Conversations with Tyler15 Kesä 2022

Marc Andreessen on Learning to Love the Humanities

Like the frontier characters from Deadwood, his favorite TV show, Marc Andreessen has discovered that the real challenge to building in new territory is not in the practicalities of learning a trade, but in developing a savviness for what makes people tick. Without understanding the deep patterns of human behavior, how can you know what to build, or who should build it, or how? For Marc, that means reading deeply in the humanities: "I spent the first 25 years of my life trying to understand how machines work," Marc says. "Then I spent the second 25 years, so far, trying to figure out how people work. It turns out people are a lot more complicated."

Marc joined Tyler to discuss his ever-growing appreciation for the humanities and more, including why he didn't go to a better school, his contrarian take on Robert Heinlein, how Tom Wolfe helped Marc understand his own archetype, who he'd choose to be in Renaissance Florence, which books he's reread the most, Twitter as an X-ray machine on public figures, where in the past he'd most like to time-travel, his favorite tech product that no longer exists, whether Web will improve podcasting, the civilization-level changes made possible by remote work, Peter Thiel's secret to attracting talent, which data he thinks would be most helpful for finding good founders, how he'd organize his own bookstore, the kinds of people he admires most, and why Deadwood is equal to Shakespeare.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded April 14th, 2022

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Marc on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(288)

Andrew Ross Sorkin on Market Bubbles, Banking Rules, and the Real Lessons of 1929

Andrew Ross Sorkin sees the crash of 1929 as a tale of excessive leverage and irrational speculation, but Tyler wonders: maybe those sky-high 1929 prices were actually justified given America's remark...

4 Helmi 56min

Diarmaid MacCulloch on Christianity, Sex, and Unsettling Settled Facts

Tyler considers Diarmaid MacCulloch one of those rare historians whose entire body of work rewards reading. This work includes his award-winning Cranmer biography, his sweeping histories of Christiani...

21 Tammi 59min

Brendan Foody on Teaching AI and the Future of Knowledge Work

At 22, Brendan Foody is both the youngest Conversations with Tyler guest ever and the youngest unicorn founder on record. His company Mercor hires the experts who train frontier AI models—from poets g...

7 Tammi 1h 1min

Conversations with Tyler 2025 Retrospective

Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year on CWT and mo...

23 Joulu 202559min

Alison Gopnik on Childhood Learning, AI as a Cultural Technology, and Rethinking Nature vs. Nurture

Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Alison Gopnik is both a psychologist and philosopher at Berkeley, studying how children construct theories of t...

17 Joulu 20251h 1min

Gaurav Kapadia on New York City, Investing, and Contemporary Art

Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Gaurav Kapadia has deliberately avoided publicity throughout his career in investing, which makes this conversa...

10 Joulu 202559min

Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other

Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate to Conversations with Tyler today. Dan Wang argues that China is a nation of engineers while America is a nation of lawyers, and this distinction ...

3 Joulu 20251h 32min

Cass Sunstein on Liberalism and Rights in the Age of AI

Cass Sunstein is one of the most widely cited legal scholars of all time and among the most prolific writers working today. This year alone he has five books out, including Imperfect Oracle on the str...

26 Marras 20251h 19min