#870: Sebastian Mallaby, Biographer of Demis Hassabis — Lessons from 100+ AI Insiders on The Race to Superintelligence, The Religion of AI, and Spotting Breakthroughs Early

Sebastian Mallaby (@scmallaby) is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the author of six books, including More Money Than God, The Power Law, The Man Who Knew, and The World's Banker. His latest book is The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.

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Timestamps

[00:00:00] Start.
[00:02:11] The twinkly eyed polymath who became Sebastian's next book.
[00:06:55] Picking the next book project the way a great VC picks a startup.
[00:09:41] Why God keeps crashing the superintelligence party.
[00:11:13] Shane Legg's grainy 2009 prophecy — and the nervous giggle.
[00:13:11] Ilya Sutskever burns an effigy.
[00:13:54] Demis at 4 a.m., hunting God's algorithm.
[00:18:43] Super-abundance, Mad Max, and the China shock lesson.
[00:22:39] The kitchen debate with Geoff Hinton that flipped Sebastian.
[00:24:06] Why a zero-percent chance of doom is indefensible.
[00:24:52] Will Washington seize the labs? The Mythos wake-up call.
[00:27:18] Anthropic's bull case, bear case, and a dead parent's letter.
[00:33:24] Where Sebastian and Benedict Evans part ways.
[00:38:16] Is the SaaS apocalypse overdone? One word: Palantir.
[00:39:53] The AI friend you'll never switch.
[00:41:56] Does Google win consumer AI by default?
[00:44:45] Four cities, eight days: China actually talks safety.
[00:47:28] A Cold War non-proliferation playbook for AI.
[00:49:45] Did the chip export controls actually work?
[00:51:49] Burned doves: why Washington swears China won't talk.
[00:54:56] "By 2028, the race is over" — one lab boss' bet.
[00:59:11] Inside Hikvision: toddlers, sensors, and US sanctions.
[01:01:07] Bill Gurley's Uber bet: venture capital perfected.
[01:05:18] Luke Nosek bear-hugs DeepMind into existence.
[01:10:52] Thiel's heresy: never invest by committee.
[01:11:59] How Founders Fund nearly fumbled the deal of the century.
[01:14:30] Selling to Google for $650M: a secret British heist?
[01:16:41] The Traitorous Eight, gardening leave, and the UK's to-do list.
[01:20:55] Ender's Game: "That's really how I see myself."
[01:23:42] Too dumb for Gödel, Escher, Bach? Maybe an LLM can help.
[01:25:19] If not Demis or Sam, then Dario.
[01:26:04] My royalties cliff — and what dropped in late 2022.
[01:27:47] Lila Sciences and the labs that run themselves.
[01:31:13] Sebastian's billboard: "Prepare your mind."
[01:35:14] The one thing Sebastian will never outsource to AI.
[01:40:09] Parting thoughts.

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