#077 Alex Komoroske: Systems Thinking, Builders vs Gardeners, and Working In Large Organizations

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:52) - The Gardener of Systems (00:07:43) - Builders vs. Gardeners (00:11:09) - Who are the best farmers of miracles? (00:16:52) - How did you become a “systems” person? (00:23:45) - What does Systems Thinking look like for you? (00:53:09) - Alex’s Slime Mold deck (00:55:12) - The iterative, adjacent possible (00:59:53) - Alex’s experience at Google (01:03:12) - AI uses and potentials (01:17:54) - Book recommendations Links: Alex’s website Alex on X Alex on LinkedIn Emergence by Steven Johnson The Systems Bible by John Gall The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker To support the costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Important quotes from Alex Komoroske: "I think that to really wrestle with systems you have to let go and just dance with the system." — Alex Komoroske "I like the word gardening because it underlines that you are not in control of this system. You are influencing it." — Alex Komoroske "The builder gets immediately to work, but the gardener understands that other things can be alive." — Alex Komoroske "Technology should be about helping people create and use hand-tuned tools to extend their agency in collaborative ways." — Alex Komoroske "If people who are very unlike each other all find it interesting or intriguing, that's a good sign that it will spread out to be a very large audience." — Alex Komoroske