Nat Friedman - Reading Ancient Scrolls, Open Source, & AI

<p>It is said that the two greatest problems of history are: how to account for the rise of Rome, and how to account for her fall. If so, then the volcanic ashes spewed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD - which entomb the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in South Italy - hold history’s greatest prize. For beneath those ashes lies the only salvageable library from the classical world.</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://nat.org/">Nat Friedman</a> was the CEO of Github form 2018 to 2021. Before that, he started and sold two companies - <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ximian">Ximian</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Xamarin">Xamarin</a>. He is also the founder of <a target="_blank" href="https://aigrant.org/">AI Grant</a> and <a target="_blank" href="http://cayimby.org/">California YIMBY</a>.</p><p>And most recently, he has created and funded the <a target="_blank" href="https://scrollprize.org/">Vesuvius Challenge</a> - a million dollar prize for reading an unopened Herculaneum scroll for the very first time. If we can decipher these scrolls, we may be able to recover lost gospels, forgotten epics, and even missing works of Aristotle.</p><p>We also discuss the future of open source and AI, running Github and building Copilot, and why EMH is a lie.</p><p>Watch on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/qcvMjoJdck4">YouTube</a>. Listen on <a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nat-friedman-reading-ancient-scrolls-open-source-ai/id1516093381?i=1000605340304">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2JRJ3aANOA41aguVKhvtGB?si=7zbCbz8UQW2n1qfXqkP7nA">Spotify</a>, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/nat-friedman">here</a>. Follow <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp">me on Twitter</a> for updates on future episodes.</p><p>As always, the most helpful thing you can do is just to share the podcast - send it to friends, grou