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Speaker 1: What is a ten thousand year clock and what is

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Speaker 1: the Y ten k bug? What do ancient ceramics have

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Speaker 1: to do with the way that we build ball bearings

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Speaker 1: and satellites. Have we entered a digital dark age where

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Speaker 1: we're losing more knowledge than we're preserving. Why do some

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Speaker 1: organizations last millennium? What does this have to do with

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Speaker 1: bristle cone pine trees, or symbols in drum sets, or

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Speaker 1: a hotel that's still running that started in the sixth century.

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Speaker 1: If humanity disappeared tomorrow, what from our era would still

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Speaker 1: be legible thousands of years from now? Join me today

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Speaker 1: for thinking about ourselves on a ten thousand year timescale

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Speaker 1: with guest Alexander Rose. Welcome to Intercosmos with me David Eagleman.

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Speaker 1: I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford and in

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Speaker 1: these episodes we dive deeply into our three pound universe

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Speaker 1: to uncover some of the most surprising aspects of our lives.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode springboards from last week's episode on the topic

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Speaker 1: of persistence about things lasting through time. Last episode, we

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Speaker 1: talked about why things last, and we saw that some

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Speaker 1: do because they are optimized, like the body plan for sharks.

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Speaker 1: Other things endure because they constantly repair themselves, like Roman concrete,

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Speaker 1: which self heals when it gets cracks. Some things endure

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Speaker 1: because they are memorable or they seem explanatory, like urban legends.

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Speaker 1: And some things persist because they're fragile but infinitely copyable,

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Speaker 1: like paper or DNA. But this week I want to

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Speaker 1: turn to much longer time scales, specifically millennia. So today

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Speaker 1: we're going to do something that's a little unusual for

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Speaker 1: a species that thinks in election cycles or fiscal quarters

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Speaker 1: and all of our short term deadlines. We're going to

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Speaker 1: step into deep time, beyond decades, beyond centuries. We're going

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Speaker 1: to stand on the long arc of civilization where the

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Speaker 1: unit of measurement is millennia. Now here's the puzzle we're

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Speaker 1: going to tackle today. Human beings keep trying to pass

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Speaker 1: things forward, whether that's knowledge or culture or technology, but

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Speaker 1: most of what we produce vanishes almost immediately. Our digital lives,

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Speaker 1: in particular, are surprisingly fragile. Hard drives fail, formats get

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Speaker 1: quickly outdated, servers go bad. A surprisingly large portion of

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Speaker 1: the twenty first century will be archaeologically invisible. But Roman

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Speaker 1: concrete still holds and a bristle cone pine tree standing

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Speaker 1: on a mountain ridge is still alive in counting rings

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Speaker 1: after five millennium. So today we're going to launch off

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Speaker 1: the question that we started last week, which is what

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Speaker 1: actually lasts? And this week we're going to ask can

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Speaker 1: we learn to build things like institutions or organizations that

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Speaker 1: don't disintegrate as soon as we stop paying attention to them.

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Speaker 1: To explore this, I'm joined today by Alexander Rose, who

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Speaker 1: goes by Xander. He's the former executive director of the

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Speaker 1: Long Now Foundation and organization that I love and I

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Speaker 1: sit on the board for for over twenty years. Xander

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Speaker 1: has been immersed in projects that stretch our time imagination,

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Speaker 1: like the ten thousand year clock that he's been with

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Speaker 1: Danny hillis. If you don't know what that is, hangtight,

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Speaker 1: because we're going to talk about that today. Xander is

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Speaker 1: also involved in the Rosetta disc which acts like a

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Speaker 1: linguistic time capsule, and in long bets, which force us

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Speaker 1: to put our predictions on the public record. Xander is

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Speaker 1: one of the most talented machinists and engineers that I know,

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Speaker 1: but also one of the best long term thinkers, and

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Speaker 1: by long term I mean millennia. He has spent his

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Speaker 1: career asking what it takes for knowledge to persist, what

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Speaker 1: makes institutions survive across generations, and how we can design

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Speaker 1: for a future that we will never personally inhabit. So

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Speaker 1: let's step into the long now and see what it

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Speaker 1: takes for anything to endure. Xander, So, you and I

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Speaker 1: originally met because you, for twenty six years worked with

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Speaker 1: the Long Now Foundation. You ended up as the executive

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Speaker 1: director of that for a long time. Tell us about

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Speaker 1: the long Now Foundation and what the thinking there is.

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Speaker 2: Well, the long Now Foundation was started by Stuart Brand,

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Speaker 2: who had started the Whole Earth Catalog. Danny Hillis who

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Speaker 2: had developed some of the fastest supercomputers back in the eighties,

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Speaker 2: originally with his company Thinking Machines, and other people Brian,

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Speaker 2: you know, Kevin Kelly, a lot of kind of early

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Speaker 2: digital illuminaries, and they I think they saw, maybe earlier

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Speaker 2: on than others, that we were as a society kind

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Speaker 2: of really fetishizing speed and only thinking that the things

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Speaker 2: that happened fast were the things that mattered. But obviously

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Speaker 2: there are issues like climate change or hunger or you know,

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Speaker 2: the education system that have returns on investment that are

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Speaker 2: on much slower cycles and still need to be addressed.

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Speaker 2: And if society was only doing things that could be

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Speaker 2: done quickly, those things were not going to be addressed correctly.

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Speaker 2: So they thought that some kind of balancing corrective was needed.

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Speaker 2: And so Danny Hillis had this idea of a ten

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Speaker 2: thousand year monument scale, all mechanical clock, and originally that

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Speaker 2: was what I was hired to start working on.

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Speaker 1: And the idea is a clock that would last ten

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Speaker 1: thousand years exactly.

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Speaker 2: It would last the design life was ten thousand years,

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Speaker 2: and it would have you know, it wouldn't have like

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Speaker 2: a twelve hour dial. It would have all these kind

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Speaker 2: of dials that matter over ten thousand years, things like

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Speaker 2: astronomic cycles and and things like that.

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Speaker 1: And things like once a century it would ding R

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Speaker 1: and once a millennium.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The original kind of poetic version of the clock that

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Speaker 2: Danny wrote about this is like a nineteen ninety five

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Speaker 2: Wired essay, was that it would you know, tick once

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Speaker 2: a year, it would bong once a century, and a

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Speaker 2: cuckoo would come out once a millennium.

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Speaker 3: So I signed on to that project.

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Speaker 2: My background is an industrial design, But Stuart Brand was

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Speaker 2: the one who's like, well, you need an institution alongside this,

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Speaker 2: and that's in a way, one of the most difficult

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Speaker 2: problems of making something last is not you know, you

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Speaker 2: can make an object, especially one that maybe doesn't need

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Speaker 2: to be interacting with humans very much, last for that long.

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Speaker 3: It's it's not that hard.

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Speaker 2: But if you want to make something that's that is

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Speaker 2: relevant and is changing the way people think about time,

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Speaker 2: you actually need the institution that's alongside it. And so

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Speaker 2: they became these kind of two parallel projects. One is

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Speaker 2: the engineering project and the other one is the institutional side.

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Speaker 1: So I want to zoom in on the clock for

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Speaker 1: a minute, because you said something extraordinary there, which is

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Speaker 1: it's not so hard to make an object a machine

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Speaker 1: that lasts ten thousand years, but no one has ever

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Speaker 1: done that or anything like it. So you, having worked

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Speaker 1: on it for so many years, you feel like, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's not so hard. But tell us about that thinking, well, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean often we think that, you know, maybe it's a

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Speaker 2: material science problem, but really it's actually it's a it's

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Speaker 2: an environment problem. So you know, we have we have

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Speaker 2: leather shoes that are five thousand years old, were found

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Speaker 2: just in the right kind of pH of soil. Right,

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Speaker 2: We've got the Dead Sea scrolls that are on the

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Speaker 2: order of you know, many thousand made out of paper

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Speaker 2: papyrus that are that have lasted just because they were.

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Speaker 3: In the right environment.

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Speaker 2: And an early when I was working on this project,

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Speaker 2: early on, a material scientist told me that the best

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Speaker 2: way to think about this is that basically everything is burning,

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Speaker 2: and meaning everything is oxidizing, right, and it's just at

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Speaker 2: a different rate. And so you can choose your rate

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Speaker 2: at which things are going to oxidize and and and

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Speaker 2: mostly you do that by by sealing something in a

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Speaker 2: way that it won't oxidize. And the problem with that

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Speaker 2: is if you're trying to make an object that or

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Speaker 2: in a machine especially that needs that humans want to

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Speaker 2: interact with it.

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Speaker 3: You want to change the way.

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Speaker 2: You know, have this experience of walking through you know

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Speaker 2: that this monument scale thing where you're walking through the gears,

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Speaker 2: and it really inspires you through the whole experience to

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Speaker 2: come out the other end and go, wow, you know,

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Speaker 2: time is big, but I have a relevant in it,

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Speaker 2: and I want to change maybe some of the ways

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Speaker 2: that I operate in the world and that I think

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Speaker 2: about the world. To do that, you really need to

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Speaker 2: think about material science and human interaction design in a

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Speaker 2: way that I think very few people ever have.

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Speaker 3: And that was what really attracted me to the project.

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Speaker 1: So what does that look like? I mean, how do

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Speaker 1: you think about building a machine? And this isn't like

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Speaker 1: shoes buried in the right pH this is a thing

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Speaker 1: that's turning and moving. All our buildings that we make,

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Speaker 1: we say, hey, these are stable, and these will be

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Speaker 1: here for a long time. But by long time we

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Speaker 1: mean whatever a few hundred years or something. How do

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Speaker 1: you think about doing something at a ten thousand year scale?

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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, so we have some things that are

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Speaker 2: like you know in Turkey that have lasted on this

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Speaker 2: scale that we're man made kind of foundations, and Jericho

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Speaker 2: has eight thousand year foundations. We have the Pyramids and

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Speaker 2: stonehandjet five thousand years forty five hundred years. So we

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Speaker 2: you know, we've built some buildings, but like you're right

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Speaker 2: in saying that, a machine is a different thing like

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Speaker 2: that has working parts and and this was a this

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Speaker 2: was an early problem that we really looked at, which

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Speaker 2: was how do you, for instance, have bearings that last

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Speaker 2: for ten thousand years, right, And when I started on

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Speaker 2: this project in the late nineties, I found the right technology,

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Speaker 2: which was basically a ceramic on ceramic bearings, and they

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Speaker 2: were developed for satellites that could operate in space with

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Speaker 2: no lubrication, and so they're near diamond hard ceramics. And

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Speaker 2: the other thing that they do, which is really great

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Speaker 2: for in our case, is that since they're non metallic,

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Speaker 2: they also separate dissimilar metals from each other, and so

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Speaker 2: dissimilar metals in any situation basically cause corrosion and they'll

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Speaker 2: build weld shut because of oxidization. They attract what's called

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Speaker 2: galvanic corrosion by having a different kind of electrical potential,

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Speaker 2: and so by these bearings solved all those problems. But

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Speaker 2: at the time, in like nineteen ninety eight when I

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Speaker 2: found them, they were made in very sparing sizes, forced

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Speaker 2: out of lights, and they cost fifty thousand dollars each.

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Speaker 2: But over the course of this project they have they're

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Speaker 2: now in fidget spinners and they cost like five dollars, right,

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Speaker 2: so you can get them, you know, their roller blades

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Speaker 2: and you know, bicycle bearings and all this stuff. So

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Speaker 2: we got very very lucky in the timing around when

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Speaker 2: we were developing this project. So the clock itself uses

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Speaker 2: all ceramic bearings throughout the entire thing.

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Speaker 3: There's there's no metallic bearings at all.

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Speaker 2: And that was really one of the kind of key

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Speaker 2: things that is different about this than any other large

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Speaker 2: machine that's ever been built.

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Speaker 1: But a fidget spinner, if somebody builds it, they're not

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Speaker 1: intending to last a long time. So how do they know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, no one really knows if a ceramic bearing

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Speaker 1: will last ten thousand years, right.

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Speaker 2: I mean we know that, yes, these modern ceramic bearings

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Speaker 2: have not been around for that long, but we do

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Speaker 2: know ceramics have been around for We have ceramics for

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Speaker 2: many tens of thousands of years, right, so just low

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Speaker 2: quality ceramics that we found in places or on the

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Speaker 2: order of forty thousand years old, so very high quality

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Speaker 2: modern ceramics. There's no reason to think that they wouldn't

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Speaker 2: last this long. And but but to your point, I

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Speaker 2: think there are unknown unknowns when you do this kind

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Speaker 2: of project, and I suspect, you know, there will be

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Speaker 2: things that cause problems in the clock.

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Speaker 3: That we that we don't really anticipate.

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Speaker 2: And it could be something as simple as like something

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Speaker 2: building a nest in the workings of it. Right, we've

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Speaker 2: already like at the we have the site we're building

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Speaker 2: the clock, and we've already had to deal with rodents

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Speaker 2: and things like that because you know that the whole

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Speaker 2: thing isn't sealed up perfectly during construction times and all that,

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Speaker 2: so there will be things. And one of the things

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Speaker 2: that we we did design into the clock is that

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Speaker 2: it is designed for maintenance and it is designed to

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Speaker 2: be changed over time. There's most of the clock actually

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Speaker 2: sits quite still while nobody's there, and so you can

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Speaker 2: do maintenance on it even while it's working. And then

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Speaker 2: it's only when people wind it that a lot of

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Speaker 2: the things that operate every day, something like the chimes

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Speaker 2: or the dials, update only when someone is there to

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Speaker 2: wind it locally.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see, And so it is now a daily chime,

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Speaker 1: is that right?

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Speaker 2: It's sort of, it's a daily chime if someone is

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Speaker 2: there to wind out. So basically it's a reward if

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Speaker 2: the clock is gets its power from to keep track

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Speaker 2: of the time, from the temperature difference from day tonight

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Speaker 2: that's harvested up at the top of the mountain through

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Speaker 2: just differential air tanks that are up there. And then

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Speaker 2: but if what it doesn't do is it doesn't show

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Speaker 2: you the time when you arrive, it shows you the

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Speaker 2: time of the last people that were there. So when

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Speaker 2: you get there, it could have been yesterday and you

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Speaker 2: might have to wind it just a teeny bit. And

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Speaker 2: but if it was one hundred years ago or a

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Speaker 2: thousand years ago, you could be there for hours to

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Speaker 2: days updating the dials by walking around this capstin and

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Speaker 2: winding things up. And so you get two pieces of

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Speaker 2: information how long it's been neglected as well as you

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Speaker 2: also get rewarded by having these unique chimes that happened

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Speaker 2: that Brian, you know, and Danny Hillis designed this kind

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Speaker 2: of pattern of ten bells that could be rung in

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Speaker 2: a different sequence each day for ten thousand years.

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Speaker 1: And for listeners who aren't familiar with the clock, give

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Speaker 1: us a size of the scale and how it's buried

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Speaker 1: in a mountain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we started with prototypes that were smaller, like

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Speaker 2: the first eight foot tall prototypes is at the Science

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Speaker 2: Museum in London. There's some later prototypes at the Interval

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Speaker 2: here in San Francisco, but in two thousand and five,

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Speaker 2: we started working with Jeff Bezos, who funded the full

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Speaker 2: scale version of it, which is kind of if you've

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Speaker 2: ever seen a Blue Origin launch from their Texas site,

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Speaker 2: not the one in Florida, but the Texas site. The

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Speaker 2: mountain range right behind that launch site is the Sierra

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Speaker 2: Diablo Mountains and.

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Speaker 3: That's where the site is.

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Speaker 2: And we built it into a mountain, and we actually

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Speaker 2: developed special diamond chainsaws and things.

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Speaker 3: Like this to work under ground.

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Speaker 2: And we built over two thousand linear feet of tunnel

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Speaker 2: and five hundred vertical feet of tunnel that the clock

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Speaker 2: goes into and cut these special stairs that allow you

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Speaker 2: to walk through the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: And were those cut by Was that robotic? This yair cutting?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we adapted a kind of these diamond chainsaws

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Speaker 2: or belt saws that are used for cutting marble like

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Speaker 2: in Coorra Italy, but they've never really been roboticized. So

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Speaker 2: we built a special robot with these amazing folks up

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Speaker 2: in Seattle that have been kind of roboticizing all things

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Speaker 2: for stone cutting. But they helped us make this custom

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Speaker 2: robot that was like twenty six thousand pounds.

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Speaker 3: It had a reach of like.

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Speaker 2: Thirty six feet and could cut through solid rock about

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Speaker 2: as fast as you would expect a chainsaw to cut

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Speaker 2: through rock, and it slowly over the course of two years,

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Speaker 2: cut a spiral staircase that is over four hundred feet tall, and.

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Speaker 1: So just so people can picture this, it's a tunnel

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Speaker 1: that goes straight down and the stairs are running along

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Speaker 1: the outside of the cylinder, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we cut the initial cylinder itself with a

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Speaker 2: mining tool.

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Speaker 3: That already exists called a raise boar. It's like a.

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Speaker 2: Tunnel boring machine that's pulled up through a mountain. So

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Speaker 2: you drill a small hole through a small by meaning

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Speaker 2: eighteen inches, and then you hook up the giant drill

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Speaker 2: bit to the bottom and you pull that up and

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Speaker 2: then you excavate all the stuff that falls down out

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Speaker 2: of the bottom. And it's a very efficient way to

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Speaker 2: make a very smooth bore. And usually it's used for

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Speaker 2: like ventilation shafts for a mine or for a tunnel

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Speaker 2: or something like that, but we used it as the

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Speaker 2: main shaft that all the clockworks were going to go in.

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Speaker 2: But in order to have the people be able to

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Speaker 2: walk through all that, we needed to cut a staircase

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Speaker 2: around it and we actually wanted that staircase to start

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Speaker 2: wide and get narrower and narrower, and so every single

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Speaker 2: cut of that staircase was different, and in order to

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Speaker 2: do that, a robot was definitely the right piece of machinery.

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Speaker 1: Cool So you've got this huge bore that goes down

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Speaker 1: into the mountain and at the bottom you install the clock.

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Speaker 1: And how large is that clock.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's not at the bottom, it's through the entire bore.

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Speaker 2: So that clock is stretched out from the very bottom

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Speaker 2: of that five hundred feet all the way to the

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Speaker 2: top where there's a cupola that harvests sunlight and does

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Speaker 2: give us a solar synchronization event. So every year around

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Speaker 2: the solstice time, if on any sunny day around the

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Speaker 2: first about two weeks around the summer solstice, if we

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Speaker 2: get a sunny day, sunlight is focused down in this

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Speaker 2: very Indiana Jones moment where it goes down in one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty feet down into the largest sapphire lens

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Speaker 2: ever ground, and then that goes into a thing that

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Speaker 2: basically hits a black piece of metal in a chamber

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Speaker 2: that expands and says, this is solar noon. And so

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Speaker 2: if the clock has been drifting over the year or

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Speaker 2: so that it's been operating, it needs this moment to

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Speaker 2: correct itself. Now a human could also do that correction,

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Speaker 2: but this is a way it can do that with

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Speaker 2: just solar alignment.

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Speaker 1: And so you mentioned that the clock is made so

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Speaker 1: that maintenance can be done on it, but in theory

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Speaker 1: it could survive ten thousand years on its own and

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Speaker 1: keep functioning. Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 2: We did everything we could possibly do in order to

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Speaker 2: make the materials and test all the things that move

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Speaker 2: way beyond their design life of number of cycles, and

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Speaker 2: as far as we know in material science, that will

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Speaker 2: last as long as it needs to.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So this is a great segue to the question

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Speaker 1: of institutions. Human institutions, not just machines that can last

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Speaker 1: a long time. So we've got many examples of this

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Speaker 1: sort of thing, which you have been researching for years

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Speaker 1: and years. You've been finding what human things last and why,

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Speaker 1: So tell us about that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, I mean, as you might imagine, I kind of

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Speaker 2: made a hobby of like figuring out things that have

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Speaker 2: lasted on this timescale. And initially it was really about

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Speaker 2: the objects, because that's what we're engineering. This clock or

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Speaker 2: buildings and so you know, I went to this seed

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Speaker 2: vault in Svallbard that was designed to last for a

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Speaker 2: thousand years. I went to the Mormon genealogical vault in

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Speaker 2: outside of Salt Lake, which also.

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Speaker 3: Designed for a thousand years.

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Speaker 2: I've been to historical sites, the pyramids, all these things,

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Speaker 2: you know. The nuclear waste repository sites multiple the ones here,

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Speaker 2: the ones in Oncolo designed for one hundred thousand years actually,

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Speaker 2: and there's in both Finland and Sweden they have these

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Speaker 2: sites that designed for one hundred thousand years.

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Speaker 1: Once I cantanded, how do you design a site like that?

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Speaker 1: It's just thick cement.

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Speaker 2: Each one of those sites is uses very different principles,

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Speaker 2: like the Yucca Mountain site in North America that we

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Speaker 2: have designed for storing nuclear waste, which so far is

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Speaker 2: currently shut down because of I think largely political reasons.

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Speaker 2: But we've done an amazing amount of engineering and digging

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Speaker 2: to build a site for a nuclear waste that we

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Speaker 2: have not used, but that one is designed has actually

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Speaker 2: has a it's a law on the books that it's

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Speaker 2: a ten thousand year repository because I think it was

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Speaker 2: because the problem the nuclear kind of waste problem was

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Speaker 2: over a quarter million years, so they thought they'd be

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Speaker 2: They're like, well, that's too long. So we'll say that

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Speaker 2: we at least have to keep it safe for ten

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Speaker 2: thousand years, which I think is interesting that it's exactly

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Speaker 2: the same as this clock, which is, you know, about

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Speaker 2: as long as you know. Also to just say a

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Speaker 2: little bit about that timeframe, that it's not meant as

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Speaker 2: a forever clock, which is, you know, you get into

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Speaker 2: these kind of astronomic time scales or even geologic time scales,

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Speaker 2: which are millions of years, but ten thousand years is

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Speaker 2: about how long we've had agriculture and cities as humans.

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Speaker 2: And so that was the idea that this is our

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Speaker 2: human entropscene moment is ten thousand years in the past,

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Speaker 2: and so we should be looking at least ten thousand

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Speaker 2: years in the future. And if we think of ourselves

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Speaker 2: more broadly as in the middle, at least in the

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Speaker 2: middle of a twenty thousand year story, rather than at

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Speaker 2: the end of a ten thousand year story, we might

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Speaker 2: think about, you know, how we would be more responsible

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Speaker 2: towards the future.

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Speaker 1: And one second tangent, which is long now foundation uses

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Speaker 1: when it marks years, it uses five digits instead of four,

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Speaker 1: so you might say, oh, it's oh twenty twenty six, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Very early on, when when Danny Hillis and I were

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Speaker 2: designing that the dials for the clock, we realized that

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Speaker 2: the dials are going to have to read with an

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Speaker 2: extra zero in order to read past the year, you know,

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Speaker 2: ten thousand, and so that we kind of used that

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Speaker 2: as a mechanism to show that how far ahead we

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Speaker 2: were thinking. And one of the thing Danny Hillis quickly

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Speaker 2: found that there's a bug in Microsoft Excel because he

401
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 2: was using that for some of the clock gear calculations

402
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Speaker 2: and it doesn't take five digit dates.

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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, right, like the Y two K bug. Yeah,

404
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 1: the Y ten k b exactly. Oh goodness. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: let's get back to institutions then, So you started looking

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Speaker 1: at what lasts? Why? What did you find about human institutions?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I started looking at this, and.

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Speaker 2: As was brought up early and on the project, that

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Speaker 2: making an institution last on this timescale is the thing

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Speaker 2: that truly has not happened. And so as I've been

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Speaker 2: managing long now, for a long time, and I realized,

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Speaker 2: I know it's going to have to be handed off

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Speaker 2: at some point, and so I started doing research. You know,

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Speaker 2: who are the experts, who are where are the books

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00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 2: on this? And there's certainly some anthropological studies and things

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Speaker 2: on tribal cultures, but there's nothing like a modern business

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Speaker 2: book on how to hand off your multi generational institution

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Speaker 2: and how to design one from the ground up to

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Speaker 2: be multi generational and multi generational in the sense that

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Speaker 2: it's not necessarily a family thing, but it will be

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Speaker 2: handed off, you know, to the next management team or whatever.

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Speaker 1: You got interested in this question because you're interested in

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Speaker 1: how do we make the long now foundation? With your

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Speaker 1: executive director, how do we make that last ten thousand years? Exactly? Okay?

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Speaker 1: And so what did you find in terms of give

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Speaker 1: us some examples of organization and by the way, does

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Speaker 1: religion count as as something that last long time? And

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Speaker 1: give us an example of that and other organizations so less? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I think as I started doing some of that research. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, the one that comes up often first is

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Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, right, it is one of the longest

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Speaker 1: term organizations we have on the planet. And just so curiously,

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Speaker 1: what about older religions, Judaism, Buddhisms.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are definitely older religions, but they don't have

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Speaker 2: like an institution necessarily that it has consistent management through it.

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Speaker 1: The Vaticans what you're referring to.

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Speaker 2: Or what, Yeah, the Catholic Church as an as an

438
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 2: actual institution that like that has top down control or

439
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,199
Speaker 2: at least top down kind of management and things like that,

440
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 2: as an actual company or organization or something like that.

441
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,159
Speaker 2: But I also like even looking more broadly, so I

442
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,679
Speaker 2: think so far in my research, so I started this,

443
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 2: I realized that there was basically a book in this.

444
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 2: So I started thinking about this in terms of that,

445
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 2: and as I started interviewing people around the world who

446
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 2: are managing some of the longest lived organizations in their

447
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 2: current generation.

448
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:03,159
Speaker 3: So I went to Japan and.

449
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 2: Interviewed the people that are managing the oldest hotel in

450
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 2: the world.

451
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 3: It was started in seven eighteen.

452
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 2: It's on its forty seventh generation right now, it's being

453
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 2: handed off right now to the first time for a

454
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 2: woman to a woman a granddaughter.

455
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: And just to make clear, it's seven eighteen, that's seventeen eighteen.

456
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 2: Seven eighteen, so it's nearly a fourteen hundred year old company.

457
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: And that one's family owned. But even going older than that, Well,

458
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 2: I went to India and you go to the what

459
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 2: are called the gats where they burn bodies near rivers,

460
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 2: and the oldest one of those in the world and

461
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:44,360
Speaker 2: in India is at Varanasi, and that has been managed

462
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 2: by a interestingly illiterate cast of people that so there's

463
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 2: no record of it, but we have record of it

464
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 2: in like freezes and things that have been documented to

465
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 2: over five thousand years. So we know that that institution

466
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 2: and that way of doing that is over five thousand

467
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,959
Speaker 2: years old. And there's documentation that the fire itself that

468
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 2: has been kept there burning is has never gone out

469
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 2: for three thousand years.

470
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.

471
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 3: And so those people like you come there.

472
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 2: You can come there with the remains, you can even

473
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: come there with like your ashes from America of you,

474
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 2: of your dad who is from India. And you talk

475
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 2: to them, and they are a human computer that knows

476
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 2: all genealogy of all of India. And they while they

477
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 2: don't write anything down, they are they're word of mouth

478
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 2: only and they will tell you. You start telling them

479
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 2: about your family and they they'll kind of figure out

480
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 2: your entire family line. Right there, figure out the way

481
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 2: that your descendant or your parent is supposed to be

482
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 2: burned and all the right rights. And there's this person

483
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,479
Speaker 2: with a typewriter who types it up that that is literate,

484
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: and it's like it has to be one of the

485
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 2: most amazing kind of human computers I've ever witnessed. And

486
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 2: it's all it's largely undocumented, so much story and talking

487
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 2: to these people and and to me, it's there are

488
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: things like the Catholic Church, but it's not like no

489
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 2: one's going to create another one of those or a

490
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 2: lot of them, right Like, So I'm more interested in

491
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 2: like these kind of strange unicorns of long term organization

492
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 2: that are small enough that we have that have lessons

493
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 2: for us to learn from. If we if, like for instance,

494
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 2: long Now, wanted to be a long term institution, what

495
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 2: are the lessons that we can learn from various ones

496
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,959
Speaker 2: that are at a scale, that are that are useful

497
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 2: to learn from and that are possible to reproduce.

498
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: So let me make sure understandingly, what is the difference

499
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: between let's say tradition. So at Vara Nasi, they say, look,

500
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: this is what my father did. We kept this, We

501
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: always stoke the fire and keep it going and so

502
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: on versus an organization and institution.

503
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 2: Well, I would qualify the Vara Nazi one as an organization.

504
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 2: They take in money, they they have a service. It's

505
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 2: just happens to be undocumented. So I mean, I think,

506
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 2: you know, and most languages in the world are not

507
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 2: written languages, right, so I think we shouldn't necessarily do

508
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 2: it to that. But there are also just traditions, things

509
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 2: like martial arts have lasted for many thousands of years.

510
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 2: There are you know, there's other religions like Shinto that

511
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 2: are thousands of years old, and animists other animist tribal

512
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 2: religions that are this way or are. There are more

513
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 2: belief systems than religions there, but they don't have an

514
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 2: institution around them.

515
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: And what qualifies in like, for example, Judaism is quite old,

516
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: but does that you think that's an institution or that's

517
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: a tradition Cary.

518
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 2: I think that has gone in and out of having

519
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 2: both both institution tradition, and so it's had several bottlenecks

520
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 2: through history, and amazingly things like the language have have

521
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 2: lasted through that that are recognizable today that or you know,

522
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 2: five thousand year old characters can be read today and

523
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 2: get their meaning very directly, which is very and that's

524
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 2: I think one of the more amazing things about Judaism.

525
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,439
Speaker 2: But its institution has been basically almost wiped off the

526
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 2: face of the earth multiple times, and so it had

527
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 2: to come back from that as through tradition.

528
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 3: So I think it's a great example, but it's it's not.

529
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 2: Like a continuous management system that you mean, because the Catholic.

530
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 1: Church to have the pope and they say, okay, look

531
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: I'm the guy in charge, and then I've got all

532
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: these guys under me.

533
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 2: Nice and that system never was was completely decimated and

534
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 2: brought back.

535
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 3: So we also places in Asia.

536
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 2: In China, we have traditions that have been lasting for

537
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 2: five thousand plus years, but because of the dynastics system,

538
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 2: they were basically wiped out and rebuilt and so like

539
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 2: they lost many technologies. Most interestingly to me was clockmaking,

540
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 2: for instance. So for a long time ago, fourteen hundred

541
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 2: years ago, they built a clock. This guy Sousung built

542
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 2: a water clock that was more accurate than anything that

543
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 2: has ever been built in the history of the world

544
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: as far as we know, way more accurate than European cls,

545
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 2: but because we only have record of it because of

546
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: some records that he presented to the emperor, but most

547
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 2: of that was wiped out.

548
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 3: And so when Westerners showed up to their shores.

549
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 2: With modern you know, what we thought were as modern clocks,

550
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 2: they didn't realize that they had already invented something better

551
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: than that hundreds of years before. I am thinking about

552
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 2: institutions very broadly, and I think also there are lessons

553
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 2: to be learned from even natural systems. And so, you know,

554
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: one of the oldest living organisms of the world is

555
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 2: a bristle cone pine. And my favorite definition of like

556
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 2: why a bristolcone pine lives for a very long time

557
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 2: is not that it lives for a very long time.

558
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 2: It's just that it takes a very long time to die.

559
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 2: And if you've ever seen one of these things, they're

560
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: very gnarled up at the top of a mountain and

561
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 2: there'll be one little teeny strip of bark and a

562
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 2: bunch of needles.

563
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 3: On that one thing.

564
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: And their wood is so it's almost geologic, right, Like

565
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 2: the wood is so dense, and you'll see at the

566
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 2: root structure where limestone has received has been basically melting

567
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: away for six thousand years up against the root structure

568
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 2: of this, you know, five thousand year old tree, and

569
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: that type of you know understanding. You know, it's often

570
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 2: way more about how you survive the more difficult events

571
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: and how you bounce back from that. I think is

572
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 2: also comes up when I started looking at these institutions

573
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 2: that have lasted for a very long time.

574
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you brought this up because I was

575
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: thinking about this issue about the parallel between organizations and

576
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: natural life. So let's go back to the Catholic Church.

577
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: You've got the pope, you've got the bishops, You've got

578
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: this thing, and it's like a biological organism in the

579
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: sense that the cells keep dying and getting replaced, so

580
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: the pope himself is always a new pope. All every

581
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: piece of the organization is getting turned over like the

582
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: ship of theseus, but the organization itself survives, just as

583
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: happens in biology. The question is what is the difference

584
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: that you see between organizations that are long lasting in

585
00:30:58,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: those that die.

586
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 2: Well, there's two things that have been emerging as I

587
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 2: talk to people all over the world about this, and

588
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 2: in all kinds of different businesses.

589
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 3: One is a certain amount of flexibility and and I didn't.

590
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 2: Expect to see so much of this, especially in Japan,

591
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 2: which Japan has an inordinate number of the longest lived

592
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 2: organizations and companies in the world, Like over sixty percent

593
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 2: of the companies over three hundred years old are in Japan.

594
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 2: For instance, whoa and when you got to tell us

595
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 2: why what you're well? I mean, Japan has an amazing

596
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 2: kind of deference to handing things down through families. That

597
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 2: and it also never got like conquered in the way

598
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 2: that wiped out that type of familial business. I mean,

599
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 2: in World War Two, it did lose, but it was

600
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 2: kind of rebuilt as well. It didn't it didn't wipe

601
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 2: out these kind of cultural systems, but it has had

602
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 2: It is a place that has had some some real challenges, right,

603
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 2: It had tsunamis and earthquakes, so it was and it

604
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 2: was an island culture, so it had to bring so

605
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 2: much stuff in. But it tried to preserve its culture

606
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 2: by holding off on a lot of that. So it's

607
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 2: it was a it's a really just kind of singular

608
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 2: place in terms of very long lived organizations. In looking there,

609
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 2: I expected to find most of those to have very

610
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: rigid systems. But actually, you know I'm talking to you know,

611
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: like the people who run the hotel that is actually

612
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 2: the oldest hot spring hotel in the world, and it

613
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 2: was I think was seventeen generations old, and and and

614
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 2: the person who's in charge of it now he said, yeah,

615
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 2: when my dad handed it to me, he said this,

616
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 2: you have to make this relevant to your time. I

617
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: had to make it relevant to my time. And so

618
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: there's there's a lot of flexibility that's been built into

619
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 2: these systems. And the other thing that is unique to

620
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 2: seems to be universal in some way is a storytelling culture.

621
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 2: And and this one I really love. And I think

622
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 2: sometimes it's like a janitor or somebody who maintains the

623
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: building that's been there through all the different management things,

624
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 2: but sometimes it's very official. So companies like Will's Fargo

625
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 2: or Levi's right, like, they their history is so entrenched

626
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 2: in their brand. They have whole history departments that that

627
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 2: they maintain and and they think about their history because

628
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 2: it's part of their marketing brand.

629
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: Right, I hadn't read how old are Wells Fargo and

630
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: Levi's Truss Well They're they're.

631
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 2: On the order of like one hundred and fifty years old, right,

632
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 2: so they're they're gold Rush kind of companies. So here

633
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,479
Speaker 2: in North America with modern Western companies, that's about as

634
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 2: old as you get.

635
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 3: In some cases, there's some things that have lasted longer

636
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 3: than that.

637
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: I'd forgot that by the way, see I'm worrying Levi jeans,

638
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: But they write it was Levi's Trust came out here

639
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,719
Speaker 1: during the gold Rush in California to make Denham for

640
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:50,239
Speaker 1: people there.

641
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 2: They were called the metal metal Genes because they had

642
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 2: the metal gramets in corners that kept all the scenes

643
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 2: from pulling apart. But yeah, so they're they're one of

644
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 2: the oldest of like the modern American companies. But we

645
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 2: do have things like I was just in Mexico City

646
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 2: and where the central market there predates colonialism as it's older.

647
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: It goes back as far as the Aztecs know in history,

648
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 2: so that goes back thousands of years. And that's not

649
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 2: really an institution, but it is a market, central market

650
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 2: that's been there operating for thousands of years. And so

651
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 2: all of these things have interesting lessons to me. I

652
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 2: think one of my favorite ones more recently that I

653
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 2: found out about was the symbol company.

654
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: Which is symbol is in the big metal circles of yeah,

655
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: well together.

656
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 2: We're more often they're now on drum sets, right, So

657
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: if you've ever seen a drum set with that Z logo,

658
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 2: that's Zilgion.

659
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 3: Yes, So that.

660
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 2: Actually means symbol maker in early Turkish and that company

661
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 2: was started in the Ottoman Empire four hundred years ago

662
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 2: and by the Zilgian family. They were named Zilgion because

663
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 2: there were symbol makers for the for the emperor. But

664
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 2: that company one hundred years ago moved to the United

665
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 2: States and is still operating as one of the highest

666
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 2: end you know, kind of artisan. They're both artisan and

667
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 2: commodity commodified, and that they're in all these drum sets

668
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 2: and they're you know, they're their customers are rock stars,

669
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 2: and they're they're still run by the Zilgian family, so

670
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:25,879
Speaker 2: they're they're small, but worldwide they're you know, they found

671
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 2: a lot of these things like this in Japan with

672
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 2: soy sauce companies and and in general. The other thing

673
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 2: that you learn about these companies is almost all of them,

674
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 2: you know, Zilgion notwithstanding, are in things that are basic

675
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 2: human needs and maybe symbols. Music is a basic human need,

676
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 2: I would say, but it's largely in hospitality. So things

677
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 2: that have to do with breweries and wineries and hotels

678
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 2: and things like that are some of the longest lasting

679
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 2: companies we have.

680
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: How do these families keep getting the next generation interested

681
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,879
Speaker 1: in doing this instead of going off to Hollywood or whatever.

682
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, well this has been a problem, certainly in the

683
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 2: last couple generations. That's that's been the largest problem that

684
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 2: it has ever been because people are you know, a

685
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 2: generation can see the rest of the world that in

686
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 2: ways they couldn't just one hundred years ago, right, and

687
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 2: even just twenty five years ago. But you know, I

688
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,879
Speaker 2: visited this fourth generation sushi family that took us through

689
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 2: the Tokyo market, and then we went and had sushi

690
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 2: in his restaurant as only a sushi restaurant that it

691
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,760
Speaker 2: has like six seats, right, But they're considered national treasures

692
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 2: in Japan. They when the royal families come, they're the

693
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: ones who make sushi for them.

694
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: Right.

695
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 2: And the Sun went to Stanford, we got a marketing

696
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 2: degree and went off and he was like doing international

697
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 2: ski guiding around the world.

698
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 3: Did not think he was going to come back.

699
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 2: But then I think the more he thought about it,

700
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 2: he had grown up as though he was going to

701
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: take over this sushi thing, and then he kind of

702
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,720
Speaker 2: rebelled and didn't. And he looked at it, He's like, well, actually,

703
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 2: I could use my marketing degree from Stanford and I

704
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 2: could rethink what it is to have us, you know,

705
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 2: the one of the best sushi places on the planet

706
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 2: in Japan, as that were, we are considered a national treasure.

707
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 2: So that the client before me was Steph Curry and

708
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 2: his wife and so they basically catered to a very

709
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: high end, you know people, and they he totally has

710
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 2: rethought it. So he went away and came back, and

711
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 2: that is happening in some cases. But there are cases

712
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 2: where kids are just like, no, I'm not taking this over.

713
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 2: And so the oldest hotel in the world, for instance,

714
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 2: the two sons were one didn't want to do it

715
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 2: and the other one didn't seem really seem capable of

716
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 2: doing it, and the father tried to get it to

717
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:41,280
Speaker 2: happen for years and years and years, but the granddaughter did.

718
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: And in Japan it's very you know, there's a lot

719
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:49,839
Speaker 2: of entrenched sexism but eventually he has realized that, you know,

720
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 2: after thirteen fourteen hundred years, that it was time to

721
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 2: have a woman run the company. And by the way,

722
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:00,080
Speaker 2: she was already running it, but just not officially. But

723
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 2: it was interesting to interview them both. And so is

724
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 2: the eighty three year old man's kind of woman in

725
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 2: her thirties breaking a tradition and allowing the flexibility for

726
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 2: this to happen.

727
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 1: So, you know, there's another biological analogy that I can't

728
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: escape thinking about, which is if you you know, if

729
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: you were a deity who invented these different species, you

730
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: might say, gosh, how are we going to get these

731
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: species to keep reproducing every generation? And the fact is

732
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: that lots don't. There are lots of species that have

733
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: died off and so on, and yet there are you know,

734
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: it keeps going. And we are here as a testament

735
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: to all to every single one of our ancestors being

736
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:56,399
Speaker 1: successful at matings. So so somehow, even though many many

737
00:38:56,400 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: companies die, it is possible for companies to last or organs.

738
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: I should say, what is what is the death knell

739
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: for organizations that you see? What's the thing that where

740
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: you think, wow, I'm looking at that and that's going downhill.

741
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's there's many you know, there's

742
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,839
Speaker 2: there's a huge plurality of ways things can fail, right,

743
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 2: But I would say that often and I think this

744
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 2: is a great example for kind of especially modern Silicon

745
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 2: Valley companies. This idea of growing or dying that if

746
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 2: you're not growing or dying is is doesn't work if

747
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 2: you're trying to make a long term company, right so

748
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 2: even if you're one percent of year growth like that

749
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 2: has a limit. Yeah, and you know, especially compounding, and

750
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 2: so all these very old companies are kind of right

751
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 2: sized companies.

752
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 3: They're not growth companies, and they can have growth models.

753
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: They have growth moments where like they become you know,

754
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 2: like Exilgent wasn't you know, at first they were making

755
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 2: symbols just for the emperor, but eventually they're now a

756
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 2: worldwide commodity. But they they they put themselves in position

757
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 2: that they're not overextended, they're not leveraged in a way

758
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 2: that if some if something happens that they can't contract

759
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,280
Speaker 2: and they can't you know, the DNA of the company

760
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: doesn't die, and that they are not so reliant on

761
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 2: the growth that they will kill the host effectively, and

762
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 2: that is something that I think is very much lost

763
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 2: in modern kind of business. And we aren't building companies

764
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,360
Speaker 2: for right sizing right now, and it's not even it

765
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 2: doesn't even seem like we're allowed to think about that.

766
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: Gosh, to do one more biological analogy. You know, this

767
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: happens all the time with yah Moose start growing larger

768
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: and larger antlers because that's a useful thing for sexual selection,

769
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: because the female really likes larger and larger antlers. But

770
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,439
Speaker 1: then they end up in a situation where they can't

771
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: run away and get through the trees because their antlers

772
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: are too large, and so they die out as a result.

773
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: Right yeah, So okay, so companies have to be right sized.

774
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 2: And that storytelling thing is is just to come back

775
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 2: to it, I think it's it's I don't think it

776
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 2: can be overstated, and I think there's if there's one

777
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 2: of the lessons that I really want to point out

778
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 2: in this book is that we should be probably more

779
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: explicit about this who is telling the stories of our institutions.

780
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 2: And you know that I mentioned that Levi's and the

781
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: Wells Farrigo examples, they're doing it just fine. But you know,

782
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 2: there's these ones that have much more unofficial ones. And

783
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 2: so one of my favorite examples that I found is

784
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 2: in the cathedrals in England have a person that and

785
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 2: their title is It varies, but my favorite version of

786
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 2: the title is the keeper of the fabric, and that

787
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 2: person is basically they're they're the they tell the architectural story.

788
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 2: They're in charge of the architectural plans of the building,

789
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: but they can tell the basic each change of the architecture,

790
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 2: every edition was done because you know a different you know,

791
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 2: bishop or whatever gave them money and they had so

792
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 2: he's that person is able to tell that story through

793
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 2: the architectural plans, and that that idea of a keeper

794
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 2: of the fabric or a storyteller in charge as at

795
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 2: actual title, I think is much more important than we

796
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 2: give it credit for.

797
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 1: Oh lovely, Okay, there is something else I wanted to

798
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: ask you that I know you and I both wondered

799
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: about this individually, which is we are in an era

800
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: now digital era, where it seems like great, you can

801
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: reproduce digital documents and so everything can last forever, and

802
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,959
Speaker 1: yet we've all noticed that it's much easier to lose

803
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: things in this digital era, as in my computer from

804
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. You know, there's like a hard drive.

805
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I can access the hard

806
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: drive now. Well, there's so much stuff that's gone. My

807
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: emails from twenty five or thirty years ago, we're on

808
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: some other institutional server that's gone. I can't get those anymore.

809
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: And yet we have very old documents and I on

810
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: my bookshelves, I have things from my grandfather and things

811
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 1: that were written and song. So how do you think

812
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: about what will last from this digital era?

813
00:42:57,400 --> 00:42:59,959
Speaker 2: Well, this was a topic that came up very early

814
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 2: on with the Long Now foundations. One of the very

815
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 2: first conferences we did was with Getty Conservation Institutes on

816
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 2: this in nineteen ninety eight. It was called Time in Bits,

817
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 2: And actually Danny Hillis had a great kind of description

818
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:15,839
Speaker 2: of this is that, you know, thousands of years ago

819
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 2: we wrote on substances like rocks that can last for

820
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 2: thousands of years. Hundreds of years ago we let we

821
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: wrote on things like paper that could last for hundreds

822
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 2: of years. But now we're writing on digital means that

823
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: can last for kind of five years or like zero,

824
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 2: whichever comes first. Really it can kind of depend on

825
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 2: it so dependent, and especially before the broad use of

826
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,320
Speaker 2: the Internet, where we weren't doing we had, it was

827
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 2: much more difficult to do ubiquitous copying. And there was

828
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: a lot of early file formats that were abandoned, you know,

829
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 2: like word perfect, for instance, would be very difficult to

830
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 2: get something out of. And so he called that the

831
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 2: digital dark dark Age that we've already lost a lot

832
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 2: of stuff. And you may have heard some of these

833
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 2: stories about the early Apollo tapes like kind of required

834
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 2: heroic efforts to be saved because they were they were

835
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 2: literally the first computer formats, and they were written by

836
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: people that were making up computer formats and that had retired.

837
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 2: And then the digital tapes were like sitting, you know,

838
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 2: on in places that were not very well preserved, and

839
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 2: they had to rebuild these one of a kind machines

840
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: that were even built.

841
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 3: To write them in order to reread them.

842
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 2: And so we actually, so there's we and that's that's

843
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,720
Speaker 2: the case where we had enough effort and we saved

844
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 2: it at just the right time. But there's many many

845
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 2: cases where we've lost tons of early digital history and

846
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: we continued to lose that. And so and my job

847
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 2: now at automatic and word press, which WordPress strangely has.

848
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 2: I didn't realize until I was starting it was as

849
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 2: forty three percent of the world's websites are on WordPress.

850
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 3: Right.

851
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 2: But that's the idea of something lasting for a very

852
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 2: long time in the web world, especially now, is very

853
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 2: very difficult because you know, those those books that even

854
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 2: the electronic books that you think you're buying, you're not.

855
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 2: You buy a license to that book, and so publishers aren't.

856
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 2: You don't own that book anymore, and so they can

857
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: change that book, they can take away that book.

858
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 3: That's already happened.

859
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 2: And ironically, I think that it was nineteen eighty four

860
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 2: that was the first one that got retracted off of

861
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 2: the digital publishing platform because of a copyright dispute. So

862
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 2: we increasingly live in a world of like where we

863
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 2: own kind of the stream of the information that's coming

864
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 2: at us.

865
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: And you know, then we have political issues that we're

866
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 3: having right now.

867
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 2: So you know, I was looking trying to look up

868
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 2: at the Supreme Court rulings on the use of the

869
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 2: auto pen. All of those previous things have been taken

870
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 2: offline in the United States, so the only way I

871
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 2: got them was from the Internet Archive. So we're destroying

872
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 2: our institutions right now in the United States that have

873
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 2: that have information, and the digital born digital information just

874
00:45:58,920 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: makes that easier to do.

875
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: Mike, God, you know that the irony for all of

876
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: us is that we thought, with the advent of computers

877
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: and the Internet, that we finally have a way of

878
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: retaining information. You look at let's say, the burning of

879
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: the Library of Alexandria, and it's so tragic, all these manuscripts.

880
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:17,959
Speaker 1: You know, the Alexandrians would take all the sailors would

881
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: come into the dock, they would force them to give

882
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: up their books so they could make a copy and

883
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 1: then give it back to the sailors and something. And

884
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: they had this huge repository which all burned down in

885
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: one one day in the fire.

886
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 2: Actually there's many fires to that. Oh really, it was

887
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 2: like eight times that it burned down.

888
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: But then then there was the big fire, yes, and

889
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: so then it was all lost. And so when the

890
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,879
Speaker 1: Internet came along, I just felt such joy that that

891
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen anymore. But anyway, there's the irony. Yeah.

892
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 2: So I mean, the great thing is that allows us

893
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 2: to make many copies and I am hoping and luckily

894
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 2: we have it stations like the Internet Archive that are

895
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 2: doing backups, and I'm and other you know, there's other

896
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 2: libraries and backups and I'm hoping that we don't lose

897
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 2: things now. But the downside of digital things is that

898
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 2: they can be they can disappear very fast, and they

899
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 2: can be and I think in the modern AI age

900
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 2: also knowing the true source of things is very difficult.

901
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,879
Speaker 3: Right, so you can where AI might you know, look

902
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 3: at a whole bunch of sources.

903
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 2: And then give you a kind of an interpreted feedback

904
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 2: of what that means.

905
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 3: That can be altered.

906
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 2: That's an algorithmic thing, right, And and we start not

907
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 2: really understanding what facts are and if we can, if

908
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 2: we don't have the original things that were unchangeable, that

909
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 2: were written on paper or in some kind of write

910
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 2: once media, it might be hard to ever know what

911
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 2: true facts are going into the future with AI, which

912
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 2: I think is I love AI, and I think there's

913
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 2: so many great uses of it, but I think this

914
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 2: is a place where we need to be very careful.

915
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: Does all your work thinking about long time make you

916
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,240
Speaker 1: more optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's future?

917
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 3: I think about this a lot.

918
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's two things that I think have

919
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 2: changed in me in making kind of long term thinking

920
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 2: so much a part of what I do. And one

921
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 2: is it changes the way that that I think about

922
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 2: even simple things like if I'm doing something to my

923
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 2: home that's an upgrade, like am I doing it for

924
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 2: ten years?

925
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 3: Am I doing it for one hundred years? Am I

926
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 3: doing it for a generation?

927
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 2: And this is also the case just with any all

928
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: objects and things around me.

929
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,319
Speaker 3: I think that has really changed the way.

930
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 2: And I think there's always a case for things that

931
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,479
Speaker 2: are very ephemeral. And I think that you know, there's

932
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 2: art and some parts of communication, design and things like

933
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 2: that that should be very frenetic. We should be experimenting.

934
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 2: They should go that we should burn through them. They

935
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 2: should go fast. And I know, and I always I

936
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: always try and be careful to you know, it's like

937
00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 2: not everything should last for a long time. There's not

938
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 2: a lot of companies should last for a long time, right,

939
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 2: There's some that should that's and some that shouldn't. But

940
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 2: having the conversation and thinking about the things that that

941
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 2: we do care about that should last is something that

942
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 2: I that states with me through this through all of

943
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 2: these projects.

944
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:19,959
Speaker 1: So the question is how does it make you feel

945
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: about the next Yeah, So I would.

946
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 2: Say fundamentally, I am very optimistic. You know, if you

947
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 2: look at history in the last ten thousand years or

948
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 2: even the last hundred years, like, there is nobody that

949
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 2: would go back one hundred years and want to live

950
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 2: in that world, especially if you're not a white male,

951
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 2: right and so they but even that, like, you don't

952
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 2: want a world of no antibiotics and bad dentistry, right, like,

953
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 2: you do not want to live in this world, right like.

954
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 2: So this this good old day's thought, I think is

955
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:58,760
Speaker 2: always misplaced. And I think that you know, the pendulum

956
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 2: of justice does back and forth so far, it always

957
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 2: keeps going further in the direction that I think is good.

958
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,439
Speaker 2: And our lives have always been getting better. There's never

959
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 2: a time that they haven't been and they do approximately

960
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,280
Speaker 2: like maybe during a war, twenty years, a depression something

961
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 2: like that does get worse, but overall, you would not

962
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 2: trade your life for that of your parents almost ever.

963
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 2: And I think that when you see that kind of

964
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 2: progress through time, you know, I think it's fundamentally because

965
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:36,959
Speaker 2: there's never been a generation, there's never been a parent

966
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 2: who wants a worse world for their kid, right, So,

967
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 2: I think this has had a ratcheting effect throughout human history.

968
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 3: And I think the.

969
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:48,240
Speaker 2: Only danger in that is that if you are only

970
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 2: thinking about your kid as your kid and not the

971
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 2: generation of the world's kids, which we now are operating

972
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:00,399
Speaker 2: and changing the world at a global scale, we need

973
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 2: to think about that in a little bit different ways.

974
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 2: And if we can think about the next generation as

975
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 2: not just making my kid's life better, but making all

976
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 2: kids of my kid's age better, than I think we.

977
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 3: Have a shot.

978
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: That was my conversation with Alexander Rose. I've always found

979
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: this project of the ten thousand year clock so spectacular

980
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: because it is so impossible to extrapolate that far. What

981
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: I mean is, when all of us consider where AI

982
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 1: and biotechnology are going to be in three years from now,

983
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:42,280
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to make an accurate guess. So where's

984
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 1: the human race going to be one hundred years from

985
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: now or a thousand years from now. Taking on a

986
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 1: project with a ten thousand year timescale is so extraordinary

987
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:57,879
Speaker 1: because we really have no idea who will be maintaining

988
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:01,320
Speaker 1: that in ten thousand years. Will it even be a human.

989
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: Will it be a robot, will it be some strange

990
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: cyborg hybrid. There's no way to know this in advance,

991
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: and that's part of what makes it an amazing project.

992
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:16,879
Speaker 1: As we wrap up today's conversation, I'm struck by how

993
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 1: strange and how rare it is to think on the

994
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: kind of time scales that Xander works. In. Most of

995
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: our systems, from technology to politics to finance, they're optimized

996
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: for immediacy. We build for the next version or the

997
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: next quarter, but we can't escape deep time. Civilizations rise

998
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: and crumble. Knowledge survives or disappears based on the fragility

999
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:47,399
Speaker 1: of its containers and the continuity of the people who

1000
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 1: care enough to carry it forward. So today's conversation reminds

1001
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: me how rarely we pause to consider the sheer improbability

1002
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: of anything surviving across time. Most of what humans create,

1003
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 1: files or institutions or cultures, this all flickers briefly and disappears.

1004
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: The default state of the universe is forgetting. Entropy always

1005
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 1: wins unless someone push us back, And what Xander stands

1006
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: for is that pushback. We can choose to build clocks

1007
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: that will still be ticking long after our languages aren't

1008
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: spoken anymore. We can choose to preserve thousands of human

1009
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: languages on a disc that might outlast continents. We can

1010
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: place public bets on the future that force us to

1011
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: confront the long arcs of our predictions. These are all

1012
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 1: acts of civic memory. These are small but meaningful counterforces

1013
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 1: to the great forgetting, And all these acts of building

1014
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:00,279
Speaker 1: for the long term. These remind us that beyond our

1015
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:05,240
Speaker 1: own short stories, we are inhabiting a chapter in something

1016
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: much larger. Every generation inherits a library of solutions and

1017
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: mistakes and technologies and myths, and then decides consciously or

1018
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: not what to pass along and what to drop. We

1019
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 1: can do that with intention or simply let chance decide

1020
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 1: what remains. And many of us as start that we

1021
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: owe it to our descendants to take the intentional stance.

1022
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 1: So when this podcast ends and you return to the

1023
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,319
Speaker 1: quick tempo of everyday life, try to hold on to

1024
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: this larger frame. Think of the bristle cone pine on

1025
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: the mountain side, assiduously marking its five thousand ring. Think

1026
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 1: of the vanished knowledge that we can no longer reconstruct.

1027
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: Think about who or what is going to be looking

1028
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 1: at that clock ten thousand year years from now, and

1029
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: think of the countless decisions, large and small that accumulate

1030
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: into the shape of a civilization, and ask yourself, what

1031
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: might you contribute to that that deserves to last. Thank

1032
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: you for sharing with me this very brief moment in

1033
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: the very long now. Go to eagleman dot com slash

1034
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: podcast for more information and to find further reading. Join

1035
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: the weekly discussions on my substack, and check out and

1036
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: subscribe to Inner Cosmos on YouTube for videos of each

1037
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:40,280
Speaker 1: episode and to leave comments. Until next time. I'm David Eagleman,

1038
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 1: and this is Inner Cosmos.