Theo Jaffee Podcast

Deep conversations with brilliant people.

Theo Jaffee Podcast is a technology podcast hosted by Theo Jaffee, with 21 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Theo Jaffee hosts Theo Jaffee Podcast, a technology show with 21 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Theo Jaffee Podcast

  Luke Drago - AGI, The Intelligence Curse, and Hip-Hop

  May 11, 20251h 47m

  Luke Drago is the co-author of The Intelligence Curse and previously researched AI governance and economics at BlueDot Impact, served on the leadership team at Encode, and studied history and politics at Oxford. 0:00 - Intro 0:54 - Overview of the intelligence curse 2:10 - Why are the doomers wrong? 4:37 - Why are the optimists wrong? 7:00 - Do people really have power now? 13:33 - Why would powerful people’s values change? 18:31 - Why do we take care of dependents? 21:43 - Why should we want democracy in an AI future? 24:23 - Why fear rentier states? 32:45 - What powerful people should do right now 39:33 - Diffusion time and bottlenecks 44:20 - Why should we care if China achieves AGI first? 46:25 - The jagged frontier 49:16 - Why AGI society could be static 51:10 - Restricting AI rights 56:34 - What should we be excited for? 59:28 - Music 1:30:41 - Building God 1:32:46 - More music The Intelligence Curse: https://intelligence-curse.ai/ Luke’s Twitter: https://x.com/luke_drago_ Luke’s Substack: https://lukedrago.substack.com/ Luke’s top 10 albums: - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! at the Disco (2005) - Channel Orange by Frank Ocean (2012) - Random Access Memories by Daft Punk (2013) - Yeezus by Kanye West (2013) - DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar (2017) - DAYTONA by Pusha T (2018) - IGOR by Tyler, the Creator (2019) - I Didn't Mean to Haunt You by Quadeca (2022) - College Park by Logic (2023) - Atavista by Childish Gambino (2024) More Episodes YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

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  Theo Jaffee Podcast

  Alok Singh - AI, Math, Philosophy, and Erewhon

  Apr 29, 20252h 51m

  Alok Singh researches provable AI safety via formal verification using Lean at Max Tegmark’s Beneficial AI Foundation, and writes about mathematics at alok.github.io. 0:00 - Intro 1:12 - Typing 8:45 - Elon’s demo day 22:42 - Animation, discrete vs continuous 29:04 - Number systems 35:26 - Nonstandard analysis 43:04 - Reasoning models and o3 50:45 - Fiction 55:48 - o1 and Linguistics 58:50 - Hyperfinite sets 1:11:58 - AI for math 1:16:01 - The field with one element 1:23:17 - Lean 1:31:53 - Lean for formally verifying superintelligence 1:36:03 - Ayn Rand 1:47:46 - Erewhon 1:57:56 - Proto-Indo-European 2:03:18 - More Erewhon 2:14:41 - Butler and Kaczynski 2:50:19 - Outro Alok’s Website: https://alok.github.io/ Alok’s Twitter: https://x.com/TheRevAlokSingh Beneficial AI Foundation: http://beneficialaifoundation.org/ Lean: https://lean-lang.org/ Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/podcast-alok-singh More Episodes YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

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  Theo Jaffee Podcast

  #19: Samo Burja - Superintelligence and History, Ideology, and 21st Century Philosophy

  Sep 22, 20241h 7m

  Samo Burja is a writer, historian, and political scientist, the founder of civilizational consulting firm Bismarck Analysis, and the editor-in-chief of governance futurism magazine Palladium. Chapters 0:00 - Intro 1:06 - Implications of OpenAI o1 10:21 - Implications of superintelligence on history 35:06 - Palladium, Chinese technocracy, ideology, and media 1:00:44 - Best ideas, philosophers, and works of the past 20-30 years Links Samo’s Website: https://samoburja.com/ Bismarck Analysis: https://www.bismarckanalysis.com/ Palladium: https://www.palladiummag.com/ Bismarck’s Twitter: https://x.com/bismarckanlys Palladium’s Twitter: https://x.com/palladiummag Samo’s Twitter: https://x.com/samoburja Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/19-samo-burja More Episodes YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

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  Theo Jaffee Podcast

  #18: Alec Stapp - The Institute for Progress, American Dynamism, and Fixing Governance

  Jul 11, 20241h 3m

  Alec Stapp is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a non-profit think tank dedicated to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress. Chapters 0:00 - Intro 1:13 - Why can’t smart people fix the Bay Area? 3:38 - How to get normal people on board with IFP 10:23 - How to get smart people into governance 15:55 - How IFP chose its priorities 21:56 - How will IFP avoid mission creep? 24:17 - How important is academia today? 26:03 - Would Alec press a button to fully open borders? 29:45 - How prepared are we for another pandemic? 33:16 - Why don’t easy wins happen? 36:17 - Is Biden’s spending good? 40:51 - How important is the repeal of Chevron deference? 43:23 - Are land value taxes good? 45:01 - “The Project” for AGI and AI Alignment 48:19 - Is globalism dying? 50:32 - Overrated or Underrated? 59:28 - The most overrated issue 1:00:26 - The most underrated issue Links Institute for Progress: ifp.org “Progress Is A Policy Choice” founding essay by Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney: https://ifp.org/progress-is-a-policy-choice/ “How to Reuse the Operation Warp Speed Model” by Arielle D’Souza: https://ifp.org/how-to-reuse-the-operation-warp-speed-model/ “How to Be a Policy Entrepreneur in the American Vetocracy” by Alec Stapp: https://ifp.org/how-to-be-a-policy-entrepreneur-in-the-american-vetocracy/ “To Speed Up Scientific Progress, We Need to Understand Science Policy”: https://ifp.org/to-speed-up-scientific-progress-we-need-to-understand-science-policy/ “But Seriously, How Do We Make an Entrepreneurial State?” by Caleb Watney: https://ifp.org/how-do-we-make-an-entrepreneurial-state/ Construction Physics newsletter by Brian Potter: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/ Macroscience newsletter by Tim Hwang: https://www.macroscience.org/ Statecraft newsletter by Santi Ruiz: https://www.statecraft.pub/ IFP’s Twitter: x.com/IFP Alec’s Twitter: x.com/AlecStapp Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/18-alec-stapp More Episodes YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

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  Theo Jaffee Podcast

  #17: Casey Handmer - Terraform, solar, space, Hyperloop, and how to think

  Jun 24, 20241 hour

  Casey Handmer is the founder and CEO of Terraform Industries and a physicist, immigrant, pilot, dad, solar enthusiast, Caltech physics PhD and former Hyperloop One levitation engineer and NASA JPL software system architect. 0:00 - Intro 1:40 - Why don’t other people do what Terraform does? 2:51 - Why is solar better than nuclear fusion? 5:27 - Could carbon emissions actually be good? 8:38 - Why isn’t anyone stopping global warming with sulfur? 13:20 - Can America build something like Terraform? 20:53 - Solar and nuclear 23:10 - Why not terraform Venus instead of Mars? 30:47 - Why did Casey work at NASA instead of SpaceX? 37:18 - Why is Elon the only person with multiple huge companies? 39:59 - Why didn’t the Hyperloop work? 42:26 - Tile the desert with solar 46:03 - How does solar change geopolitics? 48:30 - How does Casey manage his time? 53:24 - How do you develop first principles thinking? 56:28 - Favorite place Casey has traveled to 59:21 - Outro Casey’s Blog: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/ - You Should Be Working On Hardware: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/you-should-be-working-on-hardware/ - The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/the-solar-industrial-revolution-is-the-biggest-investment-opportunity-in-history/ - Future of Energy Reading List: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/future-of-energy-reading-list/ - Elon Musk Is Not Understood: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-is-not-understood/ - Why High Speed Rail Hasn’t Caught On: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/why-high-speed-rail-hasnt-caught-on/ Casey’s Website: http://caseyhandmer.com/ Casey’s Twitter: https://x.com/cjhandmer Terraform Industries: https://terraformindustries.com/ Terraform Blog: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/ - Scaling Carbon Capture: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/scaling-carbon-capture/ - Terraform Industries Whitepaper: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/terraform-industries-whitepaper/ - Terraform Industries Whitepaper 2.0: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/terraform-industries-whitepaper-2-0/ - Permitting Reform or Death: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/permitting-reform-or-death/ Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/17-casey-handmer More Episodes YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4 Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

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