WEBVTT - Ep113 "What's special about inventors?" (with Pablos Holman) 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.559 What is special about inventors, How do we search for 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.119 and support creative people? And what does this have to 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:17.120 do with skateboarding tricks or silent drones or self driving ships, 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:22.240 or solar panels in space or shooting mosquitoes with lasers 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:29.240 and our future as a species. Welcome to Innercosmos with 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.239 me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.600 Stanford and in these episodes we seek to understand why 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:58.800 and how our lives look the way they do. Today's 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:03.680 episode is about invention. I've always been fascinated by invention, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.280 not just new products and tech, but fresh ideas and 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.640 new frameworks and science and ways of seeing the world 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.679 that didn't exist before. The key thing about invention is 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:21.000 that it requires more than just absorbing information to invent. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.640 You have to recombine what you know in new ways, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.360 and you have to spot connections that others miss, and 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.000 sometimes you need to ask what if everything we assume 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.400 is wrong now? The human capacity to do all this, 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.520 to invent is thanks largely to a part of the 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.560 brain just behind your forehead, the prefronnel cortex. We have 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:46.920 more of this than any of our cousins in the 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.720 animal kingdom, And this is the part of our brain 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.920 that allows us to break away from the here and 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.600 now and to imagine counter factuals. In other words, things 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:02.120 that don't exist but could. We can imagine those things, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.560 and we can simulate out their consequences. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.960 And this is what allows us to step outside. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.560 Our current moment and picture alternative futures. As I mentioned 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.280 in episode seventy two, I'm not certain that AI as 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.359 we make it now can do that. It's great at 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.760 piecing things together, but at least with the current architectures, 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.800 it cannot say, you know what, I'm going to scrap 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.600 everything that I've learned and think about this in a 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.840 completely new way, because AI is not wired to reject 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.880 what it has learned. But that kind of creative leap 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.880 is something that humans do all the time, often unconsciously. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.560 It's what happens when a person cranks up the prefrontal 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.600 cortex and looks at the world as. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:49.080 It could be. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.119 Invention starts not just in the raw data, but it's 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:58.000 the decision to look beyond that. So without the neural 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.320 architecture that allowed for of human creativity, we would be 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.040 doing the same thing that we did millions of years ago, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.320 just like every other species were surrounded with we wouldn't 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.720 have electrification of the planet and the Internet and commercial 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.920 flight and spaceflight and desalination and vaccines and quantum computers 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.720 and satellites and encryption techniques and self driving cars and 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.799 all the rest. And so today's conversation is about invention, 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.160 how we can spot it and value it and fund it. 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.760 And to this end, I'm pleased to welcome a friend 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.000 of mine, Pablos Holman, who's on a mission to change 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.200 the trajectory for inventors. He is a hacker and an 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.080 inventor and a venture capitalist, and what I really appreciate 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.920 about him is that in that latter role as a VC, 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:51.880 he's not just chasing consumer software trends, but he hunts 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.840 instead for hidden geniuses. He and his partner Michael Reid 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:00.000 run a firm called Deep Future, and the people they, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.640 as they describe it on their website, are quote mad scientists, 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:10.640 rogue inventors, crazy hackers, and maverick entrepreneurs implementing science fiction, 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.920 solving big problems, and helping our species become better ancestors. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.480 In other words, they're looking for the people who seek 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.760 to do a lot more than the incremental improvement of 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:25.719 the tools around us, but instead the. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:30.560 People who leap into entirely new categories of possibility. 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.960 So Pablos has just written a book called Deep Future, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.159 which comes out next week, and his take in the 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.599 book is that invention is humanity's most important creative force, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.320 but it's also the one we've neglected the most. Inventors 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.680 are often misunderstood and underfunded because there's often not a 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.160 good system to support them. So even while we romanticize 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.440 starving artists, we typically forget about starving inventors. His position 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.680 is that we are missing out, and he always wants 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.080 to position himself at the edge of what is possible. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:06.640 Here's our conversation. 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.919 So if you think about the creative classes of people, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:19.400 you know, how many like I don't know musicians? 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:20.360 Can you name. 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:30.039 Dozens like it loves without even actors, dozens painters? How 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:37.240 about inventors that aren't dead? Yeah, I can name about five, maybe. 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.960 Five, And probably none of them have a business card 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.760 that says like inventor as their title, right, because it's 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:46.400 not a legitimate career choice. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:51.159 And so there's this kind of weird gap in the world. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:56.520 I think where you know, we celebrate our most creative people, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.920 our people they you know that are easy to identify 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.320 their celebrities for you know, specially music artists and actors 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.080 and stuff. But you know, you could probably live without, 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.320 you know, the next Marvel movie. You could probably live 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:17.680 without the next Beyonce album. But if it wasn't for inventors, 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:18.920 you wouldn't be alive at all. 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.360 Generally that would include biologists making discoveries. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.600 Sure, yeah, maybe, okay, right. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:30.760 I think of scientific research as very important. That's critical. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.000 That's kind of the early stages of figuring out how 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.520 the world works. That's the goal in basic research. And 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.200 then in our world we always need more for that, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.479 more resources, more money, more scientists. But we have a 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:45.520 system for that. And then on the other end, you 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.680 have a system for like entrepreneurs and making businesses and 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.680 things like that. But those people are making businesses out 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.120 of whatever they can invent, and they don't tend to 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.280 be very creative. This is why, you know, of our 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.880 best businesses are like an app to have a stranger 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.800 pick you up in their car. You know, we're we're 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.640 not honoring I think the creative class in the middle 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.000 that is inventors, and we don't even recognize them as 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.600 a creative class. Like it's crazy hair and a DeLorean 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:19.960 in the garage, Like it's not even a It's just 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.160 people don't relate to it and understand, and it doesn't 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.760 have the same maybe emotional connection that you know, a 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.680 musician can evoke or a singer or something. But I 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:34.160 think it's like kind of important to step back and recognize, like, wow, 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.800 this is our most important creative class. 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:38.440 They don't have a place in society. 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:39.920 So let me step back to something you said. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:42.160 I'm curious what you were thinking of when you said, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.280 we wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for inventors. 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:45.880 Give me an example of what you're talking about there. 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.840 You know, whoever generate is yes, vaccine. Edward Jenner made 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.400 the first vaccine for smallpox. Four hundred million people died 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:03.520 of smallpox in the last century. Right, that's more of 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.800 people than I think we have in this country. Maybe, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.640 Like it's a lot of people died of one disease, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.400 regardless of what you know. I know people are wound 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.440 up about vaccines these days, but at least in the 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.920 case of smallpox, this is like one of the reasons 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:16.760 you and I exist. 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.000 I might even be here if it wasn't for that 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:20.400 type of it. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.800 And that's like a really interesting invention story where he 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.520 figured out that these milk maids who were milking cows 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.960 contracted cow pox, which is not as life threatening, not 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.800 really as big of a deal disease, but then. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:34.760 They never got smallpox. 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 Yeah, and it's like this incredible insight, this amazing discovery, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.800 and like that guy figured out, oh, I know how 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.640 to go I could go test that, and he did, 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.480 and he figured out that we could now save people 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.760 from dying of smallpox. 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.360 Too quick historical that's of course where we get the 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:55.319 story vaccine from Cowska, right, But also it turns out 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.559 Edward Generous about the eighth person to invent the vaccine. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.880 That's right, Yeah, oh wait, right, So there's also this 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.080 you know, this kind of you know lore that we have. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.080 I would say that, oh, inventors aren't actually that important. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:10.960 It was inevitable somebody was going to figure it out, 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:15.160 so like, but there are lots of these cases where 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.680 somebody didn't figure it out, or the person who figured 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.120 it out didn't get the word out. I mean, this 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.520 happened like with scurvy, even not all these people trying 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.760 to cross oceans dying. You'd just load up a ship 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.959 full of people expecting have of them to die of scurvy, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:31.800 and some of them might make it to the other 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:32.880 side before we figured. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:33.760 Out all they need is oranges. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.320 Yeah, and like that was figured out and then like 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.360 shelved for I forgot seventy five years or something. But 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.920 I think it is a way of diminishing the value 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.760 of an inventor or an invention by saying, well, you know, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.360 he just was able to do that because of the 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.719 you know, people who came before them, and standing on 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.080 the shoulders of giants. And there's certainly a truth to that. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.880 Of course, we all start with what we you know, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:04.800 learned from our our predecessors. But it still takes a 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.920 creative mind to do something the first time. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.280 In fact, so the basis of creativity is your brain 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.920 goes through the world, absorbs all everything in your world 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.880 and your culture, your moment history, and then what it's 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.800 doing is remixing. It's bending, breaking, blending, putting these things 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.400 together in new ways. And so you're exactly right. There's 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.480 two ways you can look at creativity. One is Okay, Well, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.760 it's just a remix based on the data that you 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.320 happen to have, and so it was inevitable that would 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.160 come up. But you're exactly right that to be the 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.400 inventor the creator is something really special because because not 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.240 everybody's doing it. Most people have all that data right 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.240 in front of them and don't care to get off 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:48.719 their butts and do something about it. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.640 And like, you know, Edward Jenner didn't invent the transistor 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:53.839 or something. You know, he had cows and milkmaids in 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.520 front of him, So yeah, it makes sense that he 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.400 would invent in that area. But it still is this different. 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.520 It's a completely different thing. I would contend the second 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.040 time you do it to the nth time you do it, 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.560 that's a totally different that's craft. You might be better 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.520 at doing something than the inventor, but does it completely 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.120 different thing than figuring out what's possible the very first time. 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:24.480 Yeah, okay, so there's something super special about inventors. And 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.480 I know this is a big part of what you 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.960 do and what you really care about is finding inventors 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.319 who are making incredible things. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.280 I want to find the inventors and I want to 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.000 figure out how we help them out, because it is 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.520 kind of a lonely fate in a way. Most inventors 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:44.160 are working in relative isolation, and they might be obsessed 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.280 and they might be going deep. And the people I 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.000 know a lot of them are very focused on their thing. 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.400 They don't even know how to get the story out. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:55.760 They wouldn't know how to make a company, how to 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.400 raise money for it, how to get the help they need. 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:00.880 I mean, it's very it's a very tough thing. And 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:05.679 also they're mostly doomed because with an invention, you know, 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.839 you might get even Let's say you were a good 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.080 inventor and you could have a good invention once a year, 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:12.679 Well what are you going to do with it? 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:14.360 Like, how are you going to get paid for that? 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.400 Where's it going to go? And most inventors fail to 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:20.559 ever figure that stuff out in one lifetime. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.640 It's pretty sad. You think, you think artists. Starving artists 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.080 have a hard time. Starving inventors have an even worse time. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.720 So give us some examples of some really cool inventions 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:32.360 that you're seeing currently. 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:34.160 One comes to mind. 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.920 A couple of years ago, I went to visit this 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.040 buddy of mine who is one of the top researchers 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.360 on warp drive. So warp drive is like bending space 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.880 time to do faster than light travel, straight out of 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:47.520 Star Trek. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.160 Nobody thinks we're ever really going. 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.199 To be able to do it, but these guys research 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.240 it and try and and no one's been able to 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.480 prove that it can't be done. So I went to 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.480 visit my buddy Sonny at his lab in Houston, and 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.679 Sonny starts showing me around his lab. He's telling me 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:09.120 about warp drive and UFOs and stuff, and then he's like, well, hey, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.120 there's an atomic force microscope in the back. 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:13.760 You want to see it. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:15.520 So he's very excited to show me this because it's 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.559 an exotic microscope, but I have one, so I care 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.960 on the way. So we're like walking over to back 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.520 Sonny's lab and he's like, oh, this is he gets distracted. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.560 He picks up this little circuit board. It's like, this 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.800 is kind of neat. Sonny has like a Southern drawl 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.840 that I can't emulate, but he's most delightful, friendly human 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.600 you'll ever find. So he shows me the circuit board, 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.360 hooks up a couple of alligator clips to a meter 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.640 and there's a current coming off it and all that's 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.160 on the board is a chip and I'm like, what 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.640 is it, Sonny. He's like, oh, well, we made that 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.680 chip and it puts out energy like a battery. I'm like, Sonny, 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.120 you made a battery that never. 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:56.959 Needs to be charged. 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.640 He's like, yeah, we're it just runs forever you have 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.280 to charge. That's exactly right, Mike, Sonny, what the hell 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.559 are you doing with warp drive? We need that battery. 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:07.840 And so that was a couple of years ago, and 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.160 we weren't, you know. So he got started working on 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.800 patents and kind of you know, making different versions of 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.880 it to try and make it better. And then like 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.600 a few weeks ago he called me and said, hey, Pablos. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.400 So I'm I just did the interview on the Joe 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:23.040 Rogan Show. 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.200 And I'm like, Sonny, I thought we were keeping this 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.520 quiet because it's work to do. 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.280 And so it was in stealth mode for years, and 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.480 he said, well, I decided to I decided to go 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.680 for it, and so I listened to the show and 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.040 this is the biggest podcast in the world, and so, 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.080 you know, for two hours, Sonny's talking about warp Drive 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.240 and UFOs and aliens and all the stuff that Joe 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.720 Rogan likes. And then he's like, oh, Joe, I made 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:50.920 this thing. Look at this and he explains it to Joe. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:52.320 I think it went right over Joe. I don't think 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.360 he realized a miracle was announced on his podcast because 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.600 Sonny buried the lead so deep. So these are you know, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.120 he just doesn't have the kind of brain that's like 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.040 about getting the story out, you know, But it's a 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.400 but what would you do with a battery that never 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:06.440 needs to be charged? 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:09.800 As in, how would one start a company and make sure? 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.360 Yeah, if you know, it's a scientist, so you know, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.320 all those other pieces have to be figured out, and 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.080 we try to help people like that out. 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.880 Oh that's great, Yeah, you know change the world right, 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.400 Oh yeah, I agreed. You know, I spent the first 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.560 part of my career running a lab as a professor, 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:27.360 and I ran a lab, and I spent half my 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.080 time running grants to the government and so on. And 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.040 then about ten years ago I shifted into being an 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.480 entrepreneur and I moved at Silicon Valley and I've been 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.040 starting companies and it is a very different skill set, 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.680 oh for sure, in terms of taking a good idea 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:43.240 and turning it into something. 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.000 Yeah, you know, most people wouldn't be good at both. 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.440 So I think one of the things we are mythology 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.360 in Silicon Valley is a little screwed up. We think 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.760 that like a scientist is going to invent something and 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.160 then become an entrepreneur and then become a patent lawyer 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.400 and then become a business development guy and sell it 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.120 and then become a CEO and figure out the HR policy, 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.560 Like those people are extraordinary and rare. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.000 That doesn't scale. 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.800 Like the winning story is actually teams, And so I 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:14.880 think one of the things we have to learn very 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.560 early is figure out how do you build these teams early, 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.000 compensate for the things that the founder, who might be 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.840 a scientist or an inventor might suck at, and surround 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.960 them with all the other things that we figured out 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:28.920 how to do well. 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.040 Yeah, So returning the issue of creativity. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.000 So you began your career as a hacker, right, Yeah, 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:36.920 So tell us about that. 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.520 I sort of grew up with one of the first 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.480 computers you could have at home, which was that this 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.440 Apple two. I had one of the first couple of 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:49.720 thousand Apple two's ever made and with that thing, you know, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.600 it wasn't like a computer we know today, like it's 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.080 just you boot it up or his command line, and 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.320 you got to figure out what to do. And I 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.760 was in Alaska where I grew up, so nobody for 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.600 like a thousand miles had any idea what a computer was, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.399 and no one had seen one, you know, So to 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.240 learn how to use that thing, I basically just had 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.080 to like crash it and reboot it. 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:15.960 And it was kind of like a jeep. 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.840 You could sort of, you know, made of sheet metal, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:19.399 you could sort of you know, take it apart and 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.320 you could open up and see the inside and stare 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:22.960 at it, and if you stare at it long enough, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:24.919 you can kind of figure out how it works. So 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.439 that's so I sort of learned the hard way and 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.000 then and that's not common now because your computer hides 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.560 all the insides. You know, it's not like a jeep. 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.720 It's like a tesla or something with a hood wel 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.240 that's shot. You can't see how it works. And so 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.719 you know, by the time I, you know, got to 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.960 say out of high school or something, I was, you know, 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.240 I knew a lot about computer's relative to the rest 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.280 of the world. And so then we started putting people 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.240 on the Internet, like not just not nerds, but muggles, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.960 you know, And so muggle muggles is like a term 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.040 co opted from Harry Potter to describe what you might 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.879 call NPCs or you know, just normal people wandering around. 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.680 We put these people who are not wizards on the Internet, 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.720 and they cause problems or they're vulnerable to problems, let's say. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.120 And so we try to figure out how to make 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 things more secure. But the way that you do that 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.760 is by breaking them first. And so what's amazing about 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:29.080 hackers is they just have these different kinds of minds. 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.080 Like we all learn by reverse engineering, we learn by 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:34.000 taking things apart. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:35.080 So like if. 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.159 You, you know, if you get a new gadget and 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.080 give it to your mom, she might ask you what 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.919 does this do? And you can explain it's a phone, mom, iPhone, 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.160 says on the box. But if you give a gadget 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.600 like that to a hacker, then the question is different. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.840 The question is what can I make this do? And 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.119 hackers will flip it over and take out all the 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.000 screws and break it into a lot of little pieces, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.800 but then figure out what you can build from the rubble, 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:10.040 and that's that discovery process. That's where you get all 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.600 of your new technologies. Nobody ever invented a new technology 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:15.160 by reading the directions. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:16.640 There are none. 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:22.200 It's a logical impossibility. And so those kinds of minds 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:23.800 that people who think. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.640 That way are super valuable. 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:28.600 We need them and like you might not want to 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.000 hire them, but you know, one way or another, we 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:32.879 need to party with them and have a relationship with 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.680 the people who are the source of all of our 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:50.840 new superpowers. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.159 So let me do you an analogy here, because I've 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.240 been thinking about this a lot about whether large language models, 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:03.840 the current common flavor of our AI can do scientific discovery. 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.280 And the reason they're not any good at the moment 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.480 of real new scientific discovery is because what they are 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.200 good at doing is taking everything that's come before them 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:14.840 and putting it together into ways. And that's got value 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.639 in a lot of aspects. But what it doesn't have 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.320 value in is saying, hey, what if all this is 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:21.960 wrong and there's a totally new way to do this. 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.120 It's the equivalent of taking the thing apart and saying, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.120 what can I do that wasn't thought of before? 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:28.359 With these pieces and parts. 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.080 And you know, a big part of really making scientific 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.879 progress is to assume that some fraction of everything you've learned, 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.240 all the models you've learned before you is incorrect, some 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.480 fraction and and and there's a different way of doing 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:44.040 the whole thing. 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.440 And so there's a now parallel here between. 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.360 What a hacker question every day for a week, it's 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.919 going to give you slight variations of the same answer, 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.200 and that's because by design they have thrown in a 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.919 random number ten just to make it, you know, feel 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.760 like it's you know, like more of human, because humans 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:08.560 would kind of give you a slightly different answer every 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.080 day too. And there might be a version of this 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.440 where you throw enough computation at something then you just say, look, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:21.840 just try everything. And certainly in a focused domain you 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:23.440 can do that, and we do that, you know, that's 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:27.000 what we're doing with drug discovery and molecules and protein 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.760 folding and stuff. And you can't try every possible way 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.360 a protein can fold without it being very computational expensive. 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:38.119 But you know, we add in some heuristics to say, well, 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.240 probably it's this, and here's a bunch of other ones, 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.800 so maybe copy those and try one variation at a time, 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.040 and we just run every possibility. And so there is 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.920 a kind of discovery that I think is possible there. 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.639 I don't know what the bounds on it are, and 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.399