:02] - Right.
[04:44:02] - But if you’re just, like, curiously exploring
the world and reasoning about the world,
[04:44:07] the system punishes you. And I
hate that, ‘cause I wanna get back
[04:44:11] to the Buckley and the
Black Panther discussion.
[04:44:14] - Yes.
[04:44:14] - And you were just saying opinions. But then
looking pragmatically at the situation,
[04:44:21] I have realized not to mention
politics unless I really care
[04:44:25] about an issue. ‘Cause I realize
there’s a cost. They’ll, they’ll
[04:44:29] put you in the blue bin or red bin.
[04:44:31] So you have to be more
deliberate about choosing.
[04:44:33] - Yes. And I’ve tried to be more
conscious of that, too. And then
[04:44:40] when I do choose to speak about it, it’s usually
because I have deliberated, and I think-
[04:44:44] … “You know what? This is worth
it.” Now, I say that, and then I also
[04:44:51] catch myself thinking the opposite
all the time, that I follow some
[04:44:55] person or another for whatever
their technical work, and then I-
[04:45:00] … learned or political
[04:45:02] standpoint. And I often do think,
“I wish I didn’t know that.” So,
[04:45:08] it’s hypocritical-
[04:45:09] … then to think that of other people and
then go like, “Well, occasionally I will-
[04:45:13] … chime in on a debate
that’s controversial,”
[04:45:18] and then you have to accept that there is a
price to that. And I do think you should,
[04:45:22] and more people should, be
somewhat conscious about that. And
[04:45:26] again, we’re both contradicting
ourselves here, but saying like,
[04:45:29] “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could talk about
politics in a more free and open forum and just
[04:45:33] intellectually turn ideas around?”
Yes, it would. Is that currently
[04:45:37] possible in the climate of
social media and so forth? It’s
[04:45:41] quite difficult. Now, some of it could
simply also be a moment, and we could get
[04:45:48] past that moment.
[04:45:49] - Yeah. I hope so.
[04:45:49] - Maybe there is a way to get back to Buckley’s
conversation with the Black Panthers,
[04:45:54] even on social media, in a way
where those discussions don’t lead
[04:45:58] to the sort of just vicious mob cancellation
nonsense drives that we’ve had, right?
[04:46:05] I actually think we’re closer
there now than we were five years
[04:46:09] ago. Like, the tribalism and the sanctions
those tribes were able to exact on
[04:46:16] heretics in 2020 was way greater than
[04:46:20] it was in 2025. Certainly within tech.
Now, I know if you’re in academia,
[04:46:24] I mean, try going into the sociology
department at I don’t know, Harvard and
[04:46:29] mention some right-wing ideas. I don’t think it’s gonna
go over very well, and I don’t think you’re gonna
[04:46:33] recover from it quickly. But
in tech and in many other
[04:46:37] business domains at least, it
is now possible to have an
[04:46:41] opinion that does not square with what the
consensus was in 2020. That’s for sure.
[04:46:47] - Well, there’s some drama in the Rails
community. There’s some drama elsewhere.
[04:46:51] Is it, is it all… How did that
turn out? Is that all okay?
[04:46:56] - In the sense that every single round
of drama shrinks. So it’s like we’ve,
[04:47:03] we had this peak infection of
mega drama around the same
[04:47:07] time every other community had a
peak infection of drama around
[04:47:11] 2020. And then you just see, like,
every time there’s a new flare up,
[04:47:15] it’s less. And the kind of
people who are ideologically
[04:47:19] wedded to sort of that struggle
just shrinks and shrinks and
[04:47:23] shrinks. And at this point,
[04:47:25] one of the best things that happened
for X, in my opinion, was that Bluesky
[04:47:29] and Mastodon came around.
Because it kind of was like this
[04:47:33] honeypot for just the most
vicious individuals on X
[04:47:42] and Twitter at the time, right?
Who just congregated here in an
[04:47:46] ever-shrinking echo chamber that just
[04:47:50] went through purity cycle after purity
cycle and shrank every single time to the
[04:47:54] point that there were just not a
lot left. And the people who are
[04:47:57] left now there, they’re just
out of sight, out of mind. And
[04:48:02] that’s not to say that X is some sort of
perfect place, or there aren’t firing squads
[04:48:06] occasionally there, or there aren’t… But
there’s less of it. Like, every single
[04:48:10] time I’ve been pulled into a
Mastodon, or not been pulled in, just
[04:48:14] spectated from afar, thread, a Bluesky
or whatever, it was like, “Oh,
[04:48:18] shit yeah, this is what Twitter
used to be like. Jesus.”
[04:48:22] And now you can actually be on
X, as I am, and, like, 90% of my
[04:48:29] engagement is about cool Linux
stuff, cool technology stuff. “Look,
[04:48:33] I discovered a new computer. Can you see how
fast it is?” And I can have those conversations
[04:48:37] with other people who are just also excited about
computers. And then there’s, like, 10% of it
[04:48:41] left that’s like, all right, I’ll chime in on something that’s a
little controversial, and we can have a little discussion there.
[04:48:45] And then we can just go back to
being excited about computers.
[04:48:47] The algorithm is actually very good
at finding stuff that you will find
[04:48:51] interesting, or s- I shouldn’t say
that, engaging. Sometimes it’s
[04:48:54] enraging, but it is engaging, and
therefore, revealed preference
[04:48:58] is that most people want a For You page.
They don’t want just a following feed.
[04:49:01] - No, but they’re addicted to
the For You page, right?
[04:49:05] - They… Yes, yes. That’s true.
[04:49:05] - I think an LLM, like, if we had a strong
[04:49:09] LLM doing the feed that’s
personalized, it would do much
[04:49:12] better. The problem is how to deliver
that at scale is extremely difficult.
[04:49:16] - Well, the problem is the reward function
[04:49:20] is engagement. And as soon as the
reward function is engagement-
[04:49:24] … engagement’s gonna follow
base instincts, and here we go.
[04:49:28] But I also don’t wanna be so
negative. To me, and I get
[04:49:32] we all have our own
personalized algorithms,
[04:49:35] and sometimes it gets a little much. But I
would say, on average, over the last 10 years,
[04:49:39] this is the best X has ever been.
And I say that as someone who cares
[04:49:43] about a lot of technology talk,
a lot of Linux talk, and a lot
[04:49:47] of that. That that’s able to
happen now in a way where
[04:49:51] it doesn’t constantly get gatecrashed
by people who wanna drag it into
[04:49:54] some political discussion-
[04:49:57] … I find to be really awesome. I find
actually X to be a great place to find that.
[04:50:02] Now, it’s also a place to find other things,
and we all have our own algorithms, so you
[04:50:06] can’t make any declarative
announcements about what
[04:50:10] X is or what it isn’t. Your feed is probably
totally different from my feed, and it’s totally
[04:50:14] different from someone else’s feed, right?
[04:50:16] - Yeah, I can’t comment on this because
[04:50:21] because of the nature of the fact that
I interview a wide variety of people,
[04:50:27] my feed is probably just a-
[04:50:28] - Is it, is it good for your feed or is it bad
for your feed that you have to have it right?
[04:50:31] - It’s bad.
[04:50:32] It’s bad ‘cause I could be like, “I’m
eating this apple. It’s so delicious.”
[04:50:36] And then a bunch of people will show up,
“Well, it’s because you’re a Zelensky shill-
[04:50:40] - Yeah, right.
[04:50:40] - … or you’re a Putin shill, you
piece of shit.” It’s like, all right.
[04:50:45] I’ll just go back to the-
[04:50:45] - I mean, I occasionally have
a little bit of that where
[04:50:49] you just go like, “Wait, what? What are we
talking about? What are you… Why would
[04:50:53] you show up in this way?” This is one of the reasons
why I actually really enjoy podcasts, because I have
[04:50:57] found that even in long-form writing,
when I make long-form arguments,
[04:51:00] people hear it in whatever voice
they have in their head for me.
[04:51:04] And that often gets pre-programmed
in advance of the arguments,
[04:51:08] just like, well, this guy
is a, whatever, fascist.
[04:51:13] And then they hear the words and they
read the words in those names. When they
[04:51:17] see or hear the actual tone of
how I’m presenting the arguments,
[04:51:21] they may not agree with those arguments. I
mean, many of them, of course, obviously don’t.
[04:51:24] But it’s much harder to just
dismiss or hate someone like that.
[04:51:29] At least that’s what I’ve found, and that’s the response that
I’ve gotten, that people are like, “Well, I had a certain
[04:51:33] opinion and then I heard you on Lex. That
actually sounded much more reasonable.”
[04:51:39] - But even more than that, I would
love it if people just exercise
[04:51:45] this kind of approach to other people of,
like, assuming they’re a good person.
[04:51:52] - Yes.
[04:51:53] - And then, and if they have an
opinion you disagree with, they’re a
[04:51:57] good person who has an opinion. You can
maybe think they’re stupid, fine. Just think
[04:52:01] they’re lost. But think of them
as a good person. I think if you
[04:52:05] think of, you start, there’s,
one of the things that gets
[04:52:08] engagement is kind of
shitting on other people.
[04:52:11] - Right.
[04:52:12] - And if you just approach
other people as they’re,
[04:52:16] you’re looking for bad, you will always find
bad in them. There’s something annoying
[04:52:20] about them.
[04:52:20] - 100%.
[04:52:21] - And if you look at people in that way, you’re
not gonna learn from it, and you’re gonna
[04:52:25] fill your heart with hate. You’re not
gonna, it’s just a bad way to live and
[04:52:29] to interact with the world, and that
is one of the things that the internet
[04:52:33] kind of encourages, so. It’d
be nice if you just approach
[04:52:37] even people who you really disagree with, it’s
like, oh, I might learn something from this
[04:52:41] person. The Black Panther person, William
Buckley, we might hate just love them.
[04:52:45] - So microcosm of this. There’s a guy,
Theo, I don’t know if you follow him.
[04:52:50] - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[04:52:51] - Um, we had a bit of a thing over the
fact that we stopped using TypeScript-
[04:52:57] - Yeah
[04:52:57] - … for a project, and
[04:53:00] he didn’t like that and had opinions about
that and other actions. And after that I
[04:53:03] thought like, what a bozo.
[04:53:06] And, and do you know what? I still think that
was a bozo move, and then I can also think like,
[04:53:10] well, the dude’s really into AI.
He’s trying all these models, and
[04:53:14] we can share some excitement about that,
so I just started following him yesterday.
[04:53:16] - Awesome.
[04:53:17] - I was like, do you know what? I don’t have
to agree with you on everything. Uh, I don’t
[04:53:20] even have to like some of the
things that you did or said or
[04:53:24] whatever. I can follow you
anyway. So if I can follow
[04:53:28] back Theo, then I think there’s
room for world peace here.
[04:53:33] - Yeah, he’s actually a really good
example. He’s really opinionated,
[04:53:37] Changes his mind quite a bit,
can get snarky, but I think he’s
[04:53:41] a good person underneath.
[04:53:43] - And either way, I just, you know what?
My feed is more interesting when
[04:53:47] there’s some people talking about things
that I care about and yeah, I don’t have
[04:53:51] to agree with you on
everything. I just don’t.
[04:53:55] - This I found pretty funny, that you
mentioned something your wife said
[04:54:00] that stuck with you, that all this
tech- adjacent extreme longevity
[04:54:04] focus in men is like anorexia in
women, a physical manifestation of
[04:54:08] anxiety and lack of control. That
somehow rang true a little bit.
[04:54:13] - It certainly did to a lot
of people. I think that
[04:54:16] tweet really popped off, and I
don’t know if you noticed, but
[04:54:20] Bryan Johnson chimed in on the thread, and
[04:54:25] I could see how Bryan would
read that as a bit of a jab.
[04:54:30] And I do think that Jamie was probably
[04:54:35] thinking of him amongst other
people in that conversation. And
[04:54:41] it’s also an example of where even
though I’m not subscribing to
[04:54:49] Bryan’s mission of, I think it’s
the slogan’s don’t die. I actually
[04:54:56] I do wanna die. I don’t wanna do this
forever. Like, I think the human li-
[04:55:00] lifespan of about 90 to 100 sounds about
right. I’m embracing the finitude of life.
[04:55:08] We don’t have to agree on that. In fact,
[04:55:10] Bryan is a vastly more
interesting human to me because
[04:55:14] we don’t agree with that, and Bryan’s
[04:55:20] willingness to literally put
his own skin and all sorts of
[04:55:23] other body elements in the game for that
mission is really interesting. Now,
[04:55:31] I can have that view, this is really
interesting. I’m glad Bryan is
[04:55:35] pursuing this passion of
his, and then also find
[04:55:40] my wife’s analysis to ring true,
that it does seem like there is some
[04:55:48] underlying, uh, I don’t know,
[04:55:51] fear of… I was talking to Jamie
yesterday about this, and she was saying,
[04:55:55] Or comparing it to this
[04:55:59] sense of people who didn’t feel like
they had lived enough. And one of
[04:56:03] the reasons perhaps that they
hadn’t lived enough was that modern
[04:56:06] society now is a surveillance state, not
[04:56:10] by the state actually, but by each other.
There are camera phones everywhere.
[04:56:15] Every indiscretion or even
outburst of fun or cringe
[04:56:21] is highly likely to be
recorded and then shared
[04:56:26] to the point of ridicule, and
what is the rational reaction for
[04:56:29] humans under those conditions is
to pull back, is to make sure you
[04:56:33] don’t dance like nobody’s
watching because-
[04:56:36] … they’re probably filming
you to your great and
[04:56:39] eternal embarrassment on the internet,
so maybe you just shouldn’t dance at
[04:56:42] all. And therefore, if we’ve all
[04:56:46] retracted to the point that
we’re barely living, we’re
[04:56:49] clinging on to wanting
it to last forever. Now-
[04:56:54] … I mean, I’m sure that thesis does not apply in
all circumstances. I don’t even know if it applies to
[04:56:58] Bryan or, or anyone else here. But I
think there’s something to this, that
[04:57:03] if you feel like you’ve really lived,
you’re okay thinking I’ve lived enough.
[04:57:10] And that the, it having an end is
not something to be fought. Now,
[04:57:20] is it also possible that this is all just
existential post-rationalization, and if
[04:57:24] tomorrow there was a live forever pill,
we’d all take it? Yeah, that’s possible.
[04:57:29] Is it also possible that if we did
that, society be, would be worse off?
[04:57:33] Yes. Is it possible that the human
lifespan is the length it is for
[04:57:41] sociological reasons, not
just biological reasons? Yes.
[04:57:45] So I think these are just all interesting
questions, and I just thought her analysis
[04:57:51] really got to something here.
And that discussion has come up
[04:57:55] afterwards. I mean, that, I think that
tweet is like a year old. But just
[04:57:59] recently, we’ve been talking about
this over-optimizers. I saw,
[04:58:03] uh, Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom had
a bit where he was like, “Yeah, okay,
[04:58:07] maybe we did go a little overboard.”
And the triggering thing was
[04:58:11] the Diary of a CEO, where the
host was saying something to the
[04:58:15] effect of, “I had a glass of wine and
the next three days were ruined.”
[04:58:20] And that to me, I mean, in his circumstance,
I’m sure that’s true. Like, if you have not
[04:58:25] drank any alcohol for a very long time and you have
just a little, I could see how it can have effect.
[04:58:29] But also there’s something
in that that just
[04:58:33] triggered a visceral reaction, I think, for a lot of
people, and myself included, where I was like, “Fuck,
[04:58:37] man, I should have a glass of wine just right
now, even though I don’t usually drink.”
[04:58:41] And in fact I think the alcohol question
is a good microcosm to zoom in on. So
[04:58:46] we’ve all stopped drinking apparently,
like alcohol sales are way down-
[04:58:50] … certainly amongst young people.
And then on the one hand, on the
[04:58:53] pure health metrics, whatever, we can
go like, “Oh wow, isn’t that great?”
[04:58:58] And then I go like, “Yeah, I’m not
so sure it is.” Like the social
[04:59:02] lubricant that alcohol can provide
[04:59:05] may be missed, is missed. I
mean, we are in an absolute
[04:59:09] epidemic of loneliness and
misery and depression and
[04:59:13] whatever, and a fair amount of it just
probably comes because you’re not
[04:59:17] interacting enough with other people.
Now, that’s before we even talk about
[04:59:20] coupling, right? Like way down, people
having a very hard time meeting a spouse.
[04:59:26] And- … a lot of that has moved
over to apps that have all sorts of
[04:59:33] negative outcomes and consequences,
right? Like maybe we will
[04:59:36] look back, or maybe we already are looking
back and thinking like, “Eh, do you know what?
[04:59:40] Maybe getting wasted every once in a while was not the
worst thing in the world.” And whether wasted or not,
[04:59:44] maybe just having a couple of drinks every
[04:59:47] Friday or Saturday when
you’re out and about was
[04:59:51] part of what helped society
get to where it is. Maybe
[04:59:55] the fact that humans have literally
been drinking for whatever it is, like
[04:59:59] 13,000 years for mending
things, had a social
[05:00:02] purpose, and we pull out Chesterton’s
fence of our own chagrin, right?
[05:00:08] - As you mentioned, in the spirit of
that, so when I traveled across rural
[05:00:12] China, I did smoke a little
bit in my early 20s, but I
[05:00:18] picked up just for that trip-
[05:00:19] - A social connector, right?
[05:00:22] - And I drank humongous
amounts, even though I don’t
[05:00:26] really drink these days, because of the
social thing. It’s the way they show love.
[05:00:31] And I also ate a shitload of carbs, which-
[05:00:35] … I’m usually low carb.
I just like meat. So just
[05:00:38] because it’s the way they show love.
[05:00:40] And actually even, it’s in
that society cigarettes,
[05:00:44] but in most societies, liquor is a
thing to do together. And it’s a bond.
[05:00:50] It doesn’t, the benefits that that entails
[05:00:55] can, in many situations, outweigh
the negative consequences like
[05:00:59] long-term for whatever,
however you measure them.
[05:01:02] - And this is the myopia of
modernity, that we reduce
[05:01:06] things down to like, well, one glass
on this long run study meant that you
[05:01:10] had a 0.1% greater risk
of some heart defect.
[05:01:15] Yes, but if you didn’t live at all,
what’s the point? And again, it’s also
[05:01:19] easy to flip over the other side. Like the
only way to live is to get drunk every
[05:01:23] weekend and eat a bunch
of crap and smoke 40
[05:01:26] cigarettes a day. No, it’s not.
Like it doesn’t have to be the
[05:01:30] either/or. This is one of the reasons I
stopped wearing my Oura Ring. So I wore
[05:01:34] the Oura sleep ring for many years, four
years. And one day I was just like,
[05:01:41] “I don’t need to know that I
had-” … “a bad night of sleep.”
[05:01:45] Like I know. This added,
[05:01:50] I don’t wanna call it an anxiety, I don’t have
a lot of anxiety, but this added just like
[05:01:54] reminder-
[05:01:55] … that I had a bad night of sleep, what
purpose is it actually playing here?
[05:02:00] Why do I need to have all
these stats? Why do I need to
[05:02:04] optimize everything? To the point
where, again, after that single
[05:02:08] anecdote, you know, from
Diary of a CEO, I was like,
[05:02:11] “Fuck, I kind of want the opposite.” Like-
[05:02:13] I barely drink at all. A glass
of wine once a month maybe.
[05:02:18] Like, do you know what? I should start,
uh, just on the weekends, get a glass.
[05:02:24] Maybe two. And also, I mean, I’ve never
been the person to fret about my diet. Um,
[05:02:32] this is one of the great
privileges of being
[05:02:36] married to, and I’ll do a
quick aside here. Don’t ever
[05:02:39] call a woman in her 40s a wonderful
woman. My wife was so pissed—
[05:02:45] … that not only last year did I come on her
birthday, that was bad enough, but that I called her a
[05:02:49] wonderful woman on the show,
because that sounded like her
[05:02:53] name was Nancy and she was 65—
… in the suburb of Rochester.
[05:02:57] So I’m like, I was trying to
play the 50. Like, no, I don’t
[05:03:01] know, I’m Danish. How would I know? But
that didn’t go over well. So I’m gonna say
[05:03:05] awesome woman instead.
[05:03:07] If you marry an awesome woman who also
not only knows how to cook, but enjoys
[05:03:13] it, do you know what? There’s a very traditional
division of labor here that has been
[05:03:20] quite stable through several …
tens of thousands of years in
[05:03:24] human societies, that perhaps
also wasn’t the worst
[05:03:28] idea in the world. And I also know there
are plenty of men who like to cook,
[05:03:32] and there are women who don’t.
But as stereotypes go, eh,
[05:03:37] that certainly helped me. Like, I don’t
think I would’ve been able to just
[05:03:41] be as relaxed about food if I
didn’t eat relatively healthy on
[05:03:45] a, on a regular basis. But
the overall point being, just
[05:03:49] getting out of that optimization
game without turning into the
[05:03:53] opposite. You don’t have to be a fat slob
on the couch either. You can move around.
[05:03:59] - Yeah. And then the bigger point we’re
talking about is the finiteness of life.
[05:04:05] - Yes.
[05:04:05] - And I agree with you on this.
[05:04:06] - This was actually a feature, I built
it into Omarchy. So memento mori.
[05:04:12] Remember death.
[05:04:14] If you pull down the calendar in Omarchy,
you open it by clicking the clock.
[05:04:18] It opens up, and the first funny thing,
I took it off the internet. There’s this
[05:04:22] account called Year’s Progress, and
it, every day it updates, and it just
[05:04:26] shows 63% done with 2026. I don’t
know if you’ve seen that one.
[05:04:30] So it just fills up. So I built that into the
calendar. So right now it says, “We’re 63% done
[05:04:34] with 2026.” But then if you double-click
that, it’ll ask you, “When were you born?
[05:04:39] How long do you expect to live?” And
the default is 90. So I put in 1979.
[05:04:43] And then right below the line of, like,
how long are we done with the year-
[05:04:47] - Oh, that’s beautiful.
[05:04:47] - … is a new line that shows how
long are you done with your life.
[05:04:50] I think I’m at 62%. I’m like, if you
hover over it, it says, “Memento mori.”
[05:04:56] - That’s beautiful.
[05:04:57] - Fair number of people found it morbid, but this
was why it is an Easter egg. It’s not, like,
[05:05:01] exposed. You gotta click a few things to
get there. I like the reminder. I like the
[05:05:05] reminder that time is finite, and
I should make the most of it.
[05:05:09] And this is also one of the privileges
of having children. You really
[05:05:14] realize that the cliches are all
true. Oh my God, it goes so fast.
[05:05:19] And I remember my now 13-year-old
being one, being two.
[05:05:23] I was like, “This was just
yesterday.” And the reason it’s a
[05:05:27] cliche is because it’s a shared
experience. Cliches are good.
[05:05:31] They remind you that you are part of
[05:05:35] the human experience, and others
have been here before you.
[05:05:38] - I have to ask, you mentioned the
amazing woman and great cook.
[05:05:43] - Amazing. Very important to
remember. Not wonderful, amazing.
[05:05:47] - Amazing. So there’s this…
You talked some shit about
[05:05:51] croissants or something. I saw this,
[05:05:54] this in a tweet. So is the
Danish croissant somehow better?
[05:05:59] - Actually, Danish croissants are not particularly
good. In my opinion, the only place you can find a
[05:06:03] half-decent croissant, of
all places, is 7-Eleven,
[05:06:07] which is hilarious to me because
7-Eleven in the US is the place where,
[05:06:11] at least in Chicago, you’d go to get a
slushie and try to avoid getting murdered.
[05:06:15] But in Denmark, 7-Eleven
is this very upscale,
[05:06:19] super nice convenience store, and they
just happen to make decent croissants.
[05:06:25] And it always baffled me that
I lived in the United States
[05:06:29] for 20 freaking years. I have yet to have
[05:06:33] a single croissant that’s even at the level
of a 7-Eleven croissant in Copenhagen.
[05:06:39] That seems improbable.
[05:06:41] - Have you understood why?
[05:06:43] - No, I’ve legitimately considered
hiring an investigative
[05:06:47] journalist to get to the bottom of this,
because the number of theories I’ve heard have
[05:06:51] been all over the place. It’s
the water. It’s the butter.
[05:06:55] It’s the skill. It’s the this, it’s the that,
it’s the other thing. I’m like, none of
[05:06:59] it adds up to me. If it’s the
butter, can’t you just import it? I
[05:07:03] thought I saw Danish butter in some
supermarkets over here like Lurpak.
[05:07:07] So that can’t be it. Can it be the skill? No, it
can’t be the skill. There are plenty of French
[05:07:11] people and Belgian people, the best
croissant makers in the world, who live in
[05:07:15] the US. Like, what is the reason? And
then I get the second thing, which is-
[05:07:20] … “No, no, you just haven’t gone to
the right place.” I’ve literally gone to
[05:07:23] 15 of quote unquote- … “the right
place,” and all the croissants were shit.
[05:07:28] So before I leave the planet,
I have to get to the bottom of
[05:07:33] why the United States cannot make a
proper croissant. And I don’t, I’m
[05:07:37] not even asking about peak French
croissants, peak Belgian croissants-
[05:07:42] … which are the best croissants in the world.
I’m just asking about the 7-Eleven croissant
[05:07:46] from Copenhagen. Is that
too much to ask for?
[05:07:49] - That’s a fascinating mystery.
What, zooming out, what’s
[05:07:55] your, what’s your favorite… This makes me
want to know, what’s your favorite meal?
[05:07:59] Like, if you, if I gave you a last
meal and were to murder you after.
[05:08:02] - It all depends whether it’s lunch
or it’s dinner. If it’s lunch, it-
[05:08:05] - It’s one meal. What’s, what’s… I
feel like if you’re getting murdered,
[05:08:10] it doesn’t really matter
if it’s lunch or dinner.
[05:08:11] - Well, depends on what time of
day you’re getting murdered.
[05:08:13] - Oh, I see.
[05:08:14] - If it’s an afternoon
execution, I only get lunch.
[05:08:18] - Okay.
[05:08:19] - And if I get lunch, it’s at Louisiana,
the museum in north of Copenhagen.
[05:08:29] I was just there with Jamie two days
ago, and we go there all the time.
[05:08:35] The museum is lovely. We
don’t go for the museum.
[05:08:37] We go for the cafeteria. That
in itself sounds crazy. Like-
[05:08:40] - Yeah, it does
[05:08:40] - … you’re gonna, you’re gonna drive
half an hour to go to a cafeteria.
[05:08:43] Well, it just so happens to
be, it is the best lunch
[05:08:48] I’ve probably ever had in my
life. The chef there is just
[05:08:51] unbelievably good, and not only is
[05:08:54] the food amazing, what’s even more
amazing to my system thinking
[05:08:58] brain is that at any one time when we were
up there, I think there were probably
[05:09:02] 200 people waiting for their food.
And our food was delivered in five
[05:09:07] minutes. They have a small menu, and
clearly they make it in bulk, and it’s
[05:09:13] unbelievably delicious.
[05:09:16] - Just a cafeteria at a museum?
[05:09:17] - It’s a cafeteria at a museum that happens to have
the best lunch I’ve ever had anywhere in my life.
[05:09:21] - What kind of food are we talking
about? What kind of lunch food?
[05:09:23] - It’s, like, Nordic cuisine, so it’s,
it’s… A funny thing is the menu, when I
[05:09:27] look at it, I was like, “Do you know what?
If I saw this menu- As a kid, I’d go like,
[05:09:31] “I’m not eating here.”
It’s like, I don’t know-
[05:09:33] - This is pretty fancy
[05:09:33] - … root free fruit and- … and onions-
[05:09:36] … and all sorts of healthy stuff. That sounds
disgusting. And then you sit down and eat it,
[05:09:40] and the angels sing. But it’s even more
particular than that. It’s the butter.
[05:09:46] The whipped butter that they have there,
the best butter anywhere in the world.
[05:09:50] - I think that has to be connected
to the croissant mystery too.
[05:09:52] - There must be some connection.
But literally- … even in
[05:09:56] Paris, I’ve never had whipped
butter that tastes as
[05:10:00] delicious as the butter does at
Louisiana in Copenhagen. Literally,
[05:10:04] I would drive 30 minutes-
[05:10:06] … to have bread and butter
at the cafeteria in Louisiana.
[05:10:10] - Well, how’d you discover that? Just
one day you went to the museum and-
[05:10:13] - I think we just went to the museum-
[05:10:15] - And you tried a whole dish.
[05:10:15] - … and we had the lunch,
and we were like…
[05:10:19] - This is weird.
[05:10:20] - This is rivaling the best tasting
restaurants- … I’ve ever been to in my
[05:10:24] life, and I’ve gone to
Noma a couple of times and
[05:10:28] tried what there is to try,
and this is right up there.
[05:10:31] - All right. What about dinner, since you
mentioned? Is it something different
[05:10:35] that you have to think-
[05:10:36] - Well, I think there’s a
lot of good options in
[05:10:40] Copenhagen, but actually I’ll pick
a place in Spain. So there is
[05:10:46] this place in Marbella called
Puente Romano. It’s a hotel,
[05:10:51] and down by the beach, they have this
beach restaurant with fresh seafood.
[05:10:57] Unbelievably delicious.
[05:11:01] I’m trying to remember what it’s called,
but yeah, if you look it up, the beach
[05:11:05] seafood place at Puente
Romano is incredible.
[05:11:08] - How much of great food is, like, the
place and the person you’re with,
[05:11:14] right? Or the, or the experience
when you first are there?
[05:11:18] - I mean, the ambiance certainly helps,
but I think my taste buds are also just-
[05:11:22] - Okay, that-
[05:11:22] - … in tune for-
[05:11:23] - So it’s legit.
[05:11:23] - … flavors
[05:11:24] - … it is just good food.
[05:11:25] - It’s just really good food.
[05:11:27] Because for ex- that cafeteria, it
is, there’s a lot of people. Like,
[05:11:31] I wouldn’t rate it as like, oh my God, this
is just a place I want to sit for two hours.
[05:11:35] But the food is so delicious.
[05:11:37] - That’s one of the things I’m, in traveling
across the country, I’m realizing
[05:11:41] to sample without bias, just try things.
[05:11:47] ‘Cause you might, I guess you might
just be surprised. Maybe I’ll find your
[05:11:51] croissant. All right, we’ve talked
about mortality. Talked about food.
[05:11:56] - Settled end of life.
[05:11:58] - What do you thousand years from now, what
do you think is the future of humans,
[05:12:02] human civilization? You
think we’re gonna make it?
[05:12:04] - A thousand years from now? Man, I’m having
trouble predicting 12 months from now.
[05:12:09] - I know.
[05:12:09] - A thousand?
[05:12:10] - You think we got a shot?
[05:12:11] - Oh, I’m gonna bet on optimism. I’m
gonna bet on a multi-planetary
[05:12:15] species. I’m gonna bet that Elon gets
that rocket to Mars, and we figure
[05:12:19] out how to bend space-time and discover
some wormholes or, or something.
[05:12:24] - Once we do, do you think,
[05:12:27] you think all humans on Earth will
die once or twice and be repopulated
[05:12:33] After we get a good backup going?
[05:12:35] - I mean, that was actually one of my
favorite episodes of Black Mirror, the
[05:12:39] one where they get uploaded
to the 1980s sea town
[05:12:43] somewhere. And I just
thought like, wow, this is
[05:12:47] both such a dark moment, yet also so
[05:12:50] beautiful in the shared recognition that,
like, the ’80s were actually kind of amazing.
[05:12:55] Like, I don’t have a lot of
nostalgia for many moments, but I do
[05:12:59] have nostalgia for the ’80s.
[05:13:01] - But-
[05:13:01] - And they say something about, like, whatever
place and time you were in, the music you were
[05:13:05] listening to when you were 12 or-
[05:13:07] … or 14, 15, something like that, that’s
what’s gonna stick with you. Like, no, I was
[05:13:11] only, I got to be 10 in the ’80s. So
this was my early childhood, and I
[05:13:17] still have an unbelievably
fond affiliation with
[05:13:20] the ’80s. So if I’m gonna
be uploaded to the sky-
[05:13:23] - You want it to be the ’80s?
[05:13:24] - … I’m doing the ’80s.
[05:13:26] - Wow. I don’t think I’ve actually
ever heard anyone say that.
[05:13:29] Usually it’s ’70s or ’90s.
[05:13:31] - Oh, and the-
[05:13:32] - Because the ’80s is a-
[05:13:32] - I really don’t like the ’90s.
Can we talk about this?
[05:13:38] - No, I’m done. Not done.
[05:13:40] - To me, this was the great
turning point of nihilism.
[05:13:45] That both the music,
the genre, the fashion-
[05:13:50] … everything turned from,
like, this glamour, the
[05:13:54] pop, the optimism, even the yuppies and
everything- … to grunge and Nirvana.
[05:14:00] And even though, I mean, I like the music,
I don’t like the ethics. I don’t like-
[05:14:05] … the morals. I don’t like
any of the underpinnings to it.
[05:14:08] There was just such a defeatism to it-
[05:14:11] … that in retrospect, I look back
upon it, if I’m gonna get reinserted
[05:14:15] into the matrix, it’s gonna be the ’80s.
[05:14:17] - That was full of optimism and fun-
[05:14:20] - Yes
[05:14:21] - … and colors.
[05:14:22] - Yes. I remember having these orange pants-
[05:14:29] … with, like, white dots on
them. That was just a normal
[05:14:33] thing kids could wear in the ’80s.
[05:14:35] I’ve never fucking seen that today. Or I
mean, even in the ’90s, it all turned just,
[05:14:42] like, Seattle gray. Great regression.
[05:14:46] - So the Nietzschean, you know,
this idea of eternal recurrence.
[05:14:50] If you do a Groundhog Day and you live
forever, you want it to be in the orange pants
[05:14:54] with the white dots in the ’80s.
[05:14:56] - Maybe I’m gonna skip
the orange pants, but-
[05:14:57] - No
[05:14:57] - … I’m definitely picking the ’80s.
[05:14:58] - You said it.
[05:15:01] All right, DHH. Thank you so much for everything
you do. Thank you for being an inspiration to
[05:15:05] all of us, for building cool shit in the
world, and thank you for talking today.
[05:15:11] - Anytime. Thank you, Lex,
again for having me.
[05:15:15] - Yeah. Thanks for listening to this conversation
with DHH. To support this podcast, please check
[05:15:19] out our sponsors in the description,
where you can also find links to
[05:15:23] contact me, ask questions,
give feedback, and so on. And
[05:15:27] now, let me leave you with some
words from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
[05:15:31] “Once you make a decision, the
universe conspires to make it happen.”
[05:15:37] Thank you for listening, and
hope to see you next time.