Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Jack Dorsey co-founder and CEO of
Twitter and founder and CEO of square
given the happenings at the time related
to Twitter leadership and the very
limited time we had we decided to focus
this conversation on square and some
broader philosophical topics and to save
an in-depth conversation on engineering
at AI and Twitter for second appearance
in this podcast this conversation was
recorded before the outbreak of the
pandemic for everyone feeling the
medical psychological and financial
burden of this crisis
I'm sending love your way stay strong
we're in this together
we'll beat this thing as an aside let me
mention the jack moved 1 billion dollars
square equity which is 28% of his wealth
to form an organization that funds kovin
19 relief first as Andrew yang tweeted
this is a spectacular commitment and
second it is amazing that it operates
transparently by posting all its
donations to a single Google Doc to me
true transparency is simple and this is
as simple as it gets this is the
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and now here's my conversation with Jack
Dorsey you've been on several podcasts
Joe Rogan Sam Harris rich roll others
excellent conversations but I think
there's several topics that you didn't
talk about that I think of fascinating
that I love to talk to you about sort of
machine learning artificial intelligence
both the the narrow kind and the general
kind and engineering at scale so there's
a lot of incredible engineering going on
the year part of crypto cryptocurrency a
blockchain ubi all kinds of
philosophical questions maybe we'll get
to while life and death and meaning and
beauty so you're involved in building
some of the biggest network systems in
the world sort of trillions and
interactions a day the cool thing about
that is the infrastructure the
engineering scale you started as a
programmer with C by building yeah so
I'm a hacker I'm not really an engineer
not not a legit software engineer and
I'm a tracker at heart but to achieve
scale you have to do some unfortunately
legit large-scale engineering so how do
you make that magic happen hire people
that I can learn from number one I mean
I'm a hacker in the sense that I you
know my approach has always been do
whatever it takes to make it work so
that I can see and feel the thing and
then learn what needs to come next and
oftentimes what needs to come next is a
matter of being able to bring it to more
people which is scale and there's a lot
of great people out there that either
have experience or are extremely fast
learners
that we've been lucky enough to find and
with for four years but I think a lot of
it we benefit a ton from the open source
community and just all the learnings
there that are laid bare in the open all
the mistakes all the success all the
problems it's a very slow-moving process
usually open source but it's very
deliberate and you get to see because of
the the pace you get to see what it
takes to really build something
meaningful so I learned most most of
everything I learned about hacking and
programming and engineering has been due
to open source and and the the
generosity that people have given to
give up their time sacrificer time
without any expectation in return other
than being a part of something much
larger than themselves yeah just great
open-source movement is amazing but if
you just look at the scale like Square
has to take care of is this a
fundamentally a software problem or
hardware problem you mentioned hiring a
bunch of people but said it's not maybe
from our perspective not often talked
about how incredible that is to sort of
have a system that doesn't go down often
that secure is able to take care of all
these transactions like maybe I'm I'm
also a hacker at heart and it's
incredible to me that that kind of scale
could be achieved is there some insight
some lessons some interesting tidbits
that you can say about how to make that
scale happen is it the hardware
fundamentally challenge is it a software
challenge is it like is it a social
challenge of building large teams of
engineers that work together that kind
of thing that quotes is there what's the
interesting challenges there by the way
you're the best Russ hacker I've ever
met I think thank you both if the
enumeration you just went through I
don't think there's one you have to kind
of focus on all and the ability to focus
on all that really comes down to how you
these problems and whether you can break
them down into parts that you can focus
on because I think the biggest mistake
is trying to solve or address too many
at once or not going deep enough with
the questions or not being critical of
the answers you find or not form not
taking the time to form credible
hypotheses that you can actually test
and you can see the result of so all of
those fall in the face of ultimately
critical thinking skills problem-solving
skills and if there's one skill I want
to improve every day it's that that's
that's what contributes to learning and
the only way we can evolve any of these
things is learning what is currently
doing and and how to take it to the next
the next step and questioning
assumptions the first principle is kind
of thinking it seems like the
fundamentals this whole process yeah but
if you get to overextend it into well
this is a hardware issue you miss all
the software solutions and you know vice
versa if you focus too much on the
software there are hardware solutions
that can 10x the thing so I I try to
resist the categories of thinking and
look for the underlying systems that
make all these things work but those
only emerge when you have a skill around
creative creative thinking
problem-solving and being able to ask
critical questions and having the
patience to like go deep so one of the
amazing things if you look at the
mission of square is to increase
people's access to the economy maybe
maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong
that's from my perspective so from the
perspective of merchants peer-to-peer
payments even crypto cryptocurrency
digital cryptocurrency what do you see
as the major ways our society can
increase but this
patient in the economy so if we look at
today in the next 10 years next 20 years
you going to Africa maybe in Africa and
all kinds of other places outside in
North America if there was one word that
I think represents what we're trying to
do at square it's it is that word access
one of the things we found is that we
weren't expecting this at all when we
started we thought were just building a
a piece of hardware to enable people to
plug it into their phone and swipe
credit card and then as we talked with
people who actually tried to accept
credit cards in the past we found a
consistent theme which many of them
weren't even enabled and enabled but
allowed to process credit cards and we
dug a little bit deeper again asking
that question and we found that a lot of
them would go to banks or these
merchants acquirers and waiting for them
was a credit check and looking at a FICO
score and many of the businesses that we
talked to and many small businesses they
don't have good credit or a credit
history they're entrepreneurs were just
getting started
taking a lot of personal risk financial
risk and it just felt ridiculous to us
that for for for the for the job of
being able to accept money from people
you had to get your credit checked and
as we dug deeper we realized that that
wasn't the intention of the financial
industry but it's the only tool they had
available to them to understand
authenticity intent predictor of future
behavior so that's the first thing we
actually looked at and that's where the
you know we built the hardware but the
software really came in terms of risk
modeling and that's when we started down
the path that eventually leads to AI we
started with a very strong data science
discipline because we knew that our
business was not necessarily
about making hardware it was more about
enabling more people to come into the
system so the fundamental challenge
there is so to enable more people to
come into the system you have to lower
the barrier of checking that that person
would be a legitimate vendor is that the
fundamental problem yeah and a different
mindset I think a lot of the financial
industry had a mindset of kind of
[Music]
distrust and just constantly looking for
opportunities to prove why people
shouldn't get into the system whereas we
took on a mindset of trust and then
verify verify verify verify verify so we
moved you know when we when we entered
the space only about thirty to forty
percent of the people who apply to
accept credit cards would actually get
through the system
we took that number than 99% and that's
because we reframe the problem we built
credible models and we had this mindset
of we're going to watch not at the
merchant level but we're going to watch
at the transaction level so come in
perform some transactions and as long as
you're doing things that feel high
integrity credible and don't look
suspicious we'll continue to to serve
you if we see any interestingness in how
you use our system that will be bubbled
up to people to review to figure out if
there's something nefarious going on and
that's when we might ask you to leave so
the change in the mindset led to the
technology that we needed to enable more
people to get there and to enable more
people to access system
what uh what role does machine learning
play into that in that context of you
said first of all that's a beautiful
shift anytime you shift your viewpoint
into seeing that people are
fundamentally good and then you just
have to
verify and catch the ones who are not as
opposed to assuming everybody's bad this
is a beautiful thing so what role does
the to you
throughout the history of the company
has machine learning played in doing
that verification it was it was a media
I mean we weren't calling it machine
learning but it was data science and
then as the industry evolved machine
learning became more of the nomenclature
and and as that evolved it became more
sophisticated with deep learning and as
I continues continues to evolve it'll be
nobody another thing but they're all in
the same vein but we built that
discipline up within the first year of
the company because we also had you know
we have to we had to partner with a bank
we had to partner with Visa MasterCard
and we had to show that by bringing more
people into the system that we could do
so in a responsible way that would not
compromise their systems and that they
would trust us how do you convince this
upstart company with some cool machine
learning tricks is able to deliver on
the sort of a trustworthy set of
merchants we we stage it out in tears we
had a bucket of you know five hundred
people using it and then we showed
results in a thousand and then ten
thousand that fifty thousand and then
the constraint was left was lifted so
again it's it's kind of you know getting
something tangible out there I want to
show what we can do rather than talk
about it and that put a lot of pressure
on us to do the right things and it also
created a culture of accountability of a
little bit more transparency and I think
incentivized all of our early folks and
the company in the right way so what
does the future look like in terms of
increasing people's access or if you
look at IO T Internet of Things there's
more and more intelligent devices you
can see there's some people even talking
about our personal data as a thing that
we could monetize more explicitly versus
implicitly sort of everything can become
part of the economy
you see so what what is the future of
square look like instead of giving
people access in all kinds of ways to
being part of the economy as merchants
and as consumers I believe that the
currency we use is is a huge part of the
answer and I believe that the Internet
deserves and requires a native currency
and that's why I'm I'm such a huge
believer in in Bitcoin because it just
our our biggest problem is a company
right now is we cannot act like an
Internet company opened a new market we
have to have a partnership with local
bank we have to pay attention to
different regulatory onboarding
environments and a digital currency like
Bitcoin takes in a bunch of that away
where we can potentially launch a
product in every single market around
the world
because they're all using the same
currency and we we have consistent
understanding of regulation and
onboarding and-and-and what that means
so I think you know the the internet
continuing to be accessible to people is
number one and then I think currency is
is number two and it will just allow for
a lot more innovation a lot more speed
in terms of what we can build and others
can build and it's just it's just really
exciting
so I mean I would I want to be able to
see that and feel that in my lifetime so
in this aspect in other aspects you have
a deep interest in cryptocurrency and
distributed ledger tech in general I
talked to metallic butterman yesterday
on this podcast he says hi by the way
hey he's a brilliant brilliant person
talking a lot about Bitcoin and
aetherium of course so can you maybe
linger on this point what what do you
find appealing about Bitcoin about
digital currency where do you see it
going in the next 10 20 years and what
are some of the challenges with respect
to Square but
also just bigger far for a globally
farah world for the way we we think
about money I I think the most beautiful
thing about it is there's no one person
setting the direction and there's no one
person on the other side that can stop
it so we have something that is pretty
organic in nature and very principled in
its original design and I you know I
think the Bitcoin white paper is one of
the most seminal works of computer
science in the last 20 30 years it's
it's poetry I mean it's a really cool
technology I mean that's not often
talked about sort of there's so much
sort of hype around digital currency
about the financial impacts of it but
the actual technology is quite beautiful
from a computer science perspective yeah
and the underlying principles behind it
that went into it even to the point of
releasing it under a pseudonym I think
that's a very very powerful statement
the timing of when it was released is
powerful it was it was a total activist
move I mean it's it's moving the world
forward and in a way that I think is
extremely noble and honorable and
enables everyone to be part of the story
which is also really cool so you ask the
question around 10 years in 20 years I
mean I think the amazing thing is no one
knows and it can emerge and every person
that comes into the ecosystem whether
they be a developer or someone who uses
it can change its direction in small and
large ways and that's what I think it
should because that's what the the
Internet has shown is possible now
there's complications with that of
course and there's you know certainly
companies that own large ports so the
you know net and conducted more than
others and there's not equal access to
every single person in the world just
yet but all those problems are visible
enough to speak about them and to me
that gives confidence that they're
solvable in a relatively short timeframe
I think the world changes a lot
as we get these satellites projecting
the internet down down earth because it
just removes a bunch of the former
constraints and and really levels the
playing field but a global currency
which a native currency for the Internet
is a proxy for is a very powerful
concept and I don't think any one person
on this planet truly understands the
ramifications of that I think there's a
lot of positives to it there's some
negatives as well but I think it's
possible sorry to interrupt do you think
it's possible that this kind of digital
currency would redefine the nature of
money so become the main currency of the
world as opposed to being tied to fiat
currency of different nations and to
really push the decentralization of
control of money definitely but I think
the the bigger ramification is how it
affects how society works and I think
there were there there are many positive
ramifications outside around money
just outside of just money money money
is a foundational layer that enables so
much more I was meeting with an
entrepreneur in Ethiopia and payments is
probably the number one problem to solve
across a continent
both in terms of moving money across
borders between nations on the continent
or the amount of corruption within the
current system but the lack of easy ways
to pay people makes starting anything
really difficult I met an entrepreneur
who started the the lyft / uber of
Ethiopia and one of the biggest problems
she has is that it's not easy for her
writers to pay the company it's not easy
for her to pay the drivers and that
definitely has stunted her growth and
made everything more challenging so the
fact that she's she even has to think
about payments instead of thinking about
the best writer experience and the best
driver experience is is pretty telling
so I think as we get
a more durable resilient and global
standard we see a lot more innovation
everywhere and I think there's no better
case study for this than the various
countries with and within Africa and and
their entrepreneurs who are trying to
start things within health or
sustainability or transportation or a
lot of the companies that we've seen
that we've seen here so the majority of
companies I met in November when I spent
a month on the continent were payments
oriented you mentioned there's a small
tangent you mentioned the anonymous
launch of Bitcoin is a sort of profound
philosophical statement sudama's what's
that even means there's a pseudonym for
said there's an identity tied to it it's
not just anonymous it's a Nakamoto so a
Nakamoto might represent one person or
multiple people but let me ask are you
Satoshi Nakamoto just just checking
thank you I wear what I tell you yes
sure um but maybe you slip a pseudonym
is constructed identity anonymity is
just kind of as you know ran random like
drop something off and leave there's no
intention to build an identity around it
and well the identity being built was a
short time window it was meant to stick
around I think and to be known and it's
being honored in you know how the
community thinks about building out like
the concept of Satoshi Toshi's for
instance is one such an example but I
think it was smart not to do it
anonymous not to do it as a real
identity but to do it as soon an MB
because I think it builds tangibility
and a little bit of empathy that this
was a human or a set of humans behind it
and there's there's this natural
identity that I can imagine but there is
also sacrifice of an ego that's a pretty
powerful thing from beautiful would you
do sort of philosophically to ask you
the question would you do
all the same things you're doing now if
your name wasn't attached to it sort of
if if you had to sacrifice the ego put
another way is your ego deeply tied in
the decisions you've been making I hope
not I mean I I believe I would certainly
attempt to do the things without my name
having to be attached with it but it's
hard to do that in a corporation legally
that's the issue if I were to do more
open-source things then absolutely like
I don't don't need my particular
identity my real identity associated
with it but I think you know the
appreciation that comes from doing
something good and being able to see it
and see people use it is is pretty
overwhelming and powerful more so than
maybe seeing your name in the in the
headlines let's talk about artificial
intelligence a little bit if we could 70
years ago Alan Turing formulated the
Turing test to me natural language is
one of the most interesting spaces of
problems that are tackled by artificial
intelligence it's the canonical problem
of what it means to be intelligent he
formulated as the Turing test me ask
sort of the broad question how hard do
you think is it to pass the Turing test
in the space of language just from a
very practical standpoint I think where
we are now and and for at least years
out is one where the artificial
intelligence machine learning the deep
learning models can bubble up
interestingness very very quickly
and pair that with human discretion
around severity around depth around
nuance and and meaning I think for me
the chasm the cross for general
intelligences to be able to explain why
and the meaning behind something
behind a decision mm-hmm for being
behind the decision so we got a sub so
Delta so the explained ability part is
kind of essential to be able to explain
using natural language why the decisions
were made that kind of thing yeah I mean
I think that's one of our biggest risk
and artificial intelligence going
forward is we are building a lot of
black boxes that can't necessarily
explain why they made a decision or what
criteria they used to make the decision
and we're trusting them more and more
from lending decisions to content
recommendation to driving to health like
you know a lot of us have watches that
tell us to understand how was it
deciding that I mean that that one's
pretty pretty simple but you can imagine
how complex they get and being able to
explain the reasoning behind some of
those recommendations seems to be an
essential part although it's a very hard
problem because sometimes even we can't
explain why we make this that's what I
was I think we're being us sometimes a
little bit unfair for to artificial
intelligence systems because we're not
very good at these some of these things
do you think a project for the
ridiculous
romanticized question but on that line
of thought do you think we'll ever be
able to build a system like in the movie
her that you could fall in love with so
have that kind of deep connection with
hasn't that already happened hasn't
someone in Japan fallen in love with
this who's AI there's always going to be
somebody that does that kind of thing I
mean at a much larger scale of actually
building relationships of being deeper
connections it doesn't have to be love
but it just deeper connections with
artificial intelligence systems
you mentioned explained it there's lots
of function of the artificial
intelligence and more a function of the
individual and how they find meaning and
where they find meaning do you think we
humans can find meaning in technology in
this kind of way yeah 100 percent 1
percent and I don't necessarily think
it's a negative but I you know it's it's
constantly going to evolve so I don't
know but I meaning is is something
that's entirely subjective and
I I don't think it's going to be a
function of finding the magic algorithm
that enables everyone to love it but
maybe but that question really gets that
the difference between human and machine
the you had a little bit of an exchange
with Elon Musk basically I mean it's a
trivial version of that but I think
there's a more fundamental question of
is it possible to tell the difference
between a bot and a human and do you
think it's if we look into the future 10
20 years out do you think it would be
possible or is it even necessary to tell
the difference in the digital space
between a human and a robot can we have
fulfilling relationships with each or do
we need to tell the difference between
them I think it's certainly useful and
certain problem domains to be able to
tell the difference I think in others it
might not be as useful I think it's
possible for us today tell that
difference as the reverse the meta of
the Turing test well what's interesting
is I think the technology to create is
moving much faster than the technology
to detect you think so so if you look at
like adversarial machine learning
there's a lot of systems that try to
fool machine learning systems and at
least for me the hope is that the
technology to defend will always be
right there at least your sense is that
I don't know if they'll be right there I
mean it's it's a race right so the
detection technologies have to be 2 or
10 steps ahead of the creation
technologies this is a problem that I
think the financial industry will face
more and more because a lot of our risk
models for instance are built around
identity payments ultimately comes down
to identity and you can imagine a world
where all this conversation around deep
fakes goes towards the direction of
driver's license or passports or state
identities and people construct
identities in order to get
through a system such as ours to start
accepting credit cards or into the cash
shop and those technologies seem to be
moving very very quickly our ability to
detect them I think is probably lagging
at this point but certainly with more
focus we can get ahead of it but this is
going to touch everything so I think
it's it's it's like security and we're
never going to be able to build a
perfect detection system we're only
going to be able to you know what we
should be focused on this is the speed
of evolving it and being able to take
signals that show correctness or errors
as quickly as possible and move and to
be able to build that into our newer
models or the or the self learning
models you have other worries like some
people like Elon and others have worries
of existential threats of artificial
intelligence of artificial general
intelligence or if you think more
narrowly of all threats and concerns
about more narrow artificial
intelligence like what are your thoughts
in this domain do you have concerns are
you more optimistic I think you've all
and his in this book 21 boilin lessons
for the 21st century yeah his last
chapters around meditation and you look
at the title of the chapter and you're
like oh it's kind of old meditation but
the was interesting about that chapter
is he believes that you know kids being
born today growing up today Google has a
stronger sense of their preferences than
they do which you can easily imagine I
can easily imagine today that Google
probably knows my preference is more
than my mother does maybe not me per se
but for someone growing up only knowing
you know not only knowing what Google is
capable of or Facebook or Twitter or
square or any of these things
the self-awareness is being offloaded to
other systems and particularly these
these algorithms and his concern is that
we lose that self-awareness because the
self-awareness is now outside of us and
it's doing such a better job at helping
us direct our decisions around should I
stand should I walk today what doctor
should I choose who should I date all
these things were now seeing play out
very quickly so he sees meditation as a
tool to build the self awareness and to
bring the focus back on why do I make
these decisions why do I react in this
way why did I have this thought where
did that come from
that's the way to regain control or
awareness maybe not control but put
awareness so that you can be aware that
yes I am offloading this decision to
this algorithm that I don't fully
understand and can't tell me why it's
doing the things that's doing because
it's so complex that's not to say that
the algorithm can't be a good thing and
to me recommender systems the best of
what they can do is to help guide you on
a journey of learning new ideas of
learning period it can be a great thing
but do you know you're doing that are
you aware that you're inviting it to do
that to you I think that's that's a
little risky identifies right is that's
perfectly okay but are you aware that
you have that invitation and it's it's
being acted upon and so that that's your
that's a concern you're kind of
highlighting that without a lack of
awareness you can just be like floating
at sea so awareness is key in just the
future these artificial intelligence
systems in the other movie wall-e well
Richard I think is one of Pixar's best
movies
besides ratatouille right you had me
until the ratatouille okay that error is
incredible all right we've come to the
first point where we disagree
okay the entrepreneurial story in the
form of a wrath
mm-hmm I just remember just the
soundtrack was really good so excellent
what are your thoughts sticking on
artificial intelligence a little bit
about the displacement of jobs that's
another perspective that candidates like
Andrew yang talked about in getting
forever yang Yang so he unfortunately
speaking of yang Yang has recently
dropped out I know it was very
disappointing and depressing
yeah but the on the positive side he's I
think launching a podcast so really cool
yeah that's he just announced that I'm
sure he'll try to talk you into trying
to come on to the podcast so about
Reddit Tori yeah maybe he'll be more
welcoming of the ratatouille argument
what are your thoughts on his concerns
of the displacement of jobs of
automations of the of course there's
positive impacts that could come from
automation in the eye and but there
could also be negative impacts and
within that framework what are your
thoughts about universal basic income so
these interesting new ideas of how we
can empower people in the economy I I
think he was a hundred percent right on
almost every dimension we see this in
squares business I mean he identified
truck drivers I'm from Missouri and he
certainly pointed to the concern and the
issue that people from where I'm from
feel every single day that is often
invisible and not talked about enough
you know the next big one is cashiers
this is where it pertains to squares
business we are seeing more and more of
the point-of-sale moved to the
individual customers hand in the form of
their phone and apps and pre-order and
order ahead we're seeing more kiosks
we're seeing more things like Amazon go
and the number of workers in as a
cashier and Rito's immense and you know
there's there's no real answers on how
they
transform their skills and and work and
into something else and I think that
does lead to a lot of really negative
ramifications and the important point
that he brought up around universal
basic income is given that this shift is
going to come and given it's going to
take time to set people up with new
skills and new careers they need to have
a floor to be able to survive and this
$1,000 a month is such a floor
it's not going to incentivize you to
quit your job because it's not enough
but it will enable you to not have to
worry as much about just getting on day
to day so that you can focus on what I'm
what am I going to do now and what am I
going to what skills do I need to
acquire and I think I think that you
know a lot of people point to the fact
that you know during the industrial age
we we had the same concerns around
automation factory lines and everything
worked out okay
but the the biggest change is just the
velocity and the centralization of a lot
of the things that make this work which
is the data and the algorithms that work
on this on this data I think the the
second biggest scary thing is just how
around AI is just who actually owns the
data and who can operate on it and are
we able to share the insights from the
data so that we can also build
algorithms that help our needs or help
our business or what not so that's where
I think regulation could play a strong
and positive part first looking at the
primitives of AI and the tools we use to
build these services that will
ultimately touch every single aspect of
the human experience and then how data
where data is owned and how its how its
shared so those those are the answers
that as a society as a world we need to
have better answers around which we're
currently not they're just way too
centralized into a few very very large
companies but I think he was spot-on
with identifying the problem and
proposing solutions that would actually
work at least that we'd learn from that
you could expand or evolve but I mean
it's I think it's ubi is well well past
its it's do I mean it was certainly
trumpeted by Martin Luther King and even
even before him as well and like you
said like you know the exact thousand
dollar mark might be might not be the
correct one but you should take the
stuffs to try to to implement these
solutions and see see what works so I
think you and I eat some more diets and
at least I was the first time I've heard
this yeah so I was doing it first time
anyone has said that to me yeah but it's
becoming more and more cool and but I
was doing it before was cool
so the intermittent fasting and fasting
in general I really enjoyed I love food
but I enjoy the the I also love
suffering because I'm Russian so fasting
kind of makes you appreciate makes you
appreciate what it is to be human
somehow so but I have a outside the
philosophical stuff I have a more
specific question it also helps me as a
programmer and a deep thinker like
stifling that from a scientific
perspective to sit there for many hours
and focus deeply maybe you were a hacker
before you were CEO what have you
learned about diet lifestyle mindset
that helps you maximize mental
performance to be able to focus for this
thing deeply in this world of
distractions I think I just took it for
granted for too long which aspect just a
social structure of we eat three
and there's snacks in between and I just
never really asked the question why oh
by the way in case people don't know I
think a lot of people know who you you
at least you famously eat once a day
yeah you still eat once a day yep
sooner by the way what made you decide
to eat once a day like cuz to me that
was a huge revolution that you don't
have to eat breakfast that was like I
felt like I was a rebel like I yeah like
abandoned my parents or something and it
doesn't an artist when you when you
first like the first week you start
doing it feels you kind of like have a
superpower yeah then you realize it's
not really a superpower but it I think
you realize at least I realize like it
just how much is how much our mind
dictates what we're possible of and and
sometimes we have structures around us
the incentivize like you know there's
three may thing which was purely social
structure versus necessity for our
health and for our bodies and I I did it
just I started doing it because I played
a lot with my diet when I was a kid and
I was vegan for two years and just went
all over the place just because I you
know a health is the most precious thing
we have and none of us really understand
it so being able asked the question
through experiments that I can perform
on myself and learn about I is
compelling to me and I heard this one
guy on the podcast wim HOF who's famous
for doing ice baths and holding his
breath and all these things he said he
only eats one meal a day I'm like wow
that sounds super challenging and
comfortable I'm gonna do it so I I just
I learned the most when I make myself I
want to say suffer but when I make
myself feel uncomfortable because
everything comes to bear in those
moments and and you really learn what
your what you're about or what you're
not so I been doing that my whole life
like when I was a kid I could not like
I could not speak like I had to go to a
speech therapist and it made me
extremely shy and then one day I
realized I can't keep doing this and I
signed up for the for the speech Club
and you know it was a the most
uncomfortable thing I could imagine
doing getting a topic on a note card
having five minutes to write a speech
about whatever that topic is not being
able to use the note card while speaking
and speaking for five minutes about that
topic so but it just it puts so much it
gave me so much perspective around the
power of communication around my own
deficiencies and around if I set my mind
to do something I'll do it so it gave me
a lot more confidence so I see fasting
in the same light this is something that
was interesting challenging
uncomfortable and has given me so much
learning and benefit as a result and it
will lead to other things that I
experiment with and play with but um
yeah it does feel a little bit like a
superpower sometimes the most boring
superpower one can imagine no it's quite
incredible the clarity of mind is it's
pretty interesting
speaking of suffering you kind of talk
about facing difficult ideas you
meditate you think about the broad
context of life of our society let me
ask sort of apologize again for the
romanticized question but do you ponder
your own mortality do you think about
death about the finiteness of human
existence when you meditate when you
think about it and if you do what how do
you make sense of it that this thing
ends well I don't try to make sense of
it I do think about it every day I mean
it's it's a daily multiple times a day
any afraid of death no I'm not afraid of
it
I I think it it's a transformation I
don't know to what but it's also a tool
to
feel the importance of every moment so I
just use as a reminder like I have an
hour
is this really what I'm going to spend
the hour doing like I only have so many
more sunsets and sunrises to watch like
I'm not going to get up for it I'm not
going to make sure that I that I that I
try to see it so it's it just puts a lot
into perspective and it helps me
prioritize I think it's I don't I don't
see it as something that's like that I
dread or is dreadful it it's a it's a
tool that is available to every single
person to use every day because it shows
how precious life is and there's
reminders every single day whether it be
your own health or a friend or a
co-worker or something you see in the
news so it's to me it's just a question
of what we do with that daily reminder
and for me it's um am I really focused
on what matters and sometimes that might
be work sometimes that might be
friendships or family or relationships
or whatnot but that that's it's the
ultimate clarifier in that sense so on
the question of what matters another
ridiculously big question of once you
try to make sense of it what do you
think is the meaning of it all the
meaning of life
what gives you purpose happiness meaning
a lot does I mean I mean just being able
to be aware of the fact that I'm alive
is pretty pretty meaningful the
connections I feel with individuals
whether they people I just meet or long
lasting friendships or my family is
meaningful seeing people use something
that I helped build it is really
meaningful and powerful to me but but
that sense of I mean I think ultimately
comes down in a sense of connection and
just feeling like I am bigger I am part
of something that's bigger than myself
and like I can feel it directly in small
ways or large ways
however manifest this is probably uh
it's probably a last question do you
think we're living in a simulation I
don't know it's a pretty fun one if we
are but also crazy and random and
brought with tons of problems but yeah
would you have it any other way
yeah I mean I just think it's taken us
way too long to as a planet to realize
we're all in this together and we all
are connected in in in very significant
ways I think we we hide our connectivity
very well through ego through you know
whatever or whatever it is of the day
but that is the one thing I would want
to work towards changing and that's how
I would have it another way because if
if we can't do that then how we're going
to connect to all the other simulations
because that's the next step is like
what's happening in the other simulation
escaping this one and yeah spanning
across the multiple simulations and
sharing it and on the fun I don't think
there's a better way to end it Jack
thank you so much for all the work you
do there's probably other ways that
we've ended this and other simulations
that may have been better well that's a
wait and see thanks so much for talking
to thank you
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Jack Dorsey and thank
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connect with me on Twitter at Lex
Friedman and now let me leave you some
words about Bitcoin from Paul Graham I'm
very intrigued by Bitcoin it has all the
signs of a paradigm shift
hackers love it yet it is described as a
toy just like microcomputers thank you
for listening and hope to see you next
time
you