Audience of One Spencer Kier

Dylan O’Sullivan is a curator, editor, and writer at O'Shaughnessy Ventures and Essayful. Dylan and I talk about writing, taste, discipline vs. inspiration, timelessness vs ephemerality, boredom and solitude vs. the internet, inciting a digital renaissance, not lying to yourself, and more.

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(00:45) Curating & editing vs. writing

(05:39) Fear of never writing quality work or living up to your idols

(08:32) Discipline vs. inspiration

(15:49) Balancing technology & ephemerality with the timeless

(17:44) Solitude, getting better at the craft, and having a "normal" life

(21:09) Boredom

(26:32) Short attention & the effect on art & mediums

(29:54) Lack of original works & risk taking

(36:43) Digital renaissance; timeless stories & works

(44:15) What is timeless & what will become timeless

(48:17) Creativity & the subconscious

(52:08) Long form writing vs memes

(55:00) Above all, don't lie to yourself

(01:00:29) Books he’d have in his bookstore window

(01:03:38) Three favorite directors & their three movies

(01:05:34) Final question for listeners

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Dylan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/DylanoA4

Essayful: https://www.essayful.co/

O'Shaughnessy Ventures: https://www.osv.llc/

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Steve Schlafman is a venture capitalist turned transition coach. We talk about lostness, transformation, curiosity, mindfulness practices, his new Downshift program, being a husband and father, and more.

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(00:59) Lostness, navigating liminal identity space, personal transformations

(18:31) Head and heart, mind and body; intellectualizing emotions & feelings

(25:52) The role of curiosity; people, world, self

(29:52) Using practices as a means to an end

(34:21) Is downshifting antithetical to the history of humanity (advancement)?

(41:32) When to upshift

(46:27) Stillness & silence

(52:43) Renewal, rediscovery, experimentation

(57:39) Spouse support during transformations

(01:02:35) Balancing ambition & being a father

(01:06:54) Final question for listeners: what stops you from being at your best

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Steve’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/schlaf

Personal Site: https://www.schlaf.co/

Downshift: https://www.downshift.me/

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Matt Clifford is a co-founder of Entrepreneur First and leads their AI efforts, as well as chair of ARIA, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency. We talk about EF, talent investing, ambition, why we don’t have more Thiel Fellowships, his new focus on AI, and AI safety concerns.

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(00:59) Talent matters most
(03:17) Scarcity of talent x culture
(09:16) Founder qualities: effectiveness, unlocking resources
(14:37) Can you teach ambition?
(16:44) Failure to learn is an anti-signal
(19:13) Alternative funding: income share agreements, adverse selection, longer term bets, & government funding
(27:11) Why don't we have more grant programs or patrons, like the Thiel Fellowship? Scaling taste in talent & the macro talent allocation problem
(41:32) Focusing on AI & handing off the EF CEO role
(47:00) Is AI safety futile? Threat models and radical uncertainty
(53:31) Final question for listeners

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Matt’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/matthewclifford

Entrepreneur First: https://www.joinef.com/

Personal Site: https://www.matthewclifford.com/

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher. We talk about our relationship with & models of reality, creativity and curiosity, animism and self-organizing software, stages of development, and more.

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(01:25) The dream world; how we interact with & perceive reality
(03:49) Fear
(05:16) Self, consciousness, & awareness
(08:10) We're a coarse pattern on top of base reality
(11:13) Presence & perceptual windows
(12:16) Is this model mechanistic & reductionist?
(13:50) Life exists to minimize free energy
(16:47) What makes us different from other sentient beings & structures
(20:35) Creativity: self-transformative exploration
(23:40) Curiosity as uncertainty reduction
(29:20) Exploration vs. exploitation
(32:45) Combating social norms & conditioning; being a nerd
(35:18) Knowing which models to update
(37:56) Being a creator; being able to build & maintain
(43:21) Everything can be understood
(44:13) Animism; everything is self-organizing “software”
(48:48) Natural vs. human-created “software”
(50:57) AGI vs. natural intelligence
(55:15) Limited by the locality of our sensory inputs
(56:33) Stages of lucidity & development
(01:03:35) Convergence of global traditions
(01:09:40) Issue with Buddhism
(01:14:16) Where does the animism and software arise from?
(01:17:58) Building a coherent world, together

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Joscha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Plinz

Joscha's Substack: https://joscha.substack.com/

Personal Site: http://bach.ai/

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Gabe (@VividVoid_ on Twitter) is a writer and coach, and former Marine. We talk about inferiority, art, nothingness, spirituality, courage, fear, alignment with The Void, representations of reality, exposure therapy, Quality, and more.

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(00:52) You’re not inferior to anyone else

(06:14) Art is the byproduct of a spiritual practice

(09:28) Authentic expression; anger & competition

(16:55) Do nothing, seek wisdom: space for contemplation & rest

(20:31) What is The Void?

(25:57) Microdosing honesty & better representations

(33:27) Courage & fear

(37:48) Exposure therapy & yin-yang

(41:35) Going from conditioning back to freedom; critical thinking & being a “combat medic”

(48:30) Direct experience; understand your behavioral loop & where you can intervene

(51:53) Taking practices & ideas from ideologies; being identity-less

(59:51) Poetic writing

(01:02:48) What is Quality?

(01:04:50) Gabe’s final question for listeners

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Gabe’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/VividVoid_

Gabe’s (Old) Blog: https://vividvoid.substack.com/

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Nathan Baugh writes fiction and the World Builders newsletter. We talk about writing, non-fiction vs. fiction, storytelling and world building devices, Kurt Vonnegut and other authors, getting the most out of technology and the internet, and more.

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(00:47) Why writing

(02:46) Loops & closing the curiosity gap

(04:05) The combination of short form non-fiction & long form fiction

(09:54) Storytelling & world building; Virgil Abloh’s 3% Rule

(14:30) Tradeoffs of traditional publishing vs. self-publishing; going direct-to-audience

(21:54) Tech and magic; AI

(28:26) His most influential authors

(31:08) Favorite opening sentences

(34:25) Vonnuget’s shape of stories & promise, progress, payoff

(49:11) Why not go all in on fiction?

(44:41) Writer’s self limiting beliefs

(52:54) Biggest fear as a writer: not living up to expectations

(55:33) Balancing technology and the internet with deep work

(59:58) What's one work of fiction that has stuck out?

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Nathan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nathanbaugh27

Nathan’s Newsletter: https://www.worldbuilders.ai/

Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories: youtu.be/oP3c1h8v2ZQ

Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R

Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com